Close...But No Cigar! Cleveland Loses!

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools. William Faulkner (1897 - 1962) The Sound and the Fury

"If you ain't first, you're last." --Ricky Bobby, "Talledega Nights"

Congratulations are in order for the Boston Red Sox who won game seven tonight, defeating the Cleveland Indians and heading off to the World Series to face the upstart Colorado Rockies. After rattling off three consecutive wins, the Indians allowed the Sox to do the same and take their place in the Fall Classic beginning next Wednesday. The Red Sox are a wonderful organization with great athletes and great fans, and while the young Indians acquited themselves well, the Sox did what good ball clubs do...they take advantage of breaks and skill and impeccable timing and get the job done. Still, losing in this competitive culture, one that worships winners, gives them product endorsements, puts their pictures on Wheaties boxes, and sends them to Disneyland and the White House (those are two different trips, by the way) is so disdained that while we cry out publicly against steriod use, we privately wrestle with whether we would succumb to the temptation to juice if it meant the difference between winning and losing. Not coincidentally, Cleveland pitcher Paul Byrd...one of the few veterans on this baby-faced team...a smallish 35 year old with a Kelsey Grammer face, an old school two-armed pump wind-up and a fastball that wouldn't break a window at point blank range will be investigated for using Human Growth Harmones. Byrd, who originally signed with the Indians after a solid college career with the LSU Tigers and then proceeded to bounce around for several years with the Reds, Braves, Phillies, Royals and Angels before resigning with the Indians last year, has been linked to shipments of needles and HGH shipped to the stadium and to his home using his credit card (so if he's trying to hide something he needs to take some cheating tips from Barry). He had a doctor's prescription for it all with a validation that these drugs were used to bring abnormally low levels up to normal and not to give him an unfair advantage. In an interview last night before the game he said..."I wouldn't cheat. I speak to kids and groups all over the country about my faith in Christ and I don't want folks questioning my message because I was doing something illegal. ESPN The Magazine interviewed him recently about a manuscript for a book he's written on his faith and his career in baseball called "The Free Byrd Project". When asked about how honest he was about his past and how his faith impacted that he responded, "Religion can go over into every area, like whether I should cheat out on the field. I write about the desire to just make money at any cost. I share about my temptation to spit on the ball, put KY jelly on it or scuff it, to win more games and make more money. That's a big temptation for me, being a guy who throws 82, who relies on movement. You have a pull, because you have a certain window up here that stares you in the face. Are you willing to take steroids? Because that's available. People viewed that as me being weak. Like, "This guy doesn't want to win."

"This guy/gal doesn't want to win"...to an athlete, to a salesman, to a rock and roll band, to a politician, to a CEO... to most of our culture, those are major throw-down words. They question our toughness, they question our character, they question our courage, and they question our understanding of what is important in the world. It is one of the reason some friends of mine don't climb on the Jesus wagon. Their words..."Sorry, anybody who says that you gotta lose your life to save it, that you have to put yourself last to win and that the one who serves is the greatest of all is completely out of touch with the way the world works." Perhaps...for those who can't distinguish between playing a game and the way you order your life...hmmmmmmmm, that might have been a little harsh...or not...at any rate, I'll keep loving the game of baseball, pulling for the Cleveland Indians, and doing my best to live out the words of that loser Jesus...

Pling...Pling...

dg

It's Time To Break Up The Rockies...

Has anybody got the guts to tell the Colorado Rockies that they are not the 1927 NY Yankees? Certainly not me...Sunday night they put the Arizona Diamondbacks in an 0 and 3 hole and are one game away from making their first ever trip to the World Series. They have won a mind-boggling 20 out of their last 21 games on an unprecedented, at least in my lifetime, run to barely squeak into the playoffs, and then proceed to mow down everything in their path on there way to a spot in the Fall Classic. Their fuzzy-chinned youth and complete lack of playoff experience aside, they seem to have no weaknesses...who would have ever thought you would have uttered that previous sentence when you were talking about the COLORADO ROCKIES! Next you are going to tell me that the Baylor Bears are the lock to win the college football national championship, that the St.Louis Rams are the class of the NFL, Jessica Simpson was cast on her last movie for her superb acting chops, and that professional wrestling is a steroid free, legitimate competitive sport. Except..in this case, the Rockies seem to be the real deal...and I for one am pulling for them, unless they end up facing my own unlikely underdog story, the Cleveland Indians, who danced away from disaster and heading back home in a 0 and 2 hole against the powerful Red Sox with a Houdini-like escape act hanging on for dear life until they could walk away with the second game of the series with an 11-inning win on Saturday to head back home tied. This is why baseball is so cool... I know that it does happen in other sports...last year's Boise State performance, as well as this years upstart South Florida Bulls in college football are doing the same thing...A group of young athletes figure out a way to defy the odds, not only compete with the big boys, but manage to hold their own, and in some very rare cases even prevail...it is fun to watch...unless you are Goliath taking a skipping rock between the eyes. The Rockies and the Indians...keep that slingshot swinging...and then we have to decide which underdog has become the next Philistine giant.

Pling...Pling...

dg

I Hate To Say I Told You So, But...

So... all three of the underdog teams I bragged about last week advanced leaving that trio of pups and the scary Boston Red Sox (who also, not coincidentally, have their share of young talent mixed in with grizzled veterans) as the combatants in Major League's version of The Final Four. Well, even though I am relatively intuitive, fairly knowledgeable in the mystery of baseball, and devastatingly handsome (hey, two out of three ain't bad...Thank You, Meatloaf!), what prognosticators out there picked a National League championship game between two teams that get longer pregame warmups because nobody on the team shaves yet, however, also have to quit earlier so that their mommies can read them a bedtime story and tuck them in at night before the evening news? I'm just saying...Colorado vs. Arizona playing for the NL pennant...boy if you had placed a bet in Vegas on that matchup back in March, you would be a bookie disaster right now. And my Cleveland Indians, the only one of the four remaining teams to lose a game in the division series, will face the powerful Boston Red Sox. I can only suspect that the Fox Network (along with my diehard BoSox friends Christy and Milton) is pulling for the Red Sox facing off up against anybody, because a Cleveland pairing against either of the other two is probably a ratings nightmare for all of those small-market reasons we talked about, as well as the absence of nationally recognized stars.

So my druthers after the infield dust clears on this next week's series is a Rockies/Indians World Series. I wouldn't place any bets on that happening, because the smart money would be on the Diamondbacks and Sox who both have World Series rings in the last six years, unlike the Indians who don't have one since 1948 and the Rockies who have never been to the World Series...ever. But then the smart money would be swirling around the bottom of the toilet and heading south right now if you had banked on traditional wisdom. Hang on underdog fans...get those rally caps ready...it's gonna be fun!

dg

The year of the underdog...Go TRIBE!

Underdog is back! No I don't mean the ill-advised movie about the cartoon wonderpup of the 60's...let's face it...no Wally Cox...no Underdog. Nope the BASEBALL underdog...

Those of you who know me understood that it was just a matter of time before I posted concerning my beloved Cleveland Indians winning the AL Central division pennant and heading to the playoffs for the first time since 2001. Those of you who are not baseball fans (cover your ears, Mildred...they don't really mean it!) don't get why we horsehide enthusiasts live for this time of the year...and I guess on some levels I get it too...While I watch the Grammys (until the Daylights and Dave Madden are nominated...then that changes) and the Oscars, I don't get fired up over them like a lot of people do. I'll watch a few World Cup matches, or NBA and NFL games...but October is the time of the year I live for, whether the Indians are involved or not. The Cleveland Indians are considered a "small market team", which essentially translates to...you ain't got New York, Boston or LA money so there's no way you can compete with the big boys. We have had a few exceptions to that rule in recent years, but this year it is an incredible, almost eerie phenomenon, because while the Angels, Red Sox and Yankees are back in the playoffs to no one's surprise, the rest of the lineup are a batch of small market, young roster upstarts... including the afore-mentioned Cleveland Indians. The Tigers and the WhiteSox, the last two American league champions were supposed to dominate the Central, but it was the young feisty Indians that came out on top. In the National League the sad sack Phillies who haven't been in the playoffs in 14 years, played flawless ball down the stretch to catch the collapsing Mets and win the division on the last day of the season. The Arizona Diamondbacks, another very young ballclub who folks kept expecting to fade in the final days hung in there to win the National League West and the perennial losers, the Chicago Cubbies, outlasted another young club, the Milwaukee Brewers to take the NL Central. Perhaps the best story of the season is the babyfaced Colorado Rockies with only one post season appearance in their history came from nowhere (they only lost one game in the last two weeks of the season) to tie the San Diego Padres for the wildcard spot on the last day of the season and will play a one-game face-off for the right to enter the playoffs.

Underdogs...we love them...maybe because we all consider ourselves small-market underdogs on some level. Maybe because we all like to see the big boys take it on the chin every now and then. Maybe long odds and great courage define for us what is good and noble in the human spirit...I'm not sure, but I do know every successful sports movie in the last 50 years has this element at its core...someone, some team, some city, some coach does the unthinkable with the unlikeliest of resources and we cheer...whether it is Rocky Balboa hanging in there for 15 rounds against Apollo Creed or the '84 US Olympic Hockey Team stunning the invincible Russians, or Benny "The Jet" Rodriguiz besting The Beast in "The Sandlot", we all know the storyline and yet we are compelled to watch and hope and rejoice when the unlikely victory comes.

In any other year I would love to see the Cubs shake off their century long frustration and win another World Series...The DBacks already have a World Championship and the Angels, BoSox (sorry Milton and Christy) and Pinstripers (sorry Calla and Ariele) are the evil empire so I can't pull for them... I might even pull for the Phillies (Charlie Manuel used to manage the Tribe several years ago) and it would be very tempting to cheer on those spunky young Rockies should they win their way in...but I can't do it. I have to be loyal to my Indians. I have been a Cleveland Indians fan since the late 1950's (yup...I really am that old) when all of us kids on our own sandlot picked our favorite team...and I picked the Tribe. They were not very good back then...actually they were one of the worst teams in baseball up until the late nineties when they managed to make it to the World Series twice ...losing both times. But...through thick and thin...lots and lots of thin...I have been a real fan...I've only been to the city of Cleveland twice in my life...both times to see Cleveland Indians games. It is true they are young, but my hope runs high and my loyalty eternal... They play the Yankees in the first round...and they were 0-fer for the season...no wins, 6 losses against the Yankees this season...but the playoffs are a new season and we'll see if it is the Tribe who dons the cape and flys off howling into the sunset with its first World Series crown since 1948...even Wally Cox would speak up for that underdog...GO TRIBE!

Pling...Pling...

dg