Yankees in the World Series … Again

Yankees in the World Series … again. So I won’t be watching the World Series … again. Yes, I’m a sports fan and a baseball fan. But when the Yankees are in the Series, it’s not baseball. It’s Hollywood. It’s a story when the franchise with the most overwhelming advantages of any team in history doesn’t make the Series.

Sports pundits gloating when they pick the Yanks and are proven right? It’s like betting that a corrupt politician will be elected … You’re bound to be right.

When the Yankees are back, as they inevitably always are, baseball is boring … again.

What’s Wrong with Baseball

As we prepare to continue this series here is a review of numbers 7-10 of the list. Click on the titles to read the articles. Number 6 to appear soon.

10: Wimpy Pitchers

9: The Designated Hitter

8: Cheating

7: The Concept of the Closer

Sports and Ethics on Vacation

Sports and Ethics has been posting from Spain. Will miss the rest of the World Series and the next couple of weeks of the NFL.

Just saw sports here in Barcelona. Biggest coverage was on the South Africa Springboks who recently won the World Rugby Cup. Actually, I like rugby … a lot more than soccer.

It’s Just 2-0 (?)

I can’t say it with quite as much conviction as when it was 1-0. At least the margin of defeat was 11 runs less. I’m still rooting for a 7-game series.

It’s Just 1-0

The Colorado Rockies were completely dominated by the Boston Red Sox who put on a record-breaking display in a 13-1 route in game 1 of the World Series at Fenway Park. The Sox handled the Rocks like they were Little Leaguers, but an hour after the game is over, it’s no worse than a 1-run loss for the Rockies. It’s just a 1-game-to-none margin no matter what the score was. Maybe the Red Sox have used up all their hitting in the first game, they might be thinking, hoping.

Who knows? What we do know is that this was just one game and Boston will need to beat Colorado three more times before they can be crowned. And it’s not exactly like the Rockies have never had to overcome a seemingly insurmountable difficulty before.

So play the games. Hopefully seven of them. Fans love seven-game series.

No matter what happens, it has been an incredible postseason, one that has been good for the fans, and good for baseball.

Teams of Destiny to Square Off in Series

11-2, 30-5, 3-0. The numbers that brought the Red Sox back from the brink of defeat … again … and put them back in the World Series. Game seven win: 11-2. Total score against Indians, last three games: 30-5. Games won after Cleveland led 3-1: 3-0.

The Red Sox are a team of destiny.

And now they play the Rockies, a team whose entire payroll is about what Boston paid for Dice-K. With the Red Sox on a roll and Colorado on an extended hiatus, the Rockies have their work cut out for them.

But both teams are teams of destiny, with remarkable comeback stories. The Series awaits.

Byrd Revelation Casts Pall Over Indians-Red Sox Game 7

I have said that game sevens are heaven—seventh heaven if you will—for baseball fans. It is unfortunate when anything takes away from those magical games. But a blog called Sports and Ethics can’t ignore the current revelation about Cleveland starter Paul Byrd.

“Byrd, whose win in Game 4 of the ALCS moved the Indians within one victory of the World Series, bought nearly $25,000 worth of human growth hormone and syringes from 2002 to 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday.” (Read the full report here.)

Baseball doesn’t need this. One normally associates steroids with power hitters, like the accusations against Barry Bonds. But a non-superstar-type player seems to have the most to gain from such use. Byrd has denied the accusations in the past. The timing of this revelation seems political, like something that would happen near election time. Game 7 is the closest to election time in baseball there is. It is a shame to see this now. It is even a worse shame if it is true.

No matter what happens, we will be hearing a lot more on this. If the Indians pull one out tonight, it will become front and center until the end of the World Series.

Rockies Are Still Waiting; Red Sox Win Big

The Colorado Rockies knew they had a long wait before their next game after sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NLCS. But as of tonight, they also have the maximum wait to discover whom they will play in the Fall Classic.

Shortest possible series in the NLCS, longest in the ALCS. The Boston Red Sox, at home in the friendly confines of Fenway Park, had no difficulty in evening their series with the Cleveland Indians and sending the series to the most exciting of all baseball playoff scenarios … a seventh game, where one is done and the other triumphs.

Behind seven strong innings from the Mr. October of pitchers, Curt Schilling, and an early grand slam by J.D. Drew, the Red Sox coasted to a 12-2 victory. Schilling has already added to his legend; now, will the Sox do it as well by polishing off the Tribe in game seven?

No one knows. That’s why game sevens are heaven for fans. And still, the Rockies wait.

What’s Wrong With Baseball #9: The Designated Hitter

The designated hitter. Bob Costas: “Baseball is simply a better game without the DH.”

This will definitely not resonate with younger readers, who have never known an American League that played with real baseball rules, but it can if they will think hard about the differences in the National League and American League games. Joe Torre is getting a lot of sympathy for being offered a contract Steinbrenner knew he would turn down. A great manager gets the short end of the stick, right?

Not entirely. While I do think Torre is an excellent manager, should he choose to continue managing and end up in the National League, he would have to do a lot more managing, thinking, strategizing. The strategies surrounding a pitcher who hits, having to consider removing him when the need to pinch hit arises, double switches, etc., means NL managers simply think a lot more. Few of them nod off in the dugout.

And the game is better. There is no guarantee Torre could still think like a National Leaguer (he did spend his career there). Of course, he has had to do that in the World Series he has managed in, so he should be able to do it.

So the main reason the DH is bad for baseball is Bob Costas’ “Baseball is simply a better game without the DH. “

There’s a second reason. Stats, though thrown together as major league stats, just don’t mean the same thing in the two leagues, especially for pitchers, who obviously, since they never get to pitch to pitchers, have higher ERAs in the AL. It’s mixing apples and oranges. Players’ career stats can’t really be compared. It’s even more of a mess since the introduction of inter-league play, which is clearly good for baseball.

The advantages of pitching to pitchers in the NL is somewhat offset by the fact that good pitchers get to pitch longer in the AL because they don’t get lifted as quickly. But fewer young pitchers get to develop this way. And this means that hitters have a disadvantage in the AL because they are facing good pitchers longer. The only hitters to gain an advantage in the AL are the aging guys who hang on for a few extra years because they don’t need to go into the field. (So where is Barry Bonds going to go?)

But it’s too late to rectify it on the stats end. And it’s too ingrained in the AL psyche to ever change. So I offer the #9 thing that’s wrong with baseball simply as food for thought. It’s never going to change, so we’ll live with it. And I’ll keep enjoying National League games more than American League games.

Don’t Count Boston Out

Everyone reading this knows the Indians just defeated the Boston Red Sox, 7-3, to take a commanding 3-1 series lead. But we all know what happened in the 2004 ALCS, and the World Series that followed. That year the Red Sox came back from the largest possible deficit, down 3-0, to the New York Yankees no less. Any team that did that can do what it takes to get to the 2007 World Series. This time, they only need to win 3 straight, not 4, and, while the Cleveland Indians are a good team, they are not the New York Yankees.

The odds are still against Boston. It is unlikely there will be another miracle. But there certainly could be. The Red Sox have bequeathed to baseball an atmosphere of hope, and the Colorado Rockies of 2007 haven’t hurt that atmosphere any. What the Red Sox did in 2004 will be good for baseball as long as baseball lasts. Games … and series … are never over till they’re over. Fans on both sides can enjoy every moment of every game.

Now, do the Sox have another miracle run in them?

Don’t count them out.

Rockie Top

(Or is it Rocky Top?)

The Rockies are at the top of the National League on their way to attempting to gain the summit of the Majors in the coming World Series.

Twenty-one out of 22 games. That’s where the Colorado Rockies stand after their 6-4 win at Coors Field eliminated the Arizona Diamondbacks. If Arizona was thinking The Boston Red Sox did it, they were doing too much thinking and not enough playing. It is too bad that the error by Arizona first baseman Conor Jackson on Willy Taveras’ easy grounder splattered the fourth inning with the unearned runs that led to the victory, robbing the D-Backs of a chance at a Red Sox-like comeback, but there’s no way you can say the unearned runs mean the Rockies didn’t earn their World Series birth.

Series MVP Matt Holliday had the three-run blast that capped a six-run outburst in the fourth inning. The Rockies are definitely on Holliday and the guy’s clutch rep is growing by leaps and bounds.

The Oct. 24 start date of the WS gives the Rocks more than a week off, a record, and a huge rest-up advantage since the Indians and Red Sox give every indication of going seven in the ALCS. The Indians lead the ALCS 2-1 after last night’s victory.

The Rockies’ seven straight wins puts them alone in the company of the Big Red Machine of 1976 as the only teams to start a postseason in such a way.

It’s hard to remember that this invincible-looking team was just one strike from postseason elimination at the end of the season.

The D-Backs have nothing to hang their heads about, though their pain is understandable. “Once the sting of this subsides,” manager Bob Melvin said, “we’ll be able to reflect that we did have a great year.”

Chris Snyder made it close with a three-run homer in the eighth. In the ninth, with a runner at second and the tying run at the plate closer Manny Corpas induced Stephen Drew to pop out on a 3-0 pitch. “If that’s not the tying run,” Melvin said, “then I obviously don’t let him swing. But right there you know you’re going to get a fastball, you know you’re going to get a pitch to drive. He just came off it a hair and popped it up.”

Eric Byrnes made the final out on a check-swing grounder and the celebration was on.