The Baseball Post-Season

[OscarGuy]

It's over? Hmmm. I guess I haven't been watching the news. I'm from Missouri and I'm sure it's a big news story...last night's was the first news I hadn't watched all week.

[Damien]

Well that was a bore . . .

My wish for next season: Enough with the damn "God Bless America" already.

[Mister Tee]

Memo to Tiger pitchers: Don't throw to third!

The Cardinals -- now the weakest regular-season team to ever win the championship -- presumably think of this as cosmic payback for the last two years, when they thought they were close to a great team, but were first swept by the Red Sox and then kept from the Series by the Astros. And, you know, all hail to them. But the expansion of the playoffs has created a situation where you're no longer confident you're seeing the best teams playing -- wild card winners have been making the Series with regularity, and barely winning records are enough to win some divisions. The Series winner now is the hot team over three weeks, not the best team over a season.

End of old timer's rant.

For the Cards, it's their first championship since 1982 and -- here's a freak stat -- their first non-seven-game championship since 1944. The Cardinals have won ten World Series (second to I guess we all know who) and seven of the ten were seven game affairs.

I regret we didn't get such a series this time, for the entertainment value. A short Series -- and this is our third in a row -- is like getting ready for a big date, and ending up home by 9 with no sex. It's all over way too soon, and there's way too long a wait for another shot. The end of baseball season always carries a touch of sadness -- even if your team wins -- but this sort of unmemorable set (no game came close to Mets/Cards Game 7) makes it even harder to let go.

[OscarGuy]

I hope the Cards and the Tigers stay in St. Louis indefinitely. They seemed to have brought long-needed rain to our area, so more power to game cancellation due to weather!

[MovieWes]

Yes, I finally got to see my Cards win at least one game in the World Series after being so disappointed two years ago. Now, I want to see them win the whole thing!

[FilmFan720]

First off, as to Thursday's game, that was some poor management on the Mets side in the bottom of the ninth. They were in the perfect position to go to the world series, and Randolph gambled on a dramatic, Kirk Gibson-esque win rather than a less dramatic, but more sure-fire win, and it backfired. That being said, I was looking forward to the Tigers getting the chance to embarass my least favorite team in MLB (even more than the Yankees), the Cardinals (that's the Cubs fan in me).

I didn't get to see any of last night's game (a night at the theatre trumped the baseball fan in me), but what an embarassment for the Tigers. They are by far the superior team in this World Series, and should have held up better than that. Hopefully, it was just rustiness after not playing for a week, and they will come roaring back tonight. I don't want to see the Tigers lose, don't want to see the Cardinals win, and don't want to see such a mediocre World Series team triumph.

Tripp

[Mister Tee]

They might also have expected, as most did, the Mets to dominate a team wth so much worse a record, and thought less of them for not running away with it. I can't, however, say this from personal observation...because I long ago developed a preference for watching the games muted -- I rarely find announcers who do anything but irritate me.

Well, last night's game was one you call great if your team wins, but heartbreaking if it loses. When the Mets put the first two runners on in the bottom of the 9th, I thought, freeze it right here: this situation -- where certain loss can turn to certain victory with one fateful swing -- is the essence of what makes baseball a great game. But it always has to be played out.

Someone at another site wrote yesterday that William Goldman's famous "Nobody knows anything" can now be applied definitively to baseball. The rain before Game Five was supposed to help Glavine and favor the Mets; Glavine was gone in the 4th inning. The game six match-up -- a present and future Cy Young winner vs. a no-name -- was a St. Louis gimme; the Mets won. Last night, the Cards had an immeasurable edge in starting pitching -- but didn't win until the starters were both gone, and the Mets' strength, the bullpen, had taken over. And now, we have two teams that absolutely staggered into the post-season -- and seemed destined for early departure -- meeting in the World Series.

Because of all that, I'm not quite ready to buy into the "Tigers in 5" fever now floating around. It's true that the AL has become much the stronger league (in the last eight years, they have won 29 Series games to the NL's 10). And The Cardinals have the second-worst record of any World Series team ever (worst: '73 Mets, who took the A's to seven games). But The Cards, with their line-up recently restored, their starting pitching pruned to three solid guys, and their replacement closer maybe better than the guy who's injured, could be more of a contender than their stumble in September suggested. If it's a short series, it's surely the Tigers...but a longer one could swing St. Louis' way.

For those who follow omens: someone I know who's a Tigers' fans points out the team's last two championships, in '84 and '68, were in years Democrats would sooner forget. St. Louis, on the other hand, has had its last two election-year championships in '82 and '64, excellent Dem years. Root accordingly.

[Damien]

And is it me, or have the play-by-play announcers been unusually biased in favor of the Cardinals the entire series?

Well, McCarver played for the Cardinals for many years, and he was dumped as a television color man by Mets ownership, and Buck's father was a Cardinals announcer for decades.

I think they were down on the Mets largely becuase of the disappointingly non-existent offense.

[Sonic Youth]

They always friggin' choke.

And is it me, or have the play-by-play announcers been unusually biased in favor of the Cardinals the entire series?

[Big Magilla]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned the sudden death of Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle yet. It makes you wonder, if the Yankees had won that series, would this have happened? Sad.

Sure we have. It's in a thread entitled "most likely not terrorism" under Politics - Off Topic.

[MovieWes]

I'm surprised that no one's mentioned the sudden death of Yankees pitcher Corey Lidle yet. It makes you wonder, if the Yankees had won that series, would this have happened? Sad.

Baseball plan would pay $1.5 million in death benefit -- unless Lidle was piloting plane

By RONALD BLUM, AP Baseball Writer
October 13, 2006

NEW YORK (AP) -- Cory Lidle's beneficiaries could lose out on a $1.5 million benefit from baseball's benefit plan if it's determined he was piloting his plane when it crashed into a Manhattan high-rise.

While Lidle wasn't a member of the Major League Baseball Players Association licensing plan because he was a replacement player during the 1994-95 strike, the New York Yankees pitcher was covered by the union's benefit plan.

The plan calls for a $450,000 life insurance benefit and has an accidental death benefit of $1.05 million. However, the plan -- which applies to all big leaguers -- contains an exclusion for "any incident related to travel in an aircraft ... while acting in any capacity other than as a passenger."

Lidle and his flight instructor, Tyler Stanger, were killed Wednesday when Lidle's four-seat Cirrus SR20 crashed into a building on the Upper East Side. While Lidle was the registered owner of the aircraft, it has not been confirmed who was at the controls.

Lidle is survived by his wife, Melanie, and 6-year-old son, Christopher. The person he designated as his beneficiary was not immediately known. In addition, Lidle's wife is entitled to a widow's benefit under baseball's plan.

Lidle had 9 years, 100 days of major league service -- 72 days shy of being fully vested. Because of that, his wife would be entitled to $166,250 annually, which is 95 percent of the $175,000 maximum, an amount indexed for inflation. There is an additional $200 monthly dependent benefit added to the payments as long as the son is unmarried and until he is 19 -- or 23 if he is a full-time student.

Lidle had just completed a $6.3 million, two-year contract he signed with Philadelphia before the 2005 season.

[Mister Tee]

Well, it was nice of everyone not to gloat.

Tough weekend for me. Last year my expectations were quite low; this time I expected at least the first round, and maybe all the way. The worst part was not just losing, but the godawful quality of play. I spent most of Friday and Saturday asking "Who are these guys?" -- watching one disciplined hitter after another flail at first pitches. It wasn't till around the seventh inning Saturday -- way too late -- that they began to resemble themselves at the plate. (This, by the way, is not to understate the value of the Detroit effort -- by Saturday, they seemed to be scoring at will -- but, forgive me if I don't think Rogers/Bonderman suddenly became the second coming of Koufax without much help from the batters)

Of course, now the NY press is in full vigilante mode (they all claim to despise Steinbrenner, but fully endorse his "anything short of the championship you're a bum" outlook), calling for Torre's head. How Joe was supposed to do anything about his entire offense going south at once is beyond me (and as far as the team "lacking fire" -- did they lack it when they hammered Boston back in August?). As for the proposed replacement, Piniella -- I love the guy from way back, but he had all those stars in Seattle and never even made the Series, so I don't see why he's any sure answer. Baseball's a quirky, unforgiving game more often than not; the only fools are those who think outcomes can be predetermined.

This brings us to the other Series, which, with the exception of Mets/Dodgers, all went the opposite of the way most of us expected. In the NL -- which is now a rematch of NLCS 2000 -- the Mets are presumably big favorites, but maybe the regrouped Cardinals are, like the Tigers, not the team that staggered down the stretch, but instead the behemoth from the past two years. Sometimes, just when people have given up predicting a team, they come through with a late championship run (as did the Reds in '90 and the Jays in '92). However, I'm enough of a New Yorker to root the Mets on, as I always have when the Yanks were not involved. (Though I wasn't in much mood to cheer them on Saturday night -- except I always love to see the Dodgers lose, esp. with LaSorda in attendance) In fact, I have a wonderful association with the Mets' last championship -- the greatest Mets' memory of all, Mookie grounding to Buckner, took place during my wedding reception. We'll see if the 20th anniversary brings a replay.

The Mets' chances are certainly enhanced by the failure of not just the Yanks but also the Twins, who seemed equally equipped to go all the way but disappeared without a trace (the Yankee failure will spare the Twins the cruel scrutiny they'd otherwise have received). Recent conventional wisdom has been that the AL is innately superior to the NL, but will that be true when somewhat lesser teams are the competition? A's/Tigers is also a rematch, of the 1972 ALCS, which pitted Reggie against Al Kaline. No such legendary names dot this year's rosters, but both teams have shown themselves capable of great surprise, so I'm expecting an entertainingh series.

Anyway, my picks for this round:

Mets over Cards in six.
Don't really know in the AL, but I'll say Tigers in seven.

[Eric]

While I'm sad and embarrassed for my team's performance (which mostly served as a reminder of just how young so many members of the Twins' current roster still are), I'm completely thrilled for Detroit. I hope they go all the way. And I'm not just saying that because they're up against Oakland. I like them too ... well, maybe not Frank on-the-juice Thomas.

[Damien]

It's a glorious day in baseball when the two most loathesome teams in history (that, of course, would be the Yankees and Dodgers) get knocked out in a 4 hour period.

And making it all the more sweet, the despicable Steinbrenner and his equally hideous Yankee fans (How ya doin', Giuliani? Billy Crystal, having a nice night, smug asswipe? Dr. Kissinger, perhaps another two hundred dead Iraqis will ease the pain of the latest failure from Bush campaign contributer A-Rod.) have to deal with the ignominy of the Mets winning while the Bronx Bozos crawl off with their tails between their legs.

As an aside, Watching TV today got me wondering: who's more grotesque -- Denny Hastert or Tommy Lasorda?
Fu ck 'em both!!!

[Sonic Youth]

See what happens when your team is managed by a former Yankee?