Marco's Baseball Blog-O-Roonie 2019: World Series Lam-Bas-Ta-Thon

MARCO’S BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2019: WORLD SERIES LAM-BAS-TA-THON

...in which heroes are born and baseball dreams go puff in the night

1/ It wasn’t a great series, but a fascinating one. The first game was a one run contest but the last six were blow outs. Yes, of course it was notable for the visiting team winning every game, but most of the games were only close for a while, and then one team or another would have a late rally and leave the other bleeding beside the road.

Both the Astros and the Nats had modest stats...11 homers apiece and 30 or so rbi’s each. The Nats only batted .241 while the Astros managed .272 but the Nats had the knack of getting two-out hits with runners on in the late innings. That was the diff.

Defensively, the Nats starting pitchers did a better job of holding down the other team’s scoring, even though the Houston team had a better ERA at 3.66 to 4.27 and struck out more hitters. All the pre-series hype was how on earth the poor Nats would contend with Verlander and Cole and Greinke. Those three gave up key hits and a few homers that ultimately won 2 games over Verlander and 1 over Cole. Only Greinke pitched fairly well for the Stros.

Scherzer and Strassburg dominated. You can’t say enough about their ability and their desire to win.

The Nats were just better in the clutch...with their starters and their hitters. They also became the team with the worst start to a season (19-31) ever to come back and win the series.

2/The fun thing about a World Series is that we get saturated with constant exposure to the players and really get to know their strengths and weaknesses. New heroes make their bones. Guys like…

Anthony Rendon, the obvious leader of the Nats. He was a quiet assassin collecting big hit after big hit for 8 vital ribbies. He homered in the last three elimination games his team played. His defense was also superb.

Juan Soto hit .333 with big-moment-hits for 7 ribs. His beautiful swing and hyped up dancing in the batters box amped his team and bothered the Astros, who couldn’t seem to pitch around him and had no lefties in the pen to deal with him. (I wonder what Madison Bumgarner, the Big North Carolina Goober thinks about that rumba routine in the box that Soto does every time up. I imagine Madbum don’t like…)
Alex Bregman. He’s young but already carrying a huge rep with his extra base hits, home run power and great defense. One of the quickest bats in the majors, just short of Mookie Betts, another little guy who powers up. Alex only hit .207 in this series but that included 3 taters and 8 ribbies to lead the team.
Favorite moment of the series was when Breg hit that homer and started running the bases still holding the bat. That was a social blunder and Breg wound up apologizing later. Too late! Soto homered later in the game and repeated Bregman’s routine as he ran the bases. Every time Bregman gets too big for his britches it winds up costing his team attitude points.



Of course, the Nats are hardly Bastions of Baseball Sportsmanship when Howie Kendrick and Adam Eaton do the car thing in the dugout after Howie home runs. I mean, first Howie runs the bases and thanks God with hands to the Sky when he touches the plate...nothing new there. Then he goes into the dugout and runs the gauntlet of adoring teammates and they all dance the Baby Shark or Funky Chicken or whatever that is. Then he sits on the bench beside Eaton and they shift gears on their hot rod and huff and puff and go “vroom vroom”. All this when they’re already up by 8 runs or something! A bit much, Guys!



Jose Altuve. How can you not love this guy? What a player! And he’s actually humble. Seems to hit the ball on the sweet spot every time up. Only guy in the majors who can really handle that 95mph fastball at the top of the zone that they all love to pitch these days. Aside from a tendency to swing at everything he can reach, Altuve is just some kind of Superstar.



Yuli Gurriel. New respect for the Cuban. Boy, can he handle the bat! The way he can bring his hands in and take those inside pitches down the line for doubles! Hardly ever strikes out. Hits it hard all the time, even when it’s right at somebody. An artist.



3/All-time Eccentric Series:
2019: all games won by visitors.
1905: every win a shutout including 3 by Christy Mathewson as Giants beat Athletics, 4 games to 1.

1920: a series under the microscope after the Black Sox were exposed for throwing the Series the previous year. Tris Speaker leads the Cleveland Indians to 5 victories (best of 8 that year) over the Brooklyn Robins. Game 5 features first grand slam in Series history (Elmer Smith Cleveland), first homer by a pitcher (Jim Bagby Cleveland) and first and only triple play in Series history (Bill Wambsganss Cleveland unassisted).

1960: Yankees got Mazeroskied by the Pirates...most of you remember that. The Yankees won three games...16-3, 10-0, and 12-0... and batted .338 for the series with 11 homers while the Pirates hit .256 with 4 home runs. But the Pirates won 4 games, including one of the all-time most exciting games, that 10-9 triumph in the 7^th game at Forbes Field.

My family was driving through western Pennsylvania listening to that seventh game on the radio. I was 11 and I had attended my very first major league game that summer at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The radio reception got bad and I was suffering the agonies of a frustrated fan so my Dad pulled off and we went into a scruffy bar and sat at the bar watching the end of the game. I’ll never forget the explosion of jubilation in that bar when the Pirates came back and won that one. Thanks Dad!

The added eccentricity? The seventh game of that series featured an anomaly...neither team struck out even once! The last time that happened in a major league game of any kind was 1985. That’s how common that one is.

4/All-Time All Star World Series Team

(based on World Series performance only, minimum 3 series)

CATCHER: Yogi Berra...14 series, 75 games .274/.359/.452. When Yogi hung it up, he had played in 23 % of all World Series ever played.

FIRST BASE: Lou Gehrig...another Yankee legend (more coming!) But with a stat line of .361/.483/.731 how do you keep him off the team?

SECOND BASE: Eddie Collins...played in 6 Series for the Philadelphia Athletics (1910,11,13,14) and the Chicago White Sox (1917 and in 1919 he didn’t cheat while all around him did) and batted over .400 in 3 of them. .328/.381/.414 with 14 steals. Not yet, Jose Altuve!

THIRD BASE: Pepper Martin...”The Wild Horse of the Osage” they called him in honor of his Oklahoma roots and because he ran wild in the 1931 series and won games with his bat, his glove and his legs while leading the Cardinals to victory over the much favored Athletics as a ROOKIE...he qualifies here only because of a pinch running appearance in the 1928 Series, but in 15 total games he went .418/.467/.676. He played third in the 1934 series and center field in 1931. Honorable mention for Pablo Sandoval...3 series, 12 games .426/.460/.702.

SHORTSTOP: Edgar Renteria….333/.381/.414.

OUTFIELD: Babe Ruth...big surprise. In 10 Series he went .326/.470/.744 with 15 homers including a called shot in 1932. And... as a pitcher Ruth won 3 games, lost 0 and had an 0.87 ERA.

OUTFIELD: Reggie Jackson...good old Mr. October! .357/.457/.755 in 5 Series. 10 home runs.

OUTFIELD: Lou Brock….391/.424/.655 with 14 steals... for the Cardinals in 1964,67 and 68.

DESIGNATED HITTER: David Ortiz...3 series….455/.576/.795

RIGHT HANDED STARTER: Bob Gibson...1.89 ERA in 9 games/ 92 Ks/WHIP of 0.889 (PS: that’s real real good)

LEFT HANDED STARTER: Madison Bumgarner...4 wins and a save in 5 career World Series games...0.25 ERA/ WHIP of 0.528.

CLOSER: Mariano Rivera...0.79/0.963 WHIP

An Old time Baseball Story:

St. Louis Cardinals back in the Gas House Gang days...St. Louis is in a tough pennant chase and manager Frankie Frisch decides to institute a midnight curfew on his team of fun loving fellows.

Come twelve o’clock and 4 frequent offenders are not back at the hotel. Frankie waits up for them and when they drag-ass back in at something in the AM he’s waiting for them. One of the players is, of course, the perpetual Dizzy Dean. So Frisch fines the other three players $200 each (a huge amount in Depression era baseball) and hits Diz up for $400.

Brooding about the injustice of it all, Dizzy goes to his manager the next day and complains: “After all, it ain’t like I was doin’ anything different than those other three guys, but you fined them $200 and threw a $400 fine at me! It just ain’t right!”

Frisch throws an arm around his star pitcher’s shoulders and says, “Why Diz, you’re the star of this ballteam. You’re the Great Dizzy Dean. Everything about you has got to be bigger and better than anybody else. And that goes for the fines, too.”

Dizzy hesitates for a moment and then his face lights up. “Well, danged if you ain’t right, Frank!” Totally convinced, Dizzy goes off beaming.

Happy Holidays to you all!

--Marco