The 1985 American League Championship Series was played between the Kansas City Royals and the Toronto Blue Jays from October 8 to October 16. Major League Baseball decided to extend the Championship Series in both leagues from its best-of-five (1969–1984) to the current best-of-seven format starting with this year, and it proved pivotal in the outcome of the ALCS. The Blue Jays seemingly put a stranglehold on the Series, earning a three games to one lead over the Royals after four games. However, Kansas City staged an improbable comeback, winning the next three games to win the Series four games to three. The Royals would proceed to defeat their cross-state rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, in the World Series four games to three.
The oddsmakers favored Toronto, 8–5. During the opening pregame show, NBC Sports baseball analyst Tony Kubek was among the few who predicted a Kansas City victory, citing the Blue Jays' struggles against left-handed pitching, and the Royals' plethora of left-handed starters. This prediction was especially curious considering Kubek worked on Blue Jays television broadcasts during the regular season.
Read more about 1985 American League Championship Series: Background, Composite Box, Aftermath
Famous quotes containing the words american, league and/or series:
“European society has always been divided into classes in a way that American society never has been. A European writer considers himself to be part of an old and honorable tradition—of intellectual activity, of letters—and his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him all his friends. But this tradition does not exist in America.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“In the order of literature, as in others, there is no act that is not the coronation of an infinite series of causes and the source of an infinite series of effects.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)