Sep

30

Today marks the close of the regular baseball season. For those of us old enough to remember, one might have expected the World Series to begin on Tuesday, possibly a night game, but more likely a day one. Now with the post-season trifectas, it's amazing the October classic isn't played in November.

Pardon the curmudgeonliness, but the Os finished 85-77. The season closed on a high point, and Jim Johnson continued in his quest to rival Don "Two Packs" Stanhouse for how close one can come to blowing a save without actually doing so while garnering his 50th save. Chris Davis finished the year leading the league (AL) in RBIs and HRs–he made it over 50, only the second Oriole in history to eclipse Frank Robinson's epic 1966 Triple Crown season with 49. Despite that, and despite Adam Jones' 3rd place in the AL RBI standings, the Os generally didn't produce what they needed to in order to get to that October/November classic. Pitching was weak. Actually, weak would have been an improvement. There was one starter on the staff with any consistency, and lots of games the bullpen blew. Still, given the prediction that last year was a fluke and the Os would return to the AL East cellar, there is some satisfaction to be had in the omnipresent cry at the end of the season, "Wait 'til next year!" I'm also betting that Buck keeps his job. And after two decades of baseball folly, to have two winning seasons in a row, well, it just puts the season into perspective.

As Tim Melvin has observed, it's now time to become re-aquainted with the Kindle. Personally, I'm looking around for a copy of "Birds on the Wing"; it's pre-Kindle, but since it's a physical book, neither of my kids will have touched it, so it will be exactly where I put it a couple of years ago (pre-Buck). If you grew up in Baltimore during the 1960s/early 70s, I'm sure you know of the book. That and Freedom's Forge should get me to Halloween. Then the countdown to spring training can begin anew.

There was an interesting piece in today's NYTimes about what ails baseball. I found myself in disagreement with the analysis–at least part of it. But I want to give the matter some more thought, and I'll get back to fellow dailyspecs with some comments in the next couple of weeks. After all, there's a cold winter to be navigated yet, and 4 months of quiet before hope springs eternal again and the cry goes out, "Play ball!"

Steve Ellison writes: 

In PracSpec, the Chair and Collab postulated that baseball was a mirror of American culture. Eras when baseball emphasized fundamentals and hard work, such as the present, tended to be followed by favorable economic periods. It was the long-ball eras that heralded trouble ahead for the economy and stock market.

Stefan Jovanovich writes: 

Yesterday was the anniversary of Willie Mays' catch and throw in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series. Since I played hookie from school every day the Giants were in town during the summers of 1952, 1953, 1954 and the spring of 1955. (The NY Public Schools in Harlem and the Bronx were so stuffed with boomed babies that no one missed me.) As a life-long Giants fan I have no more nostalgia for the Polo Grounds than for Candlestick. As Joe Torre (born in Brooklyn but smart enough to be a Giants fan) said, "I never hated the Yankees; I just wanted our Giants to be as good a franchise as they were.)

From the beginning the Yankees were smart enough to build a stadium that rewarded their left-handed dead pull hitters. (Ruth didn't build the stadium; Rupert built it for him.) With the Polo Grounds it was the exact opposite. The stadium absolutely killed the teams that I grew up with. They had a wealth of talent; but their best players were - like so many of the great Southern ball players of that era (Aaron, Matthews) - brought up in the Ty Cobb school. They were gap hitters with power. But, instead of getting County Stadium (where Mays hit his 4 home runs and Aaron and Mathews had the careers made), my Giants got the impossibly deep alleys of the Polo Grounds - the places where Monte Irvin's and Willie Mays' homers regularly went to become outs in Richie Ashburn's glove. The only genuine sluggers the Giants ever had in all the years at the Polo Grounds were the baby Ruthies - Mel Ott and Johnny Mize - dead-pull left-hand hitters who were late on the ball if it went anywhere left of right field. (Mize thought he had died and gone to heaven when he was traded to the Yankees late in his career. The right field fence in the Polo Grounds was 15 feet high; in Yankee Stadium it was 3 feet.)

As dreadful as Candlestick was, it was not that bad; Willie Mays and McCovey could reach the right center fence without having to take steroids. But, with the wind blowing in from the north (which it still does almost all the time), only Dave Kingman had the strength to regularly hit it out to left field. To his credit Peter Macgowan had the sense to remember the Polo Grounds and Candlestick and build the former and now again AT&T Park with a short right field so that his Babe Ruth (Mr. Bonds) could find the seats. It was the making of the franchise, which sold out - again - this year even though the team only tied for third in a weak division on the final day of the season - also yesterday.

P.S. Go Cleveland, Go Pirates!


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