October 20, 2006

CARDINALS WIN THE RIGHT TO BECOME WORLD SERIES FODDER

       I am old enough to remember a time when the National League was the dominant league in Major League Baseball.  The NL consistently won the all-star game (between 1963-1982 the NL won 19 of the 20 games) and was considered to be the far superior league through the seventies and eighties.  I remember the annual rant of American League players that they were tired of losing and would assure the public that they would try their best to win and end the NL’s control.   The AL, however would lose simply because the NL had better pitching, had better line-ups and had better teams.  My how times have changed.

       The American League now dominates—they have won nine straight all-star games and the AL representative has effectively, and efficiently, swept aside the NL representative in the past two World Series.  It has reached the point that the best team in baseball is the one that comes out of the American League—the World Series is simply a traditional event where the AL team can show off its muscle for the benefit of the baseball world.  Once again this year the NL representative has earned the right to play patsy for the AL club, and unless several layers of rust has built-up over the Tigers’ game during their week’s vacation then another sweep should be in the making. 

      The Tigers have by far the best pitching staff in baseball.  They have a slew of young hard throwers that, in the cold of October, will shatter Cardinal bats and numb Cardinal fingers.  They have Kenny Rogers who has somehow turned into Sandy Koufax this post-season thoroughly befuddling both the powerful Yankees and the normally fundamentally sound Athletics.  They have a line-up that surpasses the Cardinals in every aspect, outside of Albert Pujols, and a manager (Jim Leyland) that is at least the equal of the Cards’ Tony LaRussa.  Unless the National Leaguers get a bunch of otherworldly efforts from several unlikely candidates the Series will once again be a short one.   

      The one thing that both the Tigers and the Cardinals proved this season, however, is that team play down the stretch of a regular season means absolutely nothing come playoff time.  Both teams were horrendous in the weeks leading up to the post-season, and both teams were assumed to have run out of gas.  (Both clubs acknowledged that they tried too hard to clinch their respective divisions and have now settled back into their normal game)  The Tigers were supposed to be easy prey for the multi-millionaires in New York and the solid pitching of the San Diego Padres should have shut down the Cardinals.  The Tigers, after losing game one in the Big Apple, came face to face with their watershed moment midway through game two.   Having surrendered a three run homer to Johnny Damon Tiger starter Justin Verlander was on the verge of being overwhelmed by the playoff pressure.  At that time Leyland assured his young starter that the game was far from over and that his team surely would come back.  Verlander settled down, the bullpen shut out the Yankees for the remainder of the game and the Tiger offense produced enough offense to come back and win the game.  The Tigers then went home to Detroit and shellacked the Yanks.  That momentum carried them right through Oakland.

       For their part the Cards took advantage of a light-hitting Padre outfit and then benefited from an injury-ravaged Met squad to outlast the New Yorkers in the League Championship Series.  That luck will now come to a sudden halt.

       The question will soon arise—how can the NL gain equal footing with their AL counterparts?  Obviously these things run in cycles, and at this time the best pitching, the best line-ups and the best teams reside in the AL.  There are clubs in the AL that didn’t even make the playoffs that would have easily won two NL division crowns.  Only when one NL club can develop into a consistent powerhouse, and can either push the AL team to the brink in the World Series, or even win it, and thereby pull the rest of the league up to its level, then the NL will continue to play second fiddle.   

       At his point it looks as if the Mets may be the only club capable of such a feat.  But they are still a couple of dominant pitchers away.      

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