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Going into the post-season, one thing is certain: a new champ will be crowned this year. After two straight years of Jacksonville Wolf Pack (SJL)- Los Angeles Spinners (MGL) World Series match-ups, neither team returns to the post-season in 1967. In the SJL, the Washington Night Train manage to bounce back at the end of the season (after going through a horrible stretch towards the end of September) and on the last day of the season their nearest rivals, the Philadelphia Mud Hens, suffer a heartbreaking 3-2 loss at the hands of the Columbus Whalers and the Night Train avoid having to settle a tie-breaker with Philly and take the SJL by a single game. The reigning two-time WPK champs, Jacksonville, finish in 3rd, 2 games off the pace. With the level of young talent on that club, everybody expects they will likely get back to the Fall Classic sometime in the next few years again, though.
In the MGL, the Portland Wild Things cruised to the title, finishing the season with 98 wins, 7 games ahead of their nearest competitors, the Oklahoma City Diamond Kings. The L.A. Spinners dropped to a 3rd place tie with Phoenix, a distant 11 games out of the lead.
So, the 1967 WPK World Series sees a matchup of the Washington Night Train versus the Portland Wild Things. It should be fun, especially with some new blood in the championship series.
On a less happy note, the miserable El Paso Dawgs finished the season with 117 losses, by far the worst team in the SJL. The MGL saw one team finish over the century mark in losses, the perennial also-ran Detroit Falcons, who, by comparison to El Paso, lost a very modest 104 games.
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