Something tells me Matt Stairs’ home run in Game 4 was the unofficial end of the Dodgers’ season. We’ll find out tonight. The Dodgers’ last hope is that their 24-year-old ace, Chad Billingsley, can beat the Phillies’ 24-year-old ace, Cole Hamels. I don’t see it happening. My preview is up on Si.com.
Random Thought: how often did the Dodgers’ 68-year-old manager accidentally call Billingsley “Clay Bellinger” this year?
Mark Lamster has a nifty piece over at YFSF titled Fall Classic:
October is a bittersweet time for baseball fans. A long and sometimess difficult season comes to an end with the excitement (and often disappointment) of the postseason. We hate to see it go, but to be free of our rooting obligations is also a kind of liberation. There’s no greater consolation, whether your team’s been eliminated from play or just taken one on the nose in a tough game, than the splendors of autumn, especially in the northeast.
Check it out.
By Hank Waddles
I have only been to Yankee Stadium three times, but each visit holds a significant spot in my memories. My first visit changed my life. I was born in Detroit, Michigan, and geography told me to root for the Tigers until at the age of seven in the summer of 1977 I convinced my parents to spend one day of our New York City vacation at Yankee Stadium. Catfish Hunter started the game, Chris Chambliss launched a late pinch-hit home run to bring the Yanks from behind, and Sparky Lyle got the win in relief. My strongest memory from that afternoon, though, is of a play that wasn’t made. Graig Nettles lunged into the stands in pursuit of a foul pop-up, and I was confused when the crowd cheered for him even though he hadn’t been able to make the grab. “They’re cheering because he gave it his all,” my mother explained. He gave it his all. To this day, whenever I hear that phrase I think of Graig Nettles.
My third visit was bittersweet. Last month my family and I flew across the country to New York from our home in California so that my children could one day say they had been to the original Yankee Stadium, the place where Ruth and Gehrig, Mantle and DiMaggio, Yogi and Whitey, Reggie and Thurman, Jeter and Rivera had all played. A-Rod homered, Jeter picked up four hits, Mike Mussina coasted to his sixteenth win, and everyone went home happy, but a little sad that we’d never visit again.
Neither of those games, as memorable as they were, measures up to the visit I made in August of 1997. A friend’s wedding brought me to the east coast, and as fate would have it, Don Mattingly Day was scheduled while I was in the area.
Mattingly, for me, was everything, a bright light in a dark time. The previous generation of Yankee fans had Bobby Murcer to guide them through the wilderness, but Mattingly was better; in my teenage mind, he was legendary. I was fourteen years old when he outlasted Dave Winfield for the American League batting title, and I remember tracking each of his hits in a computer program I’d written. (This was long before the instant gratification of the internet, and I couldn’t wait for the stats in the Sunday sports section.) A few years later, just before he was robbed of what should’ve been his second MVP award, I announced to my mom that I would one day name my son after him. (As it happened, I didn’t, but I was wearing a Yankee jersey in the delivery room when my son Henry was born.) Even when I got to college I mirrored Mattingly’s batting stance during IM softball games, crouching low and turning my front toe towards home plate.
Mmm, Mmm, Good.
I have watched all of the playoff games but it wasn’t until Willie Aybar’s blast last night that I made an audible noise. I jumped up off the couch and yelled, then crossed the room to high five my wife. She saw me coming and was scared, so she slipped her hand behind her back like a turtle retreating into its shell. She didn’t want any part of a stinger.
I watched the game last night with a mixture of glee and dread. I’ve effectively blocked out most of the details of the 2004 collapse but it won’t ever go away, at least not yet. And of course, the Indians blew a 3-1 lead against the Sox last season too, so no, I don’t think Boston is out of it. I won’t believe the Sox are done until they are done. Dude, I was nervous when they scored their fourth run of the game last night, and when I went over the possible pitching match-ups for Games 5, 6, and 7, I convinced myself that the Rays are in trouble.
Still, that game was a Lu Lu. And when I wasn’t being nuerotic, I enjoyed every last minute of it.
