THE BIG WHAT IF
One thing that always strikes me about the 1986 World Series is how incredibly close it came to being The California Angels vs The Houston Astros. Everybody remembers that the Red Sox were one strike away-three times-from beating the Mets. Not nearly as many people bring up the fact that the Angels were one strike away themselves, in game 5 of the ALCS. With the Sox on the brink of elimination, down 3 games to 1, Dave Henderson hit his improbable 2-run homer off Donnie Moore on a 2-2 pitch with 2 outs in the 9th and the Sox trailing 5-4. The Sox actually went into the inning trailing 5-2. Don Baylor hit a 2-run homer of his own to get them within 1. Henderson makes an out and the Sox go home. No extra inning victory – the Angels tied it in the bottom of the 9th before losing in the 11th – no back-to back Sox blowouts in games 6 and 7, and no trip to the World Series.
In the NLCS, it was all about one man, Houston’s Mike Scott. Scott won the National League Cy Young award with an 18-10 record, a 2.22 ERA and 306 strikeouts. If you saw him pitch between September 25th and October 12th of 1986, you saw one of the most incredible 4-start stretches in baseball history. Scott no-hit the Giants-striking out 13- on September 25th as the Astros clinched their second division title in franchise history. On October 2nd, in his playoff tune-up, also against the Giants, he pitched 7 innings and gave up just 1 run on 2 hits.
Then came the series against the Mets. In game one, Scott struck out a record-tying 14 batters en route to a complete game, 1-0 victory, and a 1-0 lead in the series. The Mets won the next two games and the Astros would rely on Scott to keep their World Series dreams alive in game 4.
Scott was mesmerizing again. Though not as dominant as in game one, he baffled the Mets, allowing 1 run on 3 hits and striking out 5, as the Astros won 3-1 to tie the series at two games apiece.
I’m not a gambler. Never have been. I don’t believe in sure things when it comes to sports, especially when it comes to baseball. I’m a Red Sox fan, after all. I’ve been around gamblers my entire adult life and have seen many of them go down in flames betting on baseball. Of all the major sports, baseball is the toughest to handicap. Basically, you put your money on the starting pitcher, they’re the ones that the odds are set for or against regardless of how long they actually participate in the game. Having said all that, if someone put a gun to my head, and told me I had to bet on one baseball game in my entire life, it would have been on Mike Scott and the Houston Astros in game seven of the 1986 NLCS. Only the game was never played.
The Mets won game five, setting up one of the most memorable postseason games in baseball history. Game six lasted 16 innings, with the Mets eventually winning 7-6, scoring all 7 of their runs from the 9th inning on. Down 7-4 in the bottom of the 16th, Houston staged a desperate rally that fell short when Kevin Bass struck out with two out and runners at first and second, sending New York to the World Series. Houston went home, Mike Scott’s incredible run was over.
Scott became the first player from a losing team to win the NLCS most valuable player award – ridiculous, actually, but a topic for another day. He pitched 18 innings, gave up just 1 run – 0.50 ERA – and had a 19-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Add those numbers to his last two regular season starts and you get this mind boggling line...
3-0 record 3 CG 2 SHO 34 IP 2 ER 10 H 40 K 5 BB 0.53 ERA
The three wins represented the three most meaningful games of Houston’s season.
He was unbeatable. Absolutely unbeatable.
The Astros were a good team, with good players, they just weren’t good enough to pick up their one great player and give him a shot at baseball immortality.
After the Mets won game six, and the series, they freely admitted how much the specter of facing Scott in game seven weighed on them. During the post-series celebration, manager Davey Johnson said, "Amen, I feel like I’ve been pardoned." Both bullpens were spent as a result of the 16 inning marathon. The Mets would have been cooked. The Astros had Mike Scott and he would have won. He would not have sustained a freak injury. He would not have been victimized by lack of run support. Because in the fall of 1986, Mike Scott was invincible. He was a sure thing.
*Interesting footnote: The Astros acquired Scott from the Mets in a straight-up deal for Danny Heep on December 11, 1982. Heep would later join Rick Aguilera as the only two members of the 1986 Mets to play for the Red Sox.
Seinfeld swings and misses
86ing the misuse of the term "Game Six"
One of the things that always made Seinfeld so appealing was that all the idiotic things they did, all the moronic schemes that they hatched, and all the outlandish things that they said made perfect sense to every dedicated viewer of the show. In fact, I can think of only a few times where something they said left me in need of some clarification. The Boyfriend or "Keith Hernandez" episode was one such instance.
The Boyfriend was a two-part episode. At the end of part one, Jerry is conflicted about his feelings of jealousy when he finds out Keith Hernandez is going to break plans with him so he can go out with Elaine instead. While the two are dancing awkwardly around the subject, Jerry tells Elaine in exasperation, that he "was at Game Six, you didn’t even watch it!"
So, I’m thinking, Game Six. What does Game Six have to do with Keith Hernandez?
I knew Hernandez never played for the Red Sox, and I was almost as sure that he was a rookie with St Louis in 1975, and not a member of the Cincinnati Reds. I was about to go look it up when it hit me. No way. They can’t be talking about 1986. Mets fans cannot refer to the biggest collapse in World Series history as GAME SIX, like their team accomplished something spectacular.
Can they?
October 21, 1975, Boston 7 Cincinnati 6 in 12 innings = GAME SIX. Fred Lynn’s 1st inning 3-run homer, Ken Griffey’s 5th inning 2-run triple that left Lynn crumpled after a collision with The Green Monster, Bernie Carbo’s pinch-hit 8th inning game-tying 3-run homer (the greatest play of the game), George Foster throwing out Denny Doyle at the plate in the bottom of the 9th, Dwight Evans' incredible catch off Joe Morgan in the 11th to keep the game tied, and, of course, Carlton Fisk’s 12th inning walk-off (they didn’t call them walk-offs at the time) home run = GAME SIX.
I could even understand if people in Toronto called October 23, 1993, when Joe Carter hit a series ending, walk-off home run, GAME SIX. But, for Mets fans to expect instant recognition for receiving the most gracious World Series gift in history, by simply saying Game Six, is an absolute joke. Maybe they should call the sixth game of the ‘86 NLCS, GAME SIX. At least Houston battled till the end in that 16 inning classic.
Mets fans acting proud and cocky about their team’s victory in game six of the 1986 World Series is like Gerald Ford’s supporters claiming a great victory after Nixon resigned.
If Yankee fans referred to the last game of the 2003 ALCS as GAME SEVEN, I would not have a problem with it. At least their players won the game. Nothing was given to them. They couldn’t help it if Boston’s Grady Little choked by not knowing when to pull Pedro Martinez. Aaron Boone’s home run was no fluke. They won the game cleanly, in dramatic fashion. There were no Red Sox errors, wild pitches or passed balls like there were vs the Mets in 1986.
So Much for Seinfeld being about nothing.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The Sage of Miami
(a rant from that almost undefeated Patriots 2007 season)
"They are in a status called unbeaten, so, thus far, they are not undefeated. Undefeated is the culmination of being unbeaten."
-Mercury Morris
This is what various media outlets are inviting Mercury Morris onto their radio and television stations to say about The 16-0 New England Patriots. Have you heard this crap? Unbeaten is undefeated and undefeated is unbeaten! The first time I heard these idiotic and nonsensical opinions was on local sports talk radio here in Boston. It was around the point in the season when the Pats were 10-0, and all this guy kept saying was, they’re unbeaten, not undefeated. Not one person on the show had the balls to tell him that unbeaten and undefeated are the same thing. They just kept listening as he lectured them on the difference between two synonymous adjectives.
The next thing I know, Morris is on ESPN. They couldn’t let his incredible insight pass them by. They had to get him on while his groundbreaking mastery of linguistics was still hot. So I’m watching him sit there like some wise oracle preaching to a congregation of, who, second graders? Who is buying this drivel? This is his platform? - They’re not undefeated, they’re unbeaten? The interviewer looks amazed. Not amused, amazed.
This rant has nothing to do with football. I’m a Patriots fan, that is true. And I know that everyone has an opinion on the undefeated, or is it unbeaten, Patriots. This is about what is wrong with sports media when they allow a guy like Mercury Morris to sit back with a cocky expression on his face and repeatedly make a mockery of the English language. Where did he come up with this? Why doesn’t anybody challenge him? Can’t the ‘72 Dolphins come up with a better spokesperson?
Well, we didn’t win the Super Bowl, we won the Lombardi Trophy. You see the difference?
MORON !
The American Heritage Dictionary says:
un - beat - en
adj.
1. Not defeated: an unbeaten football team.
I’m not kidding, that’s what it says.
Look it up you media morons before you go and give this guy his own show!
"They are in a status called unbeaten, so, thus far, they are not undefeated. Undefeated is the culmination of being unbeaten."
-Mercury Morris
This is what various media outlets are inviting Mercury Morris onto their radio and television stations to say about The 16-0 New England Patriots. Have you heard this crap? Unbeaten is undefeated and undefeated is unbeaten! The first time I heard these idiotic and nonsensical opinions was on local sports talk radio here in Boston. It was around the point in the season when the Pats were 10-0, and all this guy kept saying was, they’re unbeaten, not undefeated. Not one person on the show had the balls to tell him that unbeaten and undefeated are the same thing. They just kept listening as he lectured them on the difference between two synonymous adjectives.
The next thing I know, Morris is on ESPN. They couldn’t let his incredible insight pass them by. They had to get him on while his groundbreaking mastery of linguistics was still hot. So I’m watching him sit there like some wise oracle preaching to a congregation of, who, second graders? Who is buying this drivel? This is his platform? - They’re not undefeated, they’re unbeaten? The interviewer looks amazed. Not amused, amazed.
This rant has nothing to do with football. I’m a Patriots fan, that is true. And I know that everyone has an opinion on the undefeated, or is it unbeaten, Patriots. This is about what is wrong with sports media when they allow a guy like Mercury Morris to sit back with a cocky expression on his face and repeatedly make a mockery of the English language. Where did he come up with this? Why doesn’t anybody challenge him? Can’t the ‘72 Dolphins come up with a better spokesperson?
Well, we didn’t win the Super Bowl, we won the Lombardi Trophy. You see the difference?
MORON !
The American Heritage Dictionary says:
un - beat - en
adj.
1. Not defeated: an unbeaten football team.
I’m not kidding, that’s what it says.
Look it up you media morons before you go and give this guy his own show!
Simply Imperfect
(a look back at the 2007 Patriots)
A perfectionist’s view of the imperfect Patriots
As the final seconds of Super Bowl 42 ticked off, I couldn’t understand why, as a lifelong Patriots fan, I didn’t feel terribly disappointed. In fact, I did something that I have never done before; I watched the other team celebrate after defeating one of our hometown teams in a big game. In the past, whenever The Bruins, Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs of their respective sport, I turned the television off - immediately, sometimes sooner; I never saw Aaron Boone’s home run land in the leftfield stands at Yankee Stadium in October 2003, I was in bed with the lights out before he touched home plate -of course, I couldn’t sleep. But last Sunday was different and as I watched The New York Giants hugging one another underneath a shower of confetti, it hit me; I identified more with what The Giants had accomplished than with what The Patriots were trying to accomplish.
I am a recovering perfectionist, and what every self-deprecating perfectionist will tell you is that there is no such thing as a perfect season. We simply cannot relate to perfection, it is never within our reach and we do everything in our power to sabotage our endless pursuit of it. If The Patriots had won, thousands of fans and so-called experts would have said they had achieved perfection, but we perfectionists know better. Perfectionists know that in a perfect season, not only do you have to win all of your games, you must shutout every one of your opponents without committing a penalty or turning the ball over. You cannot be found guilty of breaking league rules and still be perfect even though no one seems to know how, or if, you benefitted from your transgressions. I know all about the 17-0 1972 Miami Dolphins; they won all of their games, but they were not perfect. I road along all season with The Patriots on their road to perfection, but I was in the backseat thinking, The directions are all screwed-up.
My best friend is a lifelong Giants’ fan. Like a presidential runner-up on election night, I called him after Sunday night’s game to congratulate him and his team on a well-earned, well-deserved victory. I was surprised by my actions, I thought that, had The Patriots lost, we wouldn’t have spoken for a few days, maybe a week. But I meant every word I said to him, his team played great and I admire them for playing so well in the biggest of games. They are the champions.
As for The Patriots, they are still my team. Remember in the movie Rocky, all that emotion at the end? Well, Rocky lost the fight, but we loved him anyway for his heart in spite of his flaws. I am not a gambler, few perfectionists are -- too many variables, I do not pay attention to point spreads or predictions. The Patriots were up against huge odds in their quest to be the first team to go 19-0. In the end, they came up 35 seconds short of their goal. I still love the Patriots, flaws and all, because as their 18-1 record proves, nobody’s perfect.
A perfectionist’s view of the imperfect Patriots
As the final seconds of Super Bowl 42 ticked off, I couldn’t understand why, as a lifelong Patriots fan, I didn’t feel terribly disappointed. In fact, I did something that I have never done before; I watched the other team celebrate after defeating one of our hometown teams in a big game. In the past, whenever The Bruins, Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics were eliminated from the playoffs of their respective sport, I turned the television off - immediately, sometimes sooner; I never saw Aaron Boone’s home run land in the leftfield stands at Yankee Stadium in October 2003, I was in bed with the lights out before he touched home plate -of course, I couldn’t sleep. But last Sunday was different and as I watched The New York Giants hugging one another underneath a shower of confetti, it hit me; I identified more with what The Giants had accomplished than with what The Patriots were trying to accomplish.
I am a recovering perfectionist, and what every self-deprecating perfectionist will tell you is that there is no such thing as a perfect season. We simply cannot relate to perfection, it is never within our reach and we do everything in our power to sabotage our endless pursuit of it. If The Patriots had won, thousands of fans and so-called experts would have said they had achieved perfection, but we perfectionists know better. Perfectionists know that in a perfect season, not only do you have to win all of your games, you must shutout every one of your opponents without committing a penalty or turning the ball over. You cannot be found guilty of breaking league rules and still be perfect even though no one seems to know how, or if, you benefitted from your transgressions. I know all about the 17-0 1972 Miami Dolphins; they won all of their games, but they were not perfect. I road along all season with The Patriots on their road to perfection, but I was in the backseat thinking, The directions are all screwed-up.
My best friend is a lifelong Giants’ fan. Like a presidential runner-up on election night, I called him after Sunday night’s game to congratulate him and his team on a well-earned, well-deserved victory. I was surprised by my actions, I thought that, had The Patriots lost, we wouldn’t have spoken for a few days, maybe a week. But I meant every word I said to him, his team played great and I admire them for playing so well in the biggest of games. They are the champions.
As for The Patriots, they are still my team. Remember in the movie Rocky, all that emotion at the end? Well, Rocky lost the fight, but we loved him anyway for his heart in spite of his flaws. I am not a gambler, few perfectionists are -- too many variables, I do not pay attention to point spreads or predictions. The Patriots were up against huge odds in their quest to be the first team to go 19-0. In the end, they came up 35 seconds short of their goal. I still love the Patriots, flaws and all, because as their 18-1 record proves, nobody’s perfect.
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