A Fitting End

At the start of this year’s Major League Baseball playoffs, I wrote here that I hadn’t really watched a lot of games this year. Being a Mets fan, I had nothing to cheer about all season, so I directed my attention elsewhere. But lucky for me I decided to tune in, because there was enough thrilling baseball played in the month of October to fill an entire season.

Looking back, any attempt to predict a World Series winner based on regular season records would have been futile this year. The teams with the best regular season records exited the playoffs the fastest.

Defending NL Champion San Francisco, with a new manager and only a few player changes, breezed through the 162 game schedule, but managed only one win before losing to Florida in the divisional series , 3 games to 1. Meanwhile the perennial best season record holding Atlanta Braves did their perennial post season choke, falling to the Cubs 3-2 .

San Francisco has the nucleus of a team that can resurface again next year, but the Braves remain an enigma. A highly talented roster of players, but lacking in any visible team spirit, drive or focus from September on. I’ve felt for years they need a shakeup at manager, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon.

In the American League, a young and scrappy Minnesota Twins team took game one of their divisional series against the Yankees, which only served to wake up the Bronx Bombers, who took the next three to win it. The team that considers themselves the Yankees rival (although folks in NYC beg to differ), the Boston Red Sox, came back against an uneven Oakland A’s team, that once again failed to finish off an opponent they had on the brink of elimination.

Oakland faces free agent losses in the off season and may have a hard time getting back to this level next year. Minnesota, as a small market club, always faces challenges keeping good players. But their youthful enthusiasm resembled Florida’s in many ways, so you never know what can happen.

The baseball pundits all wanted to see the Cubs and Red Sox face off in the World Series, and as we all know, they both got as close as five outs away from that happening. But as I also wrote a few weeks ago, these two teams would find a way to both lose if they ever met.

Is there a curse, or just complete ineptitude? I favor the latter as the most logical reason. The Cubs had arguably the best pitching staff of all the teams in the playoffs, but that staff failed them in the final two games of their series with the Marlins. And as much as Chicagoans may want to blame one fan for a fatal mistake in Game 6, Chicago had ample opportunity to rebound from that faux pas but didn’t. The good teams stay focused and the Cubs lost theirs after that moment.

And what more can you say about the Red Sox? They honestly had a chance to win it this year, if nothing else based on their attitude. This wasn’t the same old self-doubting Boston. They came into the series with New York with a swagger and lack of awe that scared many Yankee fans. Meanwhile the Yanks suddenly looked old and vulnerable. With two 40 year old pitchers, a shaky bullpen and questions defensively, they looked like they could be had.

But, like the Minnesota series, the Yankees got a late wake up call in the form of a bench clearing brawl and a fight between Pedro Martinez and Don Zimmer that galvanized the team. Like the Cubs, Boston lost focus and couldn’t close the deal, while Aaron Boone became a Game 7 11th inning hero. Sox players went into a deep post game depression, everyone in New England forgot all about Bill Buckner, and manager Grady Little has already lost his job.

Going into the World Series, Florida showed all the best qualities of the other teams, with an enhanced sense of its own ability to win. They had the Twins youth and enthusiasm, the Cubs pitching, the Red Sox bravado. And they caught the Yankees after they had already been tired out from the Boston series. That’s not to take anything away from the Marlins, but it almost seemed as if the Yankees expected to flip their switch on and automatically pull out a win as they had so many times previously, dead bats and weak pitching notwithstanding.

The Florida Marlins are World Series Champions because they earned it. They believed in themselves, and they didn’t succumb to any Yankee mystique. A franchise that is just 11 years old has now won two World Series in two trips. Conversely, the Yankees have lost two in the past three years, also falling to Arizona in 2001. Speculation already swirls over what changes George Steinbrenner will demand. Know one thing, he won’t sit idle in the off season.

Finally, television ratings were way up as each round progressed and that bodes well for rebuilding the fan base that drifted following several years of labor strife. All in all, it was a great way to wind up the baseball season.

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This young Marlins team is also quite affectionate. Here is a photo from an earlier game with catcher Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez congratulating pitcher Ugueth Urbina . Makes you wonder how they celebrated the championship!

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I was out of town this past weekend, which explains the late posting of this item, but which also prevented me from seeing the Giants win over the previously unbeaten Vikings, 29-17. Something told me it was possible if the G-men played up to their potential. In recent years they have had Minnesota’s number. But now that baseball is over, I can get back to regular football coverage.

Next week, Giants vs the Jets!