October 2007 - Posts
Every so often something happens to remind us how close pro sports are to becoming the hedonistic, narcissistic world of entertainment.
Which brings us to Alex Rodriguez deciding to opt out of the final three seasons of his contract with the Yankees. We expect nothing less from A-Rod's agent Scott Boras, but I submit that the player should be held accountable.
The decision to upstage the World Series by making the announcement during Game 4 and move the spotlight from the magnificent story of Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester to grotesque talk about hundreds of millions bound for one player whose next World Series game will be his first and who drove in one run in his last 13 postseason games, is a stain on A-Rod’s permanent legacy.
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Five things I’d like to see in this World Series:
A HIGH QUALITY SERIES OF AT LEAST SIX GAMES
It worries me that the World Series might be becoming similar to the NBA Finals. Can anyone remember the last good NBA Finals? I had to check on that -- a worrisome thought in itself for those in NBA commissioner David Stern’s neighborhood -- and was reminded that the Spurs and Pistons played a Game 7 two years ago. And that’s the only memorable NBA Finals in the last eight.
With a bloated field (16 teams) and a television-friendly structure, the NBA playoffs last two months. All but the hardcore fans lose interest, finding it too challenging to follow a story for that length of time. And the two survivors run a high risk of exhaustion by the time they arrive at the Finals.
So we come to baseball where only one of last year’s eight postseason teams is a repeat customer (that team is the Yankees, pointed out for those who blame Joe Torre for all ills in the Bronx). There hasn’t been a competitive World Series since Marlins-Yankees 2003 and the last Game 7 was Arizona’s win in 2001. I hope the Rockies and Red Sox can handle the schedule, weather, and late-night games to give us a Fall Classic to remember. I don’t want to ever equate the World Series with the NBA Finals.
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The stately New York Times, quite willing to critique postseason baseball telecasts, presented some puzzling offerings Wednesday. It was posited that Colorado’s eight-day layoff, unprecedented in length save for the 1989 earthquake-interrupted World Series, could harm its chances at winning the Fall Classic.
In 1991 Minnesota clinched the ALCS on a Sunday afternoon, and then waited until Atlanta clinched the NLCS on Thursday night. The World Series opened on Saturday night in Minnesota and, despite the nearly-six-day layoff, the Twins won the first two games, and went on to prevail in seven games.
Ratings for the NLCS were disappointing and raised the issue of start times. Should Major League Baseball have scheduled games earlier to appease East Coast viewers at the expense of West Coast viewers and fans?
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Jeff Francis made the point during the postgame celebration Monday night. Why not us? Why not the Rockies to win a short series and a championship?
He’s right.
Like many serious baseball “minds” I presumed the ALCS to be the real World Series. But I keep forgetting history. How many times have we seen that the regular-season marathon bears little resemblance to the short series of October.
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Dusty Baker is a terrific manager. Cincinnati, one of America’s great baseball towns, hit a grand slam with his hire. Cincinnati at its core is a fine place yet it has been stained on the national stage by accusations that its police department has practiced racial profiling leading to race riots in 2001. Now Cincinnati is the only U.S. city to employ an African-American as a head coach and a manager in our two major sports.
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Twenty years ago the Minnesota Twins stunned the baseball world by winning the World Series after an 85-win regular season. They won their division and went to the postseason as heavy underdogs. They stunned the Tigers in the ALCS and took down the Cards in seven games.
Their general manager, Andy MacPhail, was in his mid-30s and has frequently admitted that those Twins arrived before their time. They were rebuilt around a young nucleus that was designed to blossom a year or two later. But they hit a torrid streak of pitching and clutch hitting at the right time -- October -- and walked away as champions.
Sound familiar?
Yes, as the NLCS starts tonight, the first comparison might be to Colorado, but actually there are parallels to the Twins in both the Rockies and the Diamondbacks.
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So who are the Colorado Rockies?
And how have they compiled a 24-7 run since a loss on Sept. 1?
Their presence in a NLCS sends a fabulous message to baseball. This past month has been by far the best in the 15-year history of the Colorado franchise. The Rockies had never won more than 83 games in a season. They captured the wild card in the truncated 1995 season and lived off the “Blake Street Bombers” offense for their first six years after joining the National League in 1993.
Then they crashed. For years they searched for the “blueprint” to winning at altitude. The Galarraga-Walker-Bichette-Castilla bashers couldn’t hit on the road. The Hampton-Neagle-Kile approach of paying for top-flight pitching was a disaster. An ownership change created unrest and a need to unload salaries. Finally, largely out of necessity, the Rockies leaned on player development -- for pitchers as well as hitters. Mix in a large dose of patience and the payoff has arrived this fall.
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Truths that emerged from watching the Red Sox-Angels ALDS:
BOSTON IS REAL GOOD. It will take one tremendous effort to derail the Red Sox from another World Series title. They are loaded for the postseason, the stud lead starter in Josh Beckett, the veteran warrior in Curt Schilling, a deep bullpen anchored by the next super-closer in Jonathan Papelbon, terrific defense up the middle with Jason Varitek, Julio Lugo, and Coco Crisp and a balanced lineup that has David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez healthy. Pity those pitchers that don’t bring their “A” game to the ALCS for they may be mercilessly pounded.
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Josh Beckett made a huge statement to all in the postseason with his Game 1 shutout of the Angels. He is now the starting pitcher to be most feared in October. Obviously, the Angels have to get to Game 4 first, but if they do trailing 2-1, facing Beckett will be brutal.
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There is no blueprint for what the Mets endured over the last week of the season. Nor is there really one for the Padres, one strike away from the postseason and twice watching their beloved closer fail to lock up a playoff-clinching win.
I have some empathy and a touch of understanding for the Mets and Padres. In 1993, I broadcast the Giants, winners of 103 games but left out of the playoffs on the season’s final day. The clubhouse that day at Dodger Stadium is still the most somber I have ever seen. And the flight back to San Francisco was the numbest flight I have ever taken.
Most of those emotions likely flowed through Shea Stadium this weekend and through the executive offices of the Mets. It’s one thing to blow a sure title. But it’s a whole another universe to do it in New York in the same year when it looked like the Mets might eclipse the Yankees on the field for the first time since the late 1980s.
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The baseball weekend was riveting. It was hard to leave the television set to work a college football game Saturday night. And did the NFL play Sunday?
The images were jarring and compelling and they began on Friday night with the Mets booed off the field after another stunning that made them -- for the first time since 2005 -- a second-place team.
Milwaukee’s dream season ending at the hands of the Padres, who went to bed Friday night feeling like a slam dunk for the wild card.
The Cubs celebrating a division title and the Diamondbacks playing out the string as they clinched the NL’s best record.
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