Here’s hoping the World Series is an anticlimactic letdown. I’m not sure I can take too much more of this. First the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the Greatest Comeback Ever or the Greatest Collapse Ever, depending on your perspective. The the Redbirds beat down the Astros on the back of a pitcher with a broken hand and the inhuman efforts of Jim Edmonds (can we just give him the Golden Glove permanently?), Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen. This after posting the best record in baseball in winning a division in which they were picked to finish third. Add to that two seven game series, Curt Schlling pitching through a damaged tendon and a bloody foot, Mariano Rivera blowing two consecutive save opportunities (even though one was kind of cheap, given that he wan’t the one to put the runner on third), the Sox almost blowing a huge lead based on another boneheaded managerial decision involving Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon deciding to finally use his bat when it was almost too late, and it’s exhausting. The Series does offer some things to look forward to - David Ortiz trying to play defense, for example.
Can we now and forever dispense with arguments about whether the three-division/wild card format is a Good Thing? Would you trade the Yankees-Red Sox and St. Louis-Houston LCSes for Yankees-Twins/Angels and St. Louis-Atlanta? I’m sure Yankees fans would, but the format is good for the rest of us. Now if we could just get rid of the DH.
Final thought: New Yorkers, take heart, for you’re now feeling what the rest of us are feeling. In the time since the Indians last won the Series (20 years before I was born), the Yanks have won 15 times. Still better than those in the Windy City or Beantown, I guess, but at least those teams were competitive between 1954 and 1995. But no one else can claim a player who opened bottles with his eye sockets and drank beer with a straw through his nose. And I’m reasonably confident that the night of June 4, 1974 at Municipal Stadium will never be topped:
After the Rangers took an early lead, the alcohol-fueled [10 ounces of Stroh’s for 10 cents] frenzy that had pushed fans through the turnstiles began to push them onto the field. In the second inning, a large woman jumped into the Indians’ on-deck circle and lifted her shirt; in the fourth, a naked man slid into second as Rangers outfielder Tom Grieve circled the bases with his second homer of the game; and in the fifth, a father-and-son team welcomed [Mike] Hargrove to Cleveland by leaping into the infield and mooning the crowd. From the seventh inning onwards, a steady stream of interlopers greeted [Jeff] Burroughs in right field. Some even stopped to shake his hand.The stadium simmered until the Tribe came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, down 5-3. With one out, an Ed Crosby single scored George Hendrick; two singles later, a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to center by John Lowenstein plated Crosby to tie the game. But slugger Leron Lee never had a chance to drive in the game-winner (Rusty Torres) from third. As the Cleveland fans pelted the field with golf balls, rocks and batteries, someone took the opportunity to swipe Burroughs’ glove. Burroughs chased the fan back to the stands and in response, people began swarming into the outfield, surrounding the Rangers’ star outfielder and ending any hope for an Indians rally.
Dodging more than a few flying chairs, Texas manager Billy Martin grabbed a bat and led his team on a rescue mission to right field. “The bat showed up later,” Hargrove recalled, “and it was broken.” Even the Indians were helping to fight off their own fans. Umpire Nestor Chylak, hit by both a chair and a rock, quickly forfeited the game to Texas, officially ending the Indians’ comeback. “They were just uncontrollable beasts,” said Chylak later. “I’ve never seen anything like it except in a zoo.” Nine fans were arrested for their part in the melee.
February 4th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
Cool