Hail to the Red Sox and Other World Series Thoughts

After a particularly unmemorable World Series last year (wherein the Giants defeated the Tigers, and no one will blame you if you didn't remember that), the Red Sox and the Cardinals ratcheted up the Memorable Scale for us with the Fall Classic that ended last night with Red Sox 6-1 win in Game Six.  

Congratulations Red Sox!

This Series is made memorable due to the following factors:

• The absolutely other-worldly hitting of MVP David Ortiz.
• Pitching performances by Jon Lester, John Lackey, Koji Uehera, Michael Wacha (despite last night's loss), and Trevor Rosenthal.
• The unbelievable and unprecedented finishes in Games 3 and 4.
• Only the blow-out nature of the Game Six finale - which also meant that there would be no Game Seven - scaled back the Memorability Factor where this Series was concerned.

As a rule, I am a fan of the broadcast team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.  Indeed, there are times when I think that I am the only guy who likes McCarver, but I have to say that the incessant pointing out that the "Red Sox have not won a World Series clinching game in Fenway Park since 1918", followed by such facts as "Babe Ruth was a pitcher on that 1918 team" (really???) was enough to make me want to throw a shoe at the TV set.  Yes, it was an interesting factoid the first, second, and maybe even the third time we heard it, but it seemed like that as ALL THEY TALKED ABOUT for the final three innings of the game.  It was even incorporated into Buck's closing call when the final out was recorded.  

As final calls go, it was a 180 degrees removed from "I cannot believe what I have just seen." This one where as time goes on I will bet that Joe Buck wishes he had a Do Over.

Speaking of John Lackey, wasn't he one of the guys who was part of the Fried-Chicken-and-Beer Brigade that indirectly led to Terry Francona getting fired in Boston two years ago? Unless you're a real Sox fan, that made him a hard guy for me to root for last night, or any night for that matter.

And at the risk of sounding like a right-wing reactionary from the 1960's, I hope those guys will now shave those God-awful beards.  I gotta tell you, I did not like that look, and if they decide to keep them, we'll be stuck looking at the all the time when ESPN decides to televise every one of the Red Sox games in 2014.

Finally, and this is good news, I think, the last-place-to-World-Series season for the Red Sox will pretty much guarantee that Bobby Valentine will never manage in the major leagues again.

Oh, and for the record, The Grandstander had this one wrong, as I had called for the Cardinals in six.  Can't win 'em all!

Now, it is time to officially get into the Hot Stove League.  106 days, more or less, until Pirates pitchers and catchers report in Bradenton.  

Game Three: Cardinals 5 - Red Sox 4

Well, I was tired as I sat down to watch the third game of the World Series last night, and there were times during the game that I was close to packing it in and going to bed, but am I glad I didn't!

If you care at all about this stuff, you already know how the game ended - the Cardinals winning in the bottom of the ninth with a Walk Off Obstruction call against Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks.  I don't know this for certain, but I am pretty sure that neither the Cardinals nor any of the other 29 teams in the majors spend a lot of time practicing this play in Spring Training.

Just a couple of thoughts:

• As the play happened in real time, the thought ran through my head in a nano-second that "isn't that interference with the baserunner?"  Honest to God, I really did think that.  So did Mrs. Grandstander.
• The replay showed clearly that third base umpire Jim Joyce immediately pointed to the tangle at third to signal the obstruction.  Home plate umpire Dana DeMuth merely confirmed that when he signaled back to Joyce after Allan Craig crossed the plate.
• The call was definitely the correct one.  And as it was apparent from his body language when he went to argue the call, even John Farrell knew it.
• Friend Stephanie Liscio mentioned on Facebook that while she didn't see the play, she was listening to the Boston announcers on the radio, and even they said it was a correct call.
• Had this play happened in the third or fourth inning, it would have merely been an interesting footnote to the game.  Since it happened in the bottom of the ninth and ended the game, it immediately became an Immortal Play.  How about we christen it "The Immaculate Obstruction"?
• And wouldn't it have been something if this had been the seventh game of the Series?

Speaking of Facebook, I have to say thank you to Mark Zuckerberg for giving baseball fans  the ability to instantaneously share such a ball game.  It was like I was at the ball park with Al Blumkin, Joe Risacher, Tim Baker, Madison McEntire, Stephanie Liscio, and dozens of others watching this game.  It was great!

It also proved one of baseball's oldest cliches: Every time you go to a ball game, you might see something you have never seen before.  Or, as Al Blumkin put it, just when you think you've seen it all, baseball proves that you haven't.  

Check and double-check!

Cardinals vs. Red Sox

It turns out  Major League Baseball could have just skipped three rounds of Playoffs and had the St. Louis and Boston, the teams with the best records in their Leagues go directly to the World Series this year.  This would have made the purists who long for the days of two eight team leagues happy, but it sure would have deprived fans in Pittsburgh of a lot of excitement this Fall.

This is the fourth time that these two teams meet in the Fall Classic, so expect to see a lot of the following:

• Black & white highlights of Enos Slaughter's "mad dash" to home plate, and endless debates about whether or not Johnny Pesky held the ball too long.
• Nostalgic hand wringing over Ted Williams' poor performance in that '46 Series and how Ol' Teddy Ballgame never got to another one.  
• Ditto for Stan Musial.
• Interviews with Bob Gibson and Carl Yastrzemski.
• Personal reminiscences from everybody's favorite announcer, Tim McCarver, who batted .125 with 2 RBIs in the '67 Series.
• A complete and total overdose of Neil Diamond and "Sweet Caroline".

I would also hope that MLB and Fox might work in some feature about '67 Cardinals star Curt Flood, and how his efforts sowed the seeds for the multi-million dollar salaries being earned by the players participating in this year's World Series, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that.

My call - the Cardinals in six games.  Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina to be the stars in the Cardinals' Series win.   

And, hey, wouldn't a Gibson-pitching-to-McCarver be a great First Pitch for one of the games in St. Louis?  We can only hope that the punjabs in the offices of Bud "Bud" Selig are working out the logistics that will  make that happen as we speak.

Enjoy.