Called Third Strike Is Rare Way to End World Series Sergio Romo got the Tigers' Miguel Cabrera on a called third strike to end Game 4 as the Giants won the World Series. When Miguel Cabrera stared at strike three from Sergio Romo in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 4 of the World Series, ending the Detroit Tigers" season, Twitter exploded with hundreds, possibly thousands, of people saying the same thing: "Beltran'd." With a better knowledge of history, they would have been saying: "Goslin'd." Striking out looking to end a postseason series has become synonymous with Carlos Beltran, whose knees buckled at a nasty bases-loaded curveball from St. Louis Cardinals reliever Adam Wainwright in Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. The pitch ended the game, and the series. The play was so devastating that the Mets, at that point the class of the National League, began to crumble, and Beltran, who had come to the team after a dominant postseason performance for the Houston Astros in 2004, became a punch line. Others have joined him since, with both the American League and the National League Championship Series in 2010 ending on called third strikes, to Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees and Ryan Howard of the Philadelphia Phillies. But to compare ending a league championship series to ending a World Series is a stretch, as the stage is so much greater when a ring is on the line. Faced with being the final out of a decisive World Series game, 18 batters have struck out, including Cabrera, perhaps the game's best active hitter. Fifteen of the 18 swung at the final pitch and one possibly did, leaving just two batters to end a Series without protecting the plate, a fundamental strategy drilled into players from the time they are children. The first strikeout to end a World Series came right away. In the inaugural World Series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston Americans in 1903, it came down to Pittsburgh's best player, Honus Wagner, at the end of Game 8, but he came up short. With game records at that point not recording whether a player swung or not, it is unclear if Wagner took a cut, but his performance in the series was bad enough that he refused to send a portrait of himself to a hall of fame that had been created for batting champions and wanted to honor his 1903 title. "I was a joke in that Boston-Pittsburgh Series," Wagner said in a letter to the hall. What does it profit a man to hammer along and make a few hits when they are not needed only to fall down when it comes to a pinch? I would be ashamed to have my picture up now. Cabrera will almost certainly not follow Wagner's lead when it comes to sending memorabilia to Cooperstown to commemorate his 2012 triple crown, the first in baseball in 45 years. After Wagner's Series-ending strikeout, no batter would do it again until 1925, when Goose Goslin, the Hall of Fame left fielder of the Washington Senators, failed to take his bat off his shoulder against the Pittsburgh Pirates, becoming the last player to end a World Series that way until Cabrera on Sunday night. In between those two, 15 batters went down swinging to end a World Series, a group that includes greats like Brooklyn's Gil Hodges (1949) and Jackie Robinson (1956) as well as lesser-known players like Colorado's Seth Smith (2007) and Tampa Bay's Eric Hinske (2008). The pitchers to nab that final strikeout have, in recent years, tended to be a team's star reliever. But the group includes great starting pitchers like Sandy Koufax (1965, against Minnesota) and Bob Gibson (1967, against Boston). The last starting pitcher to do so was the Los Angeles Dodgers" Orel Hershiser, who ended the 1988 World Series by striking out Tony Phillips of the Oakland Athletics to close out Game 5. In any case, Cabrera's status as one of the game's greatest hitters is not in danger. But given the long gap that followed Goslin's called third strike in 1925, it may be quite a few decades before another batter chooses to wait for a better pitch with his team one strike from elimination.