I Don't Get It
I just don't understand articles like this one, bemoaning what they claimed to be an awful World Series. Did they not watch the same four games I did? Sure there were gaffs, but the drama and consistent great plays easily made up for it. And that game last night! An incredibly tense 1-0 pitcher's duel, with the lone run not coming until the eight inning, and two of the greatest clutch plays ever by freaking Juan Uribe to close it out? Am I way off base here? I mean, the White Sox did just win the World Series in four very close games, didn't they? I'll remember this one for a long time.
There's also been some talk about the low ratings, and I largely blame Fox for this. After years of playing up the Red Sox and Yankees at the expense of the rest of the baseball, they simply had nothing work with when they lost. They have helped to create a populous that only cares about two teams. Not that either team (edit:in this year's series) is a great national team, but I'd think they could have made more out of the White Sox, who hadn't won in forever. They did try to play up the "long-suffering" Astros fans, which was a mistake. I also think that people are tired of the baseball playoffs by the time the WS gets here.
posted by Mike @ 10/27/2005 08:45:00 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This ties in to all the stuff about analysts, where you have to be saying something...and while we're at it, why not something negative?
I was talking to KW the other day about forums in general (like blogs, like reality television, like just the plain media) make people want to sound interesting. They can't be on the fence about something, they have to go a long way to prove something is more than it is all in the name of being "entertaining." A forum insists that you have an opinion, and a strong one.
I thought this Series was way better than last year's. Who'd the Red Sox play again? Oh, the Cardinals were actually on the field during those games?
My feeling is that unless the series goes to seven games or maybe at least six everyone wants to say it was a terrible series. However, if you go by the last three series to go seven (Yankees/DBacks, Angels/Giants, and Marlins/Indians), I dare say that this series was better than any of those.
The simple fact is that in those three series the majority of the games were if not blowouts at least dominated by one of the teams. There was the great game 7 in the Marlins/Indians series, but all the other six were one-sided. There was a great game 7 in the Dbacks/Yankees, but same goes as I said about Marlins/Indians. Yes there were those two walk-off homeruns in NY, but that was at the hands of Byung Hung Kim, who never should have been a closer in the first place.
The Astros did not play bad baseball. They could have just as easily won any of these games; they definately had the opportunities. These were two scrap ball type teams with excellent pitching all the way around. You can say Lidge had a post season meltdown all you want, but I disagree. He wasn't giving up hit after hit or anything; he just gave up a couple of timely ones. And yes, that sucks. But it's not a disaster either; Lidge is still a great pitcher, and when he has another 45 saves next year everyone else will be in agreement.
These were four games that went down to the wire; they were exciting and fun as hell to watch. And that's amazing coming from me since I can't stand either one of these teams.
I would also like to point out that Ozzie Guillen is quickly becoming one of my favorite managers in baseball. I love guys that just say whatever the hell is on their mind. When asked in early August what was going on with his team, he put it out on the table: "We Stink." You gotta love it. My favorite bit came in the postseason when Craig Biggio's wife got slapped by some asshole Whitesox fan in Chicago. Guillen told the cops to not put him in jail and instead send him to the dugout; the team would deal with him. This dude is a badass. I know everyone's talking about this, and I'm just jumping on a bandwagon, but it's one worth jumpiing on. Go Guillen; come manage the Cubs if you get bored on the Southside.
I don't see how anyone could say that last year's Series approached this one. The Cards didn't even show up.
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