1959 Major League Baseball postseason

The 1959 Major League Baseball season resulted in a tie for the National League pennant between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Braves. Both finished the regular season with identical 86-68 records.

The tie thus required a three-game playoff to be held between the two teams. This series was played from September 28-29, 1959 at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles and Milwaukee County Stadium in Milwaukee. The Dodgers swept the Braves and advanced to the 1959 World Series, where they defeated the American League champion Chicago White Sox in six games.

Los Angeles won the series, 2–0.

The Dodgers swept the Braves to advance to the World Series for the seventh time in thirteen years.

Larry Sherry pitched seven solid innings in relief as the Dodgers took Game 1 on the road. Game 2 was a long extra-inning grind that was won by the Dodgers as Carl Furillo hit a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the twelfth to secure the pennant for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers would compete for the pennant in a best-of-three tiebreaker series again in 1962, but they narrowly lost to their archrival in the San Francisco Giants. They would win the pennant again in 1963 by six games in the NL standings en route to a World Series title.

This was the last time the Braves ever contested for the pennant during their time in Milwaukee, as the team would move to Atlanta in 1966. The Braves would make the inaugural NLCS in 1969 but were swept by the eventual World Series champion New York Mets. The Braves would eventually win the pennant again in 1991 over the Pittsburgh Pirates in seven games before falling in the World Series.

Los Angeles won the series, 4–2.

The Dodgers defeated the White Sox to win their second championship in four years.

In Game 1, Early Wynn pitched seven innings of shutout ball, and the White Sox offense chased Roger Craig from the mound in a blowout win. In Game 2, Charlie Neal carried the Dodgers to victory with two home runs, evening the series headed to Los Angeles. In the first World Series game ever played on the West Coast, in front of over 92,000 fans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Don Drysdale pitched seven strong innings and Larry Sherry earned his second save as the Dodgers took Game 3. In Game 4, after the White Sox tied the game in the top of the seventh off a three-run homer from Sherm Lollar, Gil Hodges hit a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth to put the Dodgers back in the lead for good, and Sherry earned a win in relief to give the Dodgers a commanding 3–1 series lead. However, the White Sox would not go quietly. In Game 5, in front of a record-breaking crowd at the Coliseum, three pitchers - Bob Shaw, Billy Pierce, and Dick Donovan - combined for a shutout as the White Sox won 1-0 to send the series back to Chicago for a sixth game. Game 5’s attendance of 92,706 remains the largest in World Series history. In Game 6, everything went wrong for the White Sox as the Dodger offense returned the favor and chased Wynn from the mound in a blowout win to clinch the championship, with Sherry winning his second game in relief. Game 6 was the last World Series game ever played at Comiskey Park.

As of 2026, this is the last time the White Sox lost in the World Series. After the loss to the Dodgers, the White Sox fell into a slump, only making the postseason seven times over the next seven decades. However, the team would return to the World Series in 2005, and swept the Houston Astros to end an 88-year championship drought and the Curse of the Black Sox.

The victory over the White Sox marked the beginning of a new prosperous era of Dodger baseball in Los Angeles. The Dodgers would go on to win their next championship in 1963 in a sweep over their American League rival in the New York Yankees. They would then win six more championships afterwards.

• League Baseball Standings & Expanded Standings - 1959