All the people watching the game probably missed this, but I did post a college football blog about reorganizing the conferences here if you didn’t catch it.  By the way, I sort of rushed this (not used to writing something overnight on a week day), so excuse any errors.  I'm editing bit by bit.  I just couldn't not write a blog about this.

About 4 weeks ago, I wrote about the last day of the season and mentioned what great baseball viewing it was. I still think that was the best day based on the fact that two series were tied and three of the four games went down to the wire, with a rain delay in Baltimore perfectly timed, combined with a late finish in Tampa. But I’m having trouble coming up with a World Series game better than the one last night. I am old enough to remember 1991 Twins-Braves, 1993 Blue Jays-Phillies, 1997 Marlins-Indians, etc., and obviously there were some great Game 6/Game 7 hits in those series, but the three instances of the Cardinals coming back to tie before the game-ending home run has to put this over the top for a single game. Now, if I had to choose between being there last night and being there for Don Larsen’s perfect game, I would have chosen the perfect game, but I wasn’t around back then and even something that historic has a sort of predictable flow to it. At first, it was simply an early-game lack of offense, then after a handful of innings, with each out it became a bigger and bigger deal. This was a complete rollercoaster though, and it looked like completely different Cardinals teams (except for Lance Berkman anyway).

I love the weird facts and statistics that come up in baseball so you can have a long list of the first team to do x, the first player to do y, etc., even after 106 World Series. So that’s what I’ll start with.

The Cardinals are the first team to score in the 8th, 9th, and 10th in a World Series game (then they added the 11th). They are the first team to come back from down 2 runs twice in 9th or later.

The last team to win a road Game 7 was the 1979 “We Are Family” Pirates. At least the Pirates did some things before I was born, because other than almost beating the Braves in the early ’90s, they haven’t done much since.

8 teams since then have won seventh games at home, 7 of them were down 3 game to 2 before winning the last two.

Two teams during that time period had won Game 6’s on the road, the 2003 Marlins and 1992 Blue Jays. The other exception (the winner at home who didn’t trail 3-2) was also the Marlins, the 1997 edition, which lost to the Indians in Game 6 at home before winning Game 7.

Continue to main blog for more about individual players, the Rangers, and general managing decisions

It's been a long time since my last post, I'm not sure how long actually.
I've been out there slugging away at earning a living while enjoying my family life.

The sports fan in me draws me back to the Gab and to some of the best true writers
in the sporting world....you know who you are.

 World series game 3 is on and I'm just a baseball fan for this one.
The horse I had in the race looked a lot like Thunderbolt of Three Stooges fame in
September. The swayback nag ran off the track after being beaten soundly by Curley.

The fiasco of Theo to the Cubs and The Sox trying to pry several top prospects for him has been interesting,
the rumor that Sox owner John Henry suggested the Cubs take John Lackey and/or his contract as
compensation was classic. It will be a bag of Al Soriano's bats, a bucket of chicken and some lite beer when
it's finally settled. Lackey is rumored to being considered by the San Diego Padres if the Red Sauce pick up
most of his contract....they're thinking he could get the era under 6.00 in the NL and maybe get that 89mph
fastball to stay in a bigger ballpark.

The Boston starters have, to a man, denied that they drank beer in the dugout, although they did admit they
did consume "rally beers in the late innings" in the clubhouse. This makes sense because late innings to a
Boston starter, as defined by Dice-K Matsusaka, is any inning after the 80th pitch....typically the third or fourth.
and "rally beers" can be consumed as soon as your team falls behind....typically the 2nd or 3rd inning.

It will be interesting to see who gets this sorry lot and becomes the next Boston manager.
when do pitchers and catchers report? will this look like another 175 million dollar third place team? should be an
interesting off season.

The NBA is still locked out..........don't hurry back.

Three more questions:

will Green Bay go unbeaten?
are the 49ers for real?
will Rex and Norv shake hands or rumble after the Chargers/ Jets game Sunday?


I'm wearing my Bruins Championship T shirt and watching baseball now.

Well since "The Expert" didn't come close in his Playoff Picks he will give it another try

  I know this blog may be late since the release of "Catching Hell" but I wanted to give it a couple viewings...I have to say, Fuck Chicago!

I grew up a Cubs fan...I'd get home from school and watch Cubs games with my dad...Ryne Sandberg became my favorite player...I loved watching him and Shawon Dunston, Jody Davis, Andrea Dawson, Mark Grace, and a revolving door of crappy third basemen...I realized early on they weren't going to win it all, and some how I bought into the lovable loser crap...Rooting for a losing team comes easy when you grow up in Cleveland I guess...

I grew out of my love of the Cubs, but I always kept up on them...They were my National League team...I remember watching the game, when the infamous Bartman Play happened...I remember Alou losing his shit...But I also remember the team completely falling apart afterwards...I never blamed the dope in the stands...He did what any of us would have done...And when the Cubs lost that game, moved onto the mindset that they'd have to do it in game seven...

Of course they didn't, and as the movie showed, the whole fucking world blamed a fan, Steve Bartman for the Cubs falling apart...Not the shortstop Alex Gonzalez who booted an easy double play ball...Not Dusty Baker for leaving Mark Prior in too long...Not the bullpen who got shelled...Just some fan, who did the same thing as every other fucking fan around him, except the stupid ball hit him...

As I watched this, all I could do was feel awful for this poor bastard...The people at that game, and well a large number of people in the Chicago area acted like complete assholes...As much as I liked Chicago the few times I was there, and as much as I loved the Cubs in my youth, seeing "Catching Hell" makes me think Chicago is on the same level as Philly...And by now, you know how much I hate those fuckers in Philly!

Oh, and Cubs fans, you can't blame Bartman for how the stupid organization ruined Kerry Wood and Mark Prior's arms...And you dumb fucks shouldn't have blamed Bartman for the Cubs being a bunch weak-ass twats.

Later, The Beeze.
 

“7-20 in September. We go 9-18, we’re where we want to be. 9-18 is what, winning a third of your games? The worst teams in baseball win a third of their games.”

–Theo Epstein

First of all, I recommend checking out the timelines of what went on Wednesday. Having three games like that happen at once doesn’t happen in the playoffs, that might be more memorable than anything I have to say about how historic the “collapses” (euphemism for choke) were.

Here are three good timelines:

HuffPo

MLB

ESPN

Obviously the Rays have returned to the playoffs with a vengeance, but the main topic is I still want to talk about how they and the Cardinals got there and to give some historical perspective on those collapses. That’s why I don’t blog about baseball much. By the time you sit down to think about it and research and so forth, something else important is going on. The Yankees/Tigers game was postponed as I was writing this, so that helped me finish without too much distraction.

I mentioned in a couple of places after the Red Sox had the 3-13 stretch (or some approximation thereof) that I couldn’t find another team that had ever done that in September, not even the 1964 Phillies, who had a 10-game losing streak in September. Those Phillies went 4-13 for one stretch, but that was followed by two wins (in the last two games of the season) and preceded by a 3-game winning streak. The Phillies were 2 ½ behind in the second-to-last game but technically were not eliminated until the next day. So that was also less dramatic.

Looking at the full month though, it’s not even closer. The Phillies won 13 games in September ’64, the same number the Angels (a team I follow a good bit) won this September. The Angels gained 6 ½ games against the Red Sox in the month. After the 3-13 stretch by the Red Sox and before the Angels finished with four consecutive losses, the Angels had gained 8 games on the Red Sox for the month.

So if you compare the Septembers of the 2011 Red Sox and 1964 Cardinals, the Red Sox would have lost 13 games against the Cardinals. So that’s about twice as many games as the Phillies lost (the Phillies actually lost 7 games from the beginning of the month to the end, but that regular season actually ended on October 4; the Phillies lost 6 ½ in the last 28 days of their season, so by that calculation, it is twice as many games).

I did notice the coincidence of the Phillies playing the Braves on Wednesday and helping to send the Cardinals to the post-season yet gain. It’s also a coincidence in that by causing the Braves to lose, that’s arguably another team that passes up their 1964 team in choking.

Continue reading...