If you haven’t been watching the MLB playoffs this year, I feel sorry for you. The first round (we call that the “division series”) was 100% excellent, with all the good guys defeating the bad guys (except the Yankees squeaked through, but they’re supposed to) and one full five-game series between the heroic Astros and those bastards from Atlanta.
The League Championship Series has featured one great game after another, with dynamite slugging in the early games of each series followed by killer pitching in the later games. The Bostons were behind the Evil Yankees 0 games to 3 when they turned things around in a manner that would make a 12-stepper proud. They lost a game 19-8 and then came back to win three in a row after all their pitchers were hurt or shot and their most consistent hitters couldn’t find the ball. In tonight’s game in New York the umps reversed two blown calls, which has to be an even greater miracle than the Bostons rallying to tie the series at 3 games apiece. Wednesday night is the rubber match, one game to decide who represents the American League in the World Series.
Over in St. Louis, the Astros have a 3-2 game lead over the Cards in the National League Series after winning three in a row at home behind the pitchers of Christmas Past, Present, and Future and the superior closing of unhittable Brad Lidge. Houston only has to win one of the next two games, so they’re starting a rookie pitcher in order to have The Rocket on full rest for Game 7 if it happens. Carlos Beltran of the Astros is the next Barry Bonds, but without the attitude and many of the drugs, so it’s worth the price of a TV show just to see him.
Baseball is the national pastime, but it was bordering on boring until TiVo came along and rescued it, much to America’s benefit. And Japan’s too, actually. Not to mention civilization’s as a whole.
hi richard!!
thank you for the kind words about my stros.i HOPE we keep carlos, because baseball fever is epidemic in houston. you know it almost never feels like the games take too long at the ballpark..
lisa
Hey, they were my ‘Stros before they were yours! I grew up in Houston a fan of the Colt .45s and then the Astros, was a fan of the Rocket’s when he was at UT, and a fan of Jeff Kent’s when he was a Giant.