Baseball: WORLD SERIES

I'm hard-pressed to remember when I enjoyed a World Series less. Between the execrable officiating and the fact it was a 4-0 sweep, I'd have to rate it as a real disappointment.

However, I'm glad another very long-suffering team has King Kong off its back. I've heard many people say, "Who cares about the White Sox' long dry spell? They brought it on themselves in 1919!"

Baloney. For one thing, I doubt any player on this year's team had a grandfather who was alive in 1919. For another, major baseball historians are almost unanimous in their agreement that the Cubs threw the 1918 Series, and more than a few think the 1916 Cubs did so, too. Yet everyone, including me, finds great pathos in the Cubs' suffering and would love to see them finally win it all (preferably with a certain fan a few rows back).

Now, JERRY REINSDORF is a reason not to care about the White Sox, but this was a likeable team (except possibly for its catcher, and I felt good seeing them win. I would have felt seeing Houston win, too, because all their young players seem like real good guys.

My lasting positive memory of this year's playoffs:

Burke hits his home run to eliminate Atlanta, after Clemens has pitched several innings of unexpected relief on 3 days' rest (or was it two?). Clemens sees the media heading for him amidst all the hysteria, so he grabs the giddy young Burke and pulls him over by Clemens. A talking head asks Clemens about his great relief performance under the situation. Clemens makes a brief remark about being glad he could give something back to the team, after his lousy start earlier in the series.

Then, having had a zillion star moments in front of the cameras in his great career, Clemens points at Burke and says, "Now, how about the kid?"

Then he walks away and leaves all the cameras and reporters there with young Mr. Burke, so he can fully bask in his moment of great glory.

I hope people remember Clemens for doing that. Talk about class.

Baseball History Nut

in a series like this where i really don't have a favorite i always want to see a good exciting one, i didn't get to watch much of it this year but in the end the Astros lack of clutch hitting did them in, Chicago had one of those golden streaks where every move they made turned out to be the right one and all the breaks went their way, it seemed that fate was finally on their side, i thought that Phil Garner was way out of line for his comments after game 3....congrats to the White Sox and their fans.....

the sox clinched the series on what would have been the 139th birthday of Kid Gleason, the manager of the 1919 white/black sox.....

Until reading your post, I had not read Garner's classless remarks about his team's lack of hitting in Game 3. Do you suppose that asinine tirade contributed to his team's punchlessness in Game 4? It certainly cannot have helped his hitters.

i think that Garner was frustrated and should have taken another 20 minutes to cool off after the game, the White Sox were on an incredible roll through the playoffs after nearly blowing their season long lead at the end of the year, it was simply their turn.

it was good to see Freddie Garcia pick up a world series win that will go down in history, another one the Mariners let get away...

Between Hurricane Wilma and other stuff this was the first World Series I haven't watched a single inning.

it was good to see Freddie Garcia pick up a world series win that will go down in history, another one the Mariners let get away...

You could write a large book on it. Seattle is pathetic. Piniella knew it enough to leave. B Price did too. Bavasi is Woody Woodward the second.

The WS was pretty good imo. All close games. Tons better then last years, or the NYY slaughter of SD in 98, or even the subway series.

Periodically, we baseball freaks hear tirades against teams that amassed great talent and got little or nothing out of it. Throughout my childhood, my boyhood team--the S.F. Giants of the 1960's--was a paradigm of such a team. They had Willie Mays, either the best or second-best player in a long time (with all due respect to Musial and the choleric Teddy Ballgame). They had McCovey and Cepeda, two sluggers so fearsome they felt compelled to put one of them in left field, where both were hapless. They had Marichal, whose career record is 8 wins and 32 LOSSES short of Bob Gibson's.

And they went to exactly one World Series, which they lost in 7 games, when Ralph Terry atoned for Maz's home run 2 years earlier by shutting them out in Game 7, helped immensely by an inexplicably placed Bobby Richardson. (What the hell was he doing so close to 2B, against McCovey???)

Yeah, the 1960's Giants have long been one of history's standard bearers for patheticness and inability to get even 1/2 of what they should have out of their immense talent. But in that regard, I don't think they hold a candle to Seattle, who never got to the Series.

For many years, when a player had fabulous career stats by the age of 30, we saw his stats compared with those of Ott, Foxx, Mantle and Mathews at that age, as those four were widely regarded as the standard bearers.

Until last year, Griffey looked like the biggest flameout since Jimmie Foxx, who had 500 HR's at age 32 and retired with 534. But lest anyone forget, Griffey was the first of the two Seattle players--A-Rod obviously being the other--who legitimately was in the Ott, Foxx, Mantle and Mathews list of players whose stats by age 30 suggested a phenomenal and epic career might be forthcoming.

So, amidst all the understandable dizziness over A-Rod, here is a reminder of how great Griffey was when Seattle let him get away. It was 1999. He was 28 at the end of the season. He had:

(1) 1163 runs scored;

(2) 1883 base hits;

(3) 342 doubles (only 4 major leaguers have reached 700 doubles);

(4) 398 HR's;

(5) 1152 RBI's;

(6) 166 SB's to 60 caught stealings, a 73.45% success rate; and

(7) Perhaps biggest of all: 1,259 runs created.

He had been to 10 consecutive All-Star Games and had won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves. From 1997-1999, he had hit 160 HR's, and had done so without magically becoming 3 times as big, like Bonds, McGwire and Sosa. Very few people agreed with the sportswriters who wrote, at that time, that Bonds was better than Griffey.

I have since been persuaded that even before Bonds laughably turned into baseball's geriatric Godzilla, Bonds was a better player than Griffey--little as I like that conclusion. However, it's obvious that at the end of the 1990's, Griffey appeared headed for an epic career and had phenomenal stats for a player his age. And he had one very simple advantage over Bonds: He'd started significantly younger. Moreover, Griffey had a home park which was made for his pull-hitter, fly-ball swing.

I frankly thought it a foregone conclusion that, barring major injuries, Griffey would be the first to surpass Aaron.

Well, we all know what happened when he left Seattle, but I don't believe it necessarily would have happened had he stayed there, as it was injury-based and those injuries didn't necessarily have to occur against different teams (AL teams) in different parks.

And here's the scary part:

It's safe to say, I believe, that even without all of Junior's post-departure injuries, he would be only the second-best player on the Mariners today, were he and A-Rod still there. Ponder what a statement that is. That would make him the best second-best player on a team since... Lou Gehrig? Eddie Mathews? (Clearly better than Mathews, i.m.o.) The Sheffield of today (if you want to count him)? I don't know who, but it would be some very spectacular player.

Even if you don't get into the countless other great players and prospects Seattle has let slip through their bumbling fingers, can you imagine how much they've lost by not having Junior and A-Rod? Now, get into the many unrelated great prospects who have turned into good, very good or even great players... for other teams. And remember how truly great Ichiro is, despite his allergy to BB's (an allergy he's partly recovering from).

How great could that team be? Great enough that on 1/2 the budget, I believe they'd dominate the Yankees. And I'd love to root for them when they play they Yankees.

Baseball History Nut

BBHN,

Seattle had Arod, Griffey, RJ all at once. They lost all 3.
Arod they got nothing but picks (free agency).
Griffey got them basically just Cameron.
RJ got them Guillen/Garcia.

Then they gave Guillen to Detroit for nothing.
Garcia to Chicago for Reed/Olivo, please.

Remember Varitek and DLowe to Boston for Slocumb?

HOOTIE,

Yeah, thanks for filling in the blanks. It's late and I'm tired. And obviously, those other guys, as a group, would help immensely. A couple of them, taken individually, would help a bunch (Garcia and Varitek, at a minimum).

But look at what a tremendous player Ichiro is, despite his finally-decreasing allergy to walks (his rookie-year MVP was a joke, IMO, but I've sure turned into a huge fan). As you'll know from my other posts, I think he should play CF, and I think he could displace Griffey or Duke Snider as the #6 MLB CF of all time--i.e., the guy who comes after the Fantastic Five--Mays, Cobb, Mantle, Speaker and Joe D. (my order, as well as James').

I think it likelier Griffey will get that "#6" distinction when his career's done, for reasons thoroughly laid out in my post. AND, as I said, I think even without the injuries, Griffey would be second-fiddle to Rodriguez right now, were they still on the team.

I'll go further: A-Rod, assuming he's clean (I have ZERO known reason to believe otherwise) and stays healthy (let's hope), looks like he could not only have a better career than Griffey (easily, given Jr.'s years lost to injuries), he might wind up taking a lot of hallowed records with him, including not only Aaron's HR record, but also Aaron's longstanding record of 1477 extra-base hits, which is exactly 100 more than the #2 man, Musial. A-Rod, having recently turned 30, has 792.

NOW:

(1) Take those two guys;

(2) Assume Junior hasn't suffered in AL parks all the injuries he suffered in the NL;

(3) Toss in the phenomenal lead-off man, Ichiro, who also is probably a better defensive RF than Clemente. N.B.: Besides also having a phenomenal arm like Clemente did--and I saw almost all of Clemente's career--Ichiro makes only ONE-THIRD the number of errors made by the average A.L. outfielder in his time. Clemente made about 25% MORE than the average N.L. outfielder, due to that phenomenal arm; and yeah, it was more than worth it, because the time came when the same number ot baserunners took liberties against Clemente as the number of pitchers who tried to pick off Joe Morgan: Zero.

(4) Toss in the tremendous Garcia, plus the many other good, very good or even arguably great players you've named.

Know what you'd have?

A BETTER team than the 1960's Giants teams. The 1960's Giants--and I grew up listening to every game that didn't conflict with school--had the incredible, do-everything Mays; then they had sluggers who could terrorize pitchers, but were butchers anywhere but 1B (McCovey, Cepeda, Jimmy Ray Hart [whom many Bay Area fans felt should've gotten Rookie of the Year over Richie Allen, the only problem being Allen was the greatest rookie in history], etc.); and (3) great fielders who either sucked as hitters (Davenport, any catcher until Haller) or were so bad they are now historical legends for being arguably the worst hitter since Bill Bergen (Dead Ball catcher) with any significant batting experience (Hal Lanier).

In other words, those Giants had some thunderous bats and some great gloves, but that had many holes in the lineup and many fielders with holes in their gloves.

By comparison....

Take a long look at the hypothetical, but realistic, Mariners team which you are positing. Nobody on that team is as good as Willie Mays.

Having said that, I have run out of things to say which, in making this comparison, favor the Giants. You know?

Lanier was a regular for the Giants from 1965-1970, seasons in which they near-annually finished second. In his 10-year career, Lanier's on-base and slugging were--I am not making this up--.255 and .275. Eight HR's in 3,703 AB's, and a nice, symmetric (but awful) 11 steals out of 22 tries.

And although I singled Lanier out, there were loads of other abysmal hitters--and the aforementioned Three Stooges in the field, giving us pause to wonder when we'd acquire Richie Allen and Dick Stuart.

So whenever you hear someone ridicule the 1960's Giants for only going to one Series and losing that one, albeit by inches and by very dubious infielder positioning, please trust me: Despite the presence of Willie Mays, that team was gravely flawed by atrocious fielders whose deficiencies were gladly accepted for their hitting, and by atrocious hitters whose deficiencies were accepted for their glovework.

You just can't have that many holes in your startng eght position players.

And the Seattle team we're talking about WOULDN'T. Indeed, it's my opinion our hypothetical version of this team would run away with the A.L. West on a near-annual basis.

Don't you think so?

Baseball History Nut

I'm a fan of the 'Stros and I say that the White Sox got lucky because of their opponents in the first and second round if th Angels were in the Alcs it would've been different