OUT OF THIS WORLD

So here we are again, huddled against that brisk wind blowing toward the end of the century, curled up with its most enduring novel.

So here we sit, settling in for the most comforting week of the sports year, each day another page of another chapter of one of the last truly American treasures.

We may be distracted in the spring, bored in the summer, increasingly weary of the characters and their motives with the approach of fall.

But when the book is brought before us each October, we carefully pick it up. We call in the children. We leaf through pages that, even after all these years, remain unmatched in their capacity to surprise and delight.

They have played 94 World Series, and not all of them have been memorable. But the next one could be. The next pitch, the next hit, the next leaping-into-the-bullpen catch.

You never know, so you keep reading, a new twist with every turn, sometimes slow, sometimes difficult, but always impossible to put down.

The NBA finals are about action heroes. The Super Bowl is about TV stars. The Stanley Cup is about farm boys.

Draped in a jacket of red and white, the World Series is about storytellers. It is about men who move across your screen, baring not only forearms but expressions, emotions, themselves. Unlike other championships, the World Series is never about one big play, but about a series of little ones. They may lead to a big play, may lead to another day, may lead nowhere at all.

This is why so many of us keep picking the book up. Even after all these years, there is promise in every page.

The 10 best World Series, then, are also the 10 best stories.

Included here, perhaps not coincidentally, is at least one from each of the last nine decades except the 1960s. The book remains as timeless as its sport.

Not included here, intentionally, are those World Series with only one memorable chapter. Kirk Gibson in 1988? One chapter. Bill Mazeroski in 1960? A splendid final chapter, but one chapter nonetheless. You will not agree with some of these selections, maybe any of them, to which I say, thank goodness.

The moment everyone looks at a treasure the same way is the moment the brilliant becomes the ordinary.

The top 10, in reverse order:

10. The 1932 New York Yankees defeat the Chicago Cubs, four games to none.

This is the story of the trash. The players talked it, the fans threw it, and, you may remember, a certain slugger gestured through it.

The Yankees were angry at the Cubs for giving former teammate Mark Koenig a reduced World Series share. So Babe Ruth planted himself next to the runway when the Cubs emerged for the first Series workout and began shouting at them.

Ruth shouted, “Hey Mark, who are those cheapskates you’re with?”

The Cubs, noting Ruth’s dark features, responded with a racial epithet.

After winning the first two games in Yankee Stadium, the Yankees were pelted with lemons on their arrival in Chicago. A woman even spit on Ruth and his wife as they made their first visit to Wrigley Field.

Said Ruth, “I’d play for half my salary if I could hit in this dump all the time.”

Responded Cub trainer Andy Lotshaw, “If I had you, I’d hitch you to a wagon, you potbelly.”

Said Ruth, “I didn’t mind the ballplayers yelling at me, but the trainer?”

In the fifth inning of Game 3, one of the Cubs’ bench jockeys called Ruth “a tramp” while lemons bounced around his feet.

Ruth angrily pointed at the crowd, then hit the next pitch off Charlie Root into the center field for a home run that led to a Series sweep.

A called shot? So goes the legend, but that legend was mostly written the next spring, and the disarmingly honest Ruth never once claimed that he called anything, answering all questions with, “That’s what the newspapers say, so it must be true.”

9. The 1986 New York Mets defeat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3.

The is the story of the grounder. Bill Buckner booted it, an unfocused manager helped cause it, and all of New England still mourns it.

This would be another of those one-chapter Series, except this chapter is still being dissected like the Kennedy assassination, with answers that are still not clear.

Cutting to the awful chase, the Red Sox were one strike from their first World Series championship in 68 years. The foil wrappers had been pulled back on the champagne in the clubhouse. The Series MVP award had already been given to Boston pitcher Bruce Hurst. The congratulatory message had already been programmed for the Shea Stadium scoreboard.

Then, with two out in the bottom of the 10th of Game 6, reliever Bob Stanley threw a wild pitch that allowed the Mets to tie the score, and Buckner misplayed a grounder that allowed them to win the game, 6-5.

It was the first and only time the Series championship has escaped a team that dramatically.

The Red Sox victory was such a foregone conclusion, Kevin Mitchell was in the Mets’ clubhouse, naked, making plane reservations for his trip home, when he was summoned to pinch-hit. Across from him, Keith Hernandez was half naked and drinking beer.

The next game, an anticlimactic 8-5 win by the Mets that gave them the Series championship, did nothing to make people forget the two most sorry facts of Game 6.

Neither Buckner nor Stanley should have even been in the game.

Boston Manager John McNamara inexplicably removed Roger Clemens after seven innings with the Red Sox leading 3-2, even though Clemens--and witnesses-- claims he’d said his blisters were fine.

McNamara, for the first time in postseason play, also did not bring in Dave Stapleton as a defensive replacement for Buckner in the bottom of the last inning.

Why? McNamara has never given a reasonable explanation, and probably never will.

Even though it was only Game 6, Buckner played the part of the ultimate goat, and always will.

8. The 1926 St. Louis Cardinals defeat the New York Yankees, 4-3.

This is the story of the mist. Grover Cleveland Alexander stepped through it, acted drunk in it, but threw strikes in it, and will be forever remembered for it.

It was the first Series appearance for any St. Louis team, which so excited the locals, they held a parade for their heroes between Games 2 and 3, the first and only in-Series parade in history.

The Cardinals, down 3-2 in games, fought back to win Game 6 with nine strong innings from Alexander, their ace.

Afterward, the weary Alexander was ordered to be in the bullpen for Game 7.

“Only if I don’t have to warm up,” he said.

What happened next is still being debated. Some thought Alexander, an alcoholic, celebrated his win with an all-night bender. Others thought maybe he was up all night after suffering an epileptic seizure.

Whatever, in the drizzle and fog of Game 7, in the seventh inning with bases loaded and two out and the Cardinals leading by one run, Alexander was summoned from the bullpen.

And it seemed he could barely walk.

He shuffled through the mist to the mound. In a scene so compelling they even made a movie about it, Alexander struck out Tony Lazzeri to escape the inning, then retired five consecutive Yankees until walking Ruth with two out in the ninth.

Providing a fitting end, Ruth unbelievably tried to steal second, was thrown out, and the Cardinals were champions.

Drunk or not, Alexander cherished the moment forever, as he ordered written on his Cooperstown plaque: “Won the ’26 World Championship for the Cardinals by striking out Lazzeri with the bases loaded in final crisis at Yankee Stadium.”

7. The 1924 Washington Senators defeat the New York Giants, 4-3.

This the story of the pebble. A ball hit it, a kid third baseman didn’t see it, the championship was won by it.

The kid was Giant Fred Lindstrom, 18. Because of injuries, he started at third base. He is still the youngest player in Series history.

His awakening came in Game 7, bottom of the eighth, Giants leading, 3-1. Bucky Harris hit a grounder that hit a pebble and bounced over Lindstrom’s head to tie the score.

It got stranger in the 12th, when the Senators’ Muddy Ruel hit a foul pop that should have been caught by catcher Hank Gowdy. But he stepped in his mask and couldn’t get his foot loose and missed the ball.

Ruel, given new life, doubled. Walter Johnson reached base on an error. Then Earl McNeeley hit a grounder to third, which bounced off . . .

Yep. You guessed it. A pebble. The ball bounced over Lindstrom’s head again and the Senators were champions.

The kid was so disconsolate, he drank too quickly on the trip back to New York, and a teammate carried him off the train over his shoulder.

Years later, Lindstrom was still thinking about that second hit. Still dreading the thought that, “Maybe it was the same pebble.”

6. The 1955 Dodgers defeat the New York Yankees, 4-3.

This is the story of the catch. An average player made it, his career was immortalized by it, a franchise was redeemed by it.

After going 0-5 against the Yankees and 0-7 in all World Series, after working this one to Game 7, the Dodgers finally just grabbed it.

Johnny Podres, grabbed his teammates’ confidence by correctly predicting he would throw a shutout.

And Sandy Amoros grabbed Yogi Berra’s drive in the left-field corner with the tying runs on base in the sixth, turning it into a double play to help preserve a 2-0 win and title.

A great catch, but impossible without two things.

Manager Walter Alston had the foresight to put Amoros in the game in the sixth inning as a defensive replacement.

Amoros had the good fortune to be left-handed, meaning he wore his glove on his right hand. If that glove had been on the other hand, he’d never have made the catch.

5. The 1972 Oakland Athletics defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3.

This is the story of the threats. The A’s made them to each other, an anonymous stalker made one to a player, and the Reds ignored the one being made to their dynasty.

When you consider that six of the games were decided by one run, this Series could stand on its own box score. But it was better in real life.

There was Gene Tenace, a backup catcher earlier in the year, hitting homers in his first two Series at-bats, then playing so well there was a threat made against his life.

Yet the A’s, under advice from Tenace’s father, didn’t tell him until Manager Dick Williams removed him for a pinch-runner in Game 7.

“Why am I coming out?” an angry Tenace shouted to his manager.

“Because somebody wants to kill you,” Williams shouted back.

“Oh,” Tenace said.

Then there was Mike Epstein, the A’s first basemen who was replaced by Mike Hegan for defensive purposes late in Game 2.

Even though Hegan combined with Joe Rudi to make two great defensive plays in the ninth inning to save the game, Epstein later threatened to slug Williams if he ever pulled him out of a game again.

Then, of course, there was the Reds’ Johnny Bench striking out on a fake intentional walk in Game 3. The mustachioed, fighting A’s won Game 7 after Williams had gone to the mound 16 times. Afterward their team bus was delayed because Williams’ teenage son, Rick, had sneaked too much champagne and was throwing up on the front wheels.

4. The 1947 New York Yankees defeat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3.

This is the story of Lavagetto, Gionfriddo and Bevens. Three mortals who had immortal moments and never wore major league uniforms again.

First, Bill Bevens. In Game 4, he walked 10 Dodger hitters in what is still a Series record. But at the same time, he was throwing a no-hitter with two men on base and two out in the ninth.

Second, Cookie Lavagetto. Pinch-hitting, he knocked Bevens’ second pitch off the right-field wall, driving in two runs and giving the Dodgers the victory.

Finally, Al Gionfriddo. In the sixth inning of Game 6, Joe DiMaggio hit what looked like a three-run, game-tying homer to left field, but Gionfriddo made a running, twisting catch at the bullpen fence for the out.

DiMaggio, in one of his only public displays of emotion, kicked at the basepath.

The Yankees easily won Game 7, and the Series for Dodger fans was best summed up in announcer Red Barber’s closing line after watching Lavagetto beat Bevens,

“Well I’ll be a suck-egg mule!”

3. The 1991 Minnesota Twins beat the Atlanta Braves, 4-3.

This is the story of the homer hanky and the tomahawk. Two silly souvenirs for two wide-eyed towns that combined for the most unlikely great World Series in history.

Both the Twins and Braves had finished in last place the season before, so it figured this thing would be a little crazy.

But who would have thought they would play five one-run games, each decided in the winning team’s final at-bat?

In Game 2, the Braves lost when they were deprived of a potential run after first baseman Kent Hrbek lifted Ron Gant off the base and tagged him.

“We were waiting for the body slam,” the Braves’ Jeff Treadway said.

In Game 4, the winning run was scored in the bottom of the ninth on a hit by Jerry Willard, a Brave backup with 23 at-bats in the last five years.

In Game 6, the Twins won on an 11th-inning homer by Kirby Puckett.

In Game 7, the Braves lost a championship when Lonnie Smith got lost on the bases in the seventh, and the Twins won with 10 shutout innings by Jack Morris and an RBI single by some guy in the bottom of the 10th.

His name? Uh, Gene Larkin. Had only 61 RBIs the rest of his major league career.

2. The 1912 Boston Red Sox defeat the New York Giants, 4-3, with one tie.

The is the story of chaos. It surrounded the players and stadiums and the Series, but ended up transforming an average matchup into a great one.

The second game was called after 11 innings because of darkness, with the teams tied, 6-6, the only official tie in World Series history.

Before the third game, after traveling to New York, the Boston players were pelted with rocks.

That game also ended in darkness, with Josh Devore apparently catching a ball in center field to save the Giants’ 2-1 win, although the umpires only agreed upon it later.

With the Red Sox leading in games, 3-2, the Series returned to Boston, where it nearly ended early after fans, led by their marching band, stormed the field at brand new Fenway Park in protest of a ticket snafu.

By the time police shooed them away, they had torn down the center-field fence. The shaken Red Sox grew cold during the delay to rebuild the fence, and were beaten. That led to the deciding game, which the Red Sox finally won, but only after Fred Snodgrass had dropped a routine fly ball in center field in the 10th inning with the Giants leading by a run.

Just another typical Game 8.

1. The 1975 Cincinnati Reds defeat the Boston Red Sox, 4-3.

This is the story of the waving arms, by Carlton Fisk, by umpire Larry Barnett, by fans everywhere who were persuaded by this spectacle to return to a game they had largely forsaken.

This Series is the best, not only for what happened while it was being played, but for what happened afterward. These were the games that sold TV executives on the sport’s drama, and city officials on the sport’s impact, and young athletes on the sport’s future.

Everyone remembers Fisk waving his home run into fair territory in the bottom of the 12th in Game 6. But this Series was so much more.

It was five one-run games, including the final two.

It was Bernie Carbo setting up Fisk with a pinch three-run homer four innings earlier.

It was the Reds winning Game 3 when umpire Larry Barnett ruled that Ed Armbrister had not interfered with catcher Fisk on a 10th-inning bunt that led to a wild throw that led to the winning run.

Finally, it was Joe Morgan winning Game 7 with a ninth-inning, two-strike, bloop single that proved even the great ones always come down to fundamentals.

And the great ones never come without a cost. The losing pitcher in Game 7 was rookie pitcher Jim Burton.

Who retired after only one more big league game.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.