Black Sox at 100, part 2 — were they the first to throw a World Series?

In part 1 of my series (part 3 is coming) about the centennial of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox, I focus on the guilt, or not, of Shoeless Joe Jackson.

That said, I noted that there's allegations of Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker conspiring to fix games.

And they're not alone. Not by any means. But how un-alone are they?

On PBS, Jacob Pomrenke, in addition to refuting myths about Shoeless Joe in particular and the Black Sox' Eight Men Out in general, wonders if other World Series before 1919 were rigged. Pomremke, a member of SABR, chairs a committee it has just over the Black Sox. Here's a list of all his research.

Among other alleged fixers, he mentions Hal Chase. His career, per an old ESPN piece, unofficially was ended in ... wait for it, wait for it ...

1919! He also was booted later from the Pacific Coast League for trying to bribe an ump.

That said, Chase did not play on either of the two pre-1919 World Series that first stick out to me as possibly being thrown. (Note: I've changed my mind on the second, and looked at two more.)

The first? 1906, when the Chicago Cubs won a record 116 games with an unheard of 116-36 mark. The team of the famed, and overrated, double-play turning infield trio of Tinker to Evers to Chance — shortstop Joe Tinker, second baseman Johnny Evers and first baseman Frank Chance — lost in six games to ...

Crosstown rival Chicago White Sox! The Sox were known as the "Hitless Wonders" and deemed to have no chance in advance.

That said, that was arguably less a shock than the 1914 World Series, where first-time entrant Boston Braves not only beat, but swept, the heavily favored Philadelphia A's.

Here, unlike one of the myths about the Black Sox and Charles Comiskey that Pomrenke refutes, A's owner-manager Connie Mack, despite his team having the so-called "$100,000 infield," was known as being tight on salaries.

There's no smoking gun, but Mack himself allegedly "wondered." However, per great discussion at this baseball forum, there's plenty of myth the other way there. Mack only traded one top-level player after 1914. A couple of others jumped to the Federal League and that was that. As far as Mack being tight with money? Shibe Park was an undersized bandbox. Philly baseball would have been served by the Phillies turning over the Baker Bowl to the NFL Iggles only, and both Philly baseball teams sharing a new baseball stadium.

Further interesting? One of the Braves players was ... Johnny Evers!

That said, Wiki notes in an article on MLB scandals that some suspicions attached to the 1917 and 1918 affairs.

1918, which saw the Cubs lose to the Red Sox, has long drawn suspicions of a fix. This piece by BoSox blogger and book author Allan Wood has a lot of the details, including fingering Cubs pitcher Gene Packard. It notes that players faced tiny shared revenue from a condensed-season, attendance-shrunken World War I year, as far as temptation. It wasn't just overall numbers down with a shortened season. 1918 had the lowest per-game attendance in the 20th century. And they were being forced to share their shares with the other six teams of the two leagues' "upper divisions." (This later became the norm.) This piece also has 1919 games-throwing expert Eddie Cicotte claiming the Cubs had been paid to lose in 1918.

I don't know if he was given a formal ban at some point, but Packard also last pitched in ... 1919!

Shortstop Charlie Hollocher also drew suspicion from Hugh Fullerton, the first major sportswriter to smell a rat in 1919 as well. I'm less inclined to believe this one, though. Hollocher was a rookie in 1918, which would be another way of explaining his fielding mistakes. He knew nothing about AL players. That said, the fact that he was under suspicion shows where the game was at by this time. Also, even though the Cubbies had a better team WAR, the BoSox had won it all in 1915 and 1916. The fact that 1918 was believed to have been thrown by many sportswriters? Once again, shows you where baseball was at by this time.

The New York Times has more.

The year before? 1917? It's drawn somewhat less ink, but it is under a cloud of one player, at least. Heinie Zimmerman was eventually banned from MLB, at the same time as Chase, on general suspicion from the 1917 Series. Wiki notes he chased Eddie Collins across home plate in a botched rundown in the final game of the 1917 tilt. Per Wiki's piece on that Series, catcher Bill Rariden expected either pitcher Rube Benton or first baseman Walter Hoike to be backing him up in the rundown and neither did.

John McGraw tried to absolve Zimmerman, but reportedly, Zim probably could have caught Collins himself before he got to home.

That said, THIS plot comes full circle, too. McGraw reportedly believed that various members of his 1919 team conspired to throw the 1919 NL title to the Reds. He mentioned Chase by name. He also mentions pitcher Jean Dubuc, who was on the 1918 BoSox, and who reportedly heard details about the 1919 Black Sox fix. I find this one also hard to believe. The Giants ended nine games behind the Reds, who, per the 1919 NL season, simply appear to be the better team. Plus, throwing an entire season would be a big deal.

I had somewhat known some of this before. I hadn't really read about 1918 before, but I did know about 1914 vague suspicions, and more on 1917. But, I never thought to draw one connection.

And that's that the losing 1919 Black Sox had learned tips on how to throw games, and who to talk to to get paid for that, from the team they beat two years earlier, the Giants. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

And, there's the sidebar of for three straight years, one of the other of the two Chicago teams was being claimed to either be in on the fix, in 1918 and 1919, or benefiting from it, in 1917.

In addition, even though the 1918 Red Sox won, two of their pitchers, Bullet Joe Bush and Carl Mays, remained under suspicion, or came under suspicion in later years. Both made their next stop with the Bronx Bombers. Again according to Wood, Jake Ruppert allegedly told Fred Lieb that he thought both of them had thrown World Series games. Maybe. Or maybe the Colonel was a butt-hurt owner just like John McGraw was a butt-hurt manager. Or maybe a sportswriter was spinning a yarn. Both Bush and Mays stuck around until the late 1920s, something unlikely in the Landis era if they had any actual taint.

And, one other loop back around. Bullet Joe was on Mack's 1914 A's. But, he wasn't traded until after the 1917 season, though Mack did get money as well as players back in the multiplayer trade.

So, there you have it. Certainly in the 1910s, even if the Hitless Wonders of 1906 weren't gifted with a title, suspicions abounded and for good reason. By 1920, the Black Sox of 1919 looked to be a trend, and with America cleaning up under Prohibition, baseball needed to clean up, for PR.

My final take?
1919: Obviously thrown
1918: Possibly thrown
1917: Possibly thrown
1914: Probably not; claims based on overrating the A's and Mack myth
1906: Who knows, but interesting, isn't it?

Part 3 is next, Could it happen today? And not just baseball.

Black Sox at 100 part 1 — was Shoeless Joe innocent, and myths vs reality of Black Sox story

Winning a World Series is a crapshoot, at times. As a Birds fan, I'll offer up 1986 and David Eckstein's Cardinals.

Sometimes its far worse than a crapshoot, so to speak.

This is the 100th anniversary of the Chicago Black Sox, or eight members of that team, at least, reportedly throwing the 1919 World Series.

It's also the 30th anniversary of the heart-tug movie "Field of Dreams" and its effort to either set the truth straight or else whitewash it: 

And, per Kevin Costner, one person is identified with that more than anybody, even though not the ringleader and totally opposite Rose in personality. I'm talking Shoeless Joe Jackson, of course.

So, why do we still "pick on" Shoeless Joe, and even more than Pete Rose?

Jackson was proven innocent in a court of law, as his own granddaughter notes in discussing the centennial with ESPN.

Beyond whether Shoeless Joe helped do it or not, there's the question of whether MLB isn't hypocritical, on him, or on Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, as I've discussed before. And, within baseball, there's three managers named Tony La Russa, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox who likely knew some of their players, including Bonds and Clemens, plus Gary Sheffield and Mark McGwire, were "helping themselves." And, there's allegations of Ty Cobb (not a racist, as far as that part of morals, apparently, legends to the side) and Tris Speaker conspiring to fix games.

The Black Sox in general, because this was so early in organized sport, and organized sport was trying to become more professional after the Great War, were a target. That's both as in a target for the eventual Judge Landis crackdown but at the same time, with Prohibition starting and the Roaring 20s around the corner, a target for gaming and cheating. Plus, baseball was the National Pastime. City College of New York point-shaving scandals hurt that game somewhat, but everybody moved on. More on both parts of the "target" come near the end.

As for Jackson? Like his granddaughter, as I note in this long piece, I don't think he did it. Well, so I thought at the time, which was four years before this piece.

But ... but ... but ...

That said, as John Thorn notes, many myths still abound about the Black Sox. That includes that they were underpaid (actually, the highest paid team in baseball), that they were rubes taken for a ride by gambling sharks (not true in general, and note Cobb and Speaker above, representing just a tip of alleged game-fixing at this time), and that Shoeless Joe was just a country bumpkin (actually, he had good post-baseball business career). And, contra Shoeless Joe's granddaughter, Thorn says that on the legal angle, the jury basically bought the angle peddled by "Field of Dreams" and committed jury nullification. Some might argue that Thorn, as official historian of MLB, has a reason to take this angle.

And now, Don Van Natta, amplifying Thorn, says that Shoeless Joe, by being dead, is NOT on baseball's ineligible list any longer. Meaning? The Early Baseball era incarnation of the Hall of Fame's old Veterans Committee meets in December. It could vote for Jackson if it chose, despite both MLB and Cooperstown no-commenting, in essence, to Van Natta.

But?

On PBS, Jacob Pomrenke, in addition to refuting more myths, wonders if other pre-1919 WS were fixed. I'm addressing that in Part 2.) Pomremke, a member of SABR, chairs a committee it has just over the Black Sox. Here's a list of all his research.

So now, per Thorn and Pomrenke, I'm not so sure about Shoeless Joe.

As for the Black Sox in general? Per a sublink off Pomrenke's research, a few years ago, incredible and incredibly rare tape was found of selected highlights of Game 3 (first) then Game 1. And per that, it don't look good overall. Per Pomrenke, go to 3:06 in the video; note the brief GIF on the website for further looks at a blown double play started by pitcher Eddie Cicotte and ending with first baseman Chick Gandil that made many suspect the fix was in, then Cicotte getting (letting himself?) get knocked out of the box. At the end of that sequence, about 3:45, is the infamous play of Cicotte cutting off Jackson's throw to the plate. That's a play that's cited both for the other seven of the eight cheating but also, the quality of the throw plus Jackson's .375 BA for the Series, as evidence of his innocence.



IF ... he didn't do it? Jackson should be made eligible for the Hall, and then voted into Cooperstown, if there's at least the strong likelihood he didn't do it.

He's got the cred.

Despite his career being forcibly ended at age 32, he's 13 in JAWS among right fielders, as I note at that link. Give him four more years, and he's at around 90 WAR. Around 70 on JAWS. Right next to Al Kaline and Roberto Clemente, at a minimum.

But, did he or didn't he? Seems more gray than ever. Pomranke and Thorn both lean yes on Shoeless Joe and all eight, and marshal their evidence better than Keith Law.

And, even his good performance could square with cheating. Maybe the adrenaline kicked in and he performed on autopilot. Maybe he had a guilty conscience, or fear of getting caught, enough to pull back. Maybe, even, he was a designated cutout, to do better than normal while the others cheated, to try to put people off the scent.

The biggest part is that the players went looking, rather than the gamblers starting by soliciting them.

Final thought? Could such a scandal happen today? Before you say "no," read my Part 3.

Cubs vs Indians? I may not watch this #WorldSeries

First, while the team name "Indians," and the colloquial "Tribe," aren't racist — at least not from where I stand — the Wahoo logo is. It indulges in a variety of physical stereotyping, some of which have been applied by whites in America to other racial or ethnic groups as well. And the Cleveland Indians, like the Washington Redskins, have generally as a corporation resisted addressing the issue. (I've become more sensitive to such things since the last time Cleveland was in the World Series.)

And, I even Tweeted LeBron James, asking how, with his active support for Black Lives Matter, he can support a team with a racist mascot. One word from him might actually propel change. That's not guaranteed, but it certainly is possible.

On the flip side, we have the Chicago Cubs.

As I joked on social media last Saturday, the Cubs last got to the World Series in 1945 — the year World War II ended. And now, native Chicagoan and warhawk Hillary Clinton is running for president.

To complete one version of the joke, I said that the only way people could stop World War III was to vote Green for Dr. Jill Stein for president. Some people on Zuckerbook didn't like the joke, including the non-joking truth of Hillary as warhawk.

Worse yet is the saccharine in which this will be draped.

Joe Buck and John Smoltz in the broadcast booth will yammer until the cows come home about how America loves an underdog.

No it doesn't, at least not totally, or in and of itself. That myth is a hoary part of American exceptionalism.

Americans love an underdog only in the Horatio Alger sense, of how it supposedly proves social and other mobility is uniquely possible in America.

No it isn't.

November #WorldSeries? #MLB dawdles on schedule as well as games

Major League Baseball has come under increasing fire for the increasing length of its games.

Maybe there's a mindset at work?

MLB's 2015 schedule would run to Nov. 5 if the World Series would go to a seventh game.

That would be one day later than the finale of the 2001 World Series, which capped a season delayed near the end of the year by the 9/11 attacks, and which had plenty of its heroics from Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzales in his battle with Mariano Rivera, Curt Schilling, and, oh, that semi-divine shortstop guy with the Yankees. Jeter, I think? (Actually, with a slash of .179/.259/.438, The Cap'n was not only less than divine, he was arguably the goat, despite Joe Buck trotting out the "Mr. November" line. Speaking of, I'd be OK if Buck joined Tim McCarver in baseball broadcasting retirement.)

As David Schoenfield notes, this increases the risk of snow problems if one or two of the cities playing is a northern one and domeless.

Consider this: The 1955 World Series, when the Brooklyn Dodgers finally beat the New York Yankees, began on Sept. 28. Game 7 at Yankee Stadium took place on Oct. 4 with temperatures in the high 60s. It was a Fall Classic. Not a Winter Classic.

Exactly. 

New commissioner Rob Manfred has to hope that the Minnesota Twins suck as much next year as this. The Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, and Colorado Rockies probably aren't high on his World Series wish list either.

Probably the worst possible matchup would be Minnesota-Colorado, a mix of the highest possibility of outright cold and the highest possibility of unpredictable mountain snow. Detroit or Cleveland vs. Pittsburgh, with a good shot of sleet or freezing rain in early November, wouldn't be fun, either. And, unlike Minnesota-Colorado, either one of those AL teams against the Pirates is not out of the realm of probability.

I'm old enough to remember the first World Series arguably affected by night baseball with bad weather: the 1979 showdown between the Pirates and the Baltimore Orioles.

It was a fielding slopfest. Six errors in the opening game. Seventeen errors for the series, with each of the seven games having at least one error. Fortunately, those fielding problems didn't totally open the scoring gates, as there were "just" five unearned runs.

#Wrigley100: Babe Ruth and the 'called shot' vs #Bartman

Babe Ruth clearly indicating something in Wrigley Field, Oct. 1, 1932.
Photo via Wikipedia.

As dyed-in-the-wool (or dead on Waveland, heh, heh) baseball fans know, this is the 100th anniversary of Wrigley Field in Chicago.

ESPN recently listed its Top 100 moments at Wrigley. (Sidebar: I didn't realize the Bears played football there until 1970. I thought Soldier Field was older.)

No. 2? The infamous "called shot" game from the 1932 World Series, in which Babe Ruth may, or may not, have pointed to somewhere in Wrigley with his bat, and thus may, or may not, have been calling for hitting a home run after Charlie Root got 2 strikes on him.

To me, this is No. 1. It's No. 1 in part because of the mythos, reinforced the relative paucity of evidence -- we do have some film, but not much -- and by Root's vociferous denial that Ruth was calling anything, claiming he would have beaned him if he was.

Update: Before quotes and comments, here's what reportedly is the actual video (silent):

And next?

Really, Charlie Root? Let's first look at quotes from the Wikipedia link above on the "called shot."

• "Don't let anybody tell you differently. Babe definitely pointed." — Cubs public address announcer Pat Pieper (As public address announcer Pieper sat next to the wall separating the field from the stands, between home plate and third base. In 1966 he spoke with the Chicago Tribune "In the Wake of the News" sports columnist David Condon: "Pat remembers sitting on the third base side and hearing [Cubs' pitcher] Guy Bush chide Ruth, who had taken two strikes. According to Pat, Ruth told Bush: 'That's strike two, all right. But watch this.' 'Then Ruth pointed to center field, and hit his homer,' Pat continues. 'You bet your life Babe Ruth called it.'")

• "My dad took me to see the World Series, and we were sitting behind third base, not too far back…. Ruth did point to the center-field scoreboard. And he did hit the ball out of the park after he pointed with his bat. So it really happened." Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, United States Supreme Court

• "What do you think of the nerve of that big monkey. Imagine the guy calling his shot and getting away with it." - Lou Gehrig

• The Commissioner of Baseball, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, attended the game with his young nephew, and both had a clear view of the action at home plate. Landis himself never commented on whether he believed Ruth called the shot, but his nephew believes that Ruth did not call it

• Washington Post legendary columnist Shirley Povich, detailed in an interview with Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey. "Ruth was just mad about that quick pitch, Dickey explained. He was pointing at Root, not at the centerfield stands. He called him a couple of names and said, "Don't do that to me anymore, you blankety-blank."

So, hard to say, but it adds to the mystique, right? And, of the collected quotes, three say he called the shot, and the others are kind of ambivalent.

Relatively recently discovered footage leans more toward the idea of Ruth pointing his bat at the Cubs dugout, Wikipedia claims. So, too, in this video reviewing what we know, Cubs 2B Billy Herman said that catcher Gabby Hartnett said the same. That said, even that and him reportedly holding two fingers up to Root, or pointing at him, would have been something halfway like saying "here it comes." In other words, short of Ruth pointing to the centerfield scoreboard, Root arguably had reason to bean him anyway. Beyond the above, Ruth had already homered off him earlier in the game.

And speaking of? While Root may have wanted to bean Ruth, was he in a position to do so?

Let's look at B-R's play index for that game, to further question Root's claim.

First, the game was tied 4-4 entering the top of the fifth. Root wouldn't want to jeopardize that lead. And, beaning Ruth with 1 out would have brought up Lou Gehrig who, like Ruth, had already hit one homer in the game and by this point was a more dangerous batter than Ruth, even with the likes of "just" a Tony Lazzeri, not a Ruth or Gehrig, protecting him in the lineup.

So, especially with two strikes on Ruth, from quick-pitching or whatever, no Root wouldn't have beaned him. He would have tried to strike him out. Beaning him with a two-strike count to know he would face Gehrig next in a tie game would have been stupid.

In actuality, he didn't and couldn't strike out Ruth. Gehrig then hit another homer too, at which point Root got yanked for Pat Malone.

So, Root may be right, but I kind of doubted it. He had reasons for his statement, of course. Root's not a HOFer, but he is arguably a member of the Hall of Very Good, winning more than 200 games and posting nearly 40 career WAR. And he'd like to be remembered for that.

As for what the Colossus of Clout (aka Colossus of Cocaine) clobbered? Per a new, 2024 ESPN story about what's believed to be Ruth's actual jersey from that actual game? He hit it about 440 feet.

As for the Bartman game? That's No. 1 only for Cubs fans who want to scapegoat one of several fans reaching for a foul ball, while refusing to admit their team gave up 8 runs that inning because, again, Dusty Baker proved he didn't know how to manage a pitching staff, plus that being followed in Game 7 (remember, the Cubs had a 3-2 series lead) where the Cubbies had the biggest postseason implosion since the 1985 Cardinals in the A.D. (After Denkinger) game in the World Series.

Baker waited until three more batters after Luis Castillo eventually drew a walk before yanking Mark Prior, who had thrown 100 pitches or so already at the time of Bartman's hand of god or somebody, and was just in his second year in the league. Then Kerry Wood yakked up a lead in Game 7. Kyle Farnsworth dropped the ball in Game 6 out of the pen, with "help" from Mike Remlinger, but might not have done so if Baker had had him ready to go sooner.

I wouldn't even rank the Bartman game in the top 5 events at Wrigley. Among other things, I'd put Gale Sayers' 6-TD day ahead of it, as one of the best athletic performances in history.

And for anti-Cubs fans wanting to point a finger back, with a bit of schadenfreude, over their lovable losers schtick? I'd put Ron Santo's 1969 heel clicking higher on the list.

As far as saluting Wrigley's history, I'd put Aug. 7, 1988, the first night game at the Friendly Confines, above Bartman.

Once again, #Cardinals - where's Waldo, I mean Miller?

Now that the World Series is over and the St. Louis Cardinals have fallen two wins short of their 12th championship, let me ask once more: Where was Shelby Miller?

The man pitched one waste inning in the Division Series, not at all in the LCS and not at all in the World Series. To me, it's clear that he was more "gassed" than general manager John Mozeliak and manager Mike Matheny were pretending. Even more gassed than Edward Mujica.

(Update, Nov. 2: According to this blog, linking to comments or Tweets by both Joe Strauss and Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Miller was held out of the WS, and perhaps the LCS, because of being trade bait, and possibly part of a likely trade already being fleshed out.

Interesting speculation. But, if that's the case, and top brass really was that worried about an injury scuttling a trade, then, again, why have him on the roster at all?)
Let's be blunt. In essence, Mo (I'll blame him more than Matheny) has been lying about Miller. And, while he's done a good job of building this team, it's not the first time he's lied about a player's status with this team.

Basically, he lied about his plans for Albert Pujols a full year before Prince Albert officially became a free agent. Yes, yes, Pujols is gone and we got Michael Wacha in return. That's not the point. That doesn't hide the fat that Mo was lying about plans for him, and pretty blatantly.

Worse, this affected Matheny's tactical freedom, especially in the World Series, where, with the DH in play at least part of the time, and you needing more arms to be ready to throw. (That said, Matheny's repeated slow hook, demonstrated with new levels of mismanagement in Game 6, didn't need any further hinderance.)

What I'm getting at is this.

By no later than Game 4, Boston manager John Farrell clearly knew that Miller would not be pitching, and that it was highly unlikely Mujica would. So, he had a two-player, and more specifically, two-pitcher advantage over Matheny and could plan his in-game tactics in middle and late innings accordingly.

(Yes, Miller was, allegedly, warming up in the pen during Game 6. But, was that anything other than a courtesy from Matheny: "Hey, Shelby, warm up, so you can at least be on TV during the World Series."?)

Jake Westbrook had a poor second half of the season, but he wasn't gassed. He could have had one of the slots. Another bat ... anybody eligible from the 40-man roster could have been the other.

The dynamic duo has now spoken a bit on the issue. A bit. Matheny likened him to a fire extinguisher behind that sheet labeled "break glass as needed," while admitting before "Game 6 that he wasn't likely to pitch at all. Mozeliak called him "insurance," then got defensive, with this:

“Second-guessing the roster doesn’t have traction.”

Wrong. Per what I laid out above, and will below, it's got plenty of traction. Not just the roster, but the way this was handled.

Looking ahead to 2014 and beyond, this creates concerns.

Matheny still has a growth curve as a manager. He may be better than Don Mattingly, but that doesn't say a lot. The World Series merely gave more exposure to pitcher handling issues that were hinted at against the Dodgers. And, the Matheny-Mozeliak combo has larger player management issues to deal with.

This is all made yet more goofy by Mo's own admission that, between majors and minors, Wacha threw more total innings this year than Miller.

That said, in a few days, I'll have a hot stove league kickoff post about the Cardinals.  As the World Series showed, the team has batting order issues to address. Multiple ones and not just at shortstop. Informed Cardinal fans shouldn't kid themselves. While the pitching staff looks like it could and should be great for years to come, the lineup has a fair amount of work that needs to be done, to be honest. As I blogged earlier this week, this team needs some definite growth on base running. That's pretty much a mix of coaching and player mental discipline, both ultimately managerial issues. It has little to do with speed; smart baserunning includes knowing your skills and limits as a player, knowing that your manager, and your base coaches during in-game situations, know this too, and that you therefore should not regularly run through stop signs. It does mean that, if you don't have speed, you can learn hit-and-run batting/running as well as bunting. Etc., etc.

And, related to pitchers running out of gas at the end of regular season, or postseason, I've got a post on that coming up tomorrow.

Back to the header, though.

Some regular readers of my sports postings on this blog may think I'm harping on this issue too much. I don't. Ask yourself how smart it is to enter the World Series deliberately short-sheeting your own roster. Ask yourself also if it isn't a bit of arrogance to hope Boston wouldn't catch on sooner, or a bit of hopelessness to act as if you didn't have any options? (Since rosters are ultimately Matheny's call, that part of this issue, not the lying, is ultimately on him, not Mozeliak.)

So, no, it's not harping too much at all.

Let's hope that both Matheny and Mozeliak have learned from this for 2014.

===

That said, hats off, and beards on, to the Red Sox. They might have won had the Cards had Allen Craig at full health, at least given the way the bottom of the order was batting and Matheny handicapped himself. They might even have won without Matheny's self-handicapping. Another name for poor batting, after all, is good pitching.

At the same time, Boston fans owe the L.A. Dodgers a sloppy wet kiss for taking all those huge contacts off their hands last year. Without that, they likely don't pursue Napoli (remember, before the hips issue, they were offering three years with serious money) or Victorino.

Craig's injury aside, though, I would have liked to see the WS played without the self-handicapping.

My #WorldSeries pick? #StlCards in 6

First, as David Freese showed in winning the NLCS MVP award, the Cards' batting order is deep. Overall, arguably, deeper than the Rangers' is. With four full-blown "boppers" in the order, including Albert Pujols, Matt Holliday and Lance Berkman, even if one or even two go cold, there's depth there.

Speaking of, why were the TBS booth guys speculating Holliday would be the DH in the games in Arlington? This has been the first time since 2005 Berknan has played more than 100 games in the OF. And, for both this season and his career, he has a negative dWAR along with below average fielding percentage and range factor in the OF.

To me, TBS guys, it's a no-brainer to DH Berkman, with the added advantage of him being a switch-hitter. Allan Craig takes right and John Jay stays in center, for the outfield. (The Cardinal Nation blog suggests DHing one of them; why? Both are "positive" fielders. You put Berkman at DH, or Pujols, if he's banged up and then move Berkman to 1B. That's your best defensive moves.)

And, I've ragged on Tony La Russa a lot, but, overall, he did do a good job, even a great one, overall, in the LCS. That gives the Cards an advantage over the Rangers, where Ron Washington has been none too impressive as a strategist.

Speaking of, neither team looks great, overall, in pitching staffs, but, the Cards' underappreciated bullpen showed its worth to some degree against the Phillies and even more against the Brewers. Add Tony the Pony's long-term right-hand man Dave Duncan into the strategy mix, and it's another Cardinals advantage.

So, Cards in six. Home celebration at Busch Stadium.

UPDATE, Oct. 27: So I was off by a game, so sue me. WE WON! And ... Freese is MVP again.

Bud Selig actually has a bright idea

This one? Starting World Series games 40 minutes earlier. Contrary to some West Coast fans and others, fans of regionalism, you can’t wait until a week before the WS to ask Fox to set its schedule.

You think this year’s World Series weather is bad

The alleged “Fall Classic” could end as late as Nov. 5 next year.

And Bud “Just Call Me Bud” Selig says he plans to do nothing to change that.

What a schmuck.

No wonder baseball’s TV ratings continue to sink.

And, although the NFL didn’t run Sunday Night Football this year, will it do that next year, or will it say …

“We’re in November and races are heating up. The hell with MLB.”

Or, on Saturday night, will ABC not run a NCAA Top 25 matchup, like the one scheduled for this Saturday night between Texas and Texas Tech? Right.