In the same spirit as all my other picks this season – I lost. The Cardinals are out of the playoffs and I’m left with a large fuzzy question mark looming over my head. The St Louis/ New York World Series had such a great prospect for salvaging something worthwhile from this lackluster baseball season. The two winningest franchises in the history of the game had a chance to meet again and take their number of World Series face-offs to six. Unfortunately the Cardinals decided to take a bit of a nap and make the entire Dodgers’ bullpen – and starter Vicente Padilla – look like future hall of famers.
Maybe I can jinx the Yankees by making it known that they are my pick to win the series. Hopefully they will, in turn, fall the same way the Tigers and, now, the Cardinals have. As great as it will be to see the Yankees win their 27th World Series title, I would prefer not to. I would rather not see a team, which made over $425 million in contract promises this past off season, beat someone like the Rockies, who have about half the Yankees’ budget. As things stand though, I don’t see anyone that can beat the Yanks in the playoffs or the fall classic. I find that unfortunate.
Without a team with two Cy Young candidates and the best all around hitter in baseball remaining in the post season mix, the 2009 baseball season continues to disappoint.
In all honesty, I don’t care much for the Cardinals either. They won the 2006 World Series only after my beloved Tigers lost their heads somewhere between the pitcher’s mound and first base. The Cardinals have won two titles without winning 90 games in that season (1926, 2006) and ten titles altogether.
They are a great and storied franchise, and their presence in the MLB makes baseball better, blah blah blah… …it’s true though. The Cardinals may also have the best fans in all of American sports; knowledgeable, courteous, die hard, charitable, and accepting of visiting fans as long as those fans aren’t belligerent. Their fans are so great that they have always stood behind a guy like Willie McGee; a guy with a face and batting stance that only a mother could love.
Photo: 1986 Topps Baseball Card of Mr. Universe.
I am not as much sad, as I am disappointed that the Dodgers had to win the division series. The Dodgers playing the Yankees is the only World Series match-up with any great or historic implication. Being from Chicago though, I can’t take as much “New York, New York”, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, “Golden Age” reminiscing as that series promises to bring about. I’m sure the New York Post and LA Daily News are already working on their visual packages for the series, and the Dodger fans are already planning on arriving late and leaving early for the games in SoCal.
Here’s the story though, just in case the Dodgers get passed the Rockies or the Philadelphia Phillies (Philly has won exactly two World Series in their history and have only met the Bronx Bankrolls in the series once (1950)).
In the times when the baby boomers were just starting to boom, and once in the early 40s, the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers were the World Series.
During conversations with an older gentleman at my workplace, we have discussed baseball and the World Series. He has said how, when he was an adolescent in the 1950s, he thought the World Series was just a nickname for when the Dodgers and Yankees played in October. That’s very telling and in all actuality, not too far from the truth.
The Brooklyn/ Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees have met in the fall classic eleven times since the start of World War II (1941, ‘47, ‘49, ‘52, ‘53, ‘55, ‘56, ‘63, ‘77, ‘78, and lastly 1981). The Dodgers have won exactly thrice (1955, ’63, and ’81). In their 1955 meeting, the only time the Dodgers won under the Brooklyn name, hall of famer Duke Snider hit four home runs, drove in seven runs, and batted .320 in 25 at bats. Snider still didn’t win the MVP though.
Brooklyn pitcher Johnny Podres took the bonus check by throwing two complete games, only allowing just two earned runs, and collecting two of the four clinching wins.
It was in game five the next year, that Don Larsen through the only perfect game in World Series history – but he played for the Yankees so we don’t really care.
After the 1957 season, the Dodgers moved out of Ebbets Field in Flatbush, Brooklyn and into the LA Coliseum (the Yankees got to play the Milwaukee Braves that year rather than the Dodgers). It was that year that Jackie Robinson decided not to return home to California with Dodgers, and hung up his number 42. The Dodgers returned to the World Series in 1959 and beat the “Go Go Sox” from Chicago, despite being out-hit 41-31 in the first four games.
When the Yanks and TrolleyDodgers finally met again it was 1963. Even though New York had won the last two fall classics, LA wasn’t intimidated or worried. They had left their losing ways in Brooklyn. In this meeting, the three man rotation of Sandy Koufax, Johnny Podres and Don Drysdale shut the Yanks down entirely. Sandy Koufax won the MVP by accumulating 23 strikeouts in his two complete-game victories. Since leaving Flatbush the Dodgers are 2-1 against the Yankees, but all that can change this year.
There is plenty of history between these two teams, but sadly not enough pitching in LA to beat Derek Jeter and Bronx Billionaires. If the Dodgers do make it past the Bullpen-less Bellheads or the Rockies, then there is a chance that something significant will happen this year.
We will just have to see how things plan-out. One way or another, it really sucks to be in the Midwest this postseason.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:10 am
I think the Yankees are the team to beat right now in the playoffs, but don’t overlook the Dodgers. They swept a very good Cardinals team and they have some power to hang with Yankees. That being said, I still think the Yanks have the most complete team in the postseason and it’s going to be really difficult to beat them in a seven game series.
http://manello33.wordpress.com
October 12th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
All LA Series, Halos take it