1968 Major League Baseball season
- 1968 Major League Baseball season
The 1968 Major League Baseball season was the 68th held between the American and National Leagues. The Athletics played their first season in Oakland, following the team's relocation from Kansas City. It was also the last season of play, before each of the two leagues were split into divisions for the following season.
The Year of the Pitcher
In Major League Baseball, the trend throughout the 1960s was of increased pitching dominance, caused by enforcing a larger strike zone (top of armpit to bottom of knee) beginning in by|1963. The delicate balance of power between offense and defense reached its greatest tilt in favor of the pitcher by 1968.
Individually, Bob Gibson set a modern earned run average record of 1.12 and a World Series record of 17 strikeouts in Game 1, while Series opponent Denny McLain of the Detroit Tigers won 31 regular season games, the only player to reach the 30 win milestone since Dizzy Dean in by|1934. Mickey Lolich won three complete games in the World Series, the last player as of by|2006 to do so. Luis Tiant of the Cleveland Indians had the American League's lowest ERA at 1.60 and allowed a batting average of only .168, a major league record.
Hitting was anemic. Carl Yastrzemski of the Boston Red Sox had the lowest batting average of any league champion when his .305 was good enough for the American League batting title. The AL's collective slugging average of .340 remains the lowest since by|1915 (when the game was still in the so-called dead-ball era), while the collective batting average of .231 is the all-time lowest.
After the season, the Rules Committee, seeking to restore balance, restored the pre-1963 strike zone and lowered the height of the pitching mound from 15 to 10 inches. Four expansion teams joined the majors. by|1969 batting averages zoomed back to their historical averages and never again would pitching have as large a statistical average over batting in the major leagues.
Awards and honors
*Most Valuable Player
**Denny McLain, Detroit Tigers, P (AL)
**Bob Gibson, St. Louis Cardinals, P (NL)
*Cy Young Award
**Denny McLain, Detroit Tigers (AL)
**Bob Gibson, St. Louis Cardinals (NL)
*Rookie of the Year
**Stan Bahnsen, New York Yankees, P (AL)
**Johnny Bench, Cincinnati Reds, C (NL)
tatistical Leaders
Major League Baseball final standings
Events
Movies
Deaths
Wikimedia Foundation.
2010.
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