Thursday, October 25, 2012

Twenty-twelve... Random Ramblings

"What a long strange trip it's been..."
Wow! We are just about done. Another baseball season just about in the books. San Fran is tangling with the Tigers, and we will crown a new champion, no matter what. Congratulations will be in order. For some, they already are.

Congrats to the 2012 playoff teams. All of them! Although I am not 100% sold on the new format, I cannot deny the drama resulting from the 10 teams involved. I thought 8 out of 32, 25% of all the teams in MLB, was plenty. But when all four division series went the full five games... with San Fran, St. Louis, Oakland, New York all posting dramatic comeback wins... and Baltimore, Detroit, Cincy and Washington all fighting hard as well... I cannot argue with the results. It was great baseball!

Of course I rooted for my Yanks. This year was a triumph of age over youth... until we met up with those whippersnappers from the Motor City. But even before the Yanks stopped hitting, I had to tip my hat to the Baltimore Orioles. They came out of nowhere to storm the AL East, damn near took the division after NY had built a 10-game cushion, and damn near took the last two games in Yankee Stadium. The five-game ALDS between NY and Baltimore featured two extra-inning tilts. Raul Ibanez tied and won one of them single-handedly, a triumph for senior citizens everywhere! Of course the Yankee bats went totally silent after that, and Detroit, fresh from a bitter battle with the Oakland A's, swept us out.

But how about those Oakland AmAzing A's! I happened to be in a STL hotel room for Game 4 of both the NYY-BAL and OAK-DET tilts. I have to confess, I nodded off in the ninth of the latter game... Pacific Coast Time being what it is. Oakland was down 3-1 going into the home 9th. You all know what happened! I don't know if Billy Beane gets to keep that team together next year. This is a situation MLB needs to address. The team 'deserves' to get another chance at the dance next year, but to paraphrase Yogi, if nobody wants to support the Oakland A's the way they deserve, you can't make em.

How about the Cardinals and Nationals! Has anybody ever thrown a bigger wet blanket over a celebration than St. Louis did in game 5 in DC? Down 6-0 early and 7-5 in the 9th, the Cardinals were down to their final strike several times. Of course, we NEVER cut off our radios and TVs any more after last year, do we? To paraphrase the late, great Jack Buck... I STILL don't believe what I just saw. The Cards did it again... and again... base hit after base hit after base hit, with Pete Kozma (who?), rookie shortstop, lining a 2-run single down the right field line to complete one of the most improbable comebacks in baseball history... and one of TWO in the last twelve months for the 2011 World Champions!

Speaking of comebacks... two Giant comebacks by one Giants squad dealt a painful pair of blows to the National League Central's finest. Down 2-0 and 3-1 in games to the Cincy Reds and St. Louis Cardinals respectively, the San Franciscans reeled off six consecutive wins in elimination games! As painful as those games were to Reds and Cardinals fans, I have to think that it was more that the Giants won more than the other squads lost. Going down in defeat is bitter, I know. When your team has a big lead it hurts even worse. But if you play in enough big games, it will happen. Count on it. Maybe I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy, but I choose to remember that the Giants did not quit, look scared, or appear to mail it in on even a single play. For that matter, neither had Oakland, just across the bay. The Cardinals 'luck' did not run out. Luck had nothing to do with it. Their mighty bats went cold, a phenomenon that descends on all teams, no matter how good. Babe Ruth hit .118 in the '22 Series, and the Yanks got swept (by the NY Giants!). The following year, the Babe hit well and the Yanks beat the same Giants to win their first World Series. Point is, of course, it happens! The randomness and drama of a short series is what makes us curious, makes us nervous, and makes us watch!

Congrats to the Washington Nationals... the winningest regular season team with 98 victories. I did not see the Nats, Orioles or Athletics coming! As such, I would nominate one (or two) of those skippers as Manager of the Year... and Billy Beane as executive of the year... will Moneyball have a sequel? Here's a rhetorical question - WHY DOESN'T ANYONE HIRE BILLY BEANE AWAY FROM OAKLAND?

Finally, and most importantly, I would like to tip my NYY cap to some friends I made on MLB.com this year. I started visiting lots of team threads this year, and found lots of like-minded, baseball-crazed friends. By far the friendliest of the bunch gravitated to the St. Louis Cardinal threads. Having literally circled the globe and lived in every US time zone, I've learned to look for the good in folks whenever and wherever I can. I've found a lot of good in the Cardinals' bunch, and for that I offer my sincerest thanks and congratulations to all of you. To you, and to all the super baseball fans I've met and be-friended, let's keep watching, rooting, cheering, shedding tears, and remember... you only lose when you lay down the bat!