I know, it ain't over till it's over, but things look awful bad for the Red Sox now. Fifth inning, 7-0. Season's ending for me soon, I guess. Come next Wednesday night, if I'm home, I'll be watching The Bionic Woman. I have family and friends who are rooting for the Indians, and they're a good bunch of players and all, but there's not a team I'm less interested in in watching in the World Series than Cleveland.
Unless it's the Colorado Rockies.
Sixth inning hope springs eternal update: Youkilis, Oritz, and Ramieriz! Whatever the final score, you're not going to see anything much more spectacular than that!
Eighth inning despair returning update: Gossip Girl is also on on Wednesday night.
You do realize this is only Game Four, and the Sox could conceivably win the next three?
Unlikely, but so was 2004. I'll wager Beckett beats the Tribe tomorrow.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 10:24 PM
Update: You may have protested too soon.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Tuesday, October 16, 2007 at 10:35 PM
Well, in September of last year the Dodgers hit four in a row to tie a game with the Padres (the last two off Trevor Hoffman). Their closer promptly gave up a run in the 10th, and Nomar (NOMAH!) hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the 10th to win it. In LA they call that the 4+1 game.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 01:49 AM
Dude, baseball is so over for 2007! Okay, I am just a bitter SF Giants fan. Although, if forced to root for an American League team, I will pick the Red Sox.
Posted by: catherine | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 03:41 AM
Baseball made sense up through 2003. We were within one game in each league championship of seeing a Cubs-Red Sox world series, which would have led to the end of human life on earth. But then both blew game 7, as God intended.
In 2004 the Red Sox won in a way that defied all human logic, and broke their 86 year curse.
In 2005 the White Sox broke their 88 year curse, again by getting much hotter in the playoffs than they had been all season.
In 2006, the very weakest team in the playoffs got hot and won.
In 2007, a team that had been a bit above .500 all season is in the Series because of a 21-out-of-22 run (that's a .955 winning percentage. It makes the '51 Giants seem ho-hum.) If they go on to beat the much superior Red Sox or Indians, we'll know that the baseball postseason is even a worse way to choose the best team than the BCS.
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 08:15 AM
"we'll know that the baseball postseason is even a worse way to choose the best team than the BCS."
Well, let's not go THAT far.
Friends don't let friends watch Gossip Girl.
Posted by: Ken Houghton | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 08:57 AM
The World Series has never been about seeing who was the best team in baseball. It is about who wins the World Series. Win the World Series and you are champions. Lose and you are not. World Series history is full of upsets and "shouldn'a beens". Being an SF Giants fan myself, I look at 1993 and 2000 when the Giants were clearly the best team in baseball. Did they win the World Series? Nope. How about the Braves of the 1990's? CLEARLY the best team in baseball for the decade. How many championships? One. TORONTO? Come on. The World Series and the playoffs are fine. Grumpy fans whose team was barely beaten always have sour grapes. Hey, I was in Philly in 1964 - I KNOW from heartbreak.
Posted by: robertognome | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 09:04 AM
Hey! What's with the smack about the Blue Jays? I defy you to find a better team in baseball from 1983 through 1993-the two World Series championships were the culmination of a decade of excellent baseball, much as it might gall America-centric baseball snobs.
As far as this year's concerned, go Indians. I hate the Bosox, as any dutiful Jays fan would, and I like seeing the better team win in the playoffs-which, at least right now, means rooting for the American League champs.
Posted by: Ian Gray | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 11:37 AM
I'm a Giants fan myself [1], but I can't say they were better than the Braves in '93 while losing 5 out of 6 to them down the stretch.
1. Enough that when Trevor Hoffman fell apart in this year's play-in game, I thought "Serves the SOB right for beaning Robby Thompson".
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 01:47 PM
Thanks, people, for confirming my theory. I have said for many (12) years that even if the Rockies set all sorts of records for winning, pitching, defense, offense at home and away they would still not get any creds from the two coasts. Sure enough. The presence of the best team in baseball at this point in the 2007 World Series, who swept the Red Sox and the Yanks and the DBacks recently, and may very well sweep the Series is now said to be the result of bad planning. Misters Holliday, Tulowitski, Matsui, Helton, Atkins, Taveras, Hawpe, and Torrealba have set league-leading season records for defense and offense. The first two mentioned may be MVP and ROY this year.
This is not a fluke. Clint Hurdle and the Rockies have been building a strong minor league system and making good trades over the past several seasons for just this result. The young starting pitchers, a strong bullpen and a deep bench can beat anybody and have for the past several months on a regular basis. They are fun to watch too.
Read it and weep. Sour grapes don't make very good champagne in the winning locker room. Grow up. Even better, anticipate next season with dread. The kids ain't finished.
Posted by: Gray Lensman | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 02:18 PM
If it's not a fluke, why were the Rockies 77-72 on September 15th?
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 02:29 PM
Lensman, I'm way out west of the westest coast, and I'm rooting for the Rockies because they're a wonderful team. I can say this as one who watched his Dodgers get skunked seven consecutive times over the last two weeks of the season, and the Dodgers up to that point were in pretty good playoff shape.
Hang in there, pal; some of us appreciate your guys.
And Mike, the Yankees were horrid for the first half of the season; what if they'd been horrid instead in the second half?
Posted by: Linkmeister | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 03:12 PM
And Mike, the Yankees were horrid for the first half of the season; what if they'd been horrid instead in the second half?
I'm unconvinced that a team that was average for 5 1/2 months and then got amazingly hot isn't an average team.
Posted by: Mike Schilling | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 07:16 PM
Well, the pitching was average (8th in the NL more or less across the board), but the hitting was at or near the top all year, and they were the best defensive team in all of MLB.
At least if you take ESPN's stats as gospel.
Posted by: Linkmeister | Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 09:19 PM