October 17, 2003, 9:21 a.m.
Is It Time for the World Series, Already?
Hype and anti-climax.

The television guys liked it fine. Each playoff series went the full seven games and last game of one even went into extra innings. There was a brawl in one series and a fan got into the action in another and now experiences the dark side of 15 minutes of fame for his trouble. They got the three teams in baseball with the strongest legends; two of them for being losers. And this was the year when they might both finally make it out of the Wilderness and into the Promised Land. If they did, the television guys must have thought almost lasciviously, then they would play each other in the World Series. I mean, the ratings would go through the roof. And as if this all were not enough, they even had Ben Affleck show up at one game with that chick he is dating.

I mean, son, it don't get no better than this. It seemed like some mouth — working on automatic — uttered that phrase every five minutes, all last week.

Well, now the thing is over and the losers have done what they are famous for doing — they both lost. The most obscure and the most storied teams to make the playoffs will play each other in the World Series and some of the games will be played in Miami which is not a baseball town but where, at least, they have the weather for it this time of year. And now, any fan who was able to stay calm and keep his head during last week's ceaseless barrage of hype thinks to himself ... yeah, but.

Might have been great television but it was pretty ordinary baseball.

The usual objections — which the sultans of baseball and televisions will ignore — still hold. It is too late in the year to be playing baseball games, even if the players like that hooded sweatshirt look. Also, pitchers are supposed to bat and if you get to hit the ball, you must also go out onto the diamond and field the ball. And, above all, the World Series should be between the two best teams in baseball. Not runners up. Wild cards are for poker and, even then, only in moderation. The long season is a true measure of a team's quality — how professionally did it execute a hit-and-run somewhere back in the fat part of July. Anybody can get lucky in a seven-game series.

But this is like arguing for the Latin Mass or the 10th Amendment, the realist out there must be saying. So give it a rest. And, anyway, wasn't it just great baseball?

Not really. The post-season is supposed to be about pitching and the big arms did not come through. We didn't see anybody step out on the mound and impose his will on the other team like Bob Gibson once memorably did. No Lew Burdette or Warren Spahn, Mickey Lolich, Jim Palmer, Sandy Kofax, etc. Certainly no Grover Cleveland Alexander who won a big one for the Cardinals over the Yankees in game six then came back to pitch relief in the seventh — dead drunk or with a hangover, according to the legend. In the ninth, the Yankees lost when Babe Ruth was thrown out attempting to steal second.

Now that must have been some pitching and some series.

The big arms in the Yankees/Red Sox series mostly went limp. In what one Fox babe promised would be the "game of the century," (no kidding) Roger Clemens got knocked around and was out early. Pedro didn't win either of his starts. Nor did Petite. For a while, the big arm in this unholy series was a knuckleballer who looks like the guy who does your taxes. But Tim Wakefield will be remembered, instead, for throwing the last pitch of the series.

In a series that I was assured "didn't get any better than this," I saw a big-time reliever for the Yankees walk in the winning run on four pitches. He was facing that feared titan with a bat, Johnny Damon. I saw the Yankee left fielder throw the ball into the stands trying to stop a runner at third. Saw Nomar boot a routine grounder that cost the Red Sox two runs.

Even the brawl was pretty lame. One coach — 72 years old — shoved to the ground. No blows thrown or connected. No blood. These guys lack the fundamental skills, even when it comes to fighting.

The managing wasn't so great either. Joe Torre got turned inside out trying to handle his bullpen and Grady Little — with a reliever who had pitched nine scoreless innings allowing only one base hit — let Pedro stay in one inning too long.

George Steinbrenner, on the other hand, ownered flawlessly.

The Cubs/Marlins was a little better on the baseball. This is, unquestionably, because in the National League, pitchers must step up and take a little of what they dish out. It makes for a more interesting game, all around. Kerry Woods even hit a homerun in his own defense in game seven. Ultimately, however, it was not enough. The Cubs lost the game and the series. The arms they had been counting on — their two young guns, Prior and Woods, didn't get it done.

The Cubs will spend at least one more season in the Wilderness and many of their fans — who are supposed to know better — are blaming the guy who tried to catch one of the most famous foul balls in the history of baseball. Supposedly, he cost the Cubs an out and, possibly, the game and the championship and a chance to win their first World Series since...oh, sometime. The television guys told that story so many times last week that I have forgotten it.

Anyway. The fan booted the ball, too. Which figures. And, less noted, so did the Cubs shortstop a couple of pitches later. And he gets paid to catch it. The Cubs lost this series all by themselves and probably don't deserve the kind of fans they have, even the ones who try to catch foul balls and get in the way of the high-priced talent.

There were bright spots and probably the brightest was at the least-glamorous position in baseball — catcher. Marlin Pudge Rodriguez, especially, played the game the way it is supposed to be played. Modern catchers are better — in the same degree that modern pitchers are worse — than their storied ancestors.

But, all in all, the week belonged to the television guys. They loved the feeble brawl in Fenway and that poor fan's ordeal in Wrigley. It was a great week for selling Budweiser and Viagra and now the boys and girls at Fox can go shop for that Porsche.

The rest of us will be left watching the Marlins (the Marlins?) and the Yankees.

Anti-climax doesn't get any bigger than this.

— Geoffrey Norman writes on sports for NRO and other publications.

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