10/24 - Phils, Rays bullpens different yet dynamic (Click here to learn more about how two different teams can have different bullpens that are both dynamic!)
10/17 - For one night, Fenway's ghosts haunt Rays (I thought it was some really terrible pitches to Drew and Ortiz and some bad defense by Gabe Gross - boy, am I stupid!)
10/14 - Red Sox believe they're not dead yet (I always thought a team that went down in a 3-1 series believed itself to be dead, even when said team overcame a 3-1 series deficit ONE FUCKING YEAR EARLIER)
10/14 - Rays better than originally thought (You think so, Doctor?)
I didn't cherry-pick these headlines; these are his last four columns. However, his latest one is, as Foist likes to say, "classic Gammons". You'll see why.
Weather turns Series into worst ever
Oh boy. We're not even past the title and already we have ridiculous hyperbole and negativity.
PHILADELPHIA -- Somewhere in the muck of Monday's episode of "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series," the astute Julie Kicklighter texted, "the Trop doesn't look so bad right now."
Does Gammons know that a "perfect storm" is a metaphor for "any event where a combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically" (sayeth Wikipedia)? Does he know that the phrase was selected as the number 1 most overused phrase in the English language last year? Maybe he's poking fun at people who overuse the figurative meaning of the phrase by using it literally. Nah.
So true. Almost forgiven is all the noise from the megaboard at Tropicana Field. What could have been a fascinating World Series played by two teams with engaging young players has turned into the worst ever, unless you like baseball sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials and a 46-hour half-inning break.
Hear that, Tropicana Field megaboard? Peter Gammons almost forgives you! Also, "...sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials" makes no sense. I'll address the 46-hour half-inning break in a bit.
If the Phillies were going to win,
How about "If the Phillies win"?
it is a shame that the feeling was iced.
Don't you hate those "iced feelings"?
For baseball, even perfect telecasts can't save ratings or the majesty of a dramatic World Series, which the sport hasn't had since 2002.
WHAT???? I want you, the reader, to read this sentence three times. I defy you not to be MORE confused every time you reread it. Where to begin? First, the introductory phrase "for baseball" is useless and confusing. Second, I'm not sure what a "perfect telecast" is, but it probably wouldn't include ab machine infomercials, so I guess he's not talking about this year. Third, and this always bothers me, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE TV RATINGS OF A WORLD SERIES EXCEPT THE NETWORK BROADCASTING IT. Since people seem to love blasting Fox's broadcast (and, specifically, its broadcasters, though I don't mind them nearly as much as most), they should, if anything, pray for low ratings in the World Series. This way, Fox will decide not to carry the World Series in the future, and people can stop bitching about the network. Fourth, I don't know what the "majesty of a dramatic World Series" is. Fifth, the 2003 World Series would certainly qualify as exciting, featuring Josh Beckett shutting down the Yankees on short rest in Game 6. Granted, both of those teams were pretty detestable, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, but it certainly didn't lack for drama.
Say the Rays were to come back and win it with James Shields and Matt Garza pitching in the Trop we miss, there will be a hanging chad feel to the championship.
Wrong. They will be thrilled that they came back from a 3-1 deficit. Yes, the Phillies got hosed (ha!) in Game 5, and they have a semi-legitimate beef in the way it was handled by Selig. Nevertheless, if the Rays come back, the "drama and majesty" that Gammons yearns for would probably come back as well, so what, exactly, is it that he wants? Also, that sentence is a run-on.
And as the winds and the rains and even the snowflakes rattled across Pennsylvania,
I can think of many verbs to describe the effect of bad weather. "Rattled" is not among them.
there was no chance they could move the bottom of the sixth inning to St. Pete, similar to what happened in the 1959 Junior World Series between Gene Mauch's Minneapolis Millers and Preston Gomez's Havana Sugar Kings. The first two games were played in Bloomington, Minn., on Sept. 27-28, but the weather turned so miserable that they moved the rest of the series to Havana, where the Cubans beat Carl Yastrzemski and the Millers in seven games.
What is the Junior World Series? Obviously something between Cuba and the US, but considering that I (and, likely, the vast majority of his readership) have no idea what he's babbling about, I don't think it would kill him to take a sentence to explain what the Junior World Series is.
For those who like domes, that was September.
Um, he was the one who almost absolved Tropicana. Also, what is his point? Here are the possibilities:
1. Bad weather affects the ability of players to play baseball.
2. It would not have been possible to move this game to Tampa's home field.
3. Not only was Gammons alive in 1959, he remembers something called the Junior World Series which took place then.
4. ???????
I'll take number 4.
And remember, folks, next year's World Series is going to be a week later.
Good golly. The World Series has, like, NEVER been that late before. (Note: untrue.)
What happened enabled those who blame Bud Selig for everything this side of global cooling to somehow blame the commissioner again,
Nobody, NOBODY, blames Selig for anything unrelated to baseball. People blame Bud Selig for things that Selig screws up. Such as, I don't know, not understanding weather forecasts and then blaming them for being inaccurate. Or supposedly discussing contingencies ahead of time and then not sharing them with the public until after the fact, casting suspicion on the notion that these contingencies were discussed at all.
but he maintained the game's integrity by insisting it will be concluded, one way or another; you can't end the Super Bowl with a college overtime or end the Stanley Cup Final with a shootout.
I agree that the game should not have been shortened by rain. However, this has little to do with the game's integrity, and the comparisons he draws to football and hockey fall short for a simple reason. Well, more than one reason, but we'll stick with the simple one. The rules for football and hockey specifically state that their games cannot end with college overtimes or shootouts. There is no baseball rule, yet, that says that a postseason game must go at least nine innings. That's why the announcers were saying, after Tampa finished the top of the fifth, that the game was now official; everybody was operating under the assumption that the rules that govern every other baseball game apply similarly to this game. You could even argue that the baseball commissioner suddenly changing the rules halfway through a baseball game contradicts the integrity of the game. That said, I agree that Selig really had no choice in this matter.
Credit Joe Maddon for praising the Philadelphia grounds crew, his hotel in Wilmington, Del., the Rays' traveling secretary and players on both teams for making the best of a grungy situation.
We have to praise Joe Maddon for praising other people? Wow, what a man!
When this World Series finally ends, there will be a great deal of discussion about how to avoid this sort of misery.
He's probably right, but there shouldn't be. As he points out above, bad weather can show up even in September. The World Series has been starting at the end of October since MLB incorporated a third round of playoffs in 1995, and this is the first time since then that a game had to get delayed or suspended.
The first will be to figure a way to shorten the schedule. Say the schedule was reduced from 162 to 148 games (records or no records; the Steroids Era made too many baseball records meaningless), then the division series and League Championship Series could be played between Sept. 20 and Oct. 6, with the World Series theoretically completed by mid-October. Granted, the loss of the seven home dates would hit teams' revenue streams, but they'll just have to adjust player salaries; CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez might have to make ends meet on measly $20M salaries.
This is a terrible idea. First, it's amazing how bitter Gammons STILL is about the Steroid Era, for reasons we've already discussed. Second, Gammons knows every insider in baseball; does he actually think the players union will agree to shorten the season (and, probably, their salaries) by nearly 10%? Third, why effect such a radical change when the likelihood of bad weather is only slightly decreased? Fourth, this is a better idea then the next one he's about to propose.
In the mid-'90s, several owners went to a Miami Super Bowl and discussed the notion of having a 10-day World Series at a neutral site.
I cannot believe he's suggesting this. Football fans don't have a problem shelling out the cash to go to a Super Bowl at a neutral site because it's ONE DAY. How many average families are going to be like, "Let's go to Arizona for TEN DAYS to watch the Yankees"?
They'd have to get local fans to buy into destination and vacation packages.
Delete the word "into" and you're starting to get the idea.
There wouldn't be the feel in Anaheim, San Diego or Los Angeles that there is in New York, Chicago, St. Louis or Boston.
So he's freely admitting that not a lot of fans would make the trip to see their teams.
But then the Cardinals are the only team since the 2002 Angels to win in front of their home fans.
Utterly irrelevant. "Sure, fans of team X, you got to see your team play in the World Series. But you didn't see them clinch! Was it really worth it? Why don't we just move the Series to San Diego?"
It would be a hard sell, but the notion of a World Series week has some advantages.
It has ONE advantage. And lots of disadvantages.
May I suggest Punta Mita, Mexico? The Four Seasons would be a perfect headquarters hotel. Anguilla would work.
I really, really hope this is a joke. Not that it's funny.
The World Series is, after all, significant television programming, and the good folks at Fox would love predictability. It's better than the official first dud of the fall TV season, "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series."
At the risk of sounding redundant, a "perfect storm" is...ah, screw it.
There are a lot of questions that will be weighed after this, the worst World Series in memory. The first? With plummeting television ratings and the collapse of the economy, will the free agent market continue to inflate, or will it cool the market? The impact of this World Series may last right through into January.
This question is full of grammatical holes ("will it cool the market?" makes no sense because "it" refers to...nothing). I thought he said the first question to be dealt with was how to avoid weather problems in future World Series. I also thought he said this was the worst World Series ever, not the worst World Series "in memory".
The bigger issue, however, is that these radical suggestions (moving the World Series to a neutral site, shortening the season by fourteen games) and the excessive negativity (the "perfect storm", worst World Series ever, etc.) all stem from one game that had to be suspended for two days. If Tampa comes back and wins the Series, most people will look back on it as a particularly exciting World Series interrupted by some crappy weather, not a World Series that should have been good but was ruined by a stinking rain delay. If Philly holds on and wins Game 5, then there's still more drama than there otherwise would have been if the game had been completed on Monday.
Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of the extra drama foisted (ha!) upon this series by Mother Nature, Gammons bitches about how things used to be better back in the days when the United States and Cuba got along and the World Series ended two weeks earlier. He claims that this is the worst World Series ever, seemingly forgetting that the 2007 Red Sox trounced the upstart Rockies in four games that weren't particularly close, or that a clearly inferior Cardinals team ran over a Detroit team that couldn't field the damn ball. This series has at least featured three close games, some good pitching performances, and even a walk-off win. More importantly, it's not over yet. I can think of a number of outcomes that would make this series objectively better than the last few (a walk-off homer by Philly to clinch the Series tonight, Tampa roaring back to take the Series in 7, Philly blowing games 5 and 6 and then rallying behind another brilliant Hamels start to win in 7, etc.) It's worth noting, by the way, that the last scenario I mentioned would only be possible thanks to the two-day rain delay, allowing Hamels to come back for a potential Game 7.
After reading this column and writing this entry, I'm still stuck with some unanswerable questions. Why is Gammons so grumpy about all this? Why is he weirdly sympathetic to Fox? Why is he proposing radical measures to counter one stinking rain delay? Why does he complain about the lack of drama in recent World Series, overlooking the potential drama that still exists in this one? Finally, why is he such a bad writer?
