Phillies won’t burst Rays’ improbable bubble
Posted: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:15 PM
The call here is Tampa Bay to become world champions in a series that is more likely to be long than short.
Pressure? Don’t you think that Tampa Bay has already conquered that with its September series in Fenway Park? And isn’t it the Rays who outlasted the two Goliaths of their division not to mention the sport – the Red Sox and Yankees -- over 162 games and then knocked the Big Choke off their heads in Game 7 of ALCS?
After achieving all this, shouldn’t the Rays play the World Series with house money?
Then there is a team having mojo, something the Rays do. It’s a theory that has life for those who remember the 1969 Mets and how improbable their World Series win over the Orioles -- the Goliath of that era -- seemed.
Tampa Bay flirted with a disastrous end to its surreal year but then spit out instead of swallowing the bad taste that was coming on.
There is also the dome vibe -- a theory that has life for those who lived through the Minnesota glory years and saw how indoor baseball with a raucous crowd can so thoroughly change the game.
There is also the American League factor. The junior circuit is so thoroughly superior to the senior one that the Cubs seemed to be the only NL team poised to compete in the postseason and look what happened to them. Tampa Bay is talented enough that it had the second-best regular season record in the better league.
You can try to dissect this World Series in baseball speak reasoning that the Phillies have a deeper bullpen (although I maintain that their closer Brad Lidge has flirted with disaster since just before the end of the regular season), that the Phillies were the NL’s best road team, that the Phillies have the best postseason starter of 2008 in Cole Hamels and that the Phillies should be DH-proof with Pat Burrell, Greg Dobbs, Geoff Jenkins and Matt Stairs.
Supporters of Tampa Bay can counter with the emergence of Matt Garza and David Price in the ALCS, the Rays’ home record (best in MLB) and their insulation against the NL rules for Games 3,4,5 (Tampa Bay relies less than most AL teams do on the DH).
But for me all the reasoning aside, it comes back to great individual stories, mojo and destiny. Tampa Bay had its chance to implode in Game 7 of the ALCS and it didn’t. It’s hard to believe that after winning that battle, the Rays will lose this one.
FIVE MORE SWINGS:
1. SO JOSE CANSECO IS SORRY…and his life is in shambles. It’s hard for me – after being around Canseco regularly in his early Oakland years and witnessing his utter arrogance both for people and the game -- to summon any sympathy.
What’s worse -- what he wrote in his book “Juiced” seems to be correct. No one sued Canseco nor has any one challenged him with factual evidence. That’s the most painful part of baseball’s BALCO era -- Canseco appears a truth-teller.
2. THE ONLY RELEVANCE OF CANSECO’S TALE…this week was his quote to the N.Y. Daily News that, “Steroids and the use of steroids destroyed my life completely.” Save that quote to use the next time some misguided soul wonders why the media focuses on performance enhancing drugs.
3. THE N.Y. TIMES GOT IT RIGHT…today with a long profile of Phillies president David Montgomery. For all the romance with the Tampa Bay story, Philadelphia’s construction to a World Series team can’t be overlooked. The infield, for example has three members -- Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins -- who are homegrown. Cole Hamels and Brett Myers are homegrown in the rotation. Shane Victorino is another product of the organization and the Phillies made the right call in letting Aaron Rowand walk to allow Victorino to patrol centerfield.
4. HOW FAST PITCHING CAN CRUMBLE…as just four years ago it was Oakland’sTim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito who were the game’s premier set of starters. St. Louis just cut ties with Mulder while San Francisco would love to get out of Zito’s massive deal and Hudson, the best of the three since 2004, is coming off surgery with the Braves. But does anyone think this cautionary tale will resonate in the pursuit this offseason of free agents Ben Sheets and A.J. Burnett, a pair of talented but injury-prone pitchers?
5. WISH THIS WASN’T A STORY… but here comes a World Series with the highest representation of African American players in six years. Standouts like Howard, Rollins, Carl Crawford, B.J. Upton, Cliff Floyd and an emerging star in David Price can only help promote the worthy cause of showcasing baseball to African American youths who need to be sold on a sport they have come to abandon as participants.
