Two nights in a row I was a little late turning on the ballgame. Last night, I turned on the game in the bottom of the 1st and the Yanks were already down 2-0. They never managed to tie it up, and they lost the game and the series 3-2. Tonight I turned the Phillies game on in the Bottom of the 2nd and it was 1-0 Cards. I never saw a runner cross the plate. The Phils lost 1-0 and were eliminated.
So, my teams are out of it despite having the best regular seasons. I really don’t like the five game format. Let’s go back to 154-game seasons, have three seven game series, and we’ll still end things earlier than we do now.
It’s going to be kind of weird that the NLCS is a rematch of the 1982 Suds Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals. I have mixed feelings about that matchup. I still remember Albert Pujols and Tony LaRussa stumping for McCain and Palin. But I love the history of the Cardinals franchise and their fan base is awesome. And I have respect for Pujols and LaRussa despite their fondness for Caribou Barbie.
On the other hand, the Brewers are a true low budget team that has assembled a really good group of players. They won’t be able to keep all the parts, so this is their big chance. I’d probably like the Brewers more if they didn’t carry the stink of Bud Selig with them. Better uniforms would help, too. And I can’t get used to them as a National League team. Overall, I just can’t warm up to them. But it would be a nice story if they won it all.
As a Yankees fan, the Red Sox are the team I like to see win the least, but baseball wouldn’t be fun without the Red Sox. I love their fans, their stadium, their history, and the rivalry. The team I hate the most is the Texas Rangers, whose only redeeming quality is Nolan Ryan. Nolan Ryan was and remains awesome. Other than that, they are a putrid organization with a putrid history. If there’s any team in the American League I can support once the Yankees are defeated, it’s the Tigers. That’s who I’ll be pulling for to win the World Series.
I’d like to see a rematch of the 1968 and 2006 World Series, with Justin Verlander and Chris Carpenter on the mound for Game Seven.
As a Mets fan, I can only say: what is this post-season thing of which you speak?
Hah.
Bernie Madoff.
You have to love the 1968 Tigers. They had two guys on that team both named Mickey. Stanley and Lolich.
A Cards-Tigers rematch would be sweet, with Detroit taking it this time.
I agree with you re: Milwaukee – if any year is their chance to go to the show, it’s this year. Maybe they can humor us and to a throwback uniform day at home with the ball and glove logo from ’82.
Personally I’m not sorry that the 3 Northeast powerhouses you mentioned are eliminated. But WTF do I know–I only live in California and I watched the Dodgers, A’s & Padres suck wind, the Angels suffer from onsetting trade incompetence, and I was there in Phoenix when the Giants’ hopes went up in smoke. No Cali teams in the playoffs since 1999. Oh well.
But you’re a much bigger football fan than I’ll ever be. I have no idea who’s good in the NFL this year. How about them Eagles?
Well, the Angels seem to almost perpetually fall apart most years – with of course the exception of their 2002 World Series victory. I had a hard time believing my eyes as I watched that Series unfold.
This year they made a really stupid trade, sending Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera to Toronto for Vernon Wells. Napoli was immediately traded to Texas, where he proceeded to hit .320 and stomp the Angels regularly in their own division. Wells was a bust.
Learned this from the great Dodger/Angel blog 6-4-2: http://6-4-2.blogspot.com. Also a great resource for the continuing adventures of Frank McCourt vs Bud Selig in the Iran-Iraq War of MLB.
Thanks for the blog link. Got that one bookmarked now.
My all time favorite boneheaded Angels front office move still has to be the decision to let Nolan Ryan go after the 1979 season, when the Angels were basking in the glow of their first appearance in post-season play. The GM at the time contended that Ryan was easily replaceable (something about two 7-7 pitchers could do the same job as Ryan for less money). As we know, 1980 was an epic fail for the Angels, and Ryan was in post-season play that year with the Astros (if my somewhat foggy memory recalls correctly).
I used to work for Verlander’s dad.
Good, nice kid. Nice family. 100 mph fastball doesn’t hurt either. In the 2006 series, it was his first year in the majors and he got to pitch. It was a sight to behold. I will be pulling for the Tigers this year again.
Detroit could use a win (the team and the city). I was rooting for the Phils though. This year’s lineup will probably go down of one of the best teams that never made it to the Series. Certainly one of the best pitching staffs.
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Spend my teenage years in a St. Louis County suburb – Creve Coeur – so I’m definitely a Cards fan. I could still write up the line-up of an exciting team that won the Series in 1964. The early years the Cards played in Grand stadium, later they became part of the new riverfront when the Gateway Arch was build. Fond memories.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."And Bob Gibson. One of the absolute greatest, toughest players ever.
I saw the tail end of tonights Cardinals-Phillies game in a Walnut Street bar. I’m not much of a baseball fan, but out of hometown loyalty, I was (silently) rooting for the Cards. St. Louis is a great sports town, so I’m glad they won. Although, frankly, if the Phillies had won, I would have been happy with that too.
I have been smelling a comeback for Motor City since I played at the Detroit Jazz Festival last year. It’s all about up and down. What goes up, must come down, right? We all know that lick. But…what goes down must also come up again. The not often remembered corollary.
Ford: Making fine cars again.
GM: Their top end (Buick, Cadillac, Corvette etc.) is getting really competitive with the best from Europe and Japan.
Chrysler: Good initial quality ratings on several of their line after decades of total failure. And far and away the best auto ads on TV. They are so good that I leave the sound on and watch. Motown music, the “Detroit City is coming back” motif…great videography too.
And…article after article in the media about the Detroit renaissance, from the bottom up. Inner city farming, arts areas springing up in heretofore rundown neighborhoods…Brooklyn West, in short.
Watch.
The energy is there. It’ll affect the team, too.
Watch.
I’m gonna.
Like I keep on saying…America is alive and well. It just ain’t where the media mostly say it is.
Bet on it.
Detroit goes all the way.
Watch.
The Yankees?
Bloomberg’s team now.
And you know which side he’s on.
No wonder they came apart at the end.
Only Jeter, Posada and Rivera really stayed the course. The single saddest shot that I have seen on TV in years was Posada standing at the top of the dugout steps after the Tigers won. Everybody else was headed into the locker room, but Posada just stood there alone, looking out onto the field. He had been dissed by the owners and the media this year but he came back strong at the end using sheer will power and pride to do it. A good man in a nasty, money-grubbing scene. I wish him well. He wasn’t necessarily the most talented or the strongest or the fastest, but he worked his butt off for 16 years.
He’s a real winner, in my book.
Jeter and Rivera too. Like Posada only with greater natural gifts.
The rest?
Gentrified like a motherfucker!!!
Bought and sold, Bloomberg style.
And Rodriguez?
Never liked the man.
Too much talent, not enough soul to back it up.
A Wall Street baseball player.
All bubble, no content.
All pout, no real clout. Not when it counts. It’s all about him.
Like I said…Wall Street in a nutshell. Wall Street in a baseball uniform.
Watch.
Detroit goes all the way.
Like the Saints after Katrina destroyed New Orleans.
Watch.
AG
Agreed on every particular.
Posada took his faded skills and played his best.
A-Rod did nothing and along with Teixeira cost the Yanks a chance to play in the Series.
Girardi should have changed his lineup so he didn’t get absolutely nothing from his 4 and 5 holes.
We lost Petiitte after last season, which was one of his best. Now we’ll lose Posada.
And Jeter and Rivera could never do it on their own.
Girardi is under the money gun just like the rest of us. He cannot not play Rodriguez or Texeira because they cost his bosses too much money. Too much money now and too much money in the future.
Texeira? A different case than A
ss-Rod. I don’t watch a lot of TV nor do I pay particular attention to the Yankees, but often when I am simply too tired to do anything else, it is too early to go to sleep and there is absolutely nothing else of interest on TV I channel surf in the hope that I might learn something. I often learn something from watching sports, The Yankees were on almost every night this summer and they are so “good” (read “so ‘expensive’ “) that societal lessons just jump from the Yankee screen.I played ball as a kid and grew up idolizing certain players…particularly Carl Furillo, the working class hero right fielder of the Brooklyn Dodgers who became a high story ironworker (!!!) after he retired from the major leagues…and I have always felt that athletics and music (particularly improvised music) are just the same acts performed in different uniforms.
I understand the game. The inner game.
It seemed to me that almost every time I tuned in Texeira, was doing something good at an important time…a hit, a great fielding play…with absolutely no fuss at all. Very Hideki Matsui-like. Just another day at the ballfield. Meanwhile, the A-Rod saga was Drama Queen City.
No wonder Derek Jeter can’t stand him.
Remember about seven years ago when Jeter went airborne into the stands to catch a foul ball during an important game w/the Red Sox and came out looking like he had gone a couple of rounds with Roberto Duran in his prime?
I do.
Can you imagine A-Rod even considering taking that kind of a chance?
Never in life.
And there it is.
The real shit versus the corporate shit.
Just as it’s always been.
Just as it’s always been.
Later…
AG
Derek Jeter missed winning the game and the series by less than an eighth of an inch. That’s all it would have taken to turn his warning track fly ball into a series winning two-run homer. He’s the best player I’ve ever seen, including Don Mattingly. I guess, technically, I saw Hank Aaron have a few at-bats as a young kid, but he was way past his prime.
Paul Molitor was a better hitter and Rickey Henderson was more dangerous, but Jeter was the best player.
A-Rod? God-given talent. But no heart.
In the eighth and ninth innings, I expected Jeter to succeed and his almost did. I had zero expectation that A-Rod would succeed, and he struck out.
Paul O’Neill proved it’s not about talent but desire. The team hasn’t been the same since he retired.
I saw Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Roberto Clemente.
Live and on TV , too.
I was very young, but I remember.
The best of the best? On sheer talent?
Willie Mays. No doubt.
The fiercest?
Jackie Robinson.
The easiest and most elegant?
Roberto Clemente. (What a gift!!!)
The most workman-like?
Stan Musial. (A lot like Jeter, really.)
The tragic hero?
Mantle by a country mile.
Like dat.
Jeter’s right up there wid ’em all.
Bet on it.
AG
P.S. Raiders owner Al “Just Win, Baby” Davis has passed away at the age of 82.
That deserves it’s own rant.
Since the Phillies are out. And Texas better not make it to the series…
BooMan, if you’ve got mixed feelings about the Cards because of Pujols’ and LaRussa’s politics, then Nolan Ryan’s politics should give you similar pause about the Rangers.
(With my socialistic, share-the-wealth tendencies, I think I’ll be rooting for the Brewers and the Tigers.)
I know Nolan is a Texas conservative guy. He’s also Nolan Fucking Ryan. I don’t question the man.
I luv the St Louis Cardinals, Albert Pujols, TLR, Barack Obama, and the Democratic Party. While Pujols and TLR both appeared at Glenn Beck’s rally on the National Mall, neither stumped for McCain. Both said they went to the McCain rally not to make political statements but to receive awards for their work in the community. I won’t attempt to justify appearing with Beck, but it is not the same as campaigning for McCain/Palin. I don’t know a lot about or Pujols or TLR’s politics because, frankly, they never talks about politics. I do know that Pujols really enjoyed meeting POTUS at the all star game in St Louis in 2009.
The Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt–big GWB fundraiser. But if he doesn’t resign Pujols, that will be his biggest sin.
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.aolnews.com/media/2009/07/albert-pujols-barack-obama-hug-150.jpg