Welcome to Cliché Stadium for the last Major League Baseball game of this year. It takes place tonight. When it is over, there will be no tomorrow.
Not one necessarily worth contemplating anyway.
Except for Giants partisans who would have preferred the opportunity to bubble-wrap the Commissioner’s Trophy, fasten its seatbelt and fly it home, nobody didn’t want a Game Seven, what with it containing all those marbles to say nothing of that whole ball of wax. Save your nuance for when there is a tomorrow. Tonight, the result will be stark: a winner, a loser, a conclusion.
Great that it ends this way. Too bad it must end, but as long as it does, make it definitive.
Game Six arrived with its own cultish credentials, though the fact that most of them are recited on demand whenever we have a Game Six dampens my expectation that anything Bucknerish will explode in our midst. Sometimes the legend is lived up to, but you can’t special-order the David Freese to go, y’know? Tuesday night’s Game Six blowout served its purpose of keeping the Royals going so there could be a Game Seven. My favorite part of the non-drama came while I listened to the early innings on the radio and heard K.C. fans robustly cheer everything remotely positive. That, I thought, is the way to be. My favorite part of the last Game Six the Mets played, besides the Mets winning it, was rising among 56,334 at Shea and not giving up on the 2006 NLCS. We made unceasing noise with little provocation from the start and raised the volume exponentially when Jose Reyes homered on the third pitch of the bottom of the first.
It worked. We got our Game Seven (which worked less well, but never mind that right now). We and the Mets kept going, which is all you can ask when you’re down three-two. It was all the Royals could ask for and they got it. As someone who’s been pulling for the Giants, I wasn’t too happy with the seven runs Big Game Jake Peavy and the previously impenetrable Yusmeiro Petit allowed in the second, but as the night dragged on in AfterGl@v!ne fashion — minus the angst, of course — I couldn’t come out against the end result being Game Seven.
I mean, c’mon, Game Seven! When we’re officially unaligned, Game Seven is our team. That’s our rooting interest. We’re all stakeholders in the National Pastime at a moment like this. We beseech the gods to give us first a Game Seven, then a good Game Seven, maybe, if we are so bold, a great Game Seven. The first six games have had their moments but never quite enough of them strung together to evangelize over. The 2014 World Series has been one of those shows you reflexively tell your apathetic friends who haven’t been watching, “ya gotta see this!” but when they tune in, it’s inevitably while one side is steamrolling the other side and you swear, no, really, it’s better than this usually.
A seven-game World Series is supposed to be the best World Series. I think back to 2005, though, which went the minimum four games. But they were four fantastic games. The only thing that was objectively wrong with them as a set was the White Sox won all of them and the Astros lost all of them. It, like its Nielsens, sank into oblivion, which is too bad. Aesthetically, you couldn’t get a fabber four. But few pay mind to a quartet come late October. Six games is the commonly accepted currency for what constitutes a good Series, seven games the universally agreed amount you must exchange to obtain greatness.
The quality of this World Series has thus far ebbed more than it’s flowed, but the quantity is perfect. Game Seven tonight. If the actual game matches the circumstances’ reputation, it will leave us a little something to enjoy remembering tomorrow.
(Spoiler alert: there will be a tomorrow.)
Greg, this has been one of the worst 7 game World Series I can remember. Other than the frantic comeback by the Giants in game 4, everything has been surprisingly drama free. I’m hoping my number 2 NL team can take home the crown, but the larger takeaway from this series is that the Mets just need to keep developing their talent. These WS teams were probably considered lucky to even be in the postseason just a short while ago and now they’ve traded haymakers in 6 games. If the Mets can just sneak in as even the 5th WC team next year, who knows what a rotation of Harvey, Wheeler, deGrom and Syndergaard would be capable of? I’m bummed about no more baseball in 2014 too, but this series and these teams give me a lot of hope for the Metropolitans in 2015.
Would prefer the Mets storm through the regular season en route to sweeping away all comers in October, but the Nationals did the first part and where did that get them? The “just getting in” will seem like the way to go until somebody actually does run the table from ahead and then that will be the new thing.
Last night kind of blew this Series’ cover. Up until then, I thought it was a pretty good deal. It can still recover.
five games decided by five plus runs does not make for a great series, particularly for casual fans.
What’s a casual fan? Other than me and how I dress for almost every occasion.
I’m certainly excited about Game 7 because well, it is the last one of this season. As a whole, baseball in 2014 has been a real drag and I won’t miss it starting tomorrow. Too many replay screwups, injuries to stars throughout the sport, way too much mediocrity — oh excuse me, parity — on the field and too much bullshit off it. Yeah, I’ll say it, baseball bored me this year like it hasn’t in years. Not even a Royals championship can change my mind here. In fact, not since 1989 (Pete Rose scandal, the Mets implosion, Donnie Moore suicide, Bart Giamatti heart attack, the Earthquake in the World Series) have I wished an entire MLB season got cancelled.
This has been a somewhat interesting World Series, but when last night’s game got out of hand, I watched the Brian Bosworth documentary on ESPN instead followed by Rockets-Lakers on TNT. So if tonight’s game gets out of hand, I have to watch Bulls-Knicks or Nets-Celtics? Something tells me both locals get blown out tonight. Hope I’m wrong.
1989 is an intriguing comp, mostly because it was one of those rare years when the Mets were contending that I didn’t mind them falling short. That was more a personal thing pertaining to what my life was like that October, but I get what you’re saying. In KC or SF, this will be remembered as a very good year. Less so elsewhere, I suppose.
Watched the Boz doc late last night and early this morning. Really good. 30 For 30 is on a roll.
Most of my favorite weekly shows are on Wednesday night. I’m happy to DVR them for later viewing. Go Giants.
I’d like to see these 2 teams try to replicate 1924 Game 7 tonight, with Bumgarner playing Walter Johnson. (Nevermind that Johnson was pitching against the Giants, and that the game was in Washington… you know what I’m trying to get at).
Yet Stephen Strasburg will not be playing the role of Walter Johnson, despite what Bob Costas all but guaranteed about his destiny.
Hey now, there was a little Walter Johnson in him after all!
I think it’s been a good series, despite the, let’s say, lack of save situations. Just when one team appears to be in the driver’s seat, other team has taken it right back, so it’s been unpredictable. And I still want to walk through Kansas City and hug everyone. What a high they must be on.
As far as 2014 goes, well, we’re still seeing a round-the-majors feel good commercial for whatever that ends with Fucking Derek Fucking Jeter tipping his damn hat. Need I say more?
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