2004 Season

Edition No. 34

November 22, 2004

THE CURSE IS REVERSED

Since my last issue of From the Bullpen, the Wild Bunch that is the 2004 version of the Red Sox swept Tirebiter’s beloved Cardinals and reversed the curse of the Bambino, winning their first World Series since 1918.  While my loyalties were with the Cardinals in this Series –– mostly because my long-suffering law partner, Jim Ed, needs to have some happy event in his life to get him over the devastation of losing to my Senators in the 2004 HSL season –– I didn’t mind seeing the Red Sox win the Series, although I certainly wished it would have gone seven games.  My own hopes for seeing a Series game in St. Louis were dashed by a week-long jury trial here in Omaha, but our clever and resourceful Shamu was able to find a way to mix business with pleasure in St. Louis, and reportedly attended Game Three won by Pedro.  We await a full report. 

Once the Cubs choked and failed to make it into the playoffs this season, my dream matchup for the Series was indeed the Red Sox against the Cardinals, a long-overdue remake of the 1967 World Series, when I was in the salad days of my love affair with baseball.  To this very day, although my  memory bank is clogged with millions of bits and bytes of mostly useless information –– not to mention weather-beaten and abused by too many libations during my pre-, intra-, and post-college days ‑‑  I still have an acute memory of staring out the window of Mrs. Buss’ fifth grade classroom at Pershing Elementary School in that magical fall of 1967; daydreaming about Bob Gibson on the mound against Carl Yastrzemski and Rico Petrocelli, in an era when World Series games were played in the daytime.  As Mrs. Buss droned away at the chalkboard about civics or long division or some other unimportant fifth grade subject, my mind was half a continent away at Fenway Park.  It also was redirected from time to time to Jeannie Irmer’s tight-fitting sweater, but that’s a story for another day.   Ahh, memories. 

Back to the present.  After the Red Sox came back against the Yankees after being down 3 games to 0, I certainly wasn’t surprised that the Red Sox beat the Cardinals to take the Series, but I was surprised that they were able to do it in four games.  I was also surprised that the Red Sox pitchers were able to throttle a great group of Cardinal hitters, including their 2-3-4-5 quartet of Walker, Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds.  The old baseball bromide Good Pitching Beats Good Hitting certainly rang true in this year’s Series.  But it is my feeling that we’ll hear form this Cardinal outfit again, real soon.

For at least the second year in a row, this year’s October Classic was somewhat of a letdown after the thrilling ACLS series between the Yankees and the Red Sox and the bang-up NCLS series between the Astros and the Cardinals.  It doesn’t get any better than the Red Sox being down 3 games to none and about to be closed out by Mariano Rivera in Game Four, and then staging their thrilling comeback and becoming the first team in postseason play to rebound from an 0-3 start to the series.  Coupled with the Cardinals’ thrilling come-from-behind 5-2 win over Roger Clemens and the Houston Astros to take the National League pennant, one would have to say that it was practically guaranteed that the World Series would not be able to live up to the League  Championship Series.

I read where some joker is now proposing to cut back on the 162-game season, because he feels that this is the reason that the World Series has become, in his word, “anticlimactic.”  I’m not sure I understand the link between the length of the regular season and an anticlimactic World Series.  It seems to me that the Cardinal bats simply got cold at the worst possible time, not that Pujols and Company were too worn out from a long season to hit the ball hard enough to get on base.  Let’s not be messing with tradition, fellas. 

POSTSEASON AWARDS

I was glad to see Roger Clemens get his seventh Cy Young, and yes, his 18-4 record should be a substantial factor.  Randy Johnson also had a great season and got no support, but a great pitcher has to be able to win even when his team can’t get a lot of runs for him.  Will the Rocket hang ’em up on the heels of a Cy Young season?  If he does, more power to him.  I’d love to see him pitch five more years if he can still keep pitching at or near his 2004 level, but there’s also something to be said for going out on top, not to mention his desire to spend less time away from his family.

Santana’s Cy in the AL was certainly no great surprise, although I didn’t necessarily expect it to be unanimous.  Be wary about taking him in Round 1 or 2 of next year’s Draft, however, as you may recall my sad experience with last year’s AL Cy Young Award winner, Mr. Halladay.  Caveat emptor. 

I was not necessarily surprised that Bonds won his fourth consecutive National League MVP and his seventh overall, but I thought it would be much closer, and I thought that Albert Pujols or Jim Edmonds would probably come in second, and not Adrian Beltre.  Yes, Bonds shattered the single-season walk record with 222 free passes, and set a new record for highest on-base percentage for a season (609), but as U-Bob might say, Big Deal, So What, Who Cares?  In terms of the more exciting statistics, home runs and RBIs, Bonds finished fourth in the National League in home runs and seventeenth in RBIs, although these totals were obviously deflated because of opposing pitchers’ clear preference to put him on first base with a free pass.  But Bonds’ team could probably still have finished in second place even without him, and during the final week of the season when the Giants were fighting it out with the Astros for the wild card berth, Bonds went a measly 1-for-13 with no extra-base hits or RBIs, which does nothing for his reputation as a choker when there is something meaningful on the line. 

WEEK 26 REDUX

I’m not trying to rub it in, or anything like that, and I’m not strictly living in the past, but I thought it would be fun and interesting for posterity to recount here the point totals for the top five teams during the last week of the season, so here goes:

That was a close one.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

Not sure exactly where else to put this little tidbit of information, but how many of you knew that Manfred Mann (he of the Manfred Mann Earth band) is really Manfred Lubowitz.   Man (no pun intended), I’ll never look at him the same way, just as I never looked at Bob Dylan the same way after I found out he is really Robert Zimmerman.  I guess if you are a blossoming Jewish musician, it’s not cool –– or not marketable, more accurately –– to be one of the Chosen People.   This is odd.  I’m stereotyping a bit here, but in most professions, people would equate a Hebrew last name with lots of gray matter. 

I just heard a rumor that U-Bob is thinking of changing his name to Sol Hurlbutstein to try to enhance his crawl up the corporate ladder in the dog-eat-dog world of screen printing.

Wonder if B.T. frowned on Underbelly passing out “Illegal Aliens for Kerry” bumper stickers to Pang and Tryn and the rest of his screen printing night crew during the recent presidential race?  I’m sure they’re all documented.

So what’s the next reality show, My Big Obnoxious Groping Priest?  Good gravy, are there no limits to how low the stupid networks will go to sell air time?  Whatever happened to standards?

On the other hand, I took my boys to see Napoleon Dynamite, a goofy guys movie that is so darned squirrelly that it’s actually funny.  Remember, I set the norms around here.  I said it’s funny.

Okay.  The fun’s over for this week.  See you next issue.

                                                                                                Skipper