September 08, 2007

For The Love of Sport: Midwest Showdown: A four game set next weekend could go a long way towards determining who wins the NL Central.

Well I have made it back for a second installment of what I am calling, For the Love of Sport, a weekly column focusing on one particularly intriguing game or event from the upcoming week’s sports calendar. As I mentioned in last week’s column it may not be the biggest game or the one that grabs the headlines but the one that I think is the most interesting. I did receive some feedback from my column last week and to paraphrase Billy Madison no one wrote to me saying, “Everyone here is dumber for having heard that and may God have mercy on your soul”. I will take that as a positive and again I appreciate any feedback. I can be reached by email at kyrilmitch_76@yahoo.com. So with blatant east coast bias I looked at the calendar and the match-up that leapt off of my computer screen was the Yankees at the Red Sox. Then I looked at the standings and realized that the weekend of the 14th through the 16th had three such series and the battle in the AL East was the least interesting (unless you are a total homer, let no one say that I am a total homer). The New York Mets are also hosting the Phillies in a fight for the NL East but the match-up that features the closest frontrunners is the weekend set between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals that begins Friday the 14th. I would give a slight edge to the 3rd place Cardinals, who are just one game behind the Cubs, closing quickly, and at home for the four game set. Simply put this is a classic meeting between old school, Midwestern National League clubs that are fighting for their playoff lives. There is of course the recent subplot about Rick Ankiel and his alleged HGH use. Unfortunately in baseball their seems to be a lot of accusations but you rarely seem to see hard evidence or serious suspensions of anyone important (sorry Ryan Jorgenson you don’t qualify as important). I have decided as a fan to let Barry Bonds, steroids and the whole mess go. Actually, the whole steroid saga is a lot like the spitball pitchers that plied their trade legally in the majors until the winter meetings after the 1920 season. Teams were then required to name their spitball pitchers who were then grandfathered in for the rest of their career. So if Bud wants to try something like that than Rick Ankiel could become the Burliegh Grimes of our era (Grimes retired in 1934 as the last legal spitballer). The game evolves, as do its athletes and when a style upsets the competitive balance the Baseball Gods change the rules. They outlaw the spitball, or steroids, or move the fences in, or they lower the mound. The game is constantly changing and yet it remains essentially timeless. Baseball has changed so much in the last 100 years but these are still the Cubs and Cardinals. Names like Banks, Hack Wilson, Dizzy and Paul Dean, Bob Gibson, Dawson and Sandburg. The list goes on and on and is filled with not only those who made the postseason and but also greats who never had the chance. What is most interesting is that baseball has one of the most difficult postseasons to make with just 26.6% of teams (8 of 30) getting in as compared 37% in the NFL and over half of teams in the NBA and NHL. In the other three major pro sports the challenge is having the perseverance to march on through the playoffs. In baseball the challenge is getting in and once there anything can happen (with two or three quality starters). No one understands this better than the Cardinals who had just the 13th best record last year and won the World Series. The Cardinals finished 83-78, 1.5 games ahead of the Houston to win the NL Central. St. Louis would not have finished better than third in any other division and they had a worse record than the Red Sox (86-76, 11 games back in the AL East) and the Phillies (85-77, 12 games out in the NL East) among other non-playoff teams. Right now Toronto General Manager J.P. Ricciardi is trying to figure out how to get the Blue Jays in the NL Central. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to imply that the NL Central has always been bad, they just happen to be terrible now. As a matter of fact, through Friday’s games no team was more than 2 games over .500 and the six teams in the division were a collective 43 games under .500. A sweep by either team obviously would put them in the driver’s seat but a split, a Saturday doubleheader that depletes the bullpen or any injury could strengthen the Brewer’s position. Rest assured that someone is going to win this division as surely as Mike Tyson needs a shrink. These series in September slowly separate the playoff teams from the pretenders but the other side of that holds just as true, a team like the Cardinals could limp along all year, bring up a spark plug like Ankiel and just like that they are in the hunt. Pick a team and settle in for the show, and don’t let the side stories ruin it for you. If you need an athlete that is steroid free than 6’1”, 180 pound Alfonso Soriano of the Chicago Cubs is a pretty safe bet. Just remember that athletes have never been as pure as we want to believe. Even in the Greek legend of Achilles his mother grasped him by the ankle and dipped him into the River Styx resulting in him being immune to any attack except where she had prevented the waters from touching him. If that isn’t performance-enhancing than what is?

posted by kyrilmitch_76 to commentary at 06:34 AM - 0 comments