Baseball

By Charlie in the Trees
Outsports.com

LAS VEGAS--"Like Derek [Jeter] told me, “The ghosts will show up eventually.”

– Aaron Boone, New York Yankees, to a Fox reporter, right after hitting his pre-ordained, game-ending home run in Game 7 against the Red Sox. 

The ghosts showed up in both league’s championship series all right. So we have the World Series that true baseball fans expected, but casual fans feared: the New York Yankees versus the Florida Marlins. The question is: Whose ghosts was Jeter referring to?  

Both the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox – the two most haunted teams in sports – held three-run leads with five outs separating them from the World Series. Neither made it. 

How did baseball end up with this end instead of, as Fox kept trying to drill into our skulls, the match-up all of America wanted? (Casual fans may have wanted to see Cubs-Red Sox, but true fans did not want to see baseball’s two great story lines of the last 50 years destroyed in one swoop.) How did it happen? Not ghosts, but perhaps because the Baseball Fish and those Dynastic Pinstripers played the best October baseball thus far. 

One popular misconception is that the Red Sox lost Game 7 because Grady Little was slow to lift Pedro Martinez in the eighth. Wrong! The much-maligned Little made a defensible decision, which backfired, to stick with his best pitcher, rather than trust a pennant to a troubling bullpen. The choice was simple: a tiring, but sure-thing first ballot Hall of Famer, or Alan Embree. A mediocre journeyman auditioning for Bob Stanley’s role. It’s not like Rollie Fingers or Goose Gossage was among Little’s options. 

Speaking of Rivera, Joe Torre had so little faith in his own weak bullpen that he left an obviously exhausted Rivera out to pitch three innings in that game. Rivera looked worse in his final inning of work than Pedro did in his. Unfortunately for the Sox, the Yankees executed in the face of their opponent’s fatigue. The Red Sox meekly surrendered to Rivera. And, for that, Little likely will be run out of Boston. 

Contrast the reaction of ever-bitter Red Sox fans to the other most painful game in Red Sox history: 1986, Mets-Red Sox Game Six. To this day, John McNamara is excoriated, and Roger Clemens is called gutless, because Clemens was lifted after seven innings (precisely the number of innings Sox fans now say Pedro should only have thrown.) So Sox fans have zero credibility on the decision of when a manager should lift his pitcher in a key game. 

Meanwhile, two days earlier, the baseball ghosts acted through the grasping hands of a hardcore Cubs fan, missing a foul ball but snatching a World Series right from the grasp of the North Side of Chicago. Another popular misconception is that an ill-fated 26-year old Little League coach cost the Cubs that Game 6. My billy goat’s butt it did. No one got on base, no one scored a run, because that fan did something only a small handful of Wrigley fans would have restrained themselves from doing. Mr. Bartman, and Moises Alou’s subsequent hissy-fit, merely opened the door just a crack. Mark Prior still was pitching to Luis Castillo. 

Prior’s next pitch was a ball. Castillo walked. The crack opened just a tiny bit more.

Ivan Rodriguez then singled. The door opened some more. 

Miguel “A Star Is Born” Cabrera then hit an infield grounder to the Handsomest Man in Sport – the Cubs’ Alex Gonzalez – for a sure-thing, guaranteed, mortal-lock double play. Except Gonzalez booted it. The Marlins proceeded to bust that door down, win the game, then inevitably win the series the next day, in a game that the Cubs (had they not been the Cubs) could have won. 

These were not curses. These were teams playing baseball teams that took advantage of late opportunities handed to them. And yet ... 

Baseball is the one sport where teams have histories. And teams cannot escape those histories. Watching these playoffs was like watching that great detective series from the 1970s starring Peter Falk, “Columbo.” 

Remember “Columbo”? Every episode, right at the beginning, you would see the crime. You knew who did it. You knew how it would end. But each show was tense and dramatic, as you waited to see how Columbo, in that rumpled raincoat of a uniform, would solve the crime and bring about the ending everyone knew was coming. 

Not unlike the feeling every baseball fan had watching the Cubs/Marlins and Yankees/Red Sox league championships. You knew the ending. Cubs lose. Red Sox lose. Painfully. Yet both series were among the most exciting, most dramatic ever in baseball. 

This has been the best, most exciting post-season of baseball’s Wild Card Era. The only comparison is 1986, with that great Mets-Red Sox series following two classic league championships. Another popular misconception floating around is that this Series will be a Yankee rout. It won’t be. Keep your seatbelts fastened, boys, because this one’s going to be a wild ride, too. 

The Red Sox exposed serious flaws and weaknesses in the declining Yankee dynasty. The bullpen, except for Rivera, is awful. Torre has no faith or trust in his middle relief core. Rivera is being asked to pitch two (or more) innings per appearance, rendering him unavailable for at least half the World Series games. The defense is diminished, especially the aging Bernie Williams in center. The bench is the thinnest it has been in the Torre Era. 

On the other hand, the Marlins are the real deal. Pudge Rodriguez is having the most dominating post-season of any player in over a generation. He has gone from marginal Hall of Fame candidate to sure-thing first-ballot winner. He single-handedly willed the Fish over the Giants and was absolutely relentless against the Cubs. Note that Pudge batted in the Marlins’ first run in that notorious Game 6 eighth inning. 

And what about young Miguel Cabrera, emerging fully-formed as a 20-year old superstar? Is Albert Pujols old enough for Cabrera to be the new Albert Pujols? Cabrera, however, is much better, and amazingly versatile, on defense. This has been Cabrera’s coming out party.

And Josh Beckett. Game 5 shutout, followed by four innings of gutsy relief to save Game Seven. Reminiscent of primetime Pedro against the Cleveland Indians in 1999. 

All ably managed by Jack McKeon. By the way, when did McKeon become a managerial genius? He has done an extraordinary job making all the right moves with these Marlins. Choosing the right pitchers. Easing Mike Lowell back into the line-up. Finding the right spot(s) for Cabrera. Building the best-constructed batting order in baseball, with Juan Pierre (who lost his job in Colorado because he could not hit) emerging as the best lead-off hitter of the post-season. 

Can the Fish beat the Yankees? Of course they can. Will they? Much tougher question. 

The Fish are the one team that will not be intimidated by Yankee Stadium in October. They were never supposed to be here. They play mistake-free defense and they will not beat themselves. They have no ghosts that must be defeated. Their only opposition in the other dugout. 

And they have the player with coolest nickname. Because of a perpetually sullen game-face, Kevin “Cowboy Up” Millar nicknamed Fishy shortstop Alex Gonzalez: “Sea Bass.” 

Prediction: Sea Bass and his fellow Fish win in seven, when an exhausted Mariano Rivera cannot get the final outs in the final game. 

Oct. 18, 2003