M's 2, Lastros 5
.
Three of these four teams get a ticket to the Bright Lights, Big Cit-eh:
| Team | W | L | GB |
| Orcs | 81 | 64 | -- |
| Royals (Central Div) | 80 | 64 | 0.5 |
| Tiggers | 80 | 66 | 1 |
| Seattle | 79 | 66 | 1.5 |
In Ball Four, Jim Bouton relayed the Seattle Pilots' locker room in July. Guys were sitting around after another loss, talking about the exciting games going on between the Tigers (yes), Orcs (yes), and Twins. (Check me if I'm wrong; it was Reggie Jackson's rookie year, or pretty close, and he hit 40+ homers as a kid. The Tigers and Twins would fade, IIRC, but the A's were on a groundswell that would lead into one of history's great dynasties.)
Anyway, one of the Pilots started to muse good-naturedly. Golly gee whiz, he said. I wonder how this clubhouse would handle a pennant race? You think we'd play well if somebody put us at the top now, or how would we be?
Don Blasingame, or Fred Gladding, or somebody, was coming out of the shower. "How would we be?," he said. He sucked in his cheeks like a trout, pressed his keister cheeks together, clamped his knees, and started taking Charlie Chaplin steps around the locker room. "VERY TIGHT," he said.
