The 5 Greatest Pennant Race Meltdowns in Baseball History

Every September, some fanbase starts doing the math with a lead that looks safe. This list exists to remind them: no lead is safe. These are the 5 greatest collapses baseball has ever staged — ranked by pure, exquisite agony.

5. 1951 Dodgers: The 13.5-Game Head Start

On Aug. 11, 1951, Brooklyn led the Giants by 13.5 games. What followed wasn't so much a Dodger collapse — they played .500 ball the rest of the way — as a Giants avalanche: 37-7 down the stretch, including a 16-game winning streak, to force a 3-game playoff. You know how it ends: Oct. 3, bottom of the 9th, Ralph Branca in from the bullpen, Bobby Thomson into the left-field seats. The Shot Heard 'Round the World — still the largest first-place lead ever surrendered. The 2001 asterisk: the Giants, it turned out, had been stealing signs with a telescope in the center-field clubhouse since July. Thomson always insisted he didn't take the sign on that pitch.

4. 2011: The Night Two Teams Collapsed in 28 Minutes

The Red Sox led the wild card by 9 games entering September; the Braves led theirs by 8.5. Boston went 7-20, Atlanta 9-18 — and both survived to Game 162 anyway, needing one win. Then came the wildest half hour in regular-season history, Sept. 28, 2011: at 12:02 a.m., Robert Andino's walk-off single beat Papelbon and the Red Sox in Baltimore. At 12:08 a.m. — 6 minutes later — Evan Longoria's 12th-inning homer completed Tampa Bay's comeback from 7-0 down. The Braves had already lost in 13 innings that same night. Two teams that led playoff spots by 8-plus in September, both dead before 12:10 a.m. It had never happened to one team before. It happened to two before breakfast.

3. 1969 Cubs: The Black Cat

On Aug. 16, the Cubs led the Mets by 9 games. On Sept. 9 at Shea Stadium — lead nearly gone — a black cat wandered out of the stands, circled Ron Santo in the on-deck circle, and stared into the Cubs dugout at Leo Durocher. The Mets won that night, took first for good 2 days later, and finished 23-7 in September while the Cubs went 8-17. Final margin: the Miracle Mets by 8 — a 17-game swing in 6 weeks. The cat remains the most famous animal in baseball history, and Cubs fans waited another 47 years to exhale.

2. 1978 Red Sox: The Massacre and the Shortstop

On July 19, the Yankees sat 14 games behind Boston — a team in open clubhouse revolt, changing managers midseason. Then came the Boston Massacre: a 4-game September sweep at Fenway in which New York outscored the Red Sox 42-9. Here's the twist people forget: Boston actually fought back, winning 12 of its last 14 — including the final 8 straight — just to force the one-game playoff. Then, Oct. 2: Bucky Dent, career .243 hitter with 4 home runs all season, lofted a 3-run fly ball over the Monster off Mike Torrez. Yaz popped out to Nettles to end it, 5-4. In Boston, Dent has carried an unprintable middle name ever since.

1. 1964 Phillies: The Gold Standard

Six and a half up with 12 to play. The Phillies had World Series tickets printed. Then, on Sept. 21, Cincinnati's Chico Ruiz did something no sane baserunner does — stole home with 2 outs and Frank Robinson at the plate — and won the game 1-0. It broke something. The Phillies lost 10 straight, while manager Gene Mauch pushed his 2 aces, Jim Bunning and Chris Short, out on 2 days' rest again and again as the ship sank. The Cardinals took the pennant by a single game. Sixty years later, "1964 Phillies" is still baseball shorthand for a very specific kind of dying — and Chico Ruiz's steal of home remains the strangest first domino in sports history.

Honorable Mentions

The 1995 Angels blew an 11.5-game August lead — statistically the worst late-season collapse ever — with 2 separate 9-game losing streaks, then won their last 5 just to lose the tiebreaker to Randy Johnson. And the 1934 Giants earned their fate: manager Bill Terry cracked "Brooklyn? Is Brooklyn still in the league?" in the spring — and in the season's final 2 games, the sixth-place Dodgers rode busloads of vengeful fans to the Polo Grounds and beat the Giants both days while the Gashouse Gang Cardinals stole the pennant.

The math is never safe.