Cardinals Win World Series in 7 Games!

  It is an unseasonably cold and snowy October 29th, and the baseball season is finally (and appropriately) over.  After 162 regular season games (almost 163 in a couple of cases), two rounds of playoffs, and a World Series that went the distance, the summer game (once again) almost made it to November.
  As a Yankee fan, my team (as usual) won their division but, alas, lost to the Detroit Tigers in the fifth game of the short Division Series in which anything can--and frequently does--happen.  The Yankees played a lacklustre fifth game, with little in the way of offense.  Alex Rodrigues was coming off a season racked with injuries, and had an almost silent bat in the post-season.  Once the Yanks were out of it, I was able to sit back and watch the balance of a great post-season unfold.
   At the beginning of the season, the pundits had already scheduled the World Series as being between the Red Sox and the Philadelphia Phillies and, I had to admit, it sounded all too likely.  The Sox had a strong starting rotation and bullpen, and had added sluggers Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzales to a lineup that already included such stalwarts as David Ortiz and AL MVP Dustin Pedroia.  Shades of murderer's row!  As for the Phillies, they had added the incomparable Cliff Lee to what was already the best starting rotation in the majors, and had a great lineup.  As we say in New York---fugedaboudit!  Who knew that the Phillies would be handily dispatched by the Milwaukee Brewers in the first round of the playoffs, and the Red Sox would experience one of the greatest end-of-season collapses in baseball history.  While the Yankees and Red Sox had traded first place in the Division after the All-Star break, the Sox entered September 1 1/2 games over the the Yankees in the Division lead and 9 1/2 over the struggling Tampa Bay Rays.  After a 7 and 20 September, the Red Sox found themselves in a dead-heat tie with the Rays going into the last game of the season.  They were guaranteed a tie-breaking playoff with the Rays if either they won or the Rays  lost.  Even though they were locked in a tight game against the Baltimore Orioles (who were cherishing their role as spoilers) , the Sox were leading when a 2 1/2 hour rain delay intervened.  But not to worry, the Fenway Faithful (suddenly born-again Yankee fans) were buoyed by the Yankees' 7-0 lead over the Rays.  Shortly after the rain stopped, the Sox were beaten by an inspired come-from-behind win by the Orioles, and the Rays' extra-inning win over the Yanks.  While stranger things may have happened in baseball, I'd never seen it.  Never, that is, until game six of the World Series.
   Usually, we hear more about epic collapses, than we do to come-from-behind surges. I, for example, still bristle over the Yankees losing the 2004 ALCS after leading the Red Sox three games to none, with one out to go in the 9th inning of game four and with the great Mariano Rivera on the mound. But the St. Louis Cardinals were 10 1/2 games out of the Wild Card race on August 25th, and, they, too, had their shot at the post-season on the last day of the regular season--and won.  They went on to win the NLDS and the NLCS and made it to the World Series.  After splitting the first two games, the Cardinals won game three, only to lose the next two to the resilient Texas Rangers.  So the Redbirds, underdogs against the powerhouse Rangers, found themselves down three games to two, encouraged only by their returning to St. Louis for the final two games (courtesy of a rare All-Star Game win by the National League) and a blessed day of rain, which enabled them to catch their breath (and rest their ace, Chris Carpenter for a possible game seven).
  What happened in Game Six was one of the most amazing things I'd ever witnessed on a baseball diamond.  In the interest of full disclosure, I'm old enough to remember Bobby Thompson's "shot heard 'round the world" in the final of the (best of three) NL playoff games in 1951, as well as Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series---not to mention the Yankees' single-game playoff victory against the Red Sox in 1978-- thanks to Bucky Dent's home run, and Aaron Boone's extra-inning walk-off blast in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.  (Interestingly, both Dent and Boone share the same middle name in Boston--"Bleeping.")  And, as both the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox recall, Mookie Wilson's  two-out grounder that--instead of resulting in a World Series victory for the Sox--rolled through the hapless Bill Buckner's legs, and forced an anti-climactic game seven.
   But Game 6 of the 2011 World Series took the cake.  In a see-saw battle marked by sloppy defense on both sides, the Rangers kept going ahead by one run, only to have the Cards tie it up.  And then, in the top of the 7th inning, the Rangers took the air out of the Cardinal's balloon by back-to-back home runs by Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz, followed by a run scoring single by Ian Kinsler.  The Rangers were up by a three-run cushion with three innings to go.  To be sure, such a lead is not insurmountable, but it was formidable, with the Rangers exuding nothing but confidence.
  By the time the ninth inning arrived, the Cards had trimmed the Rangers' lead to two runs, but closer Neftali Feliz had a 1-2 count on David Freese, and was one pitch away from victory. ("One Pitch Away," also happens to be the title of an excellent baseball book by Mike Sowell, which looks at the 1986 season, a year replete with single pitches that changed winners into losers.)  Freese connected on a 98 mph fastball on the outside corner, and hit a scorching line drive to deep right field.  Ranger outfielder (and ALCS MVP) Nelson Cruz was playing fairly deep in what is called the "no doubles defense." Cruz ran quickly back toward the fence and then, apparently having the ball in his sights, noticeably slowed down, only to watch the ball sail over his his glove and off the wall for a game-tying triple.  This play is already the topic of what used to be called the "hot stove league," where fans sit around the mythical pot-belly stove in the mythical small-town general store, and replay the last season until the spring thaw.  While the ball was not an error (with a capital "E"), it certainly was misjudged.  Not an easy catch to be sure, but one a major league right-fielder is expected to make.  It was doubly sad, given Cruz's great post-season.  He had, in fact, hit one of those back-to-back homers in the 7th which seemed to put the game on ice for the Rangers.  But now, the Cardinals had risen from the abyss, and had put the game into extra innings.  For a while, it seemed as if the Cards had blown a golden opportunity in not bringing Freese home for the winning run, for the Rangers bounced back with another two runs in the top of the 10th, courtesy of a rare home run by ailing slugger Josh Hamilton.  This was the fifth lead of the game for the Rangers, and while the Cardinals had battled back four times, this seemed a bridge too far to cross.  Although the first two batters got on in the bottom of the 10th, and were bunted to third by a pinch-hitting pitcher Kyle Lohse (the Cardinals had no more position players available to pinch hit), sacrificed the runners to second and third.  Ryan Theriot grounded out, narrowing the Rangers' lead to a single run.  Albert Pujols was walked intentionally to load the bases.  (I would have walked him, too.  In one game, he was intentionally walked three times.)
  Up came Lance Berkman.  Hey Yankee fans, remember Lance from last year?  He pinch-hit a few times, and occasionally platooned at DH when righties were pitching.  As a regular with the Cardinals, he hit 31 home runs in the regular season, and was having a great post-season.  Once again, down to their last strike, Berkman delivered a game-scoring single, the Cardinal's fifth come-from-behind tying hit of this remarkable game.  While Scott Feldman retired the next batter, the damage had been done.  The game was tied yet again, and we went into the 11th.  When Texas failed to score in top of the 11th, the stage was set for (soon-to-be Series MVP David Freese) to hit the game-winning home run to force a game seven.  (It was a pretty good game for Freese: a 9th inning game-tying two-out, two strike triple, and an an 11th inning game winning homer on the first pitch.  We should all have memories like that!)
  Although either team "could" have won game seven, it was as we baseball fans love to say, "all over but the shouting."  Texas was so devastated, it would have taken a miracle for them to win.  Think about game seven of the 1986 World Series.  After the Mets' last out win in game six, no less a Red Sox fan than radio personality Jonathan Schwartz observed, "even if they (the Sox) win game seven, they will have lost."  I knew what he meant.  In 2004, when the Red Sox came back from three games down in the ALCS to force a game seven, there was no way the Yankees were going to win. Too much damage had already been done.  All that remained was the death blow.
  To my surprise, the Rangers started things off in game seven with a two-run first.  But those were the only runs they scored in the game. The Cardinals immediately tied things up, and slowly built up to an inevitable 6-2 victory. Thanks to a day of rain, Chris Carpenter gave the Cardinals a strong six innings, and the bull-pen did the rest.  People following sporting contests have been pointing to "the agony of defeat" since the days of Grantland Rice, but the camera's focus on Nolan Ryan said it all.  But for every defeat, there is a victory, and while baseball--lone among the major sports-- has no time limit, someone has to win and someone has to lose.  This is, of course, why we watch, and root and--hopefully--come back for more.  And, oh yeah; just wait 'til next year!

Baseball: The last day of the regular season

   When I was a kid, baseball was played with two eight-league teams, the American and the National.  The team that did the best in each league was said to have "won the pennant" and would meet each other in the World Series.  Sometimes, the battle for first place went down to the final day of the season, and, very rarely, two teams in each league ended the season in a dead-heat tie, necessitating a one-game playoff in the American League (Cleveland vs. Boston in 1948) and a two-out of three in the National League (Brooklyn vs. the New York Giants in 1951).
    What happened on Wednesday was just as rare, and far more exciting.  It was, in fact, one of the most thrilling days in regular season baseball history.  Although I was never a fan of the wild card, I recognize that it can add an exciting component to the season's end especially when, as here, two teams in each league were tied with identical records. (As you read on, keep that 1951 Giants-Dodgers game in mind, for the 2011 season was to end with a walk-off home run second only to Bobby Thompson's "shot heard 'round the world.")
   What made the day even more interesting is that the two teams that had commanding leads in the wild card race at the beginning of September (the Atlanta Braves were 8 1/2 games over the St. Louis Cardinals, and the Boston Red Sox were a full 9 games in front of the Tampa Bay Rays) had squandered those leads and were on the verge of losing their bids for the wild card.  The odds of either of these teams losing such leads were remote; that both of them would do so was almost beyond comprehension. And yet, that is precisely where we found ourselves on September 28th.  But even then, Boston and Atlanta would have been assured of of a one-game playoff the next day, unless they both lost and Tampa Bay and St. Louis won.  Although St. Louis had won their game decisively (and knew they faced no worse than a tie with Atlanta), the Braves were locked in a nail biting, extra inning struggle that did not end until the 13th inning. When the Phillies scored the decisive run, the Braves were sent back to Atlanta, their season over. The Braves, by the way, had been within one out of victory, something that set the stage for what was yet to happen in the American League.
   Boston had split the first two games of the season-ending series with the last place Baltimore Orioles.  In the "rubber game" Boston had started one of their best pitchers, John Lester, on short rest, but he was in top form.  Lester is an admirable man and remarkable pitcher, having not only overcome cancer, but returning to be one of the best starting pitchers in the game.   Baltimore had nothing to lose, and were playing only for their pride.  As the last team in their division, they seemed to relish the role of spoiler.  Few people were unaware that the O's manager, Buck Showalter, had once managed the Yankees, and Bench Coach (and fomer Mets' manager) Willie Randolph had been a star second baseman for the Yankees throughout most of his distinguished career.  Neither had any love lost for the Boston Red Sox.
   The inevitable scoreboard watching gave the faithful of Red Sox Nation even more cause for comfort: their strange bedfellows, the New York Yankees (normally fierce rivals) were well on their way to assuring the Sox no less than a season-ending tie with the Rays, and the Sox were rooting for the Bombers to shut down the resurgent Rays.  The Yankees were coasting to victory over the Rays, up 7-0, through seven innings, a seemingly insurmountable lead.  The Red Sox, too, could glimpse victory, up 3-2 in the middle of the seventh inning, when a rain delay put their game on hold.  A Red Sox victory (coupled with Tampa Bay's inevitable loss) would have eliminated the Rays and given the Red Sox the wild card birth they had so nearly blown.  As Boston sat through the nearly hour and a half of rain, they (must have) watched in disbelief while the Rays came back with six runs in the bottom of the eighth inning.  By now, more than half the Yankee starting team was out of the game, and the Yanks had no desire to tire their trio of late-inning relievers to preserve a game of no real consequence (to them).  This is not to suggest that the Yanks didn't try hard to win.  You simply can't play 12-innings without a considerable effort.  Those who fault them for not having Robertson or Rivera pitch the 8th and the 9th are in need of reality therapy.  I think that all the teams that played on that final day (whether it "mattered" to them or not) reflected well on the professionalism of the game of baseball. But back to the game.  The Yankees brought in Corey Wade to pitch the 9th, and he got two outs and two strikes on pinch-hitter Dan Johnson.  When Yankee announcer commented that Johnson "had a lot of power and could hit the long ball," I laughed to myself as I looked at his meager record in 2011: one home run and a .108 batting average. ( .108 is simply beyond pathetic; something no National League pitcher would take pride in.)  I had forgotten that just a year ago, the same Dan Johnson had hit two homers against the Yanks in a 4-3 Rays' victory.  In any event, Johnson came through again with a home run in a move that made Rays' manager Joe Maddon look like the genius he is.  By the time play resumed in Baltimore, It was now 7-7 in the Bronx, and going into the 10th inning. By now, journeyman reliever Scott Proctor, back for a second tour of duty with the Yankees was on the mound and would remain for the duration.
  Boston meanwhile, having won the night before, was on the verge of winning consecutive games, something they hadn't done in the entire month of September.  For a team that had dominated all baseball for much of the season, this, too, was hard to believe. But Lester, working on short rest, struggled manfully through six innings, and left the game with a 3-2 lead, and the appreciation of both his team and its devoted fan base.  Although the Red Sox missed two golden opportunities to increase  their lead (one a base-running error by the otherwise excellent Marco Scutaro in the 8th, which led to him being thrown out at the plate, and substitute catcher Ryan Lavarnway's hitting into a bases-loaded double play with with one out in the 9th), closer Jonathan Papelbon (one of the game's very best relievers) struck out the first two Orioles he faced, and got to within one strike of securing a Red Sox win (and with it the certainty of ending the day in no worse a position than tied for the wild card).  What happened next seemed so fast as to have not been possible. Bang, a double by Chris Davis.  Bang, a double by Nolan Reimhold scoring pinch-runner Kyle Hudson to tie the score, and bang, a game-winning sinking liner to left by Robert Andino, bouncing just out of the clutches of the disappointing (and disappointed) Carl Crawford. The lowly Baltimore Orioles celebrated as if they had won the wild card, rather than spoiling another's chances of doing so.  The Red Sox, up 'til then had been 76-0 when leading after the 8th inning, but--of course--records like that never last forever.   Without a moment's pause, beleaguered manager Terry Francona turned on his heels and descended into the visitor's locker room.
  Everything now was up to the Yankees, who hadn't blown a 7-0 lead in the 8th inning since 1953 (the year, by the way, in which they were to win their 5th consecutive World Series).  Proctor pitched well through the 10th and 11th, but there was no one left to replace him when Tampa Bay star Evan Longoria led off the 12th with a line drive home run barely clearing the left field fence and foul pole, an almost mirror-image of Dan Johnson's 9th-inning game tying shot. (This has been compared as second only to Bobby Thompson's 1951 game-winner homer, but I think the Thompson home run is still way in front.)           For a relatively slow-moving game (compared to, say, basketball or football) a lot of crucial things occurred in a very short period of time, almost one on top of the other. In a span of less than half an hour, the Atlanta Braves had lost their extra-inning quest for the wild card, the Baltimore Orioles came from behind to beat the Red Sox, and the Rays, as the cliche goes, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  These were three strory-book finishes, each less likely than the one before.  Within minutes of the Braves setting the record for the greatest September collapse in baseball history, that unenviable achievement was eclipsed by the hapless Red Sox.
   In the interest of full disclosure, it must be recalled that the Red Sox, despite their well-publicized losses in critical games (often at the hands of the Yankees), turned the tables on the Yankees in 2004 by coming back from a 3-0 deficit in the ALCS to not only win the pennant, but go on to trounce the Cardinals in a four-game World Series sweep.  I must admit, I went into a two-week funk, something hardly becoming in a man of my years.  Was 2004 a worse collapse than those of the Braves and Red Sox?  Probably, but the pain for their fans is more than likely the same.  What was saddest of all was the dismissal of Terry Francona, the only Red Sox manager to have won a World Series for the Sox since 1918--and he won two, one in 2004, the other in '07.  Francona was a good manager and a classy guy, who deserved better.
    Most importantly, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that the reason we root for teams is because sports is (supposed to be) a pleasant distraction from our real lives.  Sports only "matters" if we choose to let it.  When I listen to fans at both Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium, screaming out that the Yankees or Red Sox "suck," I think they are missing the point (not to mention being bad sports).  You're supposed to be rooting for your team, not against the other.  In point of fact, these two teams not only don't "suck," but have pretty consistently been ranked among the top teams in the game.
   And so, the season may have ended for the Red Sox and the Braves, but disappointments await seven of the eight teams now engaged in the playoffs.  Four of the eight will see their seasons end in a matter of days. Ultimately, of course, there can be but one winner.  But that's baseball, and--as Ecclesiastes tells us--to everything there is a season.   But year from now, people will recall the end of the 2011 season as one of the most exciting they will ever have witnessed.  And for that, every fan can take pride in what is, after all, a great game.