A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
I don’t want to come off as the type of person who tells people how to raise your kids or how to be a parent; but I feel, as a victim of what I’m about to discuss, that I need to speak out.
Please, whatever you do, do not raise your child as a Chicago Cubs fan.
Before this week is lost to LSU-Alabama hype, let’s pause to remember the weekend that was and reflect on some of the things that we learned:
I sit here on 29 October, the morning after the Saint Louis Cardinals captured their 11th World Championship, not tired, but sad. Bittersweet to be precise.
I don’t know what to say about the baseball game I just watched, other than it was sublime. From a fundamental and aesthetic standpoint it was ugly as hell, but as a competition it was sublime. I know now other word to describe what I saw.
I’ll write more about the game tomorrow. I need to process it. Need my head to stop spinning.
So I’ll leave you this evening with two videos. One is from 1991, the other is from tonight.
I love me some Ron Washington. And since the baseball season will only have one more night if Colby Lewis can continue to outdo himself, I’d like to tell you why.
Though I’m a White Sox fan first, foremost, and forever, I’ve had the good fortune of seeing the rise of the Texas Rangers from up close over the last four years. In fact, their ascent from AL West doormat to the cusp of a world championship coincided neatly with me moving here. (And, for the record, I’ve been in attendance for both of their ALCS clinching wins. Coincidence? Hell no it’s not. Which is why I’ll be requesting a ring if they win one.)
Perhaps the largest sea change in this town, a town that only has time for football and winners, has occurred with respect to public opinion of Ron Washington, affectionately dubbed the Old School Brother here in Dallas. When I first got down here, it seemed like Washington was managing for his job* on a near daily basis. As things stand in the sports world right now, there may be no coach outside of Bill Belichick and Mike Tomlin with more job security than Wash.
Just came across this photo on Twitter thanks to a retweet by the great Gordon Keith of a tweeter named @outoftown_Ed, who I’ll assume is an exuberant Rangers fan in Dallas.
And I have to tip my cap to this Rangers fan.
Stats are funny.
As anyone who has ever written about, watched, or even just thought about sports can tell you, statistics can paint whatever picture you want them to based on how you present them. This is, of course, not just limited to sports. As the old saying goes, “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
With Colby Lewis set to take the mound for the Texas Rangers in Game 6 of what has been an incredibly compelling World Series in which even the blowout treated us to an individual performance for the ages by Albert Pujols, I am intrigued by the superlative playoff statistics compiled by Lewis over the past two seasons and their power to comfort or antagonize Rangers fans, Cardinals fans, and objective bystanders alike.
It just depends on how you look at them.
Every 9 inning baseball game is a weird, fickle, mysterious entity all its own during which anything is possible. Over large sample sizes, certain aspects of baseball can be predictable and follow expected trends, but in the small sample size of 9 innings, especially when those innings come during playoff time, we often see things we don’t expect.
Did you expect to see Albert Pujols jack three home runs in a single game? He did.
Did you expect the signature pitching performance of the 2011 playoffs to come from the mustachioed Derek Holland? It did.
Did you expect a team to win by driving in the tying and winning runs on consecutive sacrifice flies? It happened.
So I present this World Series Game 5 preview to you with absolutely no certainty that anything I say (except for one thing at the end) will come true or even seem reasonable once the 54th out of the night is recorded.
In Episode 14 of the MLB Trivia Challenge Podcast sponsored by the M&A consultants and advisors at Generational Equity, Jerod and Ari welcome…no one. They handle this one themselves.
Jerod takes a stab at Ari’s most challenging slate of questions yet, and then they discuss what has made the 2011 MLB playoffs so memorable before previewing the World Series matchup between Texas and St. Louis.
Last night, the Detroit Tigers eliminated the New York Yankees from the 2011 MLB Playoffs when Jose Valverde struck out Alex Rodriguez in the bottom of the 9th inning.
If the highest paid Yankee making the final out of the season sounds familiar, it is. Rodriguez also struck out last year to end Game 6 at The Ballpark in Arlington. At least this time he went down swinging.
The Yankees’ elimination means that their World Series drought now stands at two long, painful years. Yes, that means that young Yankees fans across the nation will be forced to suffer the indignity of celebrating their second birthdays never having experienced pinstripe glory.
I love Opening Day. I love knowing that from here until October there will be relevant sporting events every single day. And I especially love that my beloved Chicago White Sox have officially adopted a mantra of “all in” for the 2011 season.
But I did not like the news in this tweet, which passed by on my Twitter feed just a few minutes ago:
A sad day in the Fornelli household. RT @Ken_Rosenthal: Just talked to Jermaine Dye. He is retiring.
Now, some may quibble with me calling a guy who only spent five season in the Windy City a legend, but quibble all you want. From Frank Thomas to Ernie Banks, from Sammy Sosa to Minnie Minoso, from Carlton Fox to this guy, over the last 200+ seasons of baseball in Chicago only one man has won a World Series MVP award while leading a Chicago baseball team to a World Series title:
Jermaine Dye.
I have to give it up to my esteemed colleague AJ Kaufman. He sure does try, he really does…
If you haven’t read AJ’s excellent preview of the 2010 World Series, go read it now. It’s pretty much everything you need to set the stage for what should be an absolutely thrilling series between the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants.
This post is for one thing: predictions.
Vote in the poll below and use the comment section to explain your vote. (My pick under the poll.)
The 106th edition of baseball’s World Series begins tomorrow night in San Francisco with the Giants and Rangers renewing their historic rivalry.
Oh wait, there is no established rivalry.
But with tickets selling at record pace with record prices, and die-hard fans quitting high-paying jobs to follow their teams, we do need some “themes,” no?
The Cubs season hasn’t started off too badly, but some think they have underperformed given the payroll and the “stars” they have on their lineup.
You can make a legitimate argument that at the rate the players are getting paid, they should be performing at a higher level, yielding better results. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
The Cubs have the third highest payroll ($146,859,000), only trailing the Red Sox and, of course, the Yankees. Since you’re paying these players the big money to win, you hope they can win a division title or, ideally, a World Series title.
It doesn’t look the World Series drought will end this year for the Cubs though. Their record stands at 15-20, and the future is not looking bright for the ‘lovable losers’.
