The 1991 Major League Baseball season saw the
Minnesota Twins defeat the
Atlanta Braves for the World Series title, in a series where every game was won by the home team.
The Twins and Braves became the first two teams in MLB history to win the pennant after finishing last the previous season.
January 6 –
Alan Wiggins, former leadoff hitter for the San Diego Padres and a key member of their 1984 pennant run, becomes the first baseball player known to die of
AIDS. He was 32.
January 7 –
Pete Rose is released from Marion Federal Prison after serving a five-month sentence for tax evasion.
April 8 – Just hours before the first pitch of the baseball season, MLB averts an umpires strike by reaching agreement with the Major League Umpires' Association on a new four-year contract.
April 21 – The
Chicago Cubs score five runs in the top of the eleventh inning, but the
Pittsburgh Pirates comeback with six runs in the bottom of the inning for the victory; the greatest extra-innings comeback (in terms of runs) in Major League history.
July 7 – Outside a restaurant in
Arlington, Texas, American League umpire
Steve Palermo is shot and paralyzed from the waist down after aiding a woman who was being mugged. The assailant is later sentenced to 75 years in prison.
July 26 –
Montreal Expos pitcher
Mark Gardner throws a no-hitter through nine innings, but does not complete it when his team fails to score against
Los Angeles Dodgers starter
Orel Hershiser and reliever
Kip Gross. Gardner loses the no-hitter and the game in the tenth inning when the Dodgers get three hits and score the only run of the game. The Expos only get two hits.
July 28 – Picking up where
Mark Gardner left off,
Montreal Expos hurler
Dennis Martínez throws a
perfect game against the
Los Angeles Dodgers. The Expos only get four hits, but they score two runs and give Martínez the thirteenth perfect game in major league history.
Ron Hassey, Martínez's catcher, becomes the first player to catch two perfect games, having also caught
Len Barker's in 1981.
July 31 – Two-sport star
Deion Sanders of the
Atlanta Braves, playing in his final game of the season with the Braves before having to report to the
Atlanta Falcons' training camp, hits a three-run homer to spark a come-from-behind 8-6 win over the
Pittsburgh Pirates.
August 11 – In only his second Major League game, and first Major League start,
Wilson Álvarez throws a no-hitter as the
Chicago White Sox beat the
Baltimore Orioles, 7–0. It is the fifth no-hitter of the 1991 season, not including
Mark Gardner's nine inning no-hitter that was lost in the tenth on July 26.
August 14 –
California Angels DH
Dave Winfield hits his 400th career home run against the
Minnesota Twins. Winfield is the 23rd player in major league history to accomplish the feat.
August 26 – The sixth no-hitter of 1991 is thrown by two-time Cy Young Award winner
Bret Saberhagen. The
Kansas City Royals pitcher no-hits the
Chicago White Sox, 7–0, for his first career no-hitter. On the same day, the seventh managerial firing of 1991 occurs as the
California Angels, who have gone from first to last in less than one month, fire
Doug Rader and replace him with the recently deposed
Buck Rodgers.
September 4 – Removing an "asterisk" which was never universally recognized, the Statistical Accuracy Committee decides to put
Roger Maris' 61 home run season of 1961 ahead of
Babe Ruth's 60 mark of 1927. Regarding the expunging of the asterisk, historian
Bill Deane later points out, "It was an easy job: the asterisk never existed. Maris' record was, from 1962 until 1991, listed separately from Ruth's and was never actually defined by 'some distinctive mark.'" The eight-man panel also re-defines a
no-hit game as one which ends after nine or more innings with one team failing to get a hit, thereby removing 50 games from the list that had previously been considered hitless, including the 1959 performance of
St. Louis Cardinals'
Harvey Haddix, who pitched 12
perfect innings against the
Milwaukee Braves, and
Cincinnati Reds'
Jim Maloney 1965 1–0 loss to the
New York Mets in 11 innings. Another casualty is
Boston Red Sox reliever
Ernie Shore 27 straight outs on June 23, 1917, a game in which he relieved
Babe Ruth after being ejected for protesting a walk to
Ray Morgan, the first
Washington Senators batter he faced. Morgan was thrown out trying to steal second, and Shore retired all 26 men he faces in a 4–0 win‚ getting credit in the books for a perfect game.
September 13 – A piece of concrete weighing several tons falls in
Montréal'sOlympic Stadium. It forces the
Montréal Expos to play the remainder of their home games on the road.
September 15 –
Smokey Burgess, a former major leaguer and previous holder of the record for most pinch-hits, dies at age 64.
September 16 –
Otis Nixon, the league's leading base stealer and catalyst on the
Atlanta Braves' run from last to first, fails a drug test and is suspended for sixty days, consisting of the rest of the 1991 baseball season and the first six weeks of the 1992 season. The Braves lose the first two games without Nixon but rebound to win the National League pennant.
October 2 –
Atlanta Braves pitcher
Tom Glavine becomes the first 20-game winner in the majors by beating the
Cincinnati Reds. The win assures Glavine of the Cy Young Award when it is given in November.
October 2 – The
Toronto Blue Jays capture their third
American League East title since 1985 by beating the
California Angels 6–5 on a walk-off RBI single by
Joe Carter. The same day, the Blue Jays become the first team to ever play before more than four million fans in a single season.
October 3 –
Chicago White Sox catcher
Carlton Fisk hits two home runs, including a
grand slam, to lead the White Sox to a 13–12 victory over the
Minnesota Twins. In doing so, just nine months shy of his 44th birthday, Fisk becomes the oldest 20th-century player to collect a two-HR game. His 7th-inning grand slam off
Steve Bedrosian also makes him the oldest major leaguer ever to hit a bases-loaded homer.
Cap Anson, at 45, hit two home runs on this date in 1897, and is the oldest major league player to hit a pair.
October 5 – The
Atlanta Braves become the second team in two weeks to go from last to first when they beat the
Houston Astros, 5–2. Moments later, the
San Francisco Giants eliminate their
arch-rivals, the
Los Angeles Dodgers, when
Trevor Wilson pitches a 4–0 complete game shutout, handing the National League West division title to the Braves.
John Smoltz gets his fourteenth win of the season as the Braves close out with eight consecutive wins after trailing the Dodgers by two with only ten games left to play.
October 7 –
Leo Durocher, who is credited with the phrase 'nice guys finish last,' dies at the age of 86. The same day, the
New York Yankees fire
Stump Merrill, the ninth major league manager fired in 1991.
October 8 – Despite finishing in second, their lowest finish in his 3½ years as manager, the
Boston Red Sox dismiss
Joe Morgan and replace him with
Butch Hobson. Morgan is the tenth manager fired in 1991.
October 9 –
Tom Trebelhorn becomes the eleventh managerial casualty of 1991 despite a record of 40–19 and a finish over .500 with the
Milwaukee Brewers.
October 18 –
Jim Essian, who replaced
Don Zimmer in May, is fired as manager of the
Chicago Cubs, the thirteenth and last firing of a manager in 1991. The thirteen firings in a season set a majors record that still stands.
October 27 – The
Minnesota Twins become the
World Series Champions with a 1–0 victory behind
Jack Morris' masterful 10-inning shutout.
Gene Larkin's single off
Atlanta Braves reliever
Alejandro Peña scores
Dan Gladden with the game's only run. The game is the first Game Seven to go into extra innings since the
1924 World Series between the
Washington Senators and
New York Giants. Morris is named the Series MVP for the Twins, who win all four games at home while losing all three in Atlanta. Four of the seven games are decided on the final pitch, while five are decided by a single run, and three in extra innings. All are Series records.