2007 Major League Baseball season
The 2007 Major League Baseball season began on April 1 with a rematch of the 2006 National League Championship Series; the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets played the first game of the season at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri, which was won by the Mets, 6–1. The regular season concluded with seven teams entering the postseason who had failed to reach the 2006 playoffs including all National League teams, with only the New York Yankees returning; a dramatic one-game playoff between the Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres; and the largest  September collapse for a leading team in baseball history, with the Mets squandering a 7-game lead with 17 to play, losing on the final day of the regular season, and the Philadelphia Phillies capturing the National League East for the first time since 1993. The season ended on October 28, with the Boston Red Sox sweeping the World Series over the Rockies, four games to none. A special exhibition game known as the "Civil Rights Game" was played on March 31 in AutoZone Park in Memphis, Tennessee, between the Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians to celebrate the history of  civil rights in the United States. The 2007 season commemorates the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's entry into the game, breaking the color barrier. For the fourth consecutive season, MLB regular season attendance increased by comparison with the previous year. In 2007, an all-time attendance record of 79,502,524 (32,785 per game) was set. Postseason. Bracket. Note: Two teams in the same division could not meet in the division series. Accomplishments. Barry Bonds surpasses Hank Aaron. Barry Bonds, left fielder for the San Francisco Giants, surpassed Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader in Major League Baseball  history with his 756th career home run off Mike Bacsik of the Washington Nationals in the fifth inning of their game August 7 at AT&T Park in San Francisco, California. The 3–2 pitch with one out and nobody on base was hit at 8:51 PM US PDT and according to hittrackeronline.com was estimated to have gone 422 feet. However, the Nationals came back and won the game, 8–6. Through his final home game (and last game of the season), on September 26, Bonds has hit 762 home runs. The baseball that was hit for the record was caught by Mets  fan Matt Murphy, who put the ball up for auction online. The winning bidder was fashion designer Marc Ecko, who purchased the baseball for $752,467 (US) and let fans decide what to do with it in an internet poll. Options included donating the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame as-is, donating it marked with an asterisk (reflecting the widely held belief that Bonds used performance-enhancing drugs to break the record), or sending the baseball into space. The vote decided that an asterisk would be added, and the ball donated to Cooperstown. In an interview that aired  on MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on November 1 and 2, Bonds stated to interviewer Jim Gray that if the ball were to be put on display with the asterisk, he would boycott his own Hall of Fame induction if he were elected. Other accomplishments. No-hitters. Three no-hitters were pitched during the 2007 regular season. This is the most in a single season since the three pitched in 2001. All three no-hitters in 2007 were in the American League, which is the most in a single league since the record-tying 1991 season when the two  leagues combined for seven no-hitters (4 AL, 3 NL). All-Star game. On July 10, 2007, at AT&T Park in San Francisco, the American League defeated the National League by a score of 5–4. The victory was the tenth consecutive (excluding the 2002 tie) for the AL, and their eleven-game unbeaten streak matches only the NL's streak from 1972 to 1982 in All-Star history. Ceremonial games. Jackie Robinson. On April 15, Major League Baseball celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the debut of Jackie Robinson at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, breaking the color barrier. Cincinnati Reds outfielder  Ken Griffey Jr. asked Robinson's widow, Rachel, and commissioner Bud Selig for permission to wear Robinson's number 42 in honor of him. He was granted permission, and Selig later said that any player who wanted to wear number 42 on his jersey could. The jersey was worn without the players' name on the back, as was the case when Robinson played with the Brooklyn Dodgers. All jerseys that were worn were auctioned off with all the proceeds donated to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, an organization which awards scholarships to African-American high school graduates to further themselves in  colleges academically. The Dodgers, Cardinals, and Brewers elected to have the entire team wear number 42 in his honor. The Pittsburgh Pirates, Phillies, and Astros were also scheduled to share that honor, but their games were postponed due to rain. The Phillies and Astros honored Robinson on April 23 when they made up their postponed game as originally planned, while the Pirates waited until April 27 to honor Robinson by wearing #42 as a team against the Reds. Larry Doby. On August 10, the Cleveland Indians paid tribute to Larry Doby, the first African-American to play in the American  League at Jacobs Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Every player on the Indians wore number 14, the number Doby wore during his career with the Indians. Farewells. The Nationals played their final game at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium on September 23, beating the Phillies 5–3. The team's new home, Nationals Park, formally opened on March 30, 2008. The Tampa Bay franchise played its last season as the Devil Rays. In 2008, the name was shortened to Tampa Bay Rays. Josh Hancock. Josh Hancock, a relief pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, died on April 29 in a car accident outside  St. Louis, Missouri. The 29-year-old pitcher was killed within a couple of minutes after impact when the SUV he was driving crashed into a towing vehicle on Interstate 64. This marks the second time in five years that a Cardinals pitcher lost his life before a game, the other being Darryl Kile, who died suddenly on June 22, 2002. The team postponed their game scheduled for later that day against the Chicago Cubs to pay respect to Hancock. A police report revealed that Hancock was intoxicated at the time of his fatal accident with a blood-alcohol level  of 0.157, nearly double the legal limit in Missouri. Police also found 8.55 grams of marijuana along with a glass smoking pipe in his vehicle, although toxicology tests later proved no drugs were in his system except alcohol. In addition, Hancock was talking on a cell phone when the accident occurred and was not wearing a seatbelt. An accident reconstruction team determined that Hancock was driving 68 mph in a 55 mph zone.