April 1972 in MLB

While a lot of the usual suspects get off to fast starts, a few surprise teams emerge in the opening month of play.

Published in

Historical Sports Gaming

5 min readJan 18, 2020

Editor’s note: This is a fictional account of this history of Major League Baseball beginning in 1968. This narrative was created by playing Out of the Park Baseball 19. For an introduction to this dynasty, visit: https://medium.com/historical-sports-gaming/re-writing-mlb-history-an-introduction-5800441d7e3

APRIL 1972 IN MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

Red-hot Cards: The Cardinals were dominant from the word go in 1972, winning their first six games and eight of their first 10. They have built a solid lead over most of the field in the shaky NL East thanks a nasty offense featuring six .300+ hitters and what has been the NL’s best pitching staff in the early going.

New Division, New Struggles: The Brewers move to the AL East has been a disaster so far. Milwaukee has lost 10 in a row entering May and out of their five wins, four have come against Cleveland. Aside from the Cleveland games, the Brewers are a miserable 1–13 and have baseball’s worst offense, batting just .198 as a team.

Surprise Team of the Month: The NL East has been topsy turvy so far, with one of the division’s most maligned franchises near the top. A sweep of the Phillies and two series wins over the three-time champion Pirates have the Cubs surprisingly as the only team keeping up with St. Louis in the standings. The Cubs are scoring the most runs in baseball, averaging 5.3 per game.

Disappointing Team of the Month: The defending champion Pirates are once again off to a slow start. Pittsburgh struggled through April thanks to some poor starting pitching and inconsistency on offense. The Pirates have lost five of their first seven series of the year.

BIG OFFENSIVE GAMES THIS MONTH:

Lou Brock (LF) St. Louis —The surging Cardinals blitzed Atlanta, 12–5, on April 25 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and Brock was a huge reason why. Brock went 6-for-6 with three runs scored and two RBIs. Both RBIs came off of a second inning, two-run homer off of Atlanta’s Ron Reed. It’s the NL’s first six-hit game since July of 1970.

BIG PITCHING GAMES THIS MONTH:

Jim Palmer (P) Baltimore — Palmer was outstanding early this season, pitching three straight shutouts to start the year. The second shutout ended up being Palmer’s first career no-hitter, 2–0 victory over Milwaukee at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Though he walked four in the game, Palmer completed the no-hitter having thrown only 99 pitches! It’s only the Orioles’ third no-hitter since moving to Baltimore.

LONG HIT STREAKS THIS MONTH: None

MILESTONES REACHED THIS MONTH:

Hank Aaron (1B) Atlanta — History was made on April 8 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium as Aaron knocked in his 2,000th career RBI on a fourth inning groundout against Houston. Aaron joins Babe Ruth and Cap Anson as the only players in the history of baseball with 2,000 RBIs. At age 38, Aaron is leading the N.L. in home runs and tied for the lead in RBIs.

Billy Williams (LF) CHI Cubs — It was a big month for Billy Williams as he reached two milestones in helping to lead Chicago’s resurgence. On April 7 at Jarry Park, Williams hit his 300th career home run off of Montreal’s Jim Shellenback to become MLB’s 32nd player with 300+ homers. Then, on April 22, Williams scored the Cubs’ lone run for the 1,000th of his career in a 3–1 loss to the Mets at Shea Stadium.

TRADES THIS MONTH — None

1972 AL Leaders