THE GEEK IS SEEING REDS, AND YANKEES TOO

Sam Malone: "Now I understand why they weren't afraid to let me play. They were like the '27 Yankees out there."
Woody Boyd: "He's lying. There were only nine of them."

The Geek can't let this pass.

ESPN Classic just wrapped up All-Time Greatest World Series poll -- a poll, that's right. It took 16 past World Series champions from the American and National Leagues and, seeding them NCAA bracket-style, picked the winner of each series by vote.

The final outcome -- the 1927 Yankees edging the '75 Cincinnati Reds in a close vote -- was not entirely off base, but the whole exercise shows the pointlessness of doing this, because it's only informed by what perspective the fans and so-called experts bring to the table.

Case in point: In the first round, the team that played in a later era received the nod in 14 of 16 matchups. Maybe this is as it should be -- there's an argument to be made that any team that played in the pre-Jackie Robinson era(and even in the years after 1947, as baseball slowly adopted to integration, both with African-Americans and Latino ballplayers) should be discounted. However, that only one of the final eight teams played before 1950 seems more indicative of the fact people voted for the teams they had heard about.

The only "older" teams to get out of the first round were a pair of Yankees teams: the '27 club, seeded first in the "AL bracket," won a landslide vote over the 1972 Oakland A's, while the 1939 Yankees, seeded second, outpolled the '93 Blue Jays, but only got about 55% of the vote.

While the '92-93 Jays teams gave me a lot of memories, there's no way it should have been that close against the '39 Yankees, whom no less a baseball mind than Rob Neyer, a few years back, actually picked as the greatest team ever a in his book Baseball Dynasties.

(Granted, Neyer and co-author Eddie Epstein were trying to sell a book, and a book that confirmed many fans' unblinking acceptance that the 1927 Yankees were the best team ever probably wouldn't have had such a hook.)

The '39 Yankees, who had a .702 winning percentage and led the league in both runs scored and fewest runs allowed by a fair margin, were eliminated in Round 2 by the 1970 Baltimore Orioles -- and the vote wasn't even close.

Other questionable choices:

• 1984 Detroit Tigers over 1929 Philadelphia A's (Round 1). The Tigers were a one-year wonder (hey, that's half a season longer than the 2006 Tigers). Some people make a case that the '29 A's, who had a 300-game winner in Lefty Grove and a three-time MVP in Jimmie Foxx in the lineup, might have been the equal of the Yankees team from two years earlier.
• 1961 Yankees over '70 Orioles (Round 3). Truth be known, neither team should have still been in play by Round 3. The '61 Yanks are arguably the most overrated team of all time -- only so-so pitching, some dead spots in the lineup and a chronic inability to manufacture runs. However, the 1970s Orioles, with deeper pitching, solid defence and more on-base guys, would win easily.
• 1995 Atlanta Braves over 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, '63 L.A. Dodgers over 1905 New York Giants and '67 Cardinals over '07 Chicago Cubs (Round 1). No respect for the Dead Ball Era, apparently. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if these teams were matched up, under the conditions that Christy Mathewson and Honus Wagner played in, that the guys in the flannel uniforms would have come out on top?
• 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers reaching the semi-final. This goes back to people only voting for the teams they have heard of; the Brooklyn Dodgers live in memory thanks to countless books and film treatments, so it's understandable the '55 team would do well in this type of online poll.
  
  Thing is, the '55 Dodgers were probably not the best Brooklyn team from that era -- in fact, for their aforementioned book, Epstein and Neyer choose the 1953 Dodgers, who had the better regular season but lost in the World Series.

That's the thing. A poorly designed exercise that's prone to fans' own bias will inevitably give some bad results. Here, they got it almost right. Really, it should have been the 1939 New York Yankees against the fabled '75 Big Red Machine.

Incidentally, this sort of pointed out the steady erosion of the National League. Only two NL teams from the past 25 years -- the 1986 Mets and '95 Braves -- were included, compared to four in the AL -- the '84 Tigers, '89 Athletics, '93 Jays and '98 Yankees. The 2005 White Sox easily could have made it five, and the 1983 Orioles and '99 Yankees also bordered on dominant.

You tell me what it says that in the past 25 years, the NL has only been able to produce two dominant World Series-winning clubs, one of those a one-year wonder and the other a team that was ninth in a 14-team league in runs scored.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.