Some team or the other beat the Yankees
Having the best pitcher and hitter in baseball might have had something to do with it.
In all semi-seriousness, the ARod situation is going to be extremely awkward going forward. Traditionally, a player in this circumstance would insist on a trade and would get one, but unless NY is willing to light about $100 million of his contract on fire he can’t be traded.
UPDATE [SL] The happiest day of the year, Yankee elimination day!
Congrats to the Tigers, who I’ll be rooting for in the World Series. And I’ll also be giving $50 to Planned Parenthood, my usual bet with Howard that I’ll be doubly happy to pay up on.
The Yankees are an old team that finally ran out of gas. The had one great month (June) when they kicked the crap out of the National League in interleague play. They backed into the division title after they had that big lead at the All Star break. Take away one well-timed Raul Ibanez homer, and they would have lost to the Orioles in the Division Series. They narrowly survived that and got swept in the LCS anyway.
It will be interesting to see what this team looks like next year. I have a feeling someone else will win the AL East title in 2013.
Having the best team in baseball might have something to do with it, too!
(And yeah, before you lecture me about teams with better records who are not AL Champions, let me say that the Tigers won when they had to, and peaked at the right time.)
Woooo! Hoooo!
Congrats and enjoy!
Note: the Tigers opening day double play combo from 2003 (43-119) is still on the team, and one of them got 2 hrs tonight.
Jhonny Peralta was a rookie in Cleveland in 2003. I thought you might have been talking about Santiago and Infante but you mentioned 2 Home Runs.
Yeah, I was also a little confused by that comment. Maybe he meant to write that Infante scored twice.
And maybe I was just delerious with joy . . .
Delirious is joy is an excellent option.
I believe the only two players remaining from 2006 (let alone 2003) are Verlander and Ramon Santiago.
Infante and Santiago were on the 2003 team, as was Delmon Young’s brother Dmitri. Those 3 were also on the 2006 team, along with Granderson.
I started rooting for the Tigers mainly just for the Yankee hating aspect (this series makes me want some chicken in beer), but yeah, the Tigers pitching has been amazing and they are a really fun team. Definitely my fav of the remaining. Hats off the them.
Unfortunately the baseball gods well laid plans to embarrass Selig now requires the Cardinals to win the World Series in Game Seven on a blown umpire call. Good(ish) season though.
Bitter, party of one? One for Bitter?
On what front? I mean, Selig’s ham-fisted playoffs started with an umpire yutzing up an infield fly call for fuck’s sake and now has the seventh best team in the A.L. making the World Series, so I don’t very well think you can say the baseball gods aren’t out to embarrass him.
Alternatively, if you’d like to defend divisional play in the sport with a 162 game schedule, I’d very much like the laugh.
The Infield Fly call was the right one. The Shortstop could have made the play with reasonable effort. He waived off the Outfielder. Not the Umpires problem that the Shortstop then chewed the play.
I remain unconvinced that the notion of distance to the infield is meaningless to the application of the rule. Perhaps it’s written sloppily, but everyone knows that the purpose is to prevent a trap double play, and the shortstop was too far into the outfield to do that.
There is nothing in the rule that compels the umpire to make any determination of the likelihood of a trap double play. There is already a subjective element involving ordinary effort, and they probably don’t want the umpires to be sitting there trying to make that snap decision based on the fielder’s arm strength and the baserunners’ speed, etc.
Regardless, on balance the Braves still caught a huge break on that play by advancing both runners into scoring position on a poorly hit pop-up. The notion that they were somehow robbed of a guaranteed 3 runs is pretty ludicrous, but Braves fans seem to act like that was the case.
Given the quality of baseball played by the ‘best’ team in the A.L. this October, the baseball gods appear to be showing Selig some compassion by not sending them to the World Series.
You mean the team that won two playoff rounds? You mean the team that swept the “best” team in the AL out of the playoffs in hugely embarrassing fashion?
That seventh-best team in the AL?
Exactly. Unless everyone want to just crown the team with the best regular season record, what happens in the playoffs does matter. In fact, more than one champion (in many sports) will say that it’s all that matters. That’s the whole point of the playoffs. Ok, you won the regular season, now how do you matchup against the other top contenders. Fight it out. Prove it. As of today Detroit IS the better team, whether Yankee fans can admit it or not. They beat New York, four times in a row. Fair and square. Convincingly.
but just considering the records, the Tigers had a 25% chance of winning each series just from random variation. So they could just as easily been the luckier team
So you’re saying that the winner of a playoff series advances and the “truth” is that the better team has won?
That’s brilliant!! A tautology for sure, again … This time with more cowbell and extra Yankees hate!!
The whole point of baseball is that since individual games are really random, you play a 162 game regular season. And obviously the top finishers in each league used to advance directly to the World Series. It was a system that made a lot of competitive sense. But playoffs make more money and we can pretend the better team always wins, though this is just by definition. You can make a pretty strong case for it in a 7 game basketball series (at least in situations where the teams aren’t super close), but it just makes you look like an idiot if you are talking about baseball. Of course, in this particular case, it is clear that the Tigers are playing better baseball than the Yankees at this particular moment, so your argument doesn’t look completely ridiculous.
Playoffs in baseball have been a fact of life since 1969- I’m surprised more of you haven’t accepted that reality by now, or the fact that on occasion teams with a better regular season record fail to win championships. It’s something those of us who are also hockey fans have taken for granted for even longer.
Sorry I don’t think I was being clear. I wasn’t saying that this or any other playoff system magically tells us who the best team is 100% of the time. Figuring out which team is the best is an endless and futile discussion because there are so many ways to look at it and value and weigh different factors. Regular season record tells part of the story. Head-to-head match ups with other competitive teams, rivals etc., tells another part. Winning your division. And playoff performance. They are all part of the determination. But I don’t think that regular season record is the sole determinant of who the best or seventh best team is. In the case of the Yankees I don’t know how people can be claiming they are somehow the better team than Detroit because of their regular season record. The team that just got swept is hardly the same team as the one that played the regular season, due to injuries and ill-timed slumps.
Anyways, the point is, as others have noted, upsets are a part of sports. If the better team can’t beat the inferior team in a 7 game playoff, it calls into serious question their superiority.
We in Birdland are very happy for Detroit.
-Formerly Long-suffering O’s Fan
Sabathia was rocked tonight but those who thought the Yanks would have a shot tonight for some reason (at least the ones I heard) skipped over the fact the Detroit pitcher has a pretty good record too.
You believe it was self-evidently wrong to think that the Yankees had a shot tonight?
They skipped over the Detroit pitcher when talking about the game. This doesn’t mean I think it is self-evidently wrong to say the Yanks had a shot. It means they should have mentioned it to provide a complete picture of said game.
Fair enough.
Congrats to the tigers fans! Condolences to the Yankee fans here. It could be a very interesting off-season, with the Arod situation, the Jeter injury, and the numerous players who will be free agents. With the steinbrenners on the record as stating that they want to get below the cap in 2014, a major shakeup this off-season would not shock me.
But what the hell can they do with Arod? He’s declining fast and owed 118m (114 salary plus 4 in deferred signing bonus) guaranteed, and will get 6m bonuses for passing mays and Ruth. That’s 130m over five years. Good luck moving that contract.
Good luck moving that contract.
Hey, the Dodgers are still out there….
[No, I don't think there's a chance in hell, but then they did make that big, stupid move in August....]
I like that deal the Dodgers made.
And, since Yamkee fan hates him some A-Rod, the yanks will pay him to play somewhere else and I bet he’s got enough gas in that tank to take the Reds to the NL title next year.
ARod is as irrational as Jeter worship and Republican budgets combined.
As a Giants fan, I LOVE that deal that the Dodgers made.
The Yankees should definitely try to get them to pick up part or all of A-Rod’s contract. I’d contribute $50 to help the Dodgers out.
As a giants fan, you have more to worry about right now
But not the Dodgers
It all depends on whether those contracts limit their future moves or not. Management’s statements at the time were interesting.
Next year! Carl Crawford, baby!!
Do you still pay the cap penalty if you are paying a player no longer on your roster? I don’t see the Yankees fielding a playoff team while getting under the cap in the near future. How likely is it really that Steinbrenner would tolerate that?
Somebody said on ESPN today that the team that has a player on its roster is charged with the whole nut towards the luxury tax, even if some other team is actually paying a majority of the freight.
That can’t possible be true. For example, that would mean that the Yankees are paying the luxury tax on Ichiro’s entire salary (or at least on his entire pro-rated salary), rather than on just the $2m they picked up. There is no way they would have done that.
Where’s c u n d gulag?
We talked a couple years ago, in this space, about the Dorian Grey pictures that the Yankees all had in their attics.
The cleaning service came in and tossed them out, to save the frames.
Posada, retired.
Moe, season ending injury, comeback unlikely at age 43.
A-Rod, well…. acting his age. (BTW, how many other hitters of HOF caliber do we remember, losing it all at once? Jim Rice comes to mind.)
Captain, first showing his age, then injured. Career ender? Not if he were a few years younger. At his age? who knows…
I’m reasonably certain that the Sox won’t even sniff first place next year, and you’d think that the Orioles couldn’t possibly have close to the same record in walkoffs and extra inning games, but they’re going to be better, I think…..
And there’s always the Rays lying in the weeds.
My one and only regret is that c u n d gulag deserved better than this from his team.
Thanks, rea – and CONGRATULATIONS!!!
And there’s always the Rays lying in the weeds.
I think the Rays are going to have a tougher time next year. Upton is as good as gone, and there’s talk of trading Shields – which might be a good thing if they can get enough hitting in return, but who knows.
This year was pretty flukish, if you ask me.
I’m finally here.
Depressed, but here.
It’s tought watching your team show their age in just a couple weeks. You saw it during the season, but you hoped for one last run to a WS victor – even if it was on fumes. Instead, they stunk!
They played like crap from July until the final stretch run – and then they gave us fans hope at the end.
Only to have our hopes crushed by a display of hitting ineptitude that has rarely been matched.
WTF happened to Cano?
A 3-6 record can happen in mid-season, and be cause for some concern.
In the Playoffs, it’s fatal.
Contratulations to the Tigers! I’m an AL fan, so I’ll be rooting for them.
I wanted a NY v. SF WS, like that great one in ’62 (or the many, many earlier Yankees v. Giants ones, when the Giants played in Manhattan).
Now, I’m look forward to a Tigers v. Cards WS.
Is it too much to ask for a replay of that great ’68 series?
The one where poor Curt Flood opened up the flood gates, and the GREAT Bob Gibson finally lost a Game 7 to the David Wells of his time – Mickey Lolich.
But, if it’s the Cardinals or Giants who win, what’s not to like there, too?
It’s hard, after over a month of Spring Training, and the slog of a 162 game season, to lose in the Playoffs – especially when you get swept.
But the Tigers kicked our asses fair and square.
And now, the rebuilding begins.
Thank you for that- you could give certain others a lesson in how to remain classy in defeat.
You almost make me feel embarrassed (almost) for my hatred of all things Yankees, which is genetic (through my father) and was initially fired by my own bitter disappointment when they won the pennant the Tigers were ordained to win in 1962 until Al Kaline broke his collarbone diving for an Elston Howard flyball while playing in the belly of the beast.
Agreed that ’68 was one of the great World Series (any seven game series in any sport is), but I have one correction to make- David Wells was almost the Mickey Lolich of his time.
Thanks. Not all of us Yankee fans are @$$holes – but there sure are a lot of them!
When I was a kid, Kaline was my favorite non-Yankee in the AL. Clemente, in the NL.
Man, what a smooth RFer, what an arm, and what a bat. All of that, and one of the classiest men in the history of the sport.
I might still take Wells over Lolich – but I don’t want to get into some sabermetric battle. He had a longer career, and a better winning percentage (but a lot of that is the result of the teams he played on).
Let’s say, both chubby lefties were pretty damn good, and not a lot of teams would say no to having either of them on their staffs.
“All the fat guys watch me and say to their wives, ‘See, there’s a fat guy doing okay. Bring me another beer.” — Mickey Lolich.
Of course, I have always hated Lolich, because the Mets traded Rusty Staub for him when I was a little kid. They had a great staff that year tho – Seaver, Koosman, Matlock, Lolich and Swan — but no offense.
I always acknowledged the greatness of Yankee players reluctantly. Al Kaline was far and away my favorite player, Clemente and Ernie Banks were my favorite NL players. I was fortunate that I was able to see most of the great NL players of that time play despite growing up in a city with only an AL team- my dad is a huge baseball fan who’d bring us to Crosley Field in Cincinnati. As you’re well aware, the NL was really loaded at that time with Mays, Aaron, Koufax, Gibson…the list is long.
We could get into a sabermetric battle I’m ill prepared to fight, but what separates Lolich from Wells and much of the rest of the crowd is his performance in the ’68 World Series- 3 complete game wins, the second on 3 days rest and the third on just 2 days- arguably the greatest WS pitching performance of all-time (along with Gibson’s the year before). I did get to watch both of them pitch a helluva lot of games- Wells was on the Tigers ’93 to ’95- I’ll take Lolich to pitch a game you can’t afford to lose.
I love looking at the stats of the old pitchers. Lolich threw 300 plus innings four years in a row, including 376 in 1971. And Baseball Reference has him listed at 6’1″, 170lbs. Yeah, right, maybe in 8th grade!
let me join the ranks of those who thought the ’68 series was one of the all-time greatest (i’ve been watching ‘em since ’59): brock doesn’t slide in game 4 and the whole series turned, and of course, lolich!
which was why the 2006 series was such a disappointment to me: i hoped the two clubs would repeat their ’68 efforts, but it wasn’t to be.
as for al kaline, i was there at yankee stadium in ’68 when, during a yankee-tiger doubleheader in which the yanks were losing badly in the first game, they brought in rocky colavito to pitch a couple of innings: the first batter he faced was kaline, from whom he induced a groundout (second time he faced him, kaline doubled):
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B08251NYA1968.htm
Colavito had some kind of arm- you know there had to have been times when he and Kaline were in right field during warm-ups, spring training, etc trying to outdo each other throwing to third or home.
rocco domenico colavito has one of my all-time favorite stats pages: in and amongst the 374 home runs, the ops+ of 132, and the 123 outfield assists in 14 seasons, the strong-armed rock pitched twice: one in 1958 and then the game i saw in ’68!
in 5.2 career innings in 2 appearances, he had 0 earned runs allowed, 1 hit, 5 walks, and 2 ks.
and the yanks rallied to win that game, so his career record is 1-0!
Colavito was a favorite on my mom’s side (Italian) of the family, which also included a few Yankee fans (the DiMaggio factor).
A couple things I remember about Rocky (besides his arm and home run power) that I thought was pretty cool was the way he stretched in the on-deck circle, gripping the bat behind his neck with both hands (like most kids who emulate the pros I tried it, which earned a rebuke from my dad who thought it was showboating) and the time he went into the stands at Yankee Stadium to fight a fan who was messing with his wife.
bobs, as soon as i read your description of rocky in the on-deck circle, i immediately remembered it! yes, a really unique approach….
Condolences to you guys (the classy Yanks fans). I’m not sure which is worse, having a team sputter out and get swept in the playoffs, or having a complete disaster of a season from day 1 (see Boston.) I almost prefer the latter because while it’s annoying being the laughing stock of the league and reading 5 billion Suck It Red Sux Fans!!1! comments all year, at least the hopes never get up too high and it’s easy to mentally check out sometime around the all-star break. It’s an emotional Houdini routine that most Boston fans have learned to keep close at hand no matter how good the team looks on paper in the Spring.
But…the upside is that, as we have seen, any team (especially ones with the big bucks) can retool and have a pretty darn competitive team in the following spring, no matter how badly the fall ended. There’s always next year is sometimes a mantra of hope.
first, full marks to the tigers: that was a thorough ass-kicking, a combination of great pitching and timely hitting by the tigers and awful hitting by the yanks.
in the preseason here, i said i feared the yanks were too old. when they were 10 games up, i said i thought they might be too old. when they slumped in september i thought they were too old. and sure enough. they were too old (the average yankee hitter is 4 years older than the league average hitter, and 2 years older than the next oldest team’s average hitter).
that all said, when scott predicted that the yanks would win this series, i said that i didn’t think they had enough hitting, but that doesn’t mean i expected something as epic as this. for the old-timers in the crowd here, it was like watching the orioles shut the dodgers out in the 1966 world series, but of course, that was a dodger team that really couldn’t hit.
if the tigers could start the series tomorrow, i’d pick them to win it, no doubt, but now they will have a few days off, so we’ll see what happens; regardless, as rea said above, they are playing their best ball at the right time.
Yeah, it’s safe to say that you called that one.
of course. i’ll be making a donation too, even though scott’s wreckless double or nothing got me technically off the hook.
all you yankee haters ought to be joining us!
Actually, I guess technically I don’t have to make a donation either, but that would sort of defeat the purpose!
of course, the real purpose (hint to others) is to give money to planned parenthood, since we could trash talk about the yanks perfectly well without a bet being involved!
btw, i meant to note: since the day in july when the yanks were 10 games up through now, they’ve gone 41-39, and that includes the last 3 games of the regular season against the triple a sox.
h seems like such a good guy that I feel the tiniest bit badly, plus I know he loves baseball, so sorry about they going out this way [as sorry as a Red Sox fan can be, but one with human feeling outside of baseball]
too kind pinko punko, and from a baseball perspective, this has been a great postseason regardless of what happened to the yanks.
Agreed. As much as I despise the Yankees and all that they represent, I don’t hate all of their fans, and Howard and c u n d gulag represent them well.
If this is Detroit’s best ball, I’d put my bets down on the N.L. champion now.
Don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.
Well, okay, I guess if the Giants go it’s in their favor: team that shouldn’t be in the postseason vs. the team that won’t put their second best hitter on the field. But St. Louis? That’s got historically awesome debacle written all over it after this year.
team that shouldn’t be in the postseason
Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo. Look, if you’re going to have divisions and unbalanced schedules division winners are going to make the playoffs.
Anyway, the Yankees lucked out, getting to face a team with a nearly even run differential in the first round and those allegedly unworthy Tigers in the second round, and yet they barely won round one and got their ass kicked in round 2. The playoff system is perfectly reasonable and they lost fair and square.
Well that’s sort of the point. But hey, if you want to argue that saving the poor owners some pennies on travel expenses and getting ESPN a few extra Yankees-Red Sox and Cards-Cubs games that everyone hates watching justifies divisional play in baseball, by all means feel free.
Oh, he thinks it’s the Tigers who shouldn’t be in the post season? Strange thing to say about a division winner . . .
I predicted someone would say something like this, in my first comment, but let me amplify. The rules define who gets in the playoffs. The rules were in place before the season. The Tigers did what they had to do, under the rules, to get in the playoffs. Winning more is nice, but unnecessary. Once in the playoffs, everyone is equal–it doesn’t matter whether you won 88 games, or 108, in the regular season. The Tigers are now, under the rules, AL champions, and no other AL team is entitled to claim that they had a better year.
And…the rules are stupid. So merely saying “those are the rules” is laughable, especially in this case. It would be one thing if the Tigers had a worse record than a should have been wild card team while playing a tougher division, or something, but the Tigers finished with fewer wins than six other A.L. tams while playing in what was easily the worst division in baseball and being in second place as recently as 9 days before the end of the season. That’s risible in its own right, even before you account for the indefensible nature of divisional play to begin with.
Now, obviously, you’re free to not give a damn for partisanship’s sake, but you do have to own being the seventh best team in the league through the true defining test of a team despite having a far easier schedule than the six superior teams. You can’t just very well pretend that the regular season never happened.
you do have to own being the seventh best team in the league through the true defining test of a team
I was under the impresssion that the true defining test of a team is winning the championship, in accordance with the rules. You may think otherwise, and you may even be ungracious enough to chose this moment to say that, but you are wrong. If the rules had been different, nobody can say what the outcome of the season would have been. Maybe the Tigers would have gotten hotter, sooner.
How many baseball fans over the age of 14 seriously think that playoff success is more indicative of how good a team is than regular season wins? Indeed, the fact that you generally don’t even have to use at least 20% of your roster in the postseason makes that laughable on its face.
Christ, man, are you trying to establish yourself as the baseball equivalent of jen/bob? Go drown your sorrows in pancakes–I refuse to engage with you further.
The rules are fine. Just putting teams one through 4 or 6 in the playoffs so that the only race is for the last playoff spot would make the regular season far worse. Rewarding the best teams is an important consideration, but there are other factors.
I mean, by your logic the NHL and NBA have a more interesting and fair regular season. You must be the only person on earth who believes that.
There are 4 steps to becoming the “best” team in baseball: 1.) make the playoffs, 2.) win 1st round, 3.) win division series, 4.) win World Series. The one team that does that is the best team by definition. There’s a reason why every coach at the begining of the playoffs says something like “alright we’re back to 0-0.” Because they are. Claiming the team with the best regular season record is “best” is like saying the guy who ran the first 40 yards was the best 100 meter racer even though he crossed the finish line 5th.
“The rules are fine. Just putting teams one through 4 or 6 in the playoffs so that the only race is for the last playoff spot would make the regular season far worse. Rewarding the best teams is an important consideration, but there are other factors. ”
Well, sure, but we’re just back to money now. It might make for more worthwhile races, but arguing that it’s cool because we got to watch the White Sox and Tigers do their best to lose the Central hardly disproves my point.
“There are 4 steps to becoming the “best” team in baseball…”
Seriously? Pure tautology is the best you can come up with?
So the World Series doesn’t count anymore?
Brien,
I love ya.
But do you ever watch the NCAA Basketball Tournament?
Are you advocating for March Madness to return to a 16 or 32 team field? Is it too exciting to have more teams in any tournament?
Upsets are the life-blood of sports.
Da rulez iz da rulez.
And like Howard, I knew the Yanks would have ALL that they could handle with the Tigers – AND MORE.
The Tigers kicked my Yankees asses.
Fair and square.
They won because they were the better team.
If it was winner-take-all Playoff game – they won.
A best of 3 – they swept.
A best of 5 – the swept.
They swept a best of 7.
Hell, they might have swept a best of 9, and maybe a best of 11 – though, randomness would probably have let the Yankees win at least one eventually.
Again – the Tigers were the better team when it counted.
Congratulations to them!
And best of luck going forward.
‘Nuff said.
I have to agree with Brien. The baseball season is structured to generate excitement and money. Not to identify the best team on a pure performance basis. You can call the team that wins the WS the best team by definition, but that’s idiotic. If I win a coin toss competition, that doesn’t mean anything. There’s obviously some subjectivity in that you have to decide what the definition of best team is, but you can definitely talk about whether a system is good or bad at identifying a ‘best team’. Nobody would argue that a single game elimination tournament of the top 16 teams would make any sense because it does a terrible job of identifying the best team by anyone’s definition.
There’s a reason there just used to be a WS and the title carried a lot more legitimacy back then.
There will always be a tension between the most legitimate method and the one that generates the most TV-friendly excitement; surely the pre-1969 method was the most legitimate means of determining the respective league champions, but we’ll never go back to that, so the way I see it we might as well enjoy and embrace the positive aspect that the playoffs provide, even if they come at the cost of lower purity.
Of course, that’s easier for me to say as a Cardinals fan whose team has won two World Series in the last six years, but let’s not forget that from 2000-2005, the Cards routinely ended up on the short end of the postseason crapshoot with far superior teams from a pure wins perspective compared to their championship squads.
At any rate, something tells me Jim Leyland is going to have his pitchers practice fielding bunts and throwing to bases during this particular long pre-World Series layoff…
Brien — Did you deride the 87 win Yankees of 2000 when they beat the 94 win Mets?
2000? The same year the Yankees had the 5th best record in the American League?
We need to whiteout that season in the record books, get back the rings, take down the banners…
The Yankees would have been in 3rd place in the AL Central and 3rd place in the AL West, but since they were lucky enough to play in the weak AL East, they sneaked into the playoffs and proceeded to beat three superior teams.
I recall it well — all the Yankee fans laughing at how they had benefited from the stupid rules which allowed them to receive an unwarranted championship. In fact, if you look closely at those “Got Rings?” shirts worn by many of the more obnoxious Yankee fans, you will see the asterisk for the 2000 championship.
Yankee fans- the only thing they do worse than winning is losing.
Traditionally that’s been less true for baseball (and baseball fans, I’d say). The old system had its own injustices, but idea was thatthe World Series was the crowning point of the season for one of the best teams overall.
You’re limiting “traditionally” to the years before 1969. Fans have had 43 years (probably more years than the age of many readers here) to get used to the new traditions borne out of the playoff system.
And as you suggest, even the old system frequently resulted in teams with worse records- sometimes far worse records- winning the World Series. Even the Yankees.
I was too lazy to actually count, but I’d estimate from a quick scan of World Series winners prior to 1969 at Baseball Reference that the team with a better record lost at least 40% of the time. Most likely there were also times that teams with the second best record in baseball were shut out of the Series altogether because of playing in the same league as the team with the best record.
THAT’S JUST NOT FAIR!
By the way, I’m happy to have made the 154th comment here, significantly the same number of games that were “traditionally” played before MLB fucked up and added teams like the Mets and Angels, among others.
the team that won’t put their second best hitter on the field
Both Prince Fielder and Austin Jackson will be on the field.
I think he’s talking about Melky Cabrera.
Actually, I thought it was more like the 1963 Dodgers smoking the Yankees in 4. Yankees had 22 hits and 4 runs. Struck out 37 times.
That foreshadowed the epic franchise collapse 2 years later.
Yes, another similar series, you’re right.
And from what I remember, Munson was the only one who hit much at all in that ’76 WS.
But I think the Yanks scored more runs.
I know I could goggle it on the intertubes, but I’m too lazy and depressed.
And at least that was IN the WS!
And, after a 12 year drought, just getting there was a welcome sight – and yeah, I’m aware of just how entitled and @$$holic that sounds.
But I was 18, and the last time they played in one, I was too young to remember much except coming home from school and going to a friends house, whose older, retired father was watching the game, and he had us watch Mantle take a Barney Schultz knuckleball and rocket that pitch into a space orbit that I think was only finally surpassed by Apollo 8
Good luck, Tigers.
c u n d gulag, that’s right: munson set a record for hitting on a losing team as i recall.
to make a long story short, i had a chance to interview count basie in early 1977, and the famously taciturn basie only opened up on one subject: the yankees in general and his “boy” thurman munson’s performance in the ’76 series in particular!
p.s. yanks were outscored 22-8 in that sweep.
now, in the 1960 world series, the yanks won the 3 games they won 10-0, 12-0, and 16-3, and still lost the series, setting every team record for hitting in a losing series.
I have a vague recollection of people getting indignant on Bench’s behalf because Munson was so popular at the time. Yankee fans my age — I’m 44 btw — grew up idolizing that guy, and many still think he was a HOF caliber player, which he wasn’t.
no, he wasn’t hof-calibre, but what he was was the first sign that the awful yanks of 1965 on wards were turning around, and of course that led to some fans overrating him.
he was a fine hitter in his prime, but he was no johnny bench….
He was also right out of central casting for tough-guy, hard-nosed catcher.
No one was Johnny Bench.
He remained great, but never was quite the same player after they discovered he had a growth on his lung, or lung cancer, and had an operation.
I’m glad he’s still around.
He’s what now, about 65?
ZOINKS! I’m gettin’ old…
In my opinion, he, Yogi, and Campy are the greatest at that position.
And anyone would take any one of them for their team.
And no, sadly, Munson was not a HOFer. He was a terrific player in his prime. But he has already entered the decline phase of his career when he had that tragic plane accident. But, even had he never had it, his stat’s wouldn’t have got him in there. Still, a career almost any other catcher in history would have been had to have – minus the tragic end, of course.
Funny, but I never liked Bench, because I convinced myself as a kid growing up a Mets fan in the mid to late 70′s, that Jerry Koosman should have won the rookie of the year award in 1968 instead of Bench.
You have to put Rodriguez on the short list of great catchers, with Carter and Fisk a notch below. Probably need to include Bill Dickey and Josh Gibson as well.
ZOMG! YOU INTERVIEWED COUNT BASIE?!?!?!?!
How cool is that!
My only story involving a (not quite as) famous musician and baseball, is that Joe Jackson used to come into the bar I worked at in the Lower East Side of NY, and we’d talk baseball.
I’d talk about the Yanks, and he’d talk about the Orioles – his favorite team.
Great guy. Great tipper.
c u n d gulag, i have to take the child to school now, but when i have a moment, i’ll tell you more about it.
Thanks.
so, to make a long story medium length, in 1977, a collaborator and i, with funding from the national endowment for the humanities, were conducting an oral history of jazz in kansas city in the 1920s and 30s.
we started in new york, where some of the biggest names who had been in kansas city (buck clayton, eddie durham, buddy tate, jo jones, and, of course, basie) then lived, many of them playing (you may remember this joint on the upper west side, c u n d gulag), the west end cafe, which was a great place to hang out and be schooled by jo jones in particular.
anyhow, basie agreed to be interviewed but as i say, he was famously taciturn: at the age of 24, i had the hubris to think that “no problem, i can get him to talk.”
well, i was wrong! the only thing he would really talk about, as i say, was the yanks and munson: most of his other answers were variations on the “i’m working on my autobiography now so i can’t tell you that” line.
(he really was working on an autobiography, btw, with the great albert murray as his “as told to,” and i recommend “good morning blues” for all the stores he didn’t tell me.)
Ineresting Basie story. Sorry you didn’t get the story of a lifetime.
And no, I didn’t go the West End Cafe – though I’d heard of it.
In those days, I was more into punk and folk in the Village and the Lower East Side.
I got into jazz later – and then, again, more so in the Village.
The one place I used to go to all of the time back in the 80′s, was a jazz place on 23rd Street and, I think, 7th Ave. No big names, but a fine place to go to alone, or with a date, and listen to some really great jazz, and get some good food.
And I never went to Michaels Pub to hear Woody Allen play, though I loved his movies.
FSM, NYC was great back in the 70′s and 80′s!
Dirt, crime, graffiti, and all.
2 more quick points about basie:
first, hey, as you suggested in the first place, i did get to meet count basie! even though he wasn’t giving us much in the way of helpful answers, it was still a great and memorable experience to spend time with him.
and second, i should say that even though he was busy not-answering, my absolute takeaway from the experience was “this is the coolest man in the world,” and nothing has changed my opinion in the ensuing 35 years: he was a living demonstration of the difference between “hip” and “cool,” and he was cool.
Doesn’t A-Rod have a complete no-trade clause in his contract?
Surely he can waive it.
I thought I heard that he wasn’t going to do that.
Subject to terms, of course.
I don’t think contracts work that way. I’m not aware of any legally binding contract in existence that cannot be modified at any time by the consent of all parties involved. I don’t believe the law recognizes the validity of any ‘no backsies’ clauses.
The MLBPA sure does though!
That’s correct on player compensation. Guaranteed means guaranteed in MLB, no reductions or length renegotiations allowed like the NFL.
But I think no trade clauses are actually no trade without player permission.
Apparently he also has a give-a-shit attitude clause in it as well.
No trade clause = let’s negotiate.
I must have missed the Tigers’ acquisition of Joey Votto.
We’ll see just how good Joey Votto is next week. Oh, wait a minute . . .
Votto had better average stats this year than Cabrera, but also missed 50 games. Baseball Reference gives Cabrera an oWAR of 7.4, as opposed to only 4.5 for Votto. I tend to think Cabrera’s performance over a whole season is more impressive than Votto’s over 70% of a season.
The correct answer is Mike Trout.
I agree on Trout, but there have been much worse winners than Cabrera. Cabrera winning will not really be worth the outrage.
Oh yes it will. It won’t be worth the effort, but only because it’s universal derision will be inevitable. I mean, it wouldn’t be outrageous by Justin Morneau standards, but that’s faint praise if there ever was.
Given that Cabrera had a higher wOBA with a much more extensive track record, Cabrera remains the right answer (although Trout was a better all-around player in 2012.) Of course, you believe that 200ABs worth of stats from 35-year-olds coming off 6 straight bad years should be taken entirely at face value, so I suppose Cabrera’s track record doesn’t mean much…
Trout and Cabrera have the same wRC+ (park adjusted wOBA), though I guess if you want to tally up the last three or four seasons that’s sort of non-falsifiable. I’d definitely rather have Trout in every regard.
Well, I mean, obviously you’d rather have Trout next year, since he’s a lot younger and cheaper. But if we’re evaluating hitters on established ability taking past seasons into account is perfectly reasonable, and indeed necessary.
Alternatively, should a veteran like Cabrera be called the best hitter in baseball when he has a wRC+ equivalent to that of a 20 year old rookie? I mean, I guess if you think Trout had a flash in the pan season that’s reasonable, but outside of that I think it’s a lot more reasonable to give the tiebreaker to the guy who doesn’t have years of experience hitting major league pitching on his side.
Your saying inexperience makes him more valuable? How does that follow?
Replying to JazzBumpa.
The inexperienced player has more room for improvement.
Some sore loser is off in a dark corner somewhere, muttering about how sabermetrics proves the crucial importance of the stolen base . . .
I want to snark, but this is incoherent.
I still think the 2001 Mariners were the best team of all time.
Or at least a razor thin runner up to the super bestest team of all time, the 1954 Cleveland Indians.
Their non-clutch performances in the playoffs notwithstanding.
Cleveland fan reflexively sighs.
Heh.
I became a Tigers fan when I saw that the lineup seemingly had more Indians on it than the Indians did.
Just kidding, I am not a Tigers fan. No, this cross here is mine…
Mike Trout was arguably the best position player in baseball. Cabrera was clearly the better hitter.
Credit where due: the Yankees scored a run before the ninth inning.
Only time in the series that happened.
I love to watch the Yankees play, and I love to see them get beat.
Tigers radio announcers (the great Dan Dickerson and the tolerable Jim Price) seemed to have it on good authority that, remembering the disastrous layoff of ’06, the Tigers would not be twiddling their thumbs over the next 6 days. Rather than work out in the D, they may fly to Florida and play a couple games against an instructional league team.
Hope it works. My recollection is that the ’06 layoff was an especially bad fit for a younger, more contact hitting team.
I give Price a tolerable -.
There are times when he is simply annoying.
OTOH, the TV crew of Rod Allen and Mario Impemba is stellar.
I’ve warmed up to all of the current Tiger radio and television announcers. However, my ear was spoiled in my formative years by hearing too many ballgames called by the incomparable Ernie Harwell and George Kell, as well as Van Patrick & Ray Lane.
I’d compare it to hearing The Monkees after a lot of time spent listening to The Beatles.
Some of my fondest memories are from summers in the early 60′s, lying in a hammock in my grandpa’s backyard while the grown-ups sat around the picnic table with George and Ernie on the radio.
Playoffs, in every sport, is in part about getting hot at the right time. As a long-time Tigers fan, I say, go Detroit!
David Price was a better pitcher this year.
That said, good job Tigers. Hope they take it all.
27 more innings of equal or very similar quality. I’ll take verlander over price.
Divisions balance that out. It’s basically a toss up between the two, at least this year.
I’d agree with that, but I think getting to the playoffs is a reasonable tiebreaker.
Aside from the fact that the Rays won more games, what the hell does team wins have to do with who the better pitcher is?
It’s a close call, no doubt. One thing about Price that impressed the hell out of me this year is that in his 11 no-decisions, his ERA was something like 1.2. Living where I do, I didn’t follow the Tigers as closely, so I don’t know the crosstabs on Verlander as well. But I do know that the Rays had a shit offense this year, with nary a Triple Crown winner in sight – and even with that, Price still managed to win 20.
But yeah, the difference between them is reallllllllllly slight.
I’d vote Verlander over Price for Cy Young, but the loser has no right to complain.
Great update Scott, us bitter losers have to have something to be happy about. After this lousy season I’ve been reminiscing about how much better Fenway was before they let the Blacks on the field and in the seats – like you I’m really missing hockey :)
???
…I think he’s parodying a typical Sox fan?
Maybe?
As a Red Sox fan, I’ve got to say “Congrats” to the Tigers. Nicely done!
I’m not an inside-baseball kind of guy, so I don’t criticize manager’s decision very much or very often.
But I need somebody to explain to me what possible justification there could be for having A-Rod pinch hit for Ibanez – in the 6th inning, when another at-bat was guaranteed. Ibanez was the only proven slugger standing on this near-hitless team, while at this point A-Rod couldn’t hit a bull in the ass with a shovel.
Help me — What was going on in Girardi’s head?
To show that A-Rod was trusted to do something valuable, even if Girardi has the justified suspicion that this game is over.
Smyly is a lefthander and A-Rod was sitting against righthanders.
OK, thanx. I guess that explains it. Still seems ill advised, though.
Well, my guys lost, and they did lose. Just not a team worthy of the WS this year. Really not. Which makes it unusually easy for me to pivot to my AL loyalty (plus my year in Michigan affections):
Go Tigers!
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I read the entire David Waldstein article to my husband out loud this morning for the sheer eloquent disgust. My husband had the same facial expression as when I was bringing him post after post feasting on the idiocy of Todd Akin and whether he would have to drop out.
Here is something you (and the Yankees) will find helpful…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost
Congratulations to the Tigers. You beat us fair and square and you’re about due for a title. Good luck.
Robinson Cano has to be praying that ARod is back next year or Yankee fans might realize that their best hitter didn’t show up in the post season.