It was late September at Wrigley Field and the National League pennant had been decided a week earlier, the Cardinals clinching and the Cubs eliminated three days before that. All of this happened in a year when the Cubs awakened from their 20-year slumber and were in first place briefly in July.
But on this September afternoon, just 4,512 paid to see the Cubs face the Cardinals. Those few thousand saw the Cubs mount several stirring comebacks and eventually win in a walkoff, though no one called them “walkoff wins” decades ago.
The Cardinals put three on the board off Joe Niekro in the first inning.