I hope Boston wins the World Series

The BBQ Pit
161

I don’t quite understand this rationale.

If the World Series was somewhat uninspiring, it’s largely because Boston comprehensively outplayed what had been, until the playoffs, the form team of the year. About the only blemish on Boston’s World Series was the run of awful fielding errors in the first two games, and it says something about the team’s dominance that they could commit four errors per game against the Cardinals and still win both of those games.

I guess you could argue that the Cards fell into a slump right at the big moment, but it takes more than a bit of fortunate timing to keep all those excellent St. Louis hitters quiet for four consecutive games. The Red Sox, having been a good team all year and an excellent team in the second half, rose to the occasion when it really mattered.

I’m not a Red Sox supporter, and i would have liked to see a tighter series, but it seems a bit silly to be suggesting that the dominance of Boston in this World Series somehow detracts from their victory.

162

What befell the White Sox after 1917 was a little thing called the Black Sox Scandal (dramatized in this movie). Forget the Bosox and the Cubs–what they had (or have) was (or is) just a petty curse. The White Sox have the freakin’ Mark of Cain on them.

163

Well, that’s not self-righteousness, that’s just the truth.

164

But seriously, what the crap happened to the Cards? I mean, I wasn’t sorry the Sox shut them out, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined they would. I saw one moment of infield brilliance in the final game, and the rest was so…well, there wasn’t a “rest” really because they hardly did anything. They were thoroughly dominated by the Sox, who could literally fall all over themselves for two games, and still put the hurt on the Cards in a way I never would have expected. I know the Sox rose to the occasion stunningly, but still, could a good AAA team put in a more lifeless showing than the Cards did?

165

The Diamonbacks could have beaten them. I waited 17 fucking years for them to get back to the Series, and they don’t even SHOW UP. Fucking pathetic.

166

Jerk. :stuck_out_tongue:

Their starting pitching was built on smoke and mirrors, it was exposed in the playoffs. And of course, it didn’t help that their most effective starter went and injured his bicep before the playoffs and didn’t get to start.

And of course, St. Louis’s offense was built on four guys - Larry Walker, Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen. No one else is particularly dangerous on that roster, so if all four of those guys aren’t cranking on all cylinders, St. Louis isn’t going to do much with the bat. Pujols did his part (.333/.412/.467), as did Walker (.357/.438/.929). Unfortunately, Rolen and Edmonds picked the wrong time to slump.

167

Well, I am in awe of your commentary, so I’ll forgive your besmirching the BoSox fans. :wink:

All-in-all, a wild eleven games of baseball. I doubt we’ll see anything like it again.

168

Thank goodness I bought the subscription to BP so I could rip off their analysis and use it as my own. :slight_smile:

169

Yes. Yes, it does.

:wally

-Rav

170

Howyadoin,

Boston Baseball magazine ran an article exploring the real story behind the “Curse of the Bambino.” Glenn Stout, one of the best baseball writers I’ve read, took the time to get behind the BS and tell the truth. The original article isn’t available online, but here’s a link to an ESPN article that is pretty good.

In essence, American League founder Ban Johnson and Henry Ford, among others, were under the mistaken assumption that then-Red-Sox-owner Harry Frazee was Jewish, because his background was in the entertainment industry. (He was actually an Episcopalian and a Mason.) They used this assumption to perpetuate the myth that Frazee was a greedy hustler who would sell out the heart of his team to finance his Broadway aspirations.

Some of the material that Ford’s Dearborn Independent turned out was truly reprehensible swill, but it was small potatoes next to the official team history, written by a bigot named Fred Lieb. This “history” formed much of the source material for people like Dan Shaughnessy, a hack of the highest order, who made a franchise operation and a meal ticket of the “curse” when he published the wildly successful book “Curse of the Bambino”.

Of course, it should be noted that the present day GM of the Red Sox is, of course, Theo Epstein. A Jew. ;j

If you’re looking for “curses” or “redemption”, there’s the real deal, not that bullshit that the Curly Haired Boyfriend (Shaughnessy) has been pimping all these years.

Fuck him, and fuck the rest of the players in that sordid little story.

Thanks to JWH, Lucky, Theo, Tito, Dr. Morgan, the cadaver (no, not Scott Rolen, the surgery test dummy), all the players who showed more character than any Red Sox team of my lifetime.

Oh, and A-Rod?

“Thanks, beautiful.”

:wally

-Rav

171

I found, in the main public library in Torrance, CA, a book titled The Great Baseball Mystery, written by Victor Luhrs.
According to this author, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, the new commissioner, had no legal basis to declare the so-called “Black Sox” ineligible–especially since a duly constituted court had already acquitted them and, as a federal judge, Landis was sworn to uphold the U. S. Constitution–not make an end run around it with an imperial ukase (“Regardless of the verdicts of juries…”).
Hey, Kenny, the jurors didn’t say that just to hear their heads roar. The Sixth Amendment says “In all criminal proceedings, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury,” not “the accused shall be tried by a one-man star chamber.”
In The National League Story by Lee Allen (1961), an allusion to Ruth, it says “it was easy to forget the Black Sox scandal when one of Ruth’s home runs was sailing out of sight.”
(And the fans of the White Sox, Red Sox, A’s, Senators, Browns, Indians, and Tigers can take a flying leap for the moon and get bent.)
In fact, Jake Ruppert should have been incarcerated. He was running a brewery despite the Volstead Act and the Eighteenth Amendment; I guess where the Yankees were concerned, Landis sorta closed one eye and looked the other way.
Of course, in 1944 Landis crawled back under his big wet rock.

172

This is irrelevent. The Black Sox were not acquitted for throwing the game, because that’s not against the law. They weren’t even tried for it. In fact, the judge in the case even specifically informed the jury that throwing games wasn’t a crime and shouldn’t be a factor in their verdict.

Second, even if it was against the law, the men were acquitted based on technicalities. Key pieces of evidence, including two signed confessions by Jackson and, I believe Cicotte, were stolen from the courthouse and could not be used in the trial.

Landis in no way acted improperly in suspending those players.

And they did get that, that’s why they weren’t imprisoned. Baseball was still free to suspend them. After all, screwing up a case through incompetence isn’t against the law, but I can still be fired for it.

So, Ruth should have been suspended? I don’t get it.

More like where the owners were concerned, Landis looked the other way. Kinda like how commissioners have more or less always been - because when they don’t they find themselves usually out of a job since it’s the owners that hire them and pay their salaries.

173

I’m happy with the win, but even happier that this Bambino crap is over and Chicagoans will have to bear the burden all by themselves now.

174

Reading this whole thread in retrospect is so much. It’s only the second thread I’ve actually bookmarked (the first being on 9/11).

175

Not a problem. I’ve done the same on occasion. Posts 14,15,20,21,23,24. Especially 21.

Actually, I am feeling much the same way about my post.

I’ll be the first and last to claim I am not a great expositor or communicator. Sometimes, ideas “sound” brilliant in my head, but when they escape, they seem to stumble forward more than flow.

176

This is where Luhrs’ book comes in. He wrote that the evidence that “disappeared” was one, or perhaps more copies of these documents–not the only copies. The jurors had other facsimiles to consider.
As for Landis acting improperly, Lurhs asked in reference to the commissioner’s insistence that Cicotte, Jackson and the others conspired to throw the Series, *“On whose say-so?” [Italics Luhrs’.]
I don’t mean “Ruth should have been suspended.” I mean that the White Sox especially, and the other six teams, suffered because of the Yankees’ dominance. Supposedly, from Allen’s statement, I guess the fans in the other fifteen major-league locales could admire Ruth, and to hell with their own teams. :mad:
I understand, also, thaty Landis forced Stoneham and McGraw, of the Giants, to sell their interests in a racetrack. (Could you imagine Bud Selig ordering Steinbrenner to sell his racetrack?) Landis ignored the horseplaying of Tigers owner Frank Navin. And he turned around and expelled Bill Cox, the Phillies’ owner, for betting on a game. (The Phils had a stranglehod on the NL cellar at this time; if I were commissioner I’d order him to undergo psychiatric therapy–betting that a team like the 1942 Phillies would win at all–rather than being so draconian.)
In fact, Rogers Hornsby, a horseplayer all his life (and never afraid to admit it), had been called to Landis’ office and the commissioner gave him a thou-shalt-not lecture. Hornsby said that what he did on his own time was none of Landis’ damn business, and decided to publicize Landis’ commingling of commissioner’s office funds to play the stock market if Landis didn’t back off. Landis backed off.