The ‘Heistman,’ a split national title and 1997’s dueling, enduring conspiracies
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — On the back wall of Gus’ Good Times Deli, an iconic eatery on the University of Tennessee campus, hangs an oversized banner that has been in place for at least two decades and serves as a stark reminder to the rest of the college football world.
And while the distinct Tennessee orange shade of the banner might have faded slightly over time, the anger behind the sentiment has not.
Don’t Blame Us. We Voted For Manning.
In these parts, they don’t refer to the award for the top player in college football as the Heisman Trophy. They refer to it, if they refer to it at all, as the “Heistman.”
The Vols faithful — from message-board posters to Hall of Fame coaches — remain angry and bewildered that favorite son Peyton Manning lost out on the 1997 Heisman to Michigan’s Charles Woodson, the first and only primarily defensive player to win the award.
But beyond that, they are convinced of foul play. They believe the national media engineered a campaign to promote Woodson at the expense of Manning.
To make their case, Tennessee partisans point out that Manning was completely left off 110 ballots, meaning 110 voters didn’t place the future No. 1 draft pick and NFL Hall of Famer first, second or third. (Woodson was left off 88 ballots.) Woodson won the vote by 272 points and won every region but the South.
“How does that happen unless you’re trying to make sure that one guy wins it and another guy doesn’t?” said former Tennessee offensive tackle Trey Teague, who roomed with Manning in college and played nine seasons in the NFL.
“I haven’t paid attention to [the Heisman] or really cared about it since that night in New York City,” then-Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer told ESPN this fall. “It’s nothing against [Woodson], either. He was a great player. But as you look back, there were all kinds of dynamics that went into it. ABC and ESPN weren’t carrying the SEC back then. They were carrying the Big Ten.
“The bottom line is the best player in college football didn’t win it that year, and nobody in Tennessee has forgotten or ever will forget.”
Five hundred miles north, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a different conspiracy surrounding Tennessee and 1997 lingers.
After Woodson won the Heisman, the Wolverines entered the postseason unbeaten and No. 1 in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. Michigan beat No. 8 Washington State 20-16 in the Rose Bowl to finish 12-0. The next day, No. 2 Nebraska — also unbeaten — throttled No. 3 Tennessee 42-17.
In the last year of a pre-BCS world, when polls determined the national title, Michigan remained No. 1 in the AP poll. But Nebraska leapfrogged the Wolverines to finish No. 1 in the coaches poll and claimed a split championship.
The way the 62-person balloting broke down, the Cornhuskers earned 32 first-place votes (up from 8½ in the pre-bowl poll) and 30 seconds. Michigan received 30 firsts but not 32 seconds. Based on the final tally of points, the Wolverines either fell to third on two ballots or all the way to fourth on one. One extra first-place vote would have meant at least a tie for No. 1 in the coaches poll.
The suspicions of many Michigan fans turned to Fulmer. It’s a claim the coach, who said at the time he was voting Nebraska No. 1, has repeatedly called “ridiculous” over the years.
“Yes, I’ve heard that once or twice,” Fulmer said sarcastically. “But that’s not true, none of it is. I can’t remember exactly where I did vote them, but I voted like I thought it should be, right near the top because they were one of the top teams that year.”
But even some Michigan players have wondered.
“Because he was so vocal about Peyton Manning not winning the Heisman, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out,” said Chris Howard, the leading rusher on Michigan’s 1997 team. “It just seemed like he was the most obvious person that changed their vote.”
Is there any evidence to support either side’s claims? No.
Will that stop the rampant speculation? Also no.
This year’s Heisman Trophy ceremony is Saturday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) and neither Tennessee nor Michigan has a finalist to the dismay of both fan bases. The old wound was reopened for Volunteers fans — including Teague, who tweeted “Heisman Trophy is a joke. Since 1997” when quarterback Hendon Hooker didn’t make the cut. Wolverines running back Blake Corum won’t be in New York, either.
But in a season in which both schools made a run at the College Football Playoff and flirted with the Heisman, the wild year of 1997 and its aftermath was never far from the surface.
EACH YEAR WHEN the Heisman ceremony rolls around, Mike McMahan’s blood pressure rises. McMahan, a UT graduate, is the son of the late Ron McMahan, a longtime editor of the Knoxville Journal newspaper. The elder McMahan was also a teammate of Johnny Majors, who was a Heisman runner-up to Notre Dame’s Paul Hornung in 1956. Majors was a star single-wing tailback for the Vols and later became their coach.
“I was told all those stories as a kid, that Notre Dame finished 2-8 that year and Majors still didn’t win it,” McMahan recounted. “So the Peyton one hit hard.”
Manning was impressive in 1997, passing for 3,819 yards (fourth nationally) with 36 touchdowns (third) to just 11 interceptions for the one-loss Vols. He threw four touchdown passes, including a 73-yarder to Marcus Nash in the fourth quarter, during a comeback win over Auburn in the SEC championship game. He set a school record with 523 yards and tied a school mark with five touchdown passes in a win over Kentucky and Tim Couch, the nation’s second-leading passer that season. He added 304 yards and three scores in the Vols’ third consecutive win over Alabama.
James Kirkland roomed with Manning during their senior year at Tennessee. Kirkland, the student body president that year, felt it was obvious ESPN was, in his words, propping up Woodson to make the race interesting and create some drama because Manning seemed like such a shoo-in at the start of the season. Manning returned for his senior season despite being the likely No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 NFL draft.
“It just started to snowball,” Kirkland said. “I remember we’d come back to the fraternity house, and it would be the same two or three highlights of Charles Woodson over and over again on ESPN. They made him look like Superman.
“I don’t think Tennessee fans are mad at Charles Woodson. Look at what an accomplished player he was. We’re mad because of what Peyton had meant to the entire Tennessee family, the way he went out there as a senior and did everything he needed to do on the field to win it — and they found a way to take it from him.”
THE WOLVERINES ENTERED 1997 coming off four consecutive four-loss seasons. They had not won a national title since 1948 and expectations were relatively low, starting the season ranked No. 14 in the AP poll.
“Quite honestly, we had the feeling that we were letting everybody down,” said Mark Campbell, a starting tight end in ’97. But Michigan started hot, stifling No. 8 Colorado 27-3 in the season opener, and never looked back.
Woodson showed a knack for making his biggest plays — whether on offense, defense or special teams — in the biggest games.
And fairly or not, that created a contrast to Manning’s struggles against Florida. Tennessee failed to beat the rival Gators in his three years as starting quarterback, including in 1997, when the Vols’ 33-20 defeat in Gainesville was their only regular-season loss that year.
There was Woodson’s soaring one-handed interception against No. 15 Michigan State (a 23-7 win) and a 37-yard catch-and-run touchdown against No. 3 Penn State (a 34-8 rout).
“That catapulted us even more into the spotlight and Charles even more as well,” Howard said.
Then came the game against No. 4 Ohio State two weeks later. Woodson delivered in the game of the year with a 78-yard punt return score and an interception in a 20-14 triumph.
The following Monday, Michigan found itself with a decisive lead as the No. 1 team in the nation in both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls. Woodson had finished the year with seven interceptions and 43 tackles for the nation’s No. 1 scoring defense (9.5 points per game), while adding three offensive scores.
He was on to New York for the Heisman ceremony.
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Michigan’s Charles Woodson is named the winner of the 1997 Heisman Trophy, the first primary defensive player to ever win the award.
STILL, WOODSON WAS an underdog.
Defensive back Marcus Ray accompanied his roommate to the ceremony. He remembers Woodson asking him, while they were getting ready: “Do you think I can win?”
“Probably not,” Ray replied. “I hope you do. But nobody has ever won on defense.”
So imagine the collective maize-and-blue euphoria when Peter Junge, president of the Downtown Athletic Club, said, “And the winner, from Michigan, Charles Woodson.”
“I screamed, and some strange energy went through my body,” Ray said. “I think you can hear me on the broadcast.”
“We lost our s—,” Howard said. “We were screaming, running out into the streets, popping champagne bottles.”
Things were decidedly more subdued on the other side.
“I was there at the [Heisman] event, and as I look back, when they announced Charles Woodson, and this isn’t to diminish Charles, but there were more media to go see the reaction of Peyton than to see the reaction of Charles,” said David Cutcliffe, who was Tennessee’s offensive coordinator at the time and remains one of Manning’s closest confidants. “I was sick to my stomach about it and still get sick about it.”
Greg Johnson, a former U.S. Marine who did seven deployments in the Middle East, was in Argentina when Woodson was announced as the winner. Johnson played football at Tennessee and was a year ahead of Manning. They were roommates during Manning’s sophomore and junior seasons. Johnson, who didn’t have a TV, sought out an internet café in Argentina to hear the “grim” news.
“I just felt wronged, that a wrong had been committed,” Johnson said. “I still say we have a recount.”
Manning rarely talks about the Heisman flap and said a few years ago he has chosen “not to go down that road.”
“My disappointment was for the University of Tennessee,” Manning told ESPN in 2017. “That’s who I hurt for, all of the great fans and all of the great people there. Tennessee has never had a Heisman winner, but four second-place finishers — Hank Lauricella, Johnny Majors, Heath Shuler and myself. I really wanted to win it for my school, so I was disappointed for that.”
Even former Florida coach Steve Spurrier, who reveled in going 3-0 against the Vols with Manning as the starter, suggests Manning might have been held to a different standard.
“Everybody knows Peyton should have won the Heisman that year. I don’t blame those Tennessee fans for being mad. I voted for him,” said Spurrier, who won the Heisman in 1966. “Yep, we beat ’em a bunch, but it wasn’t just Peyton out there playing by himself. I think some of those Midwest boys in the media just wanted a defensive player, or somebody else, to win it that year. You’d have to ask them.”
The aftermath in Knoxville hit swiftly. A radio station sold T-shirts to benefit a local charity that featured a picture of the Heisman Trophy on the front and said “Keep your stupid trophy” on the back. For several days in a row, fans lined up around the building to get them, and the station sold every shirt it had.
And a year later, as the Vols were making a run to a national championship, center Spencer Riley wore a CBS hat to Fiesta Bowl media days. Asked if he was boycotting ESPN, he snapped, “Damn right. Look at what they did to Peyton and look at the way they talk about us.”
But back in New York at the time of the Heisman announcement, Ray said that on the Vols side, “It felt like a funeral. So we knew after the Heisman, Tennessee wasn’t going to do us any favors with their football team’s game or with their coach in that Orange Bowl.”
MICHIGAN AND NEBRASKA were the lone unbeatens heading into bowl season. Since the Wolverines won the Big Ten, they were contractually obligated to play the Pac-12 champ in the Rose Bowl. The Cornhuskers, meanwhile, had an Orange Bowl date with Manning and Tennessee.
Legendary Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, now 85, told ESPN last month he called the Big Ten to ask whether there was any way Michigan and Nebraska could play each other instead.
“The answer came back they had the Rose Bowl contract, and that couldn’t be changed, and so I understood that, but it’s really a shame when you had two undefeated teams at the end that you couldn’t settle it on the field,” Osborne said.
Then-Michigan coach Lloyd Carr said that was the first he had heard of that phone call.
“I think Coach Osborne’s lucky because if we had played, I think we would have beat Nebraska and then he’d be sorry he didn’t at least get a half,” Carr said with a laugh earlier this month.
Though Michigan had a commanding lead over Nebraska in both the AP and coaches polls headed into their respective bowl games, the Cornhuskers believed there was a chance at a split championship if they played well against the Vols. Osborne was retiring after the season, and the Huskers players made it their mission to finish on top.
“I remember telling the players the door wasn’t wide open, but at least we had a crack,” Osborne said. “I think they seized on that idea.”
Michigan played first, beating Washington State on Jan. 1. In the waning seconds, Washington State quarterback Ryan Leaf — the nation’s leading passer in 1997 — spiked the ball with what appeared to be two seconds on the clock, but the referee ruled no time remained and Michigan held on to win 21-16.
In the jubilant postgame locker room, Carr told his team:
“You have left a wonderful legacy for every team that ever follows you. You … just won the national championship.”
“We celebrated like we had won the national championship,” Michigan offensive tackle Jon Jansen said.
But the polls would not come out until after Nebraska and Tennessee played in Miami the following night. Michigan players recall not paying much attention to what Nebraska did. In their minds, it hardly mattered — they were No. 1 and would stay that way.
On Jan. 2, Nebraska put on a defensive clinic against Tennessee, flustering Manning into his worst game of the season, as he went 21-of-31 for 134 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Manning had been hospitalized weeks earlier after injuring his knee in the SEC championship game. He contracted an infection in his knee and was questionable to play leading up to the game.
Nebraska rolled to a dominant 42-17 victory in the final game of Osborne’s 25-year Nebraska career. Quarterback Scott Frost seized the opportunity in his postgame remarks, talking directly at the 62 coaches who had a vote in the coaches poll. He said, in part:
“I’m so proud of this team and Coach Osborne, I don’t want to see him go out without a championship. … if you can look yourself in the mirror and say if your job depended on playing either Michigan or Nebraska to keep your job, who would you rather play? You watched the Rose Bowl and the Orange Bowl. Michigan won with a controversial play at the end. We took apart the third-ranked team in the country.
“It’s been split before. Colorado and Georgia Tech split it. Washington and Miami split it. It’s OK to split it. It should be split and it’s up to the coaches.”
“To say that Scott didn’t sway some voters with his speech after the game, I think would be crazy,” defensive end Grant Wistrom said. “Scott was one step ahead, thinking, ‘All right, we won the game, now we have to start trying to sway some voters.’ He did a great job with the passionate speech that he gave. Without that, I don’t know that we get the votes.”
Michigan players soon found out what Frost had said.
“If you have to beg and plead, then you know that you’re not the best team,” Ray said. “We didn’t do that. Nobody from our team said, ‘Hey, we should be No. 1 in both polls even if Nebraska wins.'”
There was nothing more for either team to do but wait.
The AP poll came out first. As expected, Michigan finished No. 1.
Osborne was at the team hotel in Miami Beach when he heard a roar. Then came the pounding on his door.
“I figured we had gotten the coaches vote,” Osborne said.
It was just the second time in the history of the coaches poll a team that went into bowl season No. 1, won its bowl game and did not finish No. 1.
Cue the conspiracy theories.
Jim Welch, who served as deputy managing editor for sports at USA Today at the time, oversaw all the coaches’ ballots during weekly voting. He specifically remembers scrutinizing the final ballots that season because both Michigan and Nebraska finished undefeated.
Asked specifically whether he remembered anything off about Fulmer’s ballot, Welch said, “I don’t.”
“Most of the conspiracy theories, including the Phil Fulmer one, did not hold any water at all. Believe me, I looked at every ballot. Although I wasn’t actually involved in the direct tabulation, I would ask questions and review the ballots every week, and especially gave a lot of scrutiny, certainly to the final ones.”
But Welch also said he did not have access to the final ballots to confirm one way or another who voted Michigan either No. 3 or 4.
“I don’t think a coach is playing it around in their head thinking, ‘Wow, if I drop these guys to 3, maybe the other one will come out ahead,” Welch said. “The logic of that kind of argument always defied those of us who worked on this at the newspaper.”
Carr says the way the vote turned out still bothers him.
“I don’t think about it every day, but we deserved better,” he said. “That’s what I believe.”
“At this point, I don’t know whose vote it was and if it was Fulmer’s vote that split it, that’s about as bulls— of a thing that I can think of,” Michigan linebacker Rob Swett said. “If he did it out of spite, it makes me believe we earned that championship even more. I can’t imagine that anybody could have called and said give the Heisman to Charles because we need a defensive guy to win it for a change.”
Both Osborne and Wistrom, far removed from Michigan and Tennessee, said they had no idea the Fulmer conspiracy theory existed when asked about it.
Wistrom provides a counterpoint with respect to Fulmer: “Perhaps he just saw his team, who he thought was one of the better teams he’s ever had there, just get dismantled, and realized that he faced the true national champion on that night in Miami. There’s that, too.”
Michigan recently held a 25-year anniversary reunion for the 1997 team in Ann Arbor. Nobody on the team admits to caring anymore about the title being split, or giving any thought to a conspiracy theory that still lives on among its fan base.
“I never had animosity toward the coaches poll or toward Nebraska,” Jansen said. “I look at my national championship ring, and it doesn’t say co-champs, it just says national champion.”
But they do often discuss playing Nebraska.
Like now.
“If those guys would like to suit up at this point, we can still solve this debate between Michigan and Nebraska,” Jansen said. “Let’s do it on the field. I’ve got my helmet in the truck. I’ve got shoulder pads in the office. I’m ready to go.” So, 25 years later, the debates rage on.
“I guarantee you if everybody knew that we would have to have our ballots public, nobody would have voted us 3 or 4, when we were at least 2,” Carr said. “It’s a great unknown because Nebraska and Tennessee both had reason to benefit from the way they voted, and they got away with it.”
Said Osborne: “It is worth pointing out we had a playoff game in the Big 12 at that time and went down and beat Texas A&M in their home territory decisively and I don’t believe Michigan had to play that extra game, so we played one more game than they did and it was a challenging opponent. I’m not trying to pick a fight with anybody. There’s a lot of things that went into it.”
As for Fulmer and Carr, the dueling conspiracy theories have never come up when they’ve been together.
Fulmer says Carr never asked him about the voting conspiracy theory and, “I never asked him about Woodson winning the Heisman.”
HOUSTON — Astros starter Framber Valdez said he apologized to catcher Cesar Salazar after hitting him in the chest with a pitch Tuesday night, but the left-hander insisted it wasn’t intentional.
Valdez appeared to shake off Salazar on a 1-0 pitch with the bases loaded and Trent Grisham of the New York Yankees at the plate in the fifth inning. Salazar then urged Valdez to step off the mound, but he proceeded with the pitch, which Grisham launched to deep left field to give New York a 6-0 lead in an eventual 7-1 win.
On the second pitch to the next batter, Valdez hit Salazar in the chest with a 93 mph pitch, raising questions about whether he was upset about what happened in the Grisham at-bat and if it was intended.
Valdez said it was not.
“What happened with us, we just got crossed up,” Valdez said in Spanish through an interpreter. “I called for that pitch, I threw it and we got crossed up. We went down to the dugout and I excused myself with him and I said sorry to him and I take full responsibility for that.”
Valdez was then asked directly if he did it on purpose.
“No,” he said. “It was not intentional.”
Valdez and Salazar were talking when reporters entered the clubhouse after the game, and Valdez said they had sorted things out.
“We were able to talk through it,” he said. “We spoke after the game … at his locker and everything’s good between us. It’s just stuff that happens in baseball. But yeah, we talked through it and we’re good.”
Salazar also was asked about what happened on the pitch where he was hit.
“The stadium was loud,” he said. “I thought I pressed the button, but I pressed the wrong button. I was expecting another pitch, but it wasn’t it.”
Salazar said Valdez didn’t hit him on purpose.
“No, me and Framber we actually have a really good relationship,” he said.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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David Schoenfield
With each postseason expansion throughout MLB’s history, the value of division races has diluted. In the wild-card era, you can finish in second place — or even third or fourth — and still win the World Series.
Does that make September less exciting? There’s no doubt it brings more teams and more fans into the mix. And a big game is still a big game, even if there is slightly less tension in a Red Sox-Yankees or Mets-Phillies series than there otherwise might be if both teams already know they’re going to make the playoffs.
Thus, we’re mostly left with wild-card races and battles for seeding to occupy our time and scoreboard watching. That still offers plenty of fun, still makes September the best month on the baseball calendar, and there’s still a lot of sweating going on when your closer walks two batters in the ninth trying to protect a one-run lead. The 12 postseason slots aren’t completely locked up, so if you’re a fan of the Mets or Mariners, you can’t breathe easily just yet — not until a playoff spot is clinched and the champagne uncorked.
September is here, believe it or not. We have races to decide. Let’s rank their potential excitement level over the final month.
1. National League West race
Standings: Los Angeles Dodgers up 2 games on San Diego Padres
What’s at stake: This is the best rivalry going on in the majors right now. The teams don’t like each other, the fans don’t like each other, and there’s still that element of David trying to knock out Goliath as the Padres seek their first division title since 2006 and their first World Series title ever. The teams have met three times in the NL Division Series since 2020 — with the Dodgers winning in 2020 and 2024 and the Padres victorious in 2022 — and with another rematch possible, home-field advantage could be key.
Do the Dodgers need to win the division? No, they will still be more focused on getting the pitching staff healthy and ready for October than on getting consumed in the race to win the division. It would probably mean more to the Padres, who want to finally beat their I-5 rivals in something besides that one playoff series. On the other hand, San Diego is probably a little better equipped for a short wild-card series, as it can ride its bullpen for the two or three games.
Series to watch: Somehow, the schedule-makers thought it would be a good idea to not have the Dodgers playing the Padres in September. The Dodgers finish with a road trip to Arizona and Seattle while the Padres end at home against Milwaukee and Arizona. The Dodgers won the season series, so they own the tiebreaker.
Dodgers player to watch: Blake Snell has been a notable second-half pitcher in his career and has a 2.54 ERA since returning from the injured list in August, but he hasn’t been quite as dominant as when he gets on one of his patented hot streaks (such as the second half last year, when he had a 1.45 ERA and .130 average allowed). The Dodgers won last season despite a beat-up rotation that wasn’t even all that effective in the playoffs. But the bullpen has been nowhere near as strong this season as in 2024, so they’ll need that dominant version of Snell down the stretch and in October.
Padres player to watch: Ramon Laureano has been the team’s best hitter since he was acquired at the trade deadline, slashing .305/.354/.581 with seven home runs and 23 RBIs in 28 games. He helped keep the offense afloat in August as Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. each hit just one home run on the month and Jackson Merrill has been injured. Laureano’s production has been great, but the Padres need more power from their big two.
2. American League East
Standings: Toronto Blue Jays up 3 games on New York Yankees, 3.5 games on Boston Red Sox
What’s at stake: This has been the wildest division race all season. The Blue Jays were eight games back in late May when they fell under .500 but have now held first place since July 3. The Yankees fell as many as 6.5 games back in August before cleaning up against the Washington Nationals and Chicago White Sox this past week to draw closer. The Red Sox were 41-44 on June 30, but only the Brewers have a better record since that date. The Yankees have a plus-134 run differential, whereas it’s plus-56 for the Blue Jays and plus-102 for the Red Sox, so you wonder why they’re even in this position. However, New York is 5-8 in extra-inning games (the Blue Jays are 8-4) and hasn’t played well against Toronto and Boston (5-15).
Series to watch: Blue Jays at Yankees (Friday-Sunday); Red Sox at Blue Jays (Sept. 23-25); Yankees at Red Sox (Sept. 12-14). All three season series have already been clinched: The Blue Jays over the Red Sox and Yankees and the Red Sox over the Yankees. That will leave the Yankees on the short end of any tiebreaker.
Blue Jays player to watch: Toronto acquired Shane Bieber at the deadline even though he was still completing his minor league rehab from Tommy John surgery. He has allowed three runs in two starts for the Blue Jays, striking out 15 with no walks in 11⅓ innings. It’s just two starts, but he looks like he did when he was the Cleveland ace, plus he has allowed the Jays to go to a six-man rotation. Don’t be surprised if he ends up as the Game 1 starter in the postseason.
Yankees player to watch: Aaron Judge is still probably the MVP favorite, but after missing 10 days with a flexor strain in his right elbow, he hasn’t been quite the same, hitting .241/.417/.506 with six home runs and 12 RBIs in 24 games in August. Though those are still good numbers, it seems fair to call it a slight slump by Judge’s recent historic standards — and it’s not the same level of production as before his injury. He also still hasn’t played the field, which limits the red-hot Giancarlo Stanton to pinch-hitting duties when the Yankees are on the road (manager Aaron Boone has been willing to play Stanton in right field at Yankee Stadium, where there’s less ground to cover).
Red Sox player to watch: Sixty-nine games into his career, 21-year-old rookie Roman Anthony has made it clear: He’s going to be a big star. Sure, he can cut his strikeout rate a bit, but he already has A-plus plate discipline and has the second-highest hard-hit percentage in the majors behind only Kyle Schwarber. And Anthony is also quickly learning to lift the ball, slugging six home runs in August after hitting one each in June and July.
3. National League race for No. 2 seed
Standings: Milwaukee Brewers hold No. 1 seed with 5.5-game cushion; Philadelphia Phillies up 1 game on Dodgers, 3 games on Padres
What’s at stake: The Phillies hold a comfortable lead over the Mets in the NL East, so they have about a 90% chance of winning the division, but Philadelphia is neck and neck with the pair of NL West rivals for the second-best record in the NL. Home-field advantage isn’t a must to win a World Series — we’ve seen wild-card teams take it all, such as the Rangers in 2023 when they were the fifth seed in the AL — but the Phillies have an extreme home/road split this season, going 45-23 in Philadelphia and 34-35 elsewhere. They’re hitting .275 with an .808 OPS at home, .239 with a .693 OPS on the road.
Series to watch: Phillies at Dodgers (Sept. 15-17). The Phillies finish with a six-game homestand against the Miami Marlins and Minnesota Twins, which looks like a favorable way to end the season.
Phillies player to watch: Kyle Schwarber, of course, and Cristopher Sanchez as he takes over the role of staff ace from the injured Zack Wheeler. But the bullpen has been the issue the past two postseasons for the Phillies, which puts Jhoan Duran on the spot as well. Acquired from the Twins at the trade deadline to take over as closer, Duran has mostly done the job, but he blew one save against the Nationals, picking up the loss, and then lost another game against the Mets when he allowed four straight hits without getting an out.
4. American League race for top two seeds
Standings: Detroit Tigers hold No. 1 seed and are up 0.5 games on Blue Jays, 3.5 games on Yankees, 4 games on Red Sox and 4.5 games on Astros
What’s at stake: Bragging rights? Momentum heading into the postseason? Home-field advantage? Sure, all those things are nice, and the Tigers have a notable home/road split (44-25 versus 36-33), so securing that top seed, which they’ve held much of the way in the AL, would be the final touch on an excellent regular season. Still, if you’re manager A.J. Hinch, you’re not going to burn out your rotation in September just to get that top seed. If the Astros climb closer to the Tigers and Blue Jays, however, it will get more interesting as teams want to avoid that wild-card series if possible.
Series to watch: Tigers at Yankees (Sept. 9-11); Tigers at Red Sox (Sept. 26-28); Yankees at Astros (Tuesday-Thursday); Astros at Blue Jays (Sept. 9-11)
Tigers player to watch: The Tigers have been searching for a No. 2 starter behind Tarik Skubal all year. Jack Flaherty has been inconsistent all season and had three starts in August where he allowed five or more runs. Casey Mize has a 7.20 ERA over his past eight starts. Chris Paddack? No. Maybe it’s 41-year-old vet Charlie Morton, who has a 4.61 ERA in his five starts with Detroit, as he has mixed in three excellent outings with two bad ones (although he fanned 10 in one of the bad ones). No matter what, there are going to be a lot of bullpen games for the Tigers in the playoffs when Skubal isn’t pitching, especially since the pen was much better in August after struggling in June and July (and adding some depth at the deadline).
5. American League West
Standings: Houston Astros up 2 games on Seattle Mariners
What’s at stake: The Mariners haven’t won a division title since … hold on here, scrolling through the years on Baseball-Reference.com … that’s right, the 116-win season in 2001. The Mariners made some weird pact with the baseball gods that season, which for some reason didn’t include them making the World Series after their historic regular season but did include them not making the postseason again until 2022. That’s right: They remain the only franchise never to appear in the Fall Classic. Winning the division would increase their odds just a bit and allow them to set their rotation for the ALDS.
Series to watch: Mariners at Astros (Sept. 19-21). The season series is tied 5-5, so the winner of this series gets that crucial tiebreaker edge. Of note: The Mariners have lost five consecutive road series and are 1-6-1 (they split a four-game series) in their past eight. The Astros have managed to keep their grip on first place despite going 12-13 in July and 13-15 in August. They’ve won every full-season AL West title going back to 2017.
Astros player to watch: Yordan Alvarez returned last week after being out since early May with a hand injury. He homered in his second game back and didn’t strike out in his first five games. The Astros have even started him twice in left field, allowing them to give Jose Altuve a DH day. Bottom line: If Alvarez is producing, a below-average offense suddenly looks at least like an average — or better-than-average — offense. With Alvarez, Altuve and Carlos Correa, it’s 2019 or 2021 all over again, two seasons that ended with the Astros playing in the World Series.
Mariners player to watch: How much does Cal Raleigh have left in the tank? He’s sitting on 50 home runs but also hit .194 in July and .173 in August. He’s still doing damage with the long ball and has had 17 home runs and 36 RBIs over the two months, but he’s not carrying the offense as he did in the first half.
6. American League Wild Card
Standings: Mariners hold third wild-card spot and are up 2.5 games on Kansas City Royals, 3 games on Texas Rangers and 4 games on Cleveland Guardians
What’s at stake: By no means are the Mariners out of the AL West race against Houston, but they also haven’t played well enough to pull away in the wild-card fight, even after everyone declared them a sure-thing playoff team following the acquisitions of Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor at the deadline. But given Seattle’s recent history of just missing the playoffs — two wins short in 2021, one short in 2023 and 2024 — Mariners fans are understandably nervous about blowing it, especially with the Royals and the Rangers refusing to go away.
Series to watch: Mariners at Royals (Sept. 16-18); Royals at Guardians (Sept. 8-10); Rangers at Guardians (Sept. 26-28). The Royals finished one game ahead of the Mariners for a wild-card spot last season, so this looks like the key series. The Mariners have one three-game series in Houston starting Sept. 19. If they can survive this current road trip — they just went 1-2 against Cleveland and now head to Tampa and Atlanta — that series looms large as well.
Royals player to watch: Is it too late to toss Bobby Witt Jr. into the Judge/Raleigh MVP debate? He’s making a late run with his outstanding all-around game and just had his best month of the season. With Vinnie Pasquantino mashing home runs and some trade acquisitions chipping in, Kansas City is peaking at the right time. The Royals have played well for two months now and have a pretty soft schedule for the final month.
Rangers player to watch: The Rangers looked out of it, and they’re going to be without Nathan Eovaldi for the rest of the season — and likely Marcus Semien as well — and Corey Seager for some period of time following an appendectomy. But they just won three series in a row. Without Eovaldi, Jack Leiter has to continue to pitch well: He has a 2.88 ERA over his past 11 starts and just tossed back-to-back excellent games.
Guardians player to watch: Cleveland is barely hanging in there, taking two of three against the Mariners as Kyle Manzardo hit big home runs in wins Friday and Saturday. He’s hitting .273/.362/.545 since July 12, giving Cleveland a much-needed power source other than Jose Ramirez.
7. National League East and NL Wild Card
Standings: Phillies up 6 games on Mets in division; Mets up 4 games on Cincinnati Reds in wild card
What’s at stake: The Mets temporarily made the division race interesting again after sweeping Philadelphia early last week but then lost three of four at home to the Marlins. That’s unacceptable if you want to win the division. The Reds continue to falter, so the Mets’ wild-card spot looks reasonably safe, though they are just .500 since May 1.
Series to watch: Mets at Phillies (Sept. 8-11); Mets at Reds (Friday-Sunday). With next week’s four-game series, the NL East remains in play even though it would take an epic New York comeback combined with a Phillies collapse for the Mets to win the division. They’ve already clinched the season series over the Phillies with a 7-2 advantage. Meanwhile, the Reds have a chance to put pressure on the Mets with a three-game series in Cincinnati before New York’s trip to Philadelphia.
Mets player to watch: Nolan McLean and Jonah Tong. The Mets’ rotation has scuffled for a while, so suddenly the season rests heavily on their two prized rookie starters. McLean won his first three starts, allowing just two runs in 20⅓ innings. Tong, who led minor league starters in ERA and strikeouts, beat the Marlins in his debut Friday, striking out six in five innings with no walks while showcasing the changeup that allowed him to dominate the minors.
Reds player to watch: What’s happening with Elly De La Cruz‘s power? He hasn’t homered since July 31 and has just one in his past 58 games.
8. National League Central
Standings: Brewers up 6.5 games on Chicago Cubs
What’s at stake: This is another David vs. Goliath matchup. Milwaukee, of course, is Goliath. The Cubs won the NL Central in the COVID-shortened season of 2020 but haven’t taken a full-season division title since 2017. Given the Brewers’ lead with no signs of faltering, the odds are slim that Chicago can chase them down.
Series to watch: The two teams are done for their season series, and the Cubs took it 7-6, so at least they own the tiebreaker.
Brewers player to watch: Closer Trevor Megill landed on the IL a few days ago with a flexor strain in his elbow after blowing three saves since mid-August, so Abner Uribe takes over. If the Cubs have a chance to catch the Brewers, it might be because the Milwaukee pen, which has been worked hard, burns out in September, especially with the Brewers in the midst of playing 19 games in 18 days.
Cubs player to watch: Kyle Tucker slumped as he played through a hairline fracture in his right hand for two months. He finally broke out with three home runs in two games and has hit over .400 his past nine games. The Cubs’ offense was horrid in August — Pete Crow-Armstrong also struggled — and they’ll need Tucker and the rest of the lineup to rebound in September.
9. American League Central
Standings: Tigers up 9.5 games on Royals
What’s at stake: This one is all but over — though, it’s not impossible for the Royals. The Mets blew a seven-game lead in 2007 with 17 games to play. The 1995 Angels entered September with a 7.5-game lead and lost the division in a tiebreaker game. The 2009 Tigers were up seven games on Sept. 6 and blew it. The 2011 Braves had an 8.5-game lead in the wild-card race at the start of September and missed the playoffs. And during that same season, the Red Sox were leading the Yankees in the AL East and nine games up on the Rays — who would catch them on the final day of the season to win the wild card. So … you never know.
Series to watch: The Tigers and Royals are done playing each other, with Detroit winning the season series 9-4.
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