Seriously, They Did

30 October 2006



St. Louis Cardinals Win World Series

The St. Louis Cardinals took four games from the Detroit Tigers to win the 2006 World Series, rounding out a most unlikely post-season. Twice, they ran into teams who should have outscored them, and twice, those teams (the Mets and the Tigers) went cold at exactly the wrong time. The Cardinals don’t engender the same hatred that good hearted, moral folks have for the New York Yankees, but there was something of a let down even before Game One; the Cardinals didn't deserve to be there in the minds of many. With the victory parade in St. Louis yesterday, the let down (outside of the Redbird Nation) was complete.

To be fair, this World Series and the playoffs leading up to it were the embodiment of Yogi Berra’s “Good pitching will stop good hitting and vice versa.” Jeff Weaver, Jeff Suppan and Chris Carpenter pitched great games for the Cards. Rookie Anthony Reyes took Game One for them in a “once-in-a-lifetime” game. And Adam Wainwright closed everything out. The Tigers didn’t really get any hits in bunches, which is where games are won or lost.

However, the Cardinals weren’t up to much with their bats either. The team’s batting average for the World Series was .220. Albert Pujols, the great St. Louis slugger, did get pitched around a little, but still, he didn’t set the world on its ear. How does a team that weak offensively win the World Series? When the opposition does worse. Detroit committed eight errors and gave up eight unearned runs in the five games of the series. They hit a pathetic .199 – as if only their pitchers batted.

In all of this, the Most Valuable Player award might just have been changed to the Least Worthless Player, except that shortstop David Eckstein hit .364 playing hurt. He was undergoing acupuncture daily for the pain and his shoulder, ribs and hamstring were all taped up. At 5 foot 7 inches, weighing 160 pounds, many thought he was too little to play the game at the major league level. Indeed, the California Angels (they can say they’re the Anaheim Angels or the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, but heck, they’re still the same club Roy Rogers set up outside LA) let him go after 2004 without offering him a contract. He would have been the most valuable player even in a good series.

So, the 102nd World Series is over, and St. Louis has had its parade. The NFL has reached the halfway mark of its year, the NBA season starts tomorrow, and the NHL has started its second consecutive season without a strike by the players. There’s Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years ahead. But those are just to pass the time. The important date ahead comes in 107 days, when pitchers and catchers report for spring training.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.


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