Arlington may be Mudville today, but it could be Joyville again in 2012. - Photo compliments of Lance Carter.
Now that the World Series is in the books with probably the most dramatic Game Six in Seven Game Series history, we all have about forty-eight hours max to linger in denial before we go into our annual withdrawal from the expectation of exciting daily baseball as we move into the fall and winter months and start our universally embraced staring out the windows in our collective wait for spring and the 2012 baseball season. Fans in St. Louis are exempted for a few hours beyond the rest of us as they ride out the joy of another self-inflicted delusion that winning the World Series is tantamount to finding eternal ecstasy and establishing that anything that feels that good is our guarantee of eternal life beyond the grave.
We gotta believe. And we do. It just helps your faith when your club wins the World Series and you get to dance through the rain of unbridled joy that reinforces the hope that hard work, right behavior, and some kind of eternal scoreboard shall eventually reward us by oiling open the Gates of Heaven, where the baseball fans of St. Louis are living temporarily this morning.
Now it’s on to our annual withdrawal from baseball for the off-season. Friend and fellow SABR member and researcher Lance Carter sent me a reminder of the baseball figure who best describes the heartbreaking relationship that many non-Cardinal fans and the Texas Rangers have with baseball this morning:
“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.” … A. Bartlett (Bart) Giamatti, late Commissioner of Baseball.
In the end, there is only room for joy in the clubhouse of the one playoff team that doesn’t lose its last game. And this year, that happy club is the St. Louis Cardinals, who twice survived in Game Six from being one pitch away from giving that place of joy over to the Texas Rangers. I have to own the fact that my family loves the Cardinals, second only to the Astros, so we enjoyed watching their comeback from disaster and we also loved watching Lance Berkman finally get the ring that he never would have seen, had he remained an Astro.
Bill Gilbert, Rogers Hornsby Chapter, Society for American Baseball Research.
Former Larry Dierker Chapter leader of SABR (before his retirement move to the Austin area) and good friend Bill Gilbert published some general post World Series notes that I’m sure he won’t mind me sharing with readers here at The Pecan Park Eagle. Bill has a keen analytical eye for everything from the most central to the biggest peripheral when it comes to baseball – and, I’m sure, that sharp and often funny capacity carries over to many other areas of life as well.
Here’s what Bill Gilbert wrote into a broadcast e-mail over night. I shall leave it with you, along with my own wishes to all of you on your own paths of withdrawal from everyday baseball for another year. This much I can guarantee: We shall continue to often talk baseball here through the off-season months.
Now, here’s what Bill Gilbert had to say:
World Series 2011 Observations
By Bill Gilbert
(1) The 2011 World Series will be remembered as a great one despite an anti-climactic Game 7. Before that there were 4 nail-biters plus Albert Pujols epic game and an unforgettable game 6.
(2) If ever there was a team of destiny, it’s the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals. Future regular season and World Series comebacks will be measured against what the Cardinals did this year.
(3) The only time the Cardinals were ahead in game 6 was at the end.
(4) Game 6 had 6 home runs and 5 errors and the Rangers had 3 pitchers charged with blown saves. None of their 7 relievers escaped unscathed.
(5) Hunter Pence would have caught the ball that Nelson Cruz should have had on David Freese’s game tying triple.
(6) Where would the Cardinals be without Lance Berkman? He could possibly join Albert Pujols (and former teammates Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell) in the Hall of Fame.
(7) Aside from his 5-hit game, Pujols had only 1 hit in the other 6 games.
(8) I can’t recall seeing so many right-handed batters hit to right field as in the post season this year.
(9) In game 6, Joe Buck talked about Jaime Garcia as a potential pinch-hitter for two innings before he realized Garcia had been the starting pitcher.
(10) Michael Young is a better designated hitter than a first baseman.
(11) Will Ruth Ryan still be this pretty when she is 75?
(12) I thought it was great that no Eastern Division team, including the three biggest spenders were not in the World Series.
(13) In the 17 years of Divisional Play, 10 wild card teams have played in the World Series and the Cardinals are the 5th team to win it.
(14) How drunk do you have to be to get tattoos on your neck?
(15) The state of Texas came within one pitch (twice) of having the best and worst teams in major league baseball this year.
10/28/11
Houston, Baseball, & Other Musings.
The Pecan Park Eagle 