Last Tuesday, the Yankees came back from a 10-1 deficit in the third to beat the Rangers, 14-13, on a walk-off, two-run Jorge Posada homer with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. It was the fourth time in Yankee history that they had come back from a nine-run deficit to win a ballgame.

That made me wonder what was the greatest comeback in baseball history, or at least in recorded baseball history. I started by loading Retrosheet's game log data. It took some time to dissect the data, but I found out a couple of things. The greatest comeback of all time was from a 12-run deficit. And that was done twice. On June 15, 1925, the A's came back from twelve runs down to the Indians in the sixth and seventh innings to score 13 in the bottom of the eighth and win 17-15. On August 5, 2001, the Indians, avenged that loss 76 years earlier, by coming back from twelve down to the M's in the third to seventh innings, tying the game in the bottom of the ninth, and then winning 15-14 in the eleventh inning.

Here are all of the recorded comebacks from nine or more runs. You may note that games appear multiple times, that is, if the lead changes but still meets the nine-run cutoff: