Baseball's Finest Hour

Actually, a little less than a half hour,  from just past 11:30 to a few minutes after midnight.

The Cardinals put the Astros away early, and there was no need to follow that game. I started with Orioles-Red Sox on Gameday and Tigers-Indians on radio. 

Then it started raining in Baltimore. I switched to Braves-Philles. Meanwhile ... how'd that 6 get on the board for TB in the eighth? They were down 7-0 ... a three run homer by Evan Longoria? Wow ...

I tuned from WTAM to WCBS. On this first day of Rosh Hashana, Suzyn Waldman was off, and Constantino Martinez was on with John Sterling. He saw something that's only happened twice in 110 years of Yankee baseball: a seven run lead lost after seven innings. Daniel Johnson -- he of the .108 batting average -- with two outs in the ninth, the Rays down by one, 2-2 the count and nobody on, hit a line drive into the stands, he did, that brown-eyed handsome man!

Braves-Phillies went extra innings. In the top 13th, a dinker by Hunter Pence, that barely got to the outfield grass -- the kind of hit the Fighting Ferrets would string together to beat the Tigers -- scored Brian Schneider with the Phils' go-ahead run. In the bottom 13th, Freddie Freeman hit into a game-ending double play, and the Cardinals had the NL wild card. The umps looked at the clock, it was eleven four-oh, and they said time for you Braves to get up and go! Chipper Jones' inspirational pre-game speech (Win One For The Chipper) didn't work. 8 1-2 game wild card lead gone. Meltdown complete. Hahaha Braves! But worry not, Bravos fans; those foam tomahawk chop fingers they gave out tonight are still good ... for next season.

Play had resumed in Baltimore. With the Red Sox leading 3-2, bottom ninth and two out, Chris Davis doubled off Jonathan Papelbon, and Nolan Reimold doubled him in. Tie game. Sox nemesis Robert Andino hit a liner that Carl Crawford almost reached. He slid, the ball fell under his glove, and Reimold scored. Meltdown complete. The Red Sox looked at the clock, it was twelve-oh-two, and the final score said game's over for you!

Three minutes later, Longoria hit his second homer of the night to give the Rays an 8-7 walkoff win and the wild card.  I looked at the clock and it was twelve-oh-five, and the Red Sox didn't know if they were dead or alive! Their announcers hadn't even finished the post-game post mortem. No Red Sox Nation in the playoffs, no renewal of The Rivalry, hahaha! Carl Crawford, the Bill Buckner of the new century; they had to have him, and he took the money and ran. Now he gets to watch his former teammates go for the big October prize on TV (and I'm sure it's the biggest, most expensive big screen hi-def TV there is). 

Wasn't that something? John Sterling rhetorically asked his listeners. Indeed, it was. The Longoria homers, the Johnson homer, and everything else that happened tonight. 

The 2011 finish is already being compared to those of 1951 (Bobby Thomson), 1964 (the Phillies' collapse) and 1978 (Bucky Dent). But those meltdowns involved two teams. Tonight, four teams -- two in each league -- were playing for their lives. Well, yeah ... carve baseball up into enough divisions and make the second-place teams eligible to advance, and something like this is bound to happen sooner or later. But three of the four key games were decided on their respective final plays, and within a half hour of each other. They could have all been blowouts. They were not.

All evening, there were dramatic twists and turns, Diamond Gems and clutch hits that sent the plot in exactly the opposite direction from where the reader expected it to go. That's what makes great fiction great. But all this was real. And it helped clear the odor of Jose Reyes' backed-into batting title from the second floor baseball bunker. 

The Tigers were also playing for something, and won 5-4 on an eighth inning Peralta homer. The Rangers, however, didn't read the script and won 3-1 in Anaheim. So they play the wild card, T-Bay as it turns out, and the Tigers go to New York. Which might not be so bad after all. The D-Rays have Mo Mentum in uniform, and the Yankees have been beatable lately, as they were tonight -- 

A grown man going gaga over a bunch of baseball games ... (My editor has taken time out from preparing breakfast to proofread this final blog post of the regular season.)

Yes, my queen, but you were listening. And watching. And you're the one who said Longoria would be the night's hero -- 

Don't send that to Chuck Berry, she says. He'll sue you.

(Actually, he won't. He stole it from Wynonie Harris.) 

WTF ???

On this last day of the regular season -- a Wednesday -- four day games are scheduled, as they often are when Wednesday is a getaway day. But today, there's nowhere to go except home, and nothing to do after the game but go there (maybe that's the idea) or wait to see who you'll play in the Division Series. 

So I had the Mets game on. And Jose Reyes, leading the league with a .337 batting average, bunted for a hit in the first inning and came out of the game.  

Ryan Braun now needs a 3 for 5 night to catch him. 

Where IS Ted Williams when you need him? 

The casual fan might remember that, with one day left on the 1941 schedule, Ted was 179 for 448. That's a batting average of .39955, roundable up to .400. Red Sox manager Joe Cronin offered to sit him for the Sox' last two games, a doubleheader in Philadelphia against the Athletics, to protect his average. He said no -- no doubt with a few expletives added for emphasis -- went 6 for 8 in the two games and finished at .406.

But I guess the young people do things differently now.

His manager also deserves some of the credit / blame. Terry Collins could have said bleep no, this is a bleeping team game, you're part of the bleeping team, and you're bleeping playing, BLEEP your batting title. But Mrs. Collins went along with the plan, and even cried when expressing his feelings to the writers after the game. Which can only be expected, with baseball now a game played by nine young women, managed by one middle-aged woman and officiated by a crew of four middle-aged women, with the objective being to collect more feelings that the other team after nine innings of play. And cry if that will help.

One More Day

Who WAS that giving up runs?

I had Yankees-Rays on the radio, Orioles-Red Sox on Gameday, and tracked the other games on Gameday's scoreboard.  

The Tigers took an early 4-0 lead Then, runs kept appearing next to CLE on the board. One, one, two, TWO; the score was now 9-6 with two more at bats for the Indians. 

Max Scherzer allowed the first four, and Phil Coke the last TWO on one-third of an inning. 

Ben Wah and the villified Ryan Perry came in to restore order, and Val Verde got the save. 

Miguel Cabrera went 2 for 5, is hitting .343 and is one game away from becoming the American League batting champ. 

In Anaheim, the Rangers won to hang onto their one game edge for Division Series home field. 

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The Red Sox won 8-7, but the O's had the winning run at the plate in the ninth.

Rookie catcher Ryan Lavarnway, a September call-up playing for the injured Varitek and Salta La Macchia, homered twice, drove in four, and saved the Sox from the further embarrassment of falling one game bacj for the AL wild card. 

If the D-Rays do make it, one play will make it possible. 

In the sixth, with the score even at two, the Yankees loaded the bases with none out. They seemed ready to put the game out of reach. Russell Martin then grounded into an around-the-horn triple play. Inning over, game stays tied, and the D-Rays go on to win 5-3. 

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HAHAHA BRAVES !!!!

7-1 LOO-sers, at home to the Phillies, while the Cardinals spot the Astros five in Houston and come back to win 13-6. 

So both wild card races are tied with one day left. That's never happened before, in the Era Of Guaranteed Excitement. 

Wouldn't it be great if this happened every year? 

Well, it could, because baseball's Special Committee for On-Field Matters wants to add a second wild card team in each league and a one-game play-in between the two wild cards to determine each league's prettiest bridesmaid, and assure the fans of two Game 163s and TV of two must-see baseball games. But can it be done with the World Series still ending before November? (Not really, unless the regular season is shortened.) 

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Hate the Braves while we can, because the word from reliable media sources is that, once Chipper Jones retires, the Braves will be replaced on the list of teams that have to lose before a Carrie Jacobs Bond night can be entered in the record book. The adulterous Mr. Jones, with his stupid nickname and aw-shucks persona, and the tomahawk chop, were the two reason for hating the Braves. But he'll be gone some day, and every team has dumb sheeplike fans who do dumb things at games.

Bat Champ Cabrera / Wild Cards

One item has been lost, in the division clinch afterglow and and the stumble towards Division Series home-field advantage:

Miguel Cabrera is going to win the American League batting title. 

On the morning of the next-to-last day, he's hitting .341, three points better than the Rangers' Michael Young, and Red Sox Adrian Gonzalez who led most of the season.

M-Cab has done it by hitting .427 in September, stringing together games like tonight's 3 for 5 in the Silverdome, helping his Lion teammates defeated the Browns 14-0.

Quarterback Doug Fister cut through the Clevelanders like a knife through melted butter, allowing three runs and no walks while striking out nine.

Good thing too, since the Rangers won 4-3 in Anaheim and erased the Angels faint wild-card hopes while staying one game ahead for Division Series home-field. 

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Red Sox manager Terry Francona had a full head of hair when September started.

In the pic on MLB.com's home page, he's as bald as a cue ball.

A 6-19 September, and losing nine games in the standings, can do that to you.

The Red Sox meltdown is complete. Three weeks ago they had a nine game lead for the AL wild card. After play tonight, they and T-Bay are now tied for the bridesmaid prize with identical 89-71 records and two games left. 

Their undoing tonight at Camden Yards was a three-run inside the park homer by Robert Andino, in the yard with the league's smallest outfield and shortest home run distances.

Jacoby Ellsbury had the ball in is glove. It dropped when he hit the center field wall. He fell to the turf but had the presence of mind to lateral to JD Drew, who threw home. And they still almost got Andino.

The D-Rays defeated New York, New York before the usual small turnout at Tropicana. 18,772 announced, including one fan who came prepared, with a cell phone and a white board on which he wrote scoring updates from Baltimore, to hold up for his phone-less neighbors to see.

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Tonight's game was there for the taking, but the Cardinals passed. 

Second and third, two runs in -- on Lance Berkman's double -- one out, game newly tied at five, and no further scoring.

The Astros won in the 10th, on a double, an error by Cards pitcher Octavio Dotel, and a safety squeeze.

Dame Fortune smiled on the Redbirds, since the Braves also lost, 4-2 to the Phillies in Atlanta to stay one game up for the NL wild card. 

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The smart Tiger fan maybe should root for the Red Sox, in their current state of disarray, to advance, and not the surging D-Rays.

Here in the second floor baseball bunker, the conventional wisdom is: let the Red Sox nation stew in its own juices over the winter; no re-enactment of The Rivalry anywhere in post-season, we'll take our chances with the hitting-thin D-Rays in the Division Series.

The Last Sunday

Today is the last Sunday of the regular season, but it isn't the last day of the season.

I don't remember a baseball season whose last scheduled games were on a day other than Sunday. 

It's done this year to get the playoffs started earlier, and thus keep the World Series from running past Halloween and some still unknown hero from becoming Mr. November.

And they want to add yet another wild card in each league. (Sigh ...) 

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The Tiger fan would expect his team to do well against a starting pitcher -- the Orioles' Brian Matusz -- whose ERA resembles a street address uptown (10.86). A stat so off the page that, after six earned runs in five innings, it increased by only .03.

Three of the Matusz runs scored via homers (Cabrera 1 on, V-Mart 2 on). Donnie Kelly added a three run shot in the seventh, and Jhonny Peralta a solo homer, his 20th, in the eighth.

Final: 10-6 Tigers, but the Rangers also won to stay a game ahead in the race for home field advantage in the Division Series. 

The Rangers play their last three at Anaheim, while the Tigers host the Indians and will be rooting for Jared Weaver, to beat the Rangers in the season's final game. 

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Jim Thome got into what might be his last game in the town where his career started, Cleveland, as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning. He walked, and replaced Lonnie Chisenhall at third for one pitch before coming out to another thunderous standing O. 

His 2011 Strat-O-Matic card will now have a position, thirdbase-4 e48. Chisenhall, for the one pitch he played in left field, will be a leftfield-4 e25. 

Thome hadn't played third since 1996, on the same Jacobs Field infield. He hadn't played a defensive position since 2007 (one game at first for the White Sox) and didn't even own a glove. He borrowed Jack Hannahan's. 

It might be the end, but who knows? In the last half of the season, he didn't play like he was through. I'd bring him back, if only for the home runs he hit against the Tigers at Comerica.

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Cub starter Randy Wells went the distance and pitched wells enough to win. Solo home runs by Yadier Molina in the eighth and Rafael Furcal in the ninth gave him an L in the box score, and the Cardinals a 3-2 win. 

That win, and the Braves loss in DC, moved the Cardinals to within one game of the NL wild card; and now you know they wish they had that Mets' ninth inning back. 

The days have dwindled down to a precious three, and the Cards finish at Houston, while the Bravos -- hee hee -- host the best-record-in-baseball 99-60 Phillies. 

Only a 14th inning homer by Jacoby Ellsbury kept the Red Sox, now 6 for 18 in September, from falling into a tie with T-Bay for the AL wild card.

Ellsbury's shot, minutes before midnight, gave the Sox a split in today's makeup (all players wear makeup) day-night doubleheader in New York. 

T-Bay plays three with the Yankees at home, and will finish before a few fans and a lot of empty seats, even for a Yankee series. The Sox go to Baltimore, where the fan hopes they play as well as they did in Comerica, and against the rest of the league all September.

The Pretenders-Wild Cards-Game 200K

Since the 12 game winning streak ended, the Pretenders have played below .500 (4-5, winning exactly every other game), and at times an indifferent brand of ball against some bottom-feeders. While at home, the hot topics have been the post-season roster, what brand of champagne to order for the clinch parties, and what to wear to the victory parade.

How do you score from second on a wild pitch? 

The Orioles did, in the ninth inning tonight, and it cost the P's the game. 

Chris Davis singled off Daniel Schlereth. Kyle Hudson ran for him. Robert Andino struck out on a pitch in the dirt, that got away from Alex Avila. He couldn't find it, his pitcher didn't point to it, whatever; Hudson got to third. Matt Angle squeezed him in. Final: 6-5 Orioles. The 67-91, last place, 24 1-2 out Baltimore Orioles.

Who are 13-11 in September; nothing to really celebrate, but let's look at how they did it: split four with the Yankees, won two out of three against the D-Rays and Angels, won three out of four against the Red Sox. 

They're the ones playing like they want post-season. 

Oh yes ... Texas won, and the Pretenders are a game behind them in the race to avoid opening the Division Series in New York.

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They won 12 in a row. So? The "Moneyball" A's won 20 straight, in August and September of the movie. And they did win 12-11 after blowing an 11 run lead, on a walkoff pinch homer by Scott Hatteberg, who sounds like an Oakland Athletic.

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On September 4, the Cardinals were 9 1-2 out in the NL Central, and 8 1-2 out for the NL Wild Card. 

Catching the Brewers proved impossible, but today's walkoff win against the Cubs got them to within two games of the staggering Atlanta Braves for the NL Bridesmaid. 

And it was a classic Cubs giveaway: a bases loaded walk followed by a wild pitch, both issued by closer Carlos Marmol. Who should be thankful Carlos Zambrano is still "retired." 

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And the Red Sox LOST! Were in fact thrashed, 9-1 by the Yankees on the Fox game. While the D-Rays won in Toronto and moved to within 1 1-2 of the wild card. Hahahaha Red Sox !!! All these editorials, about the bleepin' Red Sox ... and the Yankees, and the Red Sox Nation, and the bleepin Rivalry, I'm sick of it! It's a disheartening bleepin' situation we're in right now ... 

And the G.I. Ants LOST! Were in fact thrashed, 15-1 in Arizona. No government issue insects in post-season. Vote early and often, for Kirk Gibson for NL Manager Of The Year. 

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If both New York teams hadn't been rained out last night, today's Red Sox-Yankees game had a shot at becoming the 200,000th major league game played since 1876. Another chapter in the history of professional sports' longest and most famous rivalry would have been written, and the writers would be searching Walt Whitman for undiscovered references to the American national pastime.

Rockies at Astros instead became the milestone game. Two manufactured teams playing in a whick-whacked ball park with a toy train on its outfield wall, and a fake hill in center field. How appropiate, after all.

Martinez, Perry, Denny, Brad Pitt

In tonight's 11th inning, with the score even at three, Ryan Perry allowed a leadoff double to Nolan Reimold, and walked Vladimir Guerrero. Miguel Cabrera then started a snappy 3-6-1 double play to get him out of trouble. 

V-Mart became the hero du nuit next inning, singling in pinch runner Danny Worth for a walkoff win.

The Rangers' win in Oakland keeps then even with the Tigers at 91-66 for home field advantage in the Division Series. 

Rare is the game whose winning pitcher is also wished into the cornfield. Ryan Perry earned the honor by again showing that he's the least reliable of Skipper Leyland's bullpen corps. And he may have pitched his way off the post-season roster. For his role -- long relief in lost games and as the occasional matchup guy -- I would take the veteran Brad Penny despite his equally toxic stats, and trust him more than Perry to get one or two right-handed hitters out.

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Denny McLain, poor man ... all he wanted to do, on his road trip through Port Huron, was to have breakfast at the Cracker Barrel.

You can see it from the freeway. But the exit -- Water Street, the last one before the bridge to Canada -- was closed.

You're way ahead of me. (Stop that!) He ended up on the bridge, and backtracked using the RETURN TO USA turnaround lane. 

However ... once you're Canada-bound, to return to the States you still have to clear US Customs. And that's where Denny was busted, for an outstanding Louisiana warrant. Buying scrap metal from someone but forgetting to pay them for it, after several reminders.

"A horrible misunderstanding," said baseball's last 30 game winner, whose arraignment date, down at the St. Clair County courthouse, is October 4. That would be something to see even if it means getting out of bed before noon.

Yes, it is with Denny. A misunderstanding. Someone else's fault. Baseball's Gilda Radner. It's always something. But there's a lesson in all this. Have breakfast BEFORE you leave home.

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It rained all morning. We couldn't go to the park. There were no games on. With Denny off our streets and "Moneyball" opening, we chose the cinema. Where the 15 bleeping percent who don't work hang out when there's no day baseball.

Maggie gaped at Brad Pitt. I looked at names on the backs of uniforms and on roster boards, and ball park scoreboards. The serious fan will have to watch it on DVD, and pause it to check out all the details. 

The Tigers were part of the story. They took Carlos Pena off Billy Beane's hands, which cleared a space at first for Scott Hatteberg. Whose name sounded like an Oakland Athletic, Beane / Pitt said. Through the years, the A's have managed to acquire a lot of players whose names sounded like no one else wanted them. It rubs off on guys who are traded there (Scott Sizemore, Jack Cust, even Hideki Matsui).

My likes: it starts not with a warm fuzzy exposition, but with the A's losing (Game Five of the 2001 Division Series), the absence of a cormy Roy Hobbs-like closing, and just enough sentiment to keep Pitt's female fans (yes, my queen) eager to see his next movie. 

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Tonight was Jim Thome Night at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Yes, he homered (number 604). Yes, the Indians won in Roy Hobbs fashion, on a first-pitch walkoff homer by Carlos Santana. When Hollywood makes the Jim Thome movie it'll be okay, since all of this really happened. It also clears the foul odor of Denny McLain from the second floor baseball bunker.