World Class

A well hit fly ball to left field that did not have enough to get out of the park. That is how it ended.

The most compelling World Series of the new millenium ended with a routine fly ball to left field and the Saint Louis Cardinals completed an impossible run. 

It was a shame that this fantastic World Series had to come to an end. This series portrayed some of the most compelling baseball in years. Four out of the seven games played were decided by two runs or less. Three of the seven games were come from behind wins. And two times the Saint Louis Cardinals down to their last strike in the same game only to come from behind and win arguably the greatest World Series game ever. We saw a team with an inferior offense on paper in Saint Louis out slug the Rangers in one game while the inferior pitching of the Rangers out performed the Cardinals in another. There was no predictability in the World Series which is why it was so compelling.

From Albert Pujols having arguably the greatest offensive performance in postseason history to a Darren Oliver, a seventeen year veteran winning a game, the 2011 World Series exemplified the most compelling aspects of sports. The drama that emitted from those games caught the attention of baseball fans that existed outside of Texas and Saint Louis. The competitiveness of this postseason roped in fans outside of the northeast teams markets into a series between two relatively small market franchises. The Texas Rangers and Saint Louis Cardinals brought back the passionate interest in baseball that had been missing for the latter half of this decade.


The unanswered questions about the two teams that participated in the world series would continue to linger, especially with Albert Pujols on the free agent market. But for now the memories and highlights of the 2011 World Series will certainly not be forgotten any time soon.

Phat Albert

Baseball is a sport that thrives on its strategy and unpredictability. You never truly know what will happen on any given night when the two teams take the field, especially in the postseason. But for all of the speculation surrounding what the next game would produce and the large amount of anticipation surrounding what has been an extremely competitive World Series one thing was made abundantly clear: Game three of the 2011 World Series put Albert Pujols in the consolation of baseball stars that every player only dreams of reaching.

The numbers that Pujols has produced during game three were so good that the typical adjectives that describe a player's performance do not do it justice. The Saint Louis Cardinals first baseman is now the proud owner of this ludicrous line; five hits in six at bats, three home runs, six runs batted in, and a major league record fourteen total bases in a World Series game. Nobody has ever put up the kind of numbers that Pujols did all at the same time. Paul Molitor is the only other player with five hits in a World Series game. Only two other players, Hideki Matsui and Bobby Robinson, have ever driven in six runs during the fall classic. And Pujols is the only player ever to record fourteen total bases in a World Series game, ever. Again, all of these outrageous numbers were put up in a World Series game, one of the biggest stages in professional sports.

What kind of player has a game like this? Who has one of the best performances in the history of baseball during the championship games of one of the four major professional sports?

The short answer to these questions can be found by examining the names of the only two other men in the history of baseball to hit three home runs in a World Series game: Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson. And right away, we know that Albert Pujols' performance ranks up there with the immortals of the game.

There are plenty of questions left unanswered after an all time great game from Albert Pujols. We do not yet know the answers to the short term questions, such as will the Saint Louis Cardinals win the World Series? Nor do we know where Albert Pujols will be playing baseball for the rest of his professional career. Or how many millions of dollars he will bring in when he becomes a free agent this upcoming winter. We do not even know where he will rank in baseball lore after he decides to hang up the cleats for good.

But what everybody does know after the 2011 champions has been decided is this: Nobody is going to forget  the game when Albert Pujols took a sledge hammer to the record books. The recording devices in our minds will not allow us to forsake the kind of performance that transformed Albert Pujols from a superstar to a legend of the game. And in case we forget, the highlights of that game will be burned onto programs like ESPN classic to make sure that the images of that night will not pass us by.

The story of Albert Pujols may not yet be completed, but game three of the 2011 World Series will certainly go down as one of the most compelling chapters.

Slight of Hand?

Since the dawn of time, rigorous forms of competition brought out the best and the worse in people. There are certain individuals who thrived in the limelight for the better, and there are those who melt under the intensity of the moment like an abandoned Snickers bar on the sidewalk. But after an intense 60 minutes of competition where coaches and athletes alike poured their hearts and souls into a sporting event, their viewing audience expected them to act as if they were in front of their in-laws as soon as the game had ended. So when coaches Jim Harbaugh of the San Francisco 49ers and Jim Schwartz of the Detroit Lions had some extra curricular activities after a fairly aggressive post game handshake by Harbaugh, there was some criticism of how both coaches acted when it all went down.

            The radio airwaves were filled with the predictable topics of “who was at fault for causing this to happen?”, “how can this kind of behavior be accepted?” and even to the more humorous “who would win in a fight?” But the general agreement among all talk show hosts and fans was that both coaches should not have acted the way that they did right after a very competitive game.

            How could it have been fair to expect the coaches who were expected to get their players emotionally ready for an upcoming game to not get emotionally invested themselves? It was unrealistic for fans and analysts alike to expect these men to cast their own feelings of frustration aside and shake hands like business partners without any time to compose themselves emotionally.

            Fortunately for Harbaugh and Schwartz, the NFL decided against punishing either of these men because there were not any punches thrown. But even after the incident came to a close, the double standard of coaches pumping emotion into their players one minute and becoming soulless shells at the end of a high powered competition remained.

            In an ideal world, Schwartz and Harbaugh would have been able to shake hands peacefully and walk into the tunnel with their emotions bottled up just like the other coaches. But Harbaugh and Schwartz are human. Their respective reactions were understandable in the heat of battle. If the NFL wanted to avoid these situations then they would have the coaches’ wait for two minutes before the handshake to let the emotions out for just a brief moment. Sports enabled us as fans to see real passion and feelings, and the NFL should not have tried to quell what makes sports so fun to watch.

One Bear of a Task

One of the hardest things to do in the world of sports is to turn around a team that has seen more than it's fair share of past failures. Just ask the Red Sox. They had been plagued by the horrid outcomes from the 1949 season, to the impossible dream team coming up just short, to Bucky bleeping dent, and the ball going through Bill Buckner's legs. But the winds of change whistled through bean town in 2002-2003 when the Boston Red Sox introduced, at that time, the youngest general manager in baseball history. This new general manager took up the task of trying to end the then 84 year championship drought that hovered over the Red Sox. Then, two years and a great deal of front office moves later, the Boston Red Sox had finally won a World Series championship. Now, the general manager of that team, Theo Epstein, is taking his general managing talents to the franchise with the longest championship drought in all professional sports: The Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs 103 year championship drought aside, Theo Epstein is not simply going to ride into Chicago, chant expelliaramus, and turn a team that finished fifth in the National League Central in 2011 into a World Series contender in 2012. Unlike the 2002-2003 Red Sox, the Cubs do not have the vast majority of a winning nucleus already in place. The Cubs do have a big time talent in Starlin Castro, a productive veteran player in Aramis Ramirez, and a solid number three starter in Matt Garza. Still, taking chances on lower cost role players to surround that core, which is what Epstein did in his early days in Boston, is not the correct formula to use in bringing a championship to the north side of Chicago at this time. The Cubs need more big contributors around Castro Ramirez and Garza, and lately Epstein has not done well in providing his team with those kinds of players.

After striking gold twice in 2004 by bringing in Curt Schilling and Keith Foulke, Epstein has gone one for six in successful big named signings since the curse was broken. Among the busts that Epstein has inked to big time contracts include Edgar Renteria (4 years, $40 million), Julio Lugo (4 years, $36 million), J.D. Drew (5 years, $70 million), John Lackey (5 years, $82.5 million) and Carl Crawford (7 years, $142 million). Renteria and Lugo took turns being the worst shortstops in the majors during their respective stints in Boston. JD Drew had one good month in five years in a Red Sox uniform. Lackey and Crawford are already off to horrible starts in Boston.Yes Adrian Gonzalez did have a good statistical year overall with the Red Sox, but he faded down the stretch with the rest of his team. Despite his bad signings after 2004, Epstein seems up for the challenge of  helping a franchise that so desperately wants a World Series trophy.

Can Epstein help accomplish this daunting task? Sure he can. Epstein has a good track record for trading players and the Cubs have some players in their farm system they can move if necessary. In addition to being a good trader, Epstein also seems to have a good eye for managers. It was Epstein who first recommended Terry Francona for the Red Sox job in 2004 and that turned out well. If the Cubs do not bring Francona aboard, which is the more likely move, they can get another year out of Mike Quade and finally get around to making Ryne Sandberg their manager. The Chicago Cubs will not make an Arizona Diamondback like turnaround in 2012, but with Epstein as the general manager the Cubs could make the big turnaround their fans have been waiting for.  

I'm not ready for some football

This musical introduction has been around for most of our lives. It all begins with the drums playing at a fairly quick pace accompanied by images of fighter planes, aircraft carriers, and one Philadelphia Eagle running with the football. The song continues with a quick little guitar riff joined by more pictures of planes, wide receivers catching footballs, and cheerleaders motivating their teams. And then, there is a shot of one man in a cowboy attire. Hank Williams Junior is the man who boasts about his rowdy friends, subtly introduces the night's game, and yells one of the more popular quotes in the entire sport: "Are You Ready for Some Football!?" But now, after a twenty year run, "All My Rowdy Friends" will no longer be the introduction song for Monday Night Football on ESPN.

The song had been pulled by ESPN on October 3rd after Williams made some rather scathing comments regarding president Barack Obama. On top of the comments themselves, Williams' halfhearted apology not only suggested that he was not sorry for any of his comments, but rather that he seemed more angry that ESPN decided to stop using his song on air.

The reason that ESPN pulled the plug on Hank Williams and all of his rowdy friends was simple: ESPN had to protect its best interests moving forward and keeping someone as inflammatory as Williams would hurt the company name. And frankly it was the right decision to make. Williams "apologized" through his publicist and there is little doubt that not only is Williams not sorry for what he said, but also that there is nothing stopping him from saying something much worse. ESPN was right to draw the line at what Williams could and could not say because he may not have been an employee of the network, but they had such a close relationship that Williams' opinions made ESPN look bad.

Despite what has been said, this divorce did not ruin either ESPN or Williams' career. ESPN is still far and away the world wide leader in sports, and it's audience remains faithful to the network because there is no other serious competition. As for Williams, his musical career did not suffer to big of a blow with his song no longer being a staple for Monday Night Football. Williams had been voted entertainer of the year by the Country Music Association in 1987 and 1988, and was a superstar in the genre since the early 1980's. Did Williams' comments cost his some money for every time ESPN played the song? Sure, but Williams' had a target audience that would not be lost over some bad comments.

Who will replace Hank Williams Jr. as the introduction to Monday Night Football? That remains to be seen. However, there is no guarantee that any of Williams' replacements will be as rowdy or as ready for some football.

3 and Oh Hey, Didn't See You There

Since these two franchises were first formed they have stared failure in the face and blinked. One has enjoyed success in the 1960's, but then shrank from the spotlight when the AFL and NFL merged in 1970. The other has the second longest championship drought in football and does not have a single Super Bowl appearance. One is the somber owner of an 0-16 regular season, and the other is the only team to go to four consecutive Super Bowls and loose every one of them. 

But 2011 has been different for both of these franchises. They have both replaced mediocrity with consistency, inconsistency with stability, and losses with wins. And despite the fact that the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions will not play each other in the regular season, they have each taken their respective conferences by storm. 

The Lions and Bills have such similar formulas for success that they look like the same team at times. Both teams have explosive offenses that can score with almost anybody. Both of these teams have defenses that do not scare anybody on paper, but are surprisingly solid on game day. 

But what may be most impressive about the Bills and Lions in 2011 is the fact that they both have beaten two above average teams in impressive fashion. Both Detroit and Buffalo put up 40 point victories against the Kansas City Chiefs, who won ten games and were the AFC West champions last year. The Detroit Lions also beat a ten win Tampa Bay Buccaneer team who many picked to make the playoffs in 2011. While the Buffalo Bills made an improbable comeback to defeat the New England Patriots just last week. 

There are still plenty of tough games ahead for both of these teams, and thoughts of crashing their playoff parties are still just thoughts. But one thing is for sure, the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions are on everybody's radar and should not be slept on.