Baseball
- 19 January – The BBWAA elects Sandy Koufax (344 votes), Yogi Berra (339), and Early Wynn (301) to the Hall of Fame.
- Sparky Lyle saves 35 games for the New York Yankees, breaking Ron Perranoski's 1970 records for AL pitchers and left-handers. Lyle also becomes the first left-hander to save 100 career games in the American League.
- World Series – Oakland Athletics win their first World Championship since the team was based in Philadelphia in 1930, and sixth in franchise history, by defeating the Cincinnati Reds, 4 games to 3.
- 31 December – The Pittsburgh Pirates' legendary right fielder Roberto Clemente dies in a plane crash near Puerto Rico on his way to bring relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims.
Read more about this topic: 1972 In Sports
Famous quotes containing the word baseball:
“The talk shows are stuffed full of sufferers who have regained their health—congressmen who suffered through a serious spell of boozing and skirt-chasing, White House aides who were stricken cruelly with overweening ambition, movie stars and baseball players who came down with acute cases of wanting to trash hotel rooms while under the influence of recreational drugs. Most of them have found God, or at least a publisher.”
—Calvin Trillin (b. 1935)
“Compared to football, baseball is almost an Oriental game, minimizing individual stardom, requiring a wide range of aggressive and defensive skills, and filled with long periods of inaction and irresolution. It has no time limitations. Football, on the other hand, has immediate goals, resolution on every single play, and a lot of violence—itself a highlight. It has clearly distinguishable hierarchies: heroes and drones.”
—Jerry Mander, U.S. advertising executive, author. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, ch. 15, Morrow (1978)
“Spooky things happen in houses densely occupied by adolescent boys. When I checked out a four-inch dent in the living room ceiling one afternoon, even the kid still holding the baseball bat looked genuinely baffled about how he possibly could have done it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)