The Fall Classic

There are two sporting events which transcend the wide world of sports and are part of our national heritage and cultural fabric. Quite simply, those two are the Super Bowl, which used to be played in late January but now has been pushed back to early February, and the World Series, traditionally known as the Fall Classic. In our ever expanding sports calendar, the Series as it is known to baseball fans, of which I count myself an ardent one, used to end around this time of year but now due to the expanded playoff format, which I am ardently opposed to, is only about to begin. But just as a 15 minute delay at the start of a potential Game 6 for a speech from our next president won’t damper the enthusiasm for that contest, neither will the extra week or two we have to wait for our beloved Series.

I have faithfully watched every Series since I was about to turn seven years-old in 1977, which was a year in which my Dodgers lost for the first of two straight years to the dreaded Yankees. They got their revenge though a few years later, coming back from a 2-0 deficit to win the best of seven series against those same Yankees. Of course back then they were pretty much the same teams in an era before free agency had really hit and before the divide between rich big market teams and less rich small and medium sized market teams took effect, but I digress.

This year’s series actually pits a David in the salary cap sense, the Tampa Bay Rays, who took the Devil out of their name and have managed with the lowest payroll in baseball to win the American League Pennant and earn their spot against the National League champion Philadelphia Phillies. While no one can say whether the Rays will be able to keep their core unit together in the long run due to finances, they have bucked the recent trend of big market and big money teams dominating, and do remind us that sports may be one of the last remaining meritocracies in our society.

I will refrain from making a prediction for the series, as my predictions are notoriously, well let’s just say not always accurate and leave it at that. I will say that I will be rooting for the Fightin’ Phils as a lifelong NL guy, it is incumbent that I root for my league, and with the exception of the 2002 Series that featured the even more dreaded San Francisco Giants, I have stayed faithful to my league. I will enjoy watching one of my favorite players, big Ryan Howard, who is one of the best young sluggers in the game, my personal pick for NL MVP due to his prowess as a run producing machine, and probably the best big guy in the game since Frank Thomas, aka The Big Hurt was in his prime a decade or longer ago.

Baseball matters, and the World Series matters because while football may have surpassed baseball as our true national pastime, baseball still harkens back to a bygone era, a time before high speed connections and multi-tasking. The pace and tempo of a ballgame is such that with the game on the tube, you can make dinner, take a nap, walk the dog, have conversation with your spouse and kids, and still take in the game. It also matters because baseball is something that connects the two Americas, rural and urban. While pastoral in nature and origin, it has become representative of our urban society, and our teams really do represent the cities we live in, or in my case the cities in which we grew up as well. As such I consider myself to be both a Dodgers fan and a Diamondbacks fan as they represent the city of Phoenix that I have proudly called home for most of my adult life.

So bring on the cowbells and Mohawks from Tampa, and the rousing chorus of boos from Philly fans who are famous for once booing Santa Claus. The Fall Classic is upon us once again, and here’s hoping the games are competitive, well-played and hard fought, and that no matter who comes out on top, we are treated to a long and enjoyable series, which is what sports should be all about.