September 2008 - Posts
It’s a dump, but it was my dump.
As I sat at Shea Stadium for the final time Friday night, that line kept flooding my head. I had thought of it in 1999 as I watched thousands come to decrepit Candlestick Park in its last year as the Giants’ home.
Shea Stadium was where my dad took me to my first game in 1964. It was where I came of age, allowed to take the train to games with friends in the early 1970s, enjoying an early teen’s first taste of freedom. And it was where I had a chance to fulfill a dream, spending four years broadcasting for your childhood team.
What struck me most Friday was the negativity. Florida scored two runs in the first inning and the rest of the night was mired in a cloud of gloom.
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The hype has started. Sports Illustrated came in the mail earlier this week and Wrigley Field was on the cover with a wonderful quote on what would be the Windy City reaction if the Cubs were to win the World Series.
Baseball could be headed into a big-market October. In addition to the Cubs, both Los Angeles teams are in the playoffs as are the Red Sox. And it could end up that the postseason would also include the other Chicago team – the White Sox – as well as the Phillies and Mets.
But no story will equal that of the Cubs. Starting next week they will replace Michael Phelps as America’s prime-time mini-series. Be it on TBS or Fox, the Cubs’ quest for their Grail (to win their first World Series in 100 years) will play out not only on baseball diamonds but in America’s living rooms.
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How good is Phillies’ closer Brad Lidge? So good that Philadelphia hasn’t lost a game that it has led after eight innings (75-0) all season. In contrast, the Mets have lost 12 games in which they were ahead or tied after eight innings (including games that went into extra innings like last night’s 10-inning affair with the Cubs).
The difference is staggering and no doubt the major difference in the National League East race is Lidge. He is 40-for-40 in save opportunities this season with 89 strikeouts in 67 innings. His only blemish is 34 walks, leading to a higher-than-expected 1.2 WHIP. But it hasn’t stopped him from getting the final out.
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This will be the first October in 14 years without baseball at Yankee Stadium. But that didn’t stop an emotional celebration Sunday night as the final game on baseball’s most hallowed field (surrounded by its second structure -- the NEW Yankee Stadium opened in 1977) was played.
The game was irrelevant but thoughts crashed my hard drive watching an elongated postgame scene unfold:
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Watching the highlights of Milwaukee’s meltdown loss at Wrigley Field Thursday brought back memories 15 years old. And I know that Dusty Baker, Will Clark, Robby Thompson, Dave Righetti and dozens more players and staff of the Giants as well as many San Francisco fans had a collective flashback to the final day of the 1993 season as they got word that the Cubs – down by four in the ninth and down to their last out – rallied to tie the Brewers (Chicago eventually won in 12 innings).
But back to that fateful day in 1993. With no viable options, a fault squarely caused by management, Baker, then the Giants’ skipper, gave the ball to 21-year-old Salomon Torres for the do-or-die game at Dodger Stadium. The Giants had 103 wins but knew they needed one more to force a playoff with Atlanta. It was baseball’s last great race -- winner-take-all -- before the introduction of the wild card.
Torres was the organization’s great hope, an arm of such promise that the Giants refused to trade him for Dennis Martinez in July, a poor decision that may well have cost them a postseason berth.
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After 24 hours to absorb the news, I haven’t changed my view of l’affaire Brewers. It was the owner’s move to fire manager Ned Yost.
Doug Melvin’s comments, particularly those where he admitted culpability for the unstable bullpen and the admission that he was not sure this was the answer, all but pointed the finger at Mark Attanasio.
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The New York Post back page Friday trumpeted the “Sweet 17” games remaining for the Mets. With a full-page picture of Johan Santana, the story proclaimed no repeat of the 2007 collapse for this year’s team.
Then over the weekend the Mets lost two of three to the Braves, with the bullpen blowing leads in both defeats. Santana left with a lead in the eighth Saturday in the first game of a day-night doubleheader and received a no-decision for the seventh time after the Mets lost, 3-2. He’d be the National League Cy Young front-runner with any sort of reliable relief from his teammates this season.
On Sunday the Mets’ bullpen crashed and burned – yet again. With closer Billy Wagner lost for the remainder of the season and likely all of next season, Luis Ayala, the man most trusted by Mets manager Jerry Manuel to fill Wagner’s role, coughed up a three-run homer to Greg Norton, part of five-run ninth inning that rallied the Braves to a 7-4 win.
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Reflections from watching the pennant races Tuesday night:
If Tampa Bay can hang on in the AL East over the final two and a half weeks of the regular season the Rays will look back at last night’s win over the Red Sox as their defining moment.
There were so many subplots:
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I don’t know Billy Wagner. He arrived to pitch for the Mets as I was leaving after four years as a broadcaster for the team. But we have -- albeit in different roles -- been around many of the same people.
I admire the hell out of Wagner. And that admiration is not just tied to the way he gave the Mets everything his left arm had in it before tearing a medial collateral ligament and having his season and perhaps his career end in sad fashion.
Several times in recent weeks, Wagner has thoroughly dismissed any link of the Mets’ improved play to the firing of Willie Randolph. Others have freely taken aim at Randolph. Most notable is Tony Bernazard, a former player turned union lackey turned assistant general manager of the Mets. Bernazard was never in Randolph’s corner and rarely missed a chance to let anyone within earshot know that. For reasons known only to Omar Minaya, the Mets general manager never stopped Bernazard’s whisper campaign.
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What should be a comfortable time for the Cubs as they come down the stretch to the playoffs became uneasy with Friday’s report of Carlos Zambrano’s rotator cuff tendonitis.
The ace of the Chicago staff has thrown more innings than all but four pitchers in the last five years so some sign of wear on his arm should not surprise. But the timing is obviously awful for the team. The Cubs have proven themselves the class of the National League – with a strong chance to end their World Series drought and the only NL team that can be seriously regarded as a threat to win the Fall Classic.
But that is with a healthy Zambrano anchoring a starting trio which also includes Ryan Dempster and Rich Harden. Now, Z doesn’t pitch until next weekend at the earliest. The Cubs can’t count on more than three regular season starts from their ace. At the same time, Harden has “discomfort” and skips two starts, notable news from a pitcher who has never thrown 150 innings in a season.
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Here’s the important numbers concerning the Mets and the much-maligned struggles of their bullpen. New York went 6-2 on its eight-game road trip that concluded today with a 9-2 three-game sweep of the Brewers.
For the Mets it was a road trip that could have allowed the Phillies to leap them in the National League East standings. And the Mets -- without injured closer Billy Wagner -- with their win today have posted a 17-5 stretch since Wagner went down.
No doubt the Mets are piecing together enough quality relief help from a quantity of arms to compensate for the loss of Wagner. But there’s little doubt that the Mets won’t win the World Series going forward in this manner. For now, they have survived. And it says here the reason is offense, namely Carlos Delgado, who has been on a terrific post All-Star break tear. He’s produced a ton of clutch hits in this crucial stretch for the Mets.
Regular readers to this blog know how much I value closers as well as the significant impact I place on the emotional devastation of blown leads.
There have been enough of those blown leads in the Mets’ season to sink most teams but this group of Amazin’s -- especially since Jerry Manuel became manager -- has displayed a resiliency that last year’s Mets lacked.
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