This was always going to be a terrific World Series, what with the two ancient franchises, the Cardinals and the Red Sox, and their history of three previous Series.
The Series kept getting more interesting, necessarily in technical brilliance but in the misplays that have determined the last three games – a wild throw, an obstruction, a pickoff. Before we go any further, let’s put Kolten Wong’s pickoff in perspective. The pinch-runner for the Cardinals was caught off first base to end the fourth game very late Sunday evening. An entire World Series once ended with a runner caught trying to steal second base. That was George Herman Ruth, who took it upon himself to try to steal with two outs and nobody on in the seventh game, with the Yankees trailing the Cardinals, 3-2. The batter was merely Bob Meusel, who was hitting only .238 for the Series but was the cleanup hitter. Lou Gehrig was on deck. The Babe was easily thrown out, tagged by the Cards’ player-manager Rogers Hornsby. The pitcher was Grover Cleveland Alexander, working in relief. Over the years, the legend has persisted that Alexander was hung over after pitching the day before, but he later denied it. If the Babe can end a Series with a gaffe, Kelton Wong can surely end a game by straying too far off first with the superb Koji Uehara pitching. I was looking forward to this Series if only because of the epic Series of 1946, the first I remember, with its returning service veterans, plus the matchup between Stan Musial and Ted Williams, and Enos’ Slaughter romp home in the seventh game. What makes that memory so strong is that the World Series stood by itself in those days, with no post-season tournament beforehand. (The Cardinals had survived a league playoff after tying Brooklyn, but that’s a different category.) These moments – the Babe’s blunder, Slaughter’s romp, Bob Gibson’s pitching in 1967, Manny Ramirez’ hitting in 2004 – stand out because they happened in the World Series, not in that growing amorphous blob that MLB and the networks call the post season. Kolten Wong’s pickoff and Will Middlebrooks’ inadvertent obstruction in the third game will stand up precisely because they happened in the World Series. Ruth’s final out: http://baberuthmuseum.org/press/didyouknow/?article_id=122 Box scores from 1926: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA192610100.shtml Alexander’s side of it, recently posted by the historian John Thorn: http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/12/18/grover-cleveland-alexander-remembers-1926-world-series-game-7/
Craig Oren
10/28/2013 03:26:57 am
well, strictly speaking, there wasn't nobody on, because by definition Ruth was on first. In the autobiography with Bob Considine, Ruth says that Ed Barrow called that "the only thing Ruth did on a baseball field that I disagreed with" or words that effect.
George Vecsey
10/28/2013 05:42:45 am
Ruth had great instincts, baseball intelligence, although one of those links notes that Ruth succeeded on only 51 per cent on his attempted steals. He played the outfield and ran the bases very well -- much like Roger Maris in his two great seasons with the Yankees.
Ed Martin
10/28/2013 11:26:47 am
Your report on the Babe caught stealing,reminded me of a tale my Dad used to tell, the sports writer Bugs Baer, wrote after a failed steal by a player who roomed with Babe Forrest awhile, "There was larceny in his heart, but his feet were honest."
Ed
10/28/2013 11:30:03 am
I am not sure who Babe Forrest is, you would have to ask Steve Jobs and auto spell. "Babe for a while."
George Vecsey
10/28/2013 12:32:45 pm
I can't figure out any of Mr. Jobs' gadgets. 10/28/2013 03:58:44 pm
You know that it is a great World Series when my wife called my attention to the story of the “first ever” obstruction call to end a World Series game.
George Vecsey
10/29/2013 04:29:58 am
Alan, you're right. We encountered that in our swath through the Berkshires a few summers ago. 10/29/2013 03:05:54 am
Great history lessons, George et al. It is indeed a rich rivalry we're treated to this year. Personally, I'm always happy to see the Cards (if it can't be the Mets!) playing in October as my one and only World Series ticket was Game 4 of the '64 series, when Ken Boyer hit that memorable grand salami to beat the Yanks 4-3. I believe Tim McCarver hit .478 that Series, and this will be his last in the broadcast booth, we're told. To Alan Rubin's comment about living in the Berkshires, I live in the part of Connecticut that is about 60% Red Sox Nation, and it's all good. Baseball needs all the passion it can muster, as long as it's positive. But there is, I agree, something very special about pre-expansion rivalries. As well as masterful pitching, as we witnessed last night. I am grateful for all of this. It is a long winter.
George Vecsey
10/29/2013 04:32:31 am
Pete, great to hear from you. I agree. I have been thinking, during the earlier four-hour games, that I might as well enjoy it because it's a long time til the next set of games...in March. Now I can pay more attention to soccer games, but I admit, I am not looking forward to nights without baseball. GV 10/29/2013 05:50:19 am
Peter, 10/29/2013 07:34:13 am
Wow, what memories, Alan -- Lou, Satchel and Larry. What a time. An extraordinary turning-point in US society and sports. You have seen a lot, including now the slow but inevitable growth of futbol here in the US, which has obviously captured your own imagination. Not to mention your passion. Those five hour drives at night are brutal! As for Pratt & Whitney, I live in Glastonbury, just outside of Hartford and have neighbors and friends who are current or retired P&W employees. Great chatting! 10/29/2013 07:51:56 am
Peter
Altenir Silva
10/31/2013 02:26:50 pm
Dear George,
George Vecsey
11/1/2013 01:34:20 am
Dear Altenir: The museum is right in the old neighborhood near the ball park at Camden Yards - for when the three of you visit the USA. 11/4/2013 03:03:19 am
Altenir
Altenir Silva
11/4/2013 03:51:26 am
Dear Alan, 4/29/2014 11:07:49 pm
I am truly inspired by this online journal! Extremely clear clarification of issues is given and it is open to every living soul. I have perused your post, truly you have given this extraordinary informative data about it. Comments are closed.
|
QUOTES
Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html Categories
All
|