MLB playoffs: California dreamin' of L.A.-L.A. Series?

The Bill James Playoff Predictor went 4-for-4 in the pre-dilly-ictable first round of Major League Baseball's second season, so why not try it again? You know the drill.

1. 1 point to the lead team for each half-game in the standings
2. 3 points to the team that scored more runs
3. 14 points to the team with fewer doubles
4. 12 points to the team with more triples
5. 10 points to the team with more home runs
6. 8 points to the team with the lower team batting average
7. 8 points to the team that committed fewer errors
8. 7 points to the team that turned more double plays
9. 7 points to the team that walked more batters
10. 19 points to the team that had more shutouts
11. 15 points to the team whose ERA was lower
12. 12 points to the team that has been in postseason most recently or went further.
    
13. 12 points to the team which won the season series.

It's by no means definitive, especially in areas where one team's statistical advantage is small. Nevertheless ...

ALCS: ANGELS vs. YANKEES

1. The Yankees were 103-59, the Angels were 97-65. (Yankees 12)
   
2. The Yankees scored 915 runs, the Angels scored 883. (Yankees 3)
   
3. The Angels hit 293 doubles, the Angels hit 325. (Angels 14)
   
4. The Angels hit 33 triples, the Yankees hit 21. (Angels 12)
5. The Yankees hit 244 home runs, the Angels hit 173. (Yankees 10)
   
6. The Yankees batted .283, the Angels batted .285. (Yankees 8)
   
7. The Angels made 85 errors, the Yankees had 86. (Angels 8)
   
8. The Angels turned 174 double plays, the Yankees turned 131. (Angels 7)
   
9. The Yankees walked 574 batters, the Angels walked 523. (Yankees 7)
10. The Angels had 13 shutouts, the Yankees had 8. (Angels 19)
    
11. The Yankees had a 4.28 ERA, the Angels' was 4.45 (Yankees 15)
    
12. The Angels won the AL West in 2008 and lost in the division series. (Angels 12)
13. The season series was split 5-5.
    
    TOTAL: Angels 72, Yankees 57
    

NLCS: Philadelphia Phillies vs. L.A. Dodgers

1. The Dodgers went 95-67, the Phillies were 93-69. (Dodgers 4)
   
2. The Phillies outscored the Dodgers 820-780. (Phillies 3)
   
3. The Dodgers hit 278 doubles, the Phillies hit 312. (Dodgers 14)
4. The Dodgers hit 39 triples, the Phillies 35. (Dodgers 12)
   
5. The Phillies hit 224 home runs, the Dodgers 145. (Phillies 10)
6. The Phillies batted .258, the Dodgers batted .270. (Phillies 8)
7. The Phillies made 76 errors, the Dodgers made 83. (Phillies 8)
   
8. The Dodgers turned 134 double plays, the Phillies 132. (Dodgers 7)
   
9. The Dodgers walked 584 batters, the Phillies 489. (Dodgers 7)
   
10. Both teams had nine regular-season shutouts, the Phillies had one in the first round (Phillies 19)
    
11. The Dodgers' staff ERA was 3.41, the Phillies' was 4.16 (Dodgers 15)
    
12. The Phillies won the World Series in 2008, the Dodgers lost in the NLCS. (Phillies 12)
    
13. The Dodgers won the season series, 4-3. (Dodgers 12)
    
    TOTAL: Dodgers 71, Phillies 60
    

Sportsnet: One suggestion for how it could get it right

Rogers Sportsnet ought to see if it can turn into a hardcore sex channel so gradually that no one even notices.

It's bound to work better than what they've been doing. In a space about 15 minutes late Sunday night during the Philadelphia Phillies' win over the Colorado Rockies, Sportsnet ...

• ... Aired a promo for Game 4 of the American League Division Series between the "never-say-die Twins" and the New York Yankees. The Yankees had wrapped up the series in three games. Sportsnet could not have been expected to know this since the entire series aired on their network.


• Evanka Osmak — who is probably the best anchor they have — plugged a sponsor by saying the fans in frigid Denver could "use a shot of Wiser's to warm up." It is cheesy to plug the sponsor again after it was already introduced.
  
  (Secondly, it is a myth alcohol warms the body. It actually constricts blood vessels. There's an irony an English major pointing this out about something said about a graduate of the Faculty of Applied Science at Queen's University.)
  


• Sportsnet waited oh about 30 seconds after the final out to go to Sportsnet Connected so people could see the same highlights which already had been on every other channel hours earlier. Canadian viewers are just as entitled to see the post-game interviews. Apparently TBS let a clearly audible F-bomb make it to the airwaves.
  
  That was a missed chance to start gradually turning into a hardcore sex channel.
  

This is mainly worth pointing out to say last week's media uproar over Sportsnet keeping the Tigers-Twins tiebreaker game off the air in much of the country and sniffing consumers were at fault for not buying more channels was entirely justified. It's a joke. Chris Zelkovich noted in his Toronto Star column this was a huge screw-you to fixed-income seniors who make up a lot of baseball's viewership. Ball fans are getting screwed over. Please keep in mind Rogers has a lot to do with MLB Network being unavailable in Canada.

A better question from the young old farts is why doesn't Sportsnet stream all playoff games, so ball fans aren't put out when there's a conflict with hockey? Tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins-Senators game is on the East channel at the same time as Rockies-Phillies. Anyone in Ottawa who has access to only one Sportsnet won't be able to get the ballgame.

Let people register with their account number and go from there, that way they're not giving it away for free. A leading telecom such as Rogers should be able to make it happen. Just a thought.

It feels bad to mention Osmak when 30 other nameless jagovs are responsible for these editorial policies, so-called. For her, it might be like the epiphany Robin Scherbatsky once had: "And that was when your Aunt Robin realized that even the bosses at Metro News One didn't watch Metro News One." That was on Season 1 of How I Met Your Mother, which on tonight as the same time as the baseball game Rogers customers cannot watch.

Zen Dayley: We might yet get saved from a Red Sox-Yankees ALCS

This time of year, you're bound to hear all sorts of October-only baseball fans coming out of the woodwork to make mountains of random statistical molehills.

For instance, the Philadelphia Phillies are vulnerable because closer Brad Lidge has sucked out loud. They're throwing Cliff Lee in Game 1 instead of Cole Hamels, who was vice-president of awesome in the 2008 playoffs but pitched like the assistant undersecretary of only OK for most of this season (but found his form the past couple weeks.)

The L.A. Dodgers dawdled and dragged their feet before finally wrapping up their division. The L.A. Angels have lost to the Boston Red Sox three consecutive times in the playoffs. The Yankees will not have Jorge Posada's bat in the lineup for a couple games, since weak-hitting Jose Molina is the personal catcher for A.J. Burnett. The Twins are scrappy -- they got shut out only four times all season!

All of that is well and good, but you might succumb to paralysis by analysis. The Bill James Playoff Predictor makes it nice and simple. (Or not.) It might be just as off and more serious Seamheads have likely discredited it, but at least it's is a fully hacked-out framework suitable for clipping and saving:

1. 1 point to the lead team for each half-game in the standings
2. 3 points to the team that scored more runs
3. 14 points to the team with fewer doubles
4. 12 points to the team with more triples
5. 10 points to the team with more home runs
6. 8 points to the team with the lower team batting average
7. 8 points to the team that committed fewer errors
8. 7 points to the team that turned more double plays
9. 7 points to the team that walked more batters
10. 19 points to the team that had more shutouts
11. 15 points to the team whose ERA was lower
12. 12 points to the team that has been in postseason most recently or went further
13. 12 points to the team that won season series.

Please click through to find out who is going to win. Long story short, you won't be so happy that the Minnesota Twins and not the Detroit Tigers won the AL Central title:

TWINS vs. YANKEES

1. Yankees were 16.5 games better, 103-59 to 87-76. (33 points)
   
2. Yankees scored 98 more runs, 915-817. (Yankees 3)
   
3. Yankees hit more doubles. (Twins 14)
4. Twins hit more triples. (Twins 12)
5. Yankees had 244-171 edge in home runs (Yankees 10)
6. Yankees hit .283, Twins .274 give or take a point. (Twins 8)
7. Twins made 76 errors, the Yankees had 86. (Twins 8)
8. Both teams turned 131 double plays. (no points and may God have mercy on your soul)
9. Yankees walked 574 batters, Twins 460. (Yankees 7)
10. Yankees had eight shutouts. The Twins had seven. (Yankees 19)
11. Yankees had a 4.28 ERA, Twins 4.50. (Yankees 15)
12. Yankees last reached the playoffs in 2007, Twins in 2006. (Yankees 12)
    
13. Yankees won the season series 7-0. (Yankees 12)
    
    Totals: Yankees 111, Twins 50
    

RED SOX vs. ANGELS

1. Angels were two games better, 97-65 to Boston's 95-67. (Angels 4)
2. Angels have 883-872 in runs scored (Angels 3)
3. The Red Sox hit 335 doubles, the Angels 293. (Angels 14)
4. Angels hit 33 triples, Red Sox 25. (Angels 12)
5. Red Sox have 212-173 edge in home runs. (Red Sox 10)
6. Angels hit .285, Red Sox hit .270. (Red Sox 8)
7. Red Sox made 82 errors, Angels made 85. (Red Sox 8)
8. Angels turned 174 double plays, Red Sox 119 (the most and the fewest in the AL, although that says more about each team's pitching staff). (Angels 7)
9. 7 points to the team that walked more batters (Red Sox 7)
10. The Angels had 13 shutouts, the Red Sox had 11. (Angels 19)
11. The Red Sox had a 4.35 ERA, the Angels' was 4.45. (Red Sox 15)
12. Red Sox were in the ALCS last season after eliminating Angels in division series. (Red Sox 12)
13. Angels won season series, 5-4. (Angels 12)
    
    Total: Angels 71, Red Sox 60

ROCKIES vs. PHILLIES

1. Phillies were 93-69, one game better than the Rockies' 92-70. (Phillies 2)
2. Phillies scored 820 runs, Rockies 804. (Phillies 3)
3. Phillies hit 312 doubles, Rockies hit 300. (Rockies 14)
4. Rockies hit 50 triples, Phillies hit 35. (Rockies 12)
5. Phillies hit 224 homers, the Rockies hit 190. (Phillies 10)
6. Rockies hit .261, Phillies .258. (Phillies 8)
7. Phillies made 76 errors, Rockies made 87 (combined that is only 10 more than the Washington Nationals, true story). (Phillies 8)
8. Rockies turned 144 double plays, Phillies 132. (Rockies 7)
9. Rockies walked 528 batters, Phillies 489. (Rockies 7)
10. Phillies had nine shutouts, the Rockies had seven. (Phillies 19)
11. The Phillies had a lower ERA, 4.16 to 4.24, but the Rockies had a better ERA+ (106 to 103) and despite Coors Field, allowed only slightly more runs per game (4.41-4.38). (Rockies 15)
12. 12 points to the team that has been in postseason most recently or went further (Phillies 12)
    
13. Phillies won the season series, 4-2. (Phillies 12)
    
    Total: Phillies 74, Rockies 55
    

CARDINALS vs. DODGERS

1. Dodgers were four games better, 95-67 to 91-71. (Dodgers 8)
2. Dodgers scored 780 runs, St. Louis 730. (Dodgers 3)
3. Cardinals have 294-278 edge in doubles. (Dodgers 14)
4. Dodgers have 39-29 edge in triples. (Dodgers 12)
5. Cardinals hit 160 home runs, Dodgers hit 145. (Cardinals 10)
6. Dodgers hit .270, Cardinals .263. (Cardinals 8)
7. Dodgers had 83 errors to Cardinals' 96. (Dodgers 8)
8. Cardinals turned 167 double plays, Dodgers 134. (Cardinals 7)
9. Dodgers walked 584 batters, Cardinals 460. (Dodgers 7)
10. Cardinals had 11 shutouts, Dodgers had nine. (Cardinals 19)
11. Dodgers had a 3.41 ERA to Cardinals' 3.66. (Dodgers 15)
12. Dodgers reached NLCS in 2008. (Dodgers 12)
    
13. Cardinals won the season series, 5-2. (Cardinals 12)
    
    Total: Dodgers 79, Cardinals 56

Enjoy the post-season. Is there any chance we'll see a promo for George Lopez's new talk show?

Bad news for nocturnal rounders fans

Hearing of earlier starts for baseball playoff games would not mark the first time someone though, "Hey, one positive sports development to come out of the recession." Hey, at least one bloke believes it could be be great for the English Premier League, which is capitalistic excess straight out of Hank and Hal Steinbrenner's most fevered dreams.

Monday's Sports Business Journal predicted that it's likely that baseball will not be so much of the national past bed time this October.

First Fox announced that it is canceling its pregame show during baseball’s regular season. Now look for the broadcaster to start World Series games a half-hour earlier, closer to 8 p.m. ET. Fox has always maintained that later starting times helped ratings, which meant more people were watching. But this year, the World Series games went so much longer (average length for the three non-rain-delayed games was 3 hours, 15 minutes) and ended so late (average ending time was 11:43 p.m. ET) that ratings couldn’t keep up.

It is a small win for fans in the Eastern Time Zone. Too many baseball nuts, on the morning after a heart-pounding extra-inning post-season game, have been confronted with that empty feeling. It comes with realizing that you were the one twitburger in the entire company who stayed up until 1:15 to see who won and have no one to talk about with, let alone someone of the desired gender. C'est la vie.

There are some other intiguing predictions in that article, such as the NCAA basketball tournament being expanded to 96 teams. That one is for another time.

Related:
The year ahead in sports media, through a digital crystal ball (John Ourand, Sports Business Journal)

Snark break...

As you were learning how not to enjoy losing ...

Spread the word: In honour of Jacksonville Jaguars receiver Matt Jones, break out a "maybe he likes other men and sits up and thinks about stuff" instead of thinking of a good comeback.

Question: Why are Detroit Lions and Oakland Raiders fans upset that their teams' game might not be televised? One would have thought it would be the other way around.

The Bruins' Blake Wheeler changed his number from 42 to 26 before scoring three goals against the Leafs last night. That was nice of him, since the Leafs already know what 2009 minus 42 equals.

Baseball might eliminate the coin flip to decide home field advantage for a division or wild-card tiebreaker. Deciding home field for the World Series with an exhibition game is still OK.

Uncoached has the Top 16 Sports Movie Villains of All Time and no Ogie Oglethorpe from Slap Shot? That list must by an American, eh.

The preceding is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• The New York Jets guard Alan Faneca is trying to help others cope with epilepsy.
• This is the danger and the beauty of anonymous commenters ... a TCB post on Halifax being the only city to bid for the 2011 and 2012 Canadian university men's basketball championships did not spare anything:

  "I were (Atlantic University Sport president) Phil Currie I would low ball (CIS president) Marg McGregor and the rest of her weak organization that does absolutely nothing to market their sports and even less to support the National championships. Good on everyone else around the country to not bid and if Currie has any brains he'll low ball the bid so that McGregor has to go back to her board and explain why one of if not the most important revenue generating events for the CIS just lost them hundreds of thousands of dollars. The real issue why the CIS is glorified intramurals starts with the bureaucratic, political 'leadership' in Ottawa and ends with the dopes who renewed the 'leaders' ' contract for 5 more years recently."

  You people are going to get me killed.
• Please listen to Kinger's Offsides (today, 4 p.m., cfrc.ca, 101.9 FM in Kingston.)

But he meant it to be typed with a "ph"

Crashburn Alley captured Chase Utley cursing during the celebration.



In the spirit of Todd Stottlemyre in 1993, couldn't someone have told the Mayor of Tampa Bay to kiss his keister?

Zen Dayley: Making sense of the Series sacrilege

That World Series half-game turned out to be not half-bad. It wasn't half-good either.

The question after the debaculous World Series -- sorry, but for a purist, Bud Selig making up the rules as he went along was a deal-breaker, even though no one says boo when the NFL plays fast-and-loose with the sport's integrity -- is what could be done to avoid a future recurrence. A shorter, 140-game or so regular season should happen; all the ball-and-stick leagues save the NFL should be playing fewer regular-season games.

The ex-manager Whitey Herzog is getting pilliored for his unearthing his pet idea for a neutral-site World Series (read the rebuttal at It Is About The Money). FOX Sports, to borrow the outgoing commander-in-chief's word, is "addicted" to those 8:37 p.m. Eastern time starts.

This is something where the only sane response seems to be to throw up your hands at the situation. A perfectly reasonable, albeit passive-aggressive recourse: If you really love baseball (and this is not wallowing in a game that never was), you could always just treat the league championship series is the true climax to the season. It's two teams who use the same rules for each game, home-field advantage is determined according to record and not a midseason exhibition game. Chances are, the two opponents might even have a long-standing post-season history, or have built up some enmity toward each other over the course of the season.

The preliminaries are often better than the main bout, anyways, just as in marriage and prizefighting.

Rays redux

• To the tune of John Denver's, "Please, Daddy, don't get drunk this Christimas," Please, Tampa, don't throw a celebration for a team which came second. It would have been amazing if the Rays had won the World Series a year after finishing in last place.
  
  However, throwing a party for a runner-up is a surefire one-way ticket to Lame City; that's just an opinion. Ottawa did that in 2007 for the Senators, enough said.
• Tampa Bay will be back. You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.

Other thingamabobs

• The big Hot Stove League news today: Ken Macha is going to manage the Brewers (the Jays could have had him in 2007) and the Royals got first baseman Mike Jacobs from the Florida Lorias.
• It looks like the Japanese pitcher Junichi Tawaza is free to come to the majors.
• Brew Crew Ball congratulated ex-Brewer Geoff Jenkins for getting a World Series ring instead of just feeling sorry for themselves -- like you're supposed to, according to Toronto sports logic.
• Apparently jamiecampbell got a little too caught up in Barack Obama's speechifying, because he figured it was OK to bring up the Civil War in reference to the Rays' super southpaw David Price, who is, uh, African-American:

  "David Price is from Mursfreesboro, Tennessee, which in 1862 was the site of a famous Civil War battle that resulted in a narrow Union victory. He's obviously hoping for a Southern victory tonight."

  Are references to 150-year-old wars really appropriate to bring up with any ballplayer? Granted, that is no worse than the attitude parodied in The Simpsons episode when Apu gets his U.S. citizenship: "Finally, last question, what was the cause of the Civil War." ... "Well, there were many factors, economic and ..." ... "Just say slavery." ... "Slavery it is."
• Speaking of the Obama infomercial, a FOX Sports exec said, "we didn’t push back the game, it was really just about suspending the pre-game -- you know, Joe Buck." In other words, Obama-Biden meant America heard less of Joe Buck and, being totally tongue-in-cheek for all you literalists, if that doesn't convince people to vote for them ...
• Via Rattler Radio, comes word that Baseball America has called Brett Lawrie "the best Canadian hitting prospect in a decade."
• FanGraphs is also big on 19-year-old Reds right-handed pitching prospect Kyle Lotzkar, another B.C. ballplayer who was in Single-A ball this season. (Did he play with Lawrie with the Langley Blaze?) Keep his name on file.

(Herzog link via, who else, ShysterBall.)

Zen Dayley: Selig's buddy Boras would have avoided that muddy morass

This semi-rant would have come across as the whelp of a beaten Rays bandwagon-jumper two days ago -- but it's back in play after the wind-whipped, rain-soaked Selig follies in Philadelphia last night.

Scott Boras -- superagent, Satan and stealer of Christmases Future for the years 2012-2017 exclusive -- might have been on to something when he proposed having neutral-site World Series games. You might recall that everyone was calling him a goof when he floated this idea in 2007. Boras wanted a best-of-9 series where the first two games would be a big Super Bowl-style schmoozefest played at a neutral site. The glass-half-full way to look at it is at least he was brainstorming well ahead of the "travesty" (Cherry Hill Courier-Post) in Philly last night.

One suspended game in the 104-season history of the World Series is not the end of the world. The point is that baseball should really look at whether it can gamble on a good weather in after Oct. 20. Granted, this is an age where most corporate entities carry on like their motto is, "What's the worst can happen?" but last night was unacceptable.

One could play apologist and point out the kneejerk media might be more tolerant if they had got a more glamourous World Series matchup, such as Boston Red Sox-Los Angeles Dodgers, instead of Tampa Bay-Philadelphia. It's also quite possible that in the media wars between ESPN and FOX Sports, some writers who are more aligned with the former are only too eager to go off the deep end, especially when it looks like the latter had a lot to do with trying to get in a game.

However, perception is the reality. It looks like baseball put the players in greater physical jeopardy than they sign up for when they put their name on a contract. (As an aside, at least those contracts are more guaranteed than the NFL's.) Baseball commissioner Bud Selig apparently stumbled badly in his news conference.

Anyway, to get back to the main point, Boras, and anyone else who's been turned off by 4½ games of generally sloppy, understand a basic truth about baseball. The game, to quote Phillies fan Bill Baer at Crashburn Alley, "requires precision down to the millimeter. Non-baseball fans often don't understand why games aren't played in inclement weather and it's because it cheapens the game significantly."

Saturday's Game 3 brought home the dodginess of playing baseball in a northern city before April 15 or after Oct. 20. In that game, the Rays' Evan Longoria hit a home run to left field in the sixth inning that might have turned the game around for Tampa Bay -- but the fall wind knocked it down, and it became a long out. The Phillies did get big homers from Ryan Howard and Chase Utley (both to right field). There were enough cockups defensively -- both catchers threw wildly on stolen-base attempts -- to suggest the conditions were helping turn the last two teams standing into the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Last night was 10 times worse. You could go another 10 years and not see anything like this again, but what we saw last night and Saturday was not baseball. It's a game you play largely with what you can do with your hands, and those hands don't work so well when your fingertips are nearly frozen.

Earlier start times, or daytime World Series games just the stuff of sportswriter fantasy. My idea is more far-fetched: This site has talked shorter regular season, with 18-22 less games and more scheduled off-days for the players. That could certainly encompass starting the playoffs sooner and reducing the risk of rainouts (it's already being discussed on some level).

It is ironic. Football can be played in almost any conditions. Some of the NFL's most iconic moments -- the Tuck Rule game, the Ice Bowl -- have come in weather that was fit neither beast nor ballplayer. It's had zany moments -- the Snowplow Game -- in bad weather.

The NFL holds the Super Bowl in either a dome or warm-weather city. It's like, hey, this is prestigious and important enough to us that we don't want the conditions to keep the players from trying their best. Baseball, though, seems to be a bunch of big ineffectual nothings when it comes to making sure the players can do their in ideal conditions. That's bad for the game, it's ridiculously antifan. It's funny following this as a Jays fan, since their season started with a rainout because they were playing March 31, way too early, and now the end of the season is being held up by rain.

It doesn't have to be this way. At least Boras, that embodiment of evil, was actually thinking of fans, something baseball has forgotten about by pushing the season almost to November. Go down to a 140-game season or so, the Series could be done with by now -- and leave more time to watch football, where no ones minds when a game is decided by which team screwed up less at a critical situation.

Anyway, here is a kind of best-of from a rainy night in Philly:

"Major League Baseball should be ashamed for allowing its most important game of the year to deteriorate into an embarrassing mess because of slavish obedience to its pimp, the Fox Television Network." -- Phil Sheridan, Philadephia Daily News

"A giant -- and entirely predictable -- storm was bearing down on Game 5 all day (oh, for the halcyon days of afternoon baseball, when they could have played without worry). There was no chance to play this thing without incident.

"Still they pressed on. And it was a travesty.

"... Selig said (the resumption) would definitely be at night, of course, so it comes down to TV more than when the weather conditions are appropriate. If the weather is good at 3 p.m.? Or 4? Or 6? Big deal. They'll wait until the weather is good in prime time. And Selig said they'll wait this out as long as it takes." -- Kevin Roberts, Cherry Hill Courier-Post

"... we have Selig trying to force a game in that shouldn’t have been played or at minimum should have been suspended when the weather conditions deteriorated." -- Moon Dog Sports

Zen Dayley: Powder-blue pity party of one ... the saddest words ever typed

If Christmas came in October, this reporter would write on baseball every day. One can only assume he wanted to get FJM'd ... so just for grins, here goes, without malice:

Jays Fans Watch Helplessly As Former Players Reach World Series Elsewhere
Oct. 27, 2008

A small point -- when do fans not watch helplessly? That is kind of the definition of being a fan.

It's no secret the Toronto Blue Jays will need every single star to align if they hope to make a World Series run in any season to come. That said, it's natural for fans of Canada's only baseball team to wonder how so many of their formers have gone on to reach the game's biggest stage with other clubs, and for that matter, why?

The Spidey senses are saying you're going to have an answer for us within the next few paragraphs. Having a point is kind of the definition of being a journalist. Otherwise, it's just word-masturbation.

As October - and thus the baseball season - draws to a close, Jays faithful sit back and watch the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays battle for rings, they also watch as New Brunswick native Matt Stairs, dealt away in order to make room for future star Travis Snider, looms repeatedly as a key pinch hitter for the NL East champs.

There's a book deal waiting for the genius who can explain why it was bad to trade away one month of 40-year-old Matt Stairs to give 20-year-old Travis Snider an aggressive promotion. In a future column, Mr. Miller will explain why you should just constantly buy new clothes instead of doing laundry.

"Repeatedly," evidently is now defined "as batting once in the NLCS." Stairs has hit once in the World Series, batting in the pitcher's spot last night in the eighth inning with the Phillies ahead 6-2. Granted, a four-run lead with three outs wasn't safe for the Fightins. Brad Lidge has only converted 100% of his save opportunities this season, plus he was rested.

A small point to add is that using a period works wonders. It caps a short, declarative sentence. It keeps you on point. It's wonderful.

Stairs was used sparingly down the stretch in Philly, but did launch a key home run in the NLCS that helped propel Charlie Manuel's club into the Series. Should they win that series (it's looking good), it'll undoubtedly be bittersweet for fans of the Blue Birds, even as they're happy for 'Stairsy'.

The quote mark goes outside the period, big guy. Still, you're doing well. Fight through. This is setting up like you found some Jays fans who are just sideways over this calamity. Matt Stairs having to get that ring in a Phillies uniform is pretty bittersweet. It makes him the most tragic figure of the last seven to 14 days, next to this person. Please don't give Blue Jays fans any credit for appreciating that baseball is a multi-billion dollar business with next to no room for sentiment -- and fans, if anything, are less sentimental than the players and the front-office guys. Prepare to set your faces to stun... players change organizations all the time.

(Neate makes a really obnoxious hand gesture, even though he is alone with his Jack and coke at 3:30 a.m.) Carry on.

Not that Stairs -- who'd hoped to finish his career in Toronto -- was the difference between this or any other Jays team winning a division title or the American League.

Thanks, Mr. Defeat The Purpose Of Your Own Column. When are we going to get those to Jays fans feeling a sense of helplessness? Temper tantrum in 3, 2, 1 ...

But there he is, mere months separated from his time in T.O. and playing for the championship most never have an opportunity for.

That is so sad. You know what else is sad? Kittens, puppies, the sun rising over the Atlantic Ocean and you leaving a dangling preposition.

So too is onetime cast-away Jayson Werth, a key corner outfielder in Philly that the Jays unceremoniously dealt to Los Angeles three years ago.

It was actually four years ago. Far be it to believe you didn't check that on the Internet, which is now on computers. The Jays really should have found a way to hang on to an outfielder whom no major-league team gave 400 plate appearances in a season to until this season. Werth is 29, a little late to get started on the road to Cooperstown. The Jays were stupid to mess around with plugs such as Alex Rios (who was a regular at age 23), Vernon Wells (also became a regular at age 23) and Adam Lind (still only 25). Worse yet, there's that Snider fella, threatening to be an everyday player at 21. Trading Werth was for the greater good. It gave Reed Johnson a chance to play. He, in the eyes of some media folk, went on to become the greatest outfielder in Jays history -- about 10 seconds after he was released.

In the opposite dugout sit the American League champs, the team that won the Jays' division. Among them, Gabe Gross and Eric Hinske, two former Blue Jay golden boys turned trade bait and disappointing castoff respectively.

You're making it sound like it was good to get rid of them ... wait a second, that runs counter to your entire column,

Again, it's not that the former Auburn quarterback (Gross) or the former AL rookie of the year (Hinske) are the missing pieces from a Blue Jays team that wasn't.

Thanks, Mr. Defeat The Purp -- damn it, used that line already. This is akin to two magicians showing each other their illusions. Can we just saw each other in half and call it a night?

But again, they're two guys the Jays gave up on that are pieces of a championship team that could be.

Another dangling preposition. Where is your editor at, sir?

Hinske was left off the World Series roster to start prior to its start, but was added ahead of Game 4 and promptly responded by slugging a pinch-hit homerun in Sunday's 10-2 win.

The Phillies won the game, though. Hinske, by your logic, so-called, wasn't helping the Rays win. He was only helping them lose by a little less, which is all he was supposedly good for when he played in Toronto.

But heck, Hinske's already got his ring. The lumbering first baseman and outfielder wasn't a star, but he did figure into the World Series run enjoyed by the Red Sox in 2007 before heading down to Florida.

Hinske did figure into that Red Sox championship. He figured out where to sit in the dugout so he would get on TV when the Fox or TBS cameras focused on Boston manager Terry Francona. His contribution in the 2007 playoffs: Two at-bats, no hits. Pinch-ran for David Ortiz in the eighth inning of a blowout. That was all.

Ex-Jays backstop Kevin Cash took the opposite route, making a brief appearance in Tampa before ending up in Boston last year as a backup to Jason Varitek. For that Cash got his own ring in 2007, and while he isn't playing in this year's Fall Classic, his Red Sox -- you might remember -- weren't that far off.

It was more than a week ago, so it also slipped into the recesses.

Cash does ultimately appear to lack the skills most GMs would expect from a starting catcher and should probably never be one on a full-time basis.

What are you talking about? He's got a ring!!! You have argued, more convincingly than a hybrid of Clarence Darrow and the James Spader character in Boston Legal, that it's all about the ring, no more, no less. Baseball has officially taken on the hockey ethos. Any guy with a ring is great. No ring, you're nothin'. Ernie Banks, Robin Yount, Tony Gwynn, or Carlton Fisk will live out their days in a pit of shame. It is no wonder that they sign so many autographs whenever they visit the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Then again, you could've said the same for Gregg Zaun close to 500 games ago.

Zaun's annual OPS+ in Toronto: 96, 94, 112, 98, 87

Cash's best OPS+ in the majors: 67

Even Trever Miller, once a steady hand in an ungodly Blue Jays bullpen, has since returned to Tampa Bay by way of Houston and paid dividends there. Toronto had one of baseball's best relief corps in 2008, but it wasn't good enough to get them into the second season.

You're starting to lose us. It is as if your article lacks any central thesis or any answers for why ex-Jays end up with World Series rings. You also haven't quoted any actual Jays fans. Some A-holes, but not this one, would accuse you of being a little prolix putz throwing a pity party in powder-blue pyjamas. You basically were lucid enough, for about half a hour, to notice that the two World Series teams have some players who at one time or another, wore Blue Jays black. And if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. So what?

Of course that's not to say bringing back Miller was the answer, but then again Toronto brought almost everyone else back last year, from Shannon Stewart in Left to Cito Gaston on the bench and most recently, to Paul Beeston in the front office.

To be fair, you haven't seen the knuckle curve Paul Beeston has refined. Satchel Paige will have nothing on him by next February in Dunedin. And where are all those depressed, mopey Jays fans you promised us?

Pat Gillick, the former GM and architect of the Jays' glory days might have made a return too, only he was busy in the City of Brotherly Love, helping the Phillies reach a summit they've been struggling towards since being denied by some game named Joe and an upstart team from the wrong side of the border.

The upstart team that had the highest payroll in the game in 1992 and '93. They were a regular bunch of Bad News Bears with all the various hired guns such as David Cone, Rickey Henderson, Jack Morris, Paul Molitor, Dave Stewart and Dave Winfield. Some upstarts. Granted, all bets are off when a U.S. senator who voted with Bush 92% of the time is calling himself a "maverick."

Getting back to the point, sir, you haven't proven a damn thing. A good percentage of the players competing in this World Series are ex-somethings. No one in Seattle is trying to overdose on Starbucks since Jamie Moyer, ex-Mariner, is going to get a ring in Philly. It's probably the same in Houston, Lidge's one-time home. No one in Milwaukee is begrudging Geoff Jenkins getting a ring, even though the Phillies beat out the Brewers in the first round. The funny part about that -- none of those three franchises have won a World Series.

Every baseball fan roots for guys who used to be on her/his favourite team. They probably root for a few who were never on their favourite team. That's the way she goes.

That goes double for a Canadian such as Stairs. You, sir, are trying to make Jays fans, and Canadian baseball lovers, feel bad for rooting for one of our own and being patriotic. Well, sorry, it's not happening.

It's a peak the Blue Jays and their fans will have little choice but to continue looking up at or back to.

That is, at least until they get out of town.

Do you need help packing up? On second thought, stay put, since only in Toronto can you get paid to write such self-pitying garbage. (OK, Boston, too.)

Related:
Jays Fans Watch Helplessly As Former Players Reach World Series Elsewhere (Aaron Miller, CityNews.ca)

Other business:

• Neither manager has proven to be a tactical mastermind,
• It's a story from ESPN that makes Fox look bad, so consider the source ... evidently the network pushed to only have the starters introduced before Game 1 of the World Series, meaning it was hard cheese for the likes of Canada's own Matt Stairs. Like anything with Fox and baseball, it's brutal.


• John Brattain has a take on Barry Bonds that rates a read, laying out the parallels to the collusion of the late '80s.
  

  "Where do people learn to hate with such vehemence that blinds them so much that they cannot see the irony of hating Bonds for 'breaking the rules' (the stated reason for their loathing) while celebrating MLB’s possible breaking of the rules because he suffers because of it? You cannot be anti-collusion because it means you’re a Bonds-lover.

• From the Democracy Doesn't Work department, fans selected the Cubs' Aramis Ramirez (.289/27/111 Triple Crown stats) as the Hank Aaron Award recipient as the best offensive performer in the National League. What about that guy in St. Louis? Yeah, him -- the guy who hit 37 homers while striking out only 54 times, as if he were playing in another generation.
  
  It's a real shock a Cub and a Red Sock would win an award voted on by fans.

Zen Dayley: Tampa Bay was never reeeeeling, really; Rays defeat Red Sox, clichés

For probably not the last time, momentum in baseball is the next day's starting pitcher.

There's been some spur here to write a rant about how there should be a moratorium on TV talking heads saying that any team who's lost their last few games is reeeeeling. It's become the insta-cliché of the last couple years, a bit of faux-authoritative, dollar-store psychology used by people who want to pass themselves off like they have been there and know what it's like to be a pro athlete. It's an industry thing. If you have't been there, you should always be Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything: "I know that I don't know." Hey, it worked on the young Ione Skye.

The Rays, as you know, lost Games 5 and 6 before winning the real World Series American League pennant last night behind Matt Garza's two-hit pitching over seven-plus innings and phenom David Price phenomenating to get the final four outs. A truth is Tampa Bay had a much firmer grip on this series than the Cleveland Indians did before blowing a 3-1 lead to Boston in 2007. One can a hazard a guess that a common hallmark of instances when teams have come back from a two-game deficit to win a best-of-7 series is the first few games flattered the other guys. That did not happen here. Tampa Bay was better through the first four games and the first 6½ innings of Game 5, when the Red Sox made that epic eight-run comeback. They had an evenout over 12 innings of baseball, but were good enough to get through it, thanks to Garza showing his worth as a big-game pitcher and Price nailing it down at the end,

Miked Up offered a pretty good window into some of his colleagues who had the mindset. That's not a media-bash; a lot of people no doubt felt that way after the Rays blew it in Game 5 and somnabulated through Saturday's Game 6.

For the Series, the first knee-jerk thought is that the Rays have a huge advantage in starting pitching. The Phillies starters beyond Cole Hamels aren't much to look at and their home stadium is a launching pad.

At times like this, it's good to be reminded of the thin threads the larger glories hang off. Rany Jazayerli pointed out that Price became a Ray by virtue of the Kansas City Royals winning on the final day of 2006 season, giving Tampa Bay the No. 1 overall pick the following season. Ouch.

Anyway, getting back to the main point, there is some momentum in baseball. It's just more subtle.

Related:

• It looks iffy that Canada's own Matt Stairs will DH for the Phillies in either of the first two games at Tropicana Field. The Rays, going by the way they set up their rotation in the ALCS, would start lefty Scott Kazmir on five days' rest in Game 1. Stairs can't hit lefties. He has also hit .213/.303/.331 in 155 career plate appearances in Tampa Bay, not a great omen. It's more likely that their best pinch-hitter, Greg Dobbs, would be the DH.
  
• Rogers Sportsnet, in the future, should consider having Mike Wilner in the studio for its playoff coverage instead of the man who gives new meaning to square peg, jamiecampbell. Goodness knows that he's earnest as heck, shucks, he really tries his darnedest. This probably needs a bit of context, but during the wrapup the last night, he had this stilted moment:

  "Evanka, Jim, how does this sound: The Tampa Bay Rays are in the World Series: Are you kidding me?"

  Campbell (or as a journo friend calls him, Captain Obvious) set it up like he had a clever and original line -- only to rip off one of Chuck Swirsky's catchphrases. This really happened.
• The latest on the Seamheads Historical Sim League (name that will seem clever at first but will seem less funny the more you hear to be named later) is that the teams will be grouped by their start date. The Jays will be in a division with the Seattle Mariners, the Rockies/Diamondbacks (Diamond Rox?) and Rays/Marlins (Raelians?). That bodes well for their chances, or it would if their GM was not an idiot.

Bill Simmons' bunch can only Crowe for one more day

This was the perfect clip after 6½ innings last night. You know what, screwit, as far as any of our lot knows, it still is.

"Over. You got here just in time for the death rattle – last gasp, last grope."

The Tampa Bay Rays would have taken it if they had been told Monday morning that they would win 2-of-3 at Fenway Park, score 29 runs in three games and rack up Boston starters Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka. As Poz put it,

"I was there in St. Louis two days after Albert Pujols hit the most staggering home run imaginable off Brad Lidge. And I watched Houston’s Roy Oswalt stick it in the Cardinals ear ,.. And I told myself then to not forget that momentum in baseball is probably 85% myth. And realistically, the Rays have been close to invincible at home, they still have the destiny thing going, and they’re too young to know any better anyway."

A million and one people will say it better, but coming back to win after being seven runs down with seven outs to go shows why baseball is the tops. That is bits of Boise State trick-play triptych, Frank Reich bringing the Buffalo Bills back and Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final all rolled into one. It didn't involve a trick play or penalty kicks, which tells you something about why the game is so great.

No sane person could tell you if momentum matters and the Red Sox will pull out this series, because what you saw is insane.

(Joe Maddon ... Dan Wheeler in the seventh inning ... Why?)

Zen Dayley: Cinderella times the knuckleball; Yawkey Way rhymes with Fannie Mae

Whether you buy into the notion that the Rays are a Cinderella team or reject it out of resistance to a warmed-over sports cliche ... well, it depends on your interpretation of the source material.

A Cinderella team, quote-unquote, doesn't ring up a 22-5 cumulative score over two nights against the Boston Red Sox. Then again, some would say that Cindy had it in her all along and was just trapped in unfortunate circumstances. That does apply to being a small-market AL East team whose stadium used to be a hockey. The Rays are definitely headed to the World Series. Boston has come back from being down 3-1 in the American League playoffs twice in four years; three times seems a little beyond their grasp, unless about half their team breaks out of their hitting slump all at once. Tampa Bay is a more convincing opponent than Cleveland was last year. These Red Sox don't have the same depth in their starting pitching as the 2004 Idiots.

It would be nice to say one saw this coming in April. Outside of Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections, which had the Rays down for 88 wins, no one really did. (Considering that the previous worst-to-first teams, the 1991 Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, came during the last U.S. recession, maybe we should have. Ah, let's face it, there's no connection.)

It says here the Rays aren't less than a Cinderella team in the conventional sense. Along with being cliche, Cinderella team is a ketchup answer (hat tip to Nathan Whitlock). It covers everything. It works against figuring out how the hell this happened, how a team with a $43.7-million payroll managed to get to within one game of a World Series where they'll be heavily favoured.

Meantime, talk about a Mass exodus from the Red Sox bandwagon. In Boston, the local news is sounding the alarm about a drop-off in the demand for tickets on StubHub and in souveiner sales around Fenway Park. Boston Dirt Dogs is turning on their heroes (i.e., David Ortiz has gone from Big Papi to Big Pop-Up). The Red Sox have been a licence to print money since about 2003, but with the way things are headed in the U.S. economy, even that is not so certain.

What is certain is that Cinderella gets dragged out when people can't believe what they're seeing.

This should have been apparently much earlier

The long-time Sports Illustrated writer Roy S. Johnson pointed out that, "On the rosters of the eight teams that qualified for the postseason, there are 30 black players – a rate (15 percent) almost double that of baseball overall."

Johnson lists the Rays with three African-Americans, although B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford, the veteran DH Cliff Floyd and pitching phenom David Price make four. (It would be five if you count No. 5 starter Edwin Jackson, who hasn't pitched in the playoffs.) It is notable, considering the 2005 Houston Astros were did not have a single African-American on their World Series roster.

Other business

• Please try to forget that Matt Stairs played for the Red Sox. He's an ex-Expo, ex-Athletic, ex-Ottawa Lynx and ex-Blue Jay, but Boston's not claiming him.
• Stephen Brunt contends that, "Nothing negative can come from the hiring of Paul Beeston as the interim CEO of the Toronto Blue Jays." I write the same thing and everyone either ignores it or says, "what an idiot." But, oh, Brunt writes it and you say, "Brilliant, nuanced, well-considered" and applaud the use of le mot juste.

Stairsy said what?

Set your sense of humour to Grade 8 ... clip via The Fightins and fellow baseball devotee Thomas Ayers.

Zen Dayley: Riding a Stairsy to Heaven (or a stomping in the Series)

You don't get many Matt Stairs moments in life.

There's the strength of the American League East for ya -- Canada's own stubby slugger, who was traded out of the division in August, struck the blow that should decide the National League pennant.

It was quite something to have it slowly become apparently that Stairs, the balding, baseball-loving, beer-drinking Canadian's pride and joy, was probably going to get called upon to pinch-hit for the Philadelphia Phillie last night -- on Thanskgiving Day in his home country, no less. First of all, L.A. Dodgers manager Joe Torre's interesting course of action with his pitchers and a inning-ending double play turned by Chase Utley helped keep close. Coincidentally, Utley made that unassisted DP to end the L.A. sixth on a live drive scorched by the more ballyhooed Canadian in this series, Russell Martin. Odd how that worked out.

Secondly, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel burned his best lefty pinch-hitting option, Geoff Jenkins, when Torre countered by going to a lefty reliever in the sixth inning. (Greg Dobbs, the Phillies' best pinch-hitter, had started the game against a right-handed starter.) That left Stairs as the only viable option left on the Phillies bench. You know the rest of the story.

Gentlemen such as Jeff Blair and Bob Elliott can probably speak to where this ranks among post-season moments for Canadian ballplayers. Ron Taylor throwing four hitless innings to help the St. Louis Cardinals hold off the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the 1964 World Series probably remains No. 1. Jeff Francis starting the first game of the World Series last year at Fenway Park was pretty special, even though his Colorado Rockies were brought down to earth pretty quickly by the Boston Red Sox.

There isn't much else to say on this end about the NLCS. The Phillies, thanks to the decisive blows from a Maritimer and a Hawaiian, Shane Victorino (glove tap: Big League Stew) get a day off to rest up their pitching staff. Ace left-hander Cole Hamels starts in Game 5 on Wednesday vs. the Dodgers' sinistrophobic lineup. Teams have come back from being down 3-1 in a series, but that's a hell of a hammer blow to recover from.

Not to get too flowery about it, but that's one great thing about baseball. It hands those decisive moments to anyone, even 5-foot-9, 215-pound Matt Stairs. He delivered. How awesome is that?

Method to the Maddon

The Rays-Red Sox series turned (for at least 24 hours) in the second inning when Matt Garza struck out Jason Varitek with runners on second and third and one out, then got out of the inning unscathed.
That came an inning before B.J. Upton bstarted the Rays toward a 9-1 rout with with a three-run homer off Jon Lester that cleared Kenmore Avenue. The Varitek punchout is actually a jumping-off point for how this series has played out through three games.

It all comes back to adaptability, the idea of only having sacred cows if they're useful. The John Henry-Theo Esptein Red Sox had that trait in spades; that is part of why they were able to throw out eighty-six years of Beantown baggage. They shrewdly sized up the expendability of Nomar Garciaparra in mid-2004, and subsequently did the same with Pedro Martinez, Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon and most recently, Manny Ramirez). They might pull this series out yet, but being steadfast with Varitek, who has become sub-useless with the stick (he's been dubbed "Captain Choke" -- talk about sic transit gloria) cost them big-time.

Meantime, who seems more adaptable than the Rays under manager Joe Maddon, who's become the sportswriters' darling during these playoffs? Anything written about this series should be prefaced by saying there is a randomness to playoff baseball. It's always possible that why one team wins and why one does not is as simple as who's got the hottest hitters, so you have to take it with a grain of salt when the media are calling one guy a genius and the other a colossal dunderhead. Jacoby Ellsbury and David Ortiz are each batting .000 for the Red Sox, so that could be one explanation for why they're trailing.

Anyway, Maddon has kind have been out front as a figure of interest during these playoffs. Speaking as a Jays fan who grew accustomed to John Gibbons' pace over 3½ seasons, the guy in the Devil Rays dugout with the emo glasses and professioral vibe certainly seemed intriguing. Maddon is not the first manager who had to play up that side since he never played the game at the highest level. He just seems to embody explain-the-world quotes that are easy to latch on to and store away for future reference.

"Look, I'm 54, but you have to remain contemporary in your thinking. I don't agree that you have to accept and say, 'This is who I am and I can't go any further, and I can't relate to the next group of guys coming up.' I think that's wrong." -- ESPN.com

Man, wouldn't you like to work for someone like that?

Maddon was probably just as interesting when the Rays were 66-96 in 2007, but editors don't let their columnists write full-length features about losing, and people don't want read about cerebral losers (that's more for pop songs). The Rays could have all the philosophizing in the world and it wouldn't make a difference if they weren't very good at baseball. At the same time, a ballclub does somewhat take on the personality of the highers-up.

What people are likely to forget about today is that Jon Lester looked like he had great stuff at Fenway, where he never loses. He needed only four pitches in the first inning. The Rays adapted, though, and he ended throwing 21 in the second. Evan Longoria, the brilliant rookie, though, cadged a seven-pitch leadoff walk to start the second and ended up scoring the first run. The third inning, Lester got tagged for the three-run homer and before long, Boston's ace was reduced to an innings-eater.

It's not so simple as Maddon telling Longoria to work a walk. He's a smart enough player to figure that out for himself. The Rays are showing that they can be flexible and get rid of any fixed notions, which a long way goes toward explaining their success. Buck Martinez, who's commentating the series for TBS, had a great take on the Maddon Rays in the above-linked ESPN.com article:

"People say, 'Aw, he's trying to reinvent the game,' and I say 'Yes, he is.' " Of course he is, because that's what you have to do over there. They have new uniforms, new attitude, new everything. It is a total cultural revolution because they've never had a culture of winning. That's what he's trying to do, and it's absolutely appropriate."

(As a sidebar, it's great to have the TBS crew with Buck on the call of this series instead of FOX Sports' pair of Smug and Smugger, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. You wouldn't getting such a big window into Joe Maddon's approach to running a baseball team.)

Tampa Bay is new to winning, so it's not in a position where it has to make tough-but-fair calls on a veteran such as Varitek, who seems to be on borrowed time as a hitter after catching at least 125 games, not counting playoffs, in nine of the past 10 seasons. The point is that Red Sox got to the top by not being slavish to orthodoxy; they've got away from that with Varitek, AKA Captain Choke. The Rays are being truer to themselves and as a byproduct, are one win closer to the World Series.

Other business:

• The way the cable sports networks put together highlights of a baseball game for their nightly recaps has no more to do with baseball than Grey Anatomy's has to do with medicine.
  
  ShysterBall has some thoughts on where MLBTV, which debuts New Year's Day, might want to go with its studio analysis. This is coming in the wake of a Slate piece which ponders, "Why is there more intelligence on display in a week of football shows than in a year of Baseball Tonight?"
  
  The way the cable sports networks recap a ball game is passes. You show a couple of the important hits, a couple slick fielding plays, maybe a strikeout or two if the pitcher threw a good game. Typically, though, people have already seen the final score on the Internet or on the network's ticket. It would be far better to recap a game in a way that tells you what is was like, or why something happened the way it did.
  
  Hockey analysis is getting to the point in Canada (the networks can justify the expense), but baseball lags way behind.
• The Tao made note that John Gibbons might have a new job.
• It figures that Rogers Sportsnet would have jamiecampbell mull over the benches clearing in Game 3 of the NLCS instead of putting the focus on the game. Violence sells. One would expect nothing less from a network that has close ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
• In honour of Columbus Day, Hugging Harold Reynolds has an all-star team of the ballplayers who have done the most "to perpetuate Italian-American stereotypes." This admitted mungy cake was amused.
  
  Ex-Jay Sal Fasano did make the squad, no worries.
• The worst post-season start ever belongs to ex-Jay Todd Stottlemyre. It is not Game 4 of the 1993 World Series, the 15-14 game.
• According to one Philly columnist, actress Aimee Teegarden from Friday Night Lights was at Dodger Stadium. Isn't Julie Taylor supposed to hate sports?

Apologies for not being daily with the Zen Dayley, but all of you know what happened in the games, right? Besides, it was a holiday weekend.

Zen Dayley: Park helps Phils avoid opening on a Lowe

One way to look at Game 1 of the NLCS is to say the Phillies were helped out by the dimensions of their ballpark, which is as it should be.

There are not many parks in the majors where you can hit a ball 400-plus feet and not end up with a homer, but Manny Ramirez hit it to that one spot in the first inning and ended up with a RBI double instead of a two-run homer. The two homers that the Phillies socked off Derek Lowe in the sixth inning, when they got the only runs that Cole Hamels needed, would have been warning-track fly balls in a lot of places.

Hamels still pitched a very good game, but it's important to have that bit of context when the columnists are talking about who was clutch. (The second Dodgers run was also ballpark-assisted, with Matt Kemp looping a ball down the right-field line that fell in and bounced out of play for an automatic double.)

The best reads on the web coming out of this game are Crashburn Alley's writeup on the game and the response Baseball Prospectus' Joe Sheehan wrote in regard to Tim McCarver's ignorant comments about Ramirez. The Dodgers can still win this in seven games.

Something to mull over is whether the Dodgers bring back Lowe in Game 4. He was taken out in the sixth inning. By the way, when was the last time Fox aired a LCS game and it was over in less than three hours? (ShysterBall coined a new word to describe the typical Fox playoff broadcast: "Turgid-a-thons.")

Other bidness

• For the ALCS, The Beep's Christina Kahrl says Rays in six.
• An Ottawa Can-Am League update: The city does want to work to keep baseball in town, even as it's trying to recover costs from the Zipperheads.

Everyone got the meme ... MLB Playoffs are a sham

Even the Brits are aware of how bad the Jays get hosed by baseball's division alignment and playoff structure.

"If you think it's bad for those teams, try being a Blue Jays fan. Ever since the World Series years and then the lockout, we've been coming third behind the Yankees and Redsox, just waiting for one of them to decline. Finally the Yankees aren't so good, though still better than the Blue Jays, so you think second place and maybe the wild card is now in sight, but no, here comes Tampa bloody Bay." -- "limeyfletch," commenter on The Guardian Sport blog

Tampa bloody Bay. As the football commentators across the pond say, Brilliant! Long story short, this whole idea that the playoffs are a bastardization of the real game is gaining traction.

The invaluable ShysterBall today had a link to a Christine Brennan USA Today column that argued,

"A team with the 15th-best record in baseball is four games away from the World Series. And the teams with the two best records in the game are at least 169 games from the World Series — next year's World Series ... It's time for MLB to go back to two divisions in each league, with the top two teams in each division making the playoffs. In other words, no more 15th-best teams allowed."

Ms. Brennan is far better one than Hank Steinbrenner to point of the inequities of the selfish and tyrannies of evil men that reward the L.A. Dodgers and make life harder for your Toronto Blue Jays. Three rounds of playoffs is here to stay. Having two division champs and two wild cards means an 84-win team making the playoffs (or 83 -- see the 2006 Cardinals -- or 82 like the 2005 San Diego Padres) would happen almost never, instead of almost every year.

Like ShysterBall said one year ago, "At best, (the playoffs) only tell us who, out of eight generally talented teams, is playing the best baseball for a particular couple of weeks." That seems like a logical reason not to place so much emphasis on it as a fan, especially with the unbalanced schedule. The Brits, at least those who comment on The Guardian Sport blog's baseball posts (check out the one of their lot who refers to the game as "a gentle version of the rounders played by the younger girls in this country," figured as much:

"A question for those more in the know. Tampa are young and talented are only going to get better; the Yanks and Boston will spend big and improve come what may. To get through, even a wildcard, a team will have to win 95 matches. Given over on the west coast the Angels get to duff up a bunch of losers half the time and coast through before their inevitable choke against the Red Sox (maybe if they were given a tougher ride in their division they might grow some balls?), is it possible to, er, change the odd team around a bit, or is that sacrilege? Just seems harsh on the Rays, Red Sox and the Yankees."

See, even Roddy Doyle gets it. It's kind of funny. Every wannabe sportswriter is at least aware of Thomas Boswell's famous column where he gave 99 reasons why baseball is better than football. (Boswell subsequently said it was one of the easier columns he's ever written.

Reasons No. 44-46 were, "wild cards," (which baseball wouldn't adopt for another seven years), "The entire NFL playoff system is a fraud" and "parity scheduling." All three of those contagions are now entrenched in baseball.

That being said, there is nothing noble about refusing to frame the playoffs the be-all, end-all of the Jays' worth. It's a little like the Paul Rudd character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin after he appointed his most honourable member to the Senate, where it was required to do nothing. Know how I know you like the Jays? You stopped caring about the baseball playoffs. This is the first of, like, three conversations that leads to you becoming a Rays guy.

Ultimately, it is is good to see more major media folk and even Brits who have never seen a baseball game in person starting to pick up on the awful truth that Bud Selig, et al., are in denial over. This site has been repeating that refrain ad nauseam (apologies) since the outset of the '07 season -- "Until baseball gets a scheduling and playoff system which actually gives us a fair shot, whoever makes the playoffs is pretty much arbitrary." (April 1, 2007)

Baseball's playoff system is broken. Even cricket-watching, crumpet-eating warm lager-drinkers are clued in to the reality. It's a great time to be alive.

Related:
For fair ball, postseason baseball format needs tweak (Christine Brennan, USA Today)

Playoff Primer: Red Sox-Rays

Here's a dozen randomly cherry-picked items about the real World Series American League championship series between the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays, which opens Friday.

1. One cockamamie theory you should dismiss out of hand
   
   The Red Sox weren't really built to win this year, but still won 95 games just because they're that good. Still, one wonders what they have to play for.
   
   Most of the key guys are either youngsters who will have many post-season games in their futures (Kevin Youkilis, possible American League MVP Dustin Pedroia, shortstop Jed Lowrie, et al.) and the few holdovers from the Idiots of 2004, Jason Varitek and David Ortiz, have their rings already.
   
   There might not be a lot of there there once you get past the Red Sox's formidable reputation and their starting pitching. The Red Sox will be near the top from here to eternity, but the games are still played on the field.
2. Where strip-mining Google Images to show one's personal bias happens
   
   See what we did there with the photo selection? It basically implies that the Red Sox, as personified by their closer Jonathan Papelbon, are the jerk from every high school comedy who always gets his just desserts in the final 15 minutes. The Red Sox are an outstanding organization and running
   
   The Rays and Evan Longoria are a bunch of nice guys who are only tough in the face of a tough job. They're good enough, they're smart enough and doggone it, people have liked them for all of six weeks.


3. Respect the roar
   
   Here's the big bring-it-home with regard to Tropicana Field, which used to be as quiet as a suburban mall at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. Dave Wills, the Rays radio voice, told the Southtown (Ill.) Star that the stadium's decibel level is reminiscent "of the old Chicago Stadium.
   
   "I remember the roar. I know that our manager, Joe Maddon, no longer shouts instructions to fielders. He gives the defensive signals by hand."
   
   If you need further convincing of Tampa Bay-St. Pete's commitment to baseball, a spa down there is offering something called a Rayhawk bikini wax. Ouch! Remember the roar, indeed.
   
   (Glove tap to Deuce of Davenport.)
   
   Seriously, though, the Red Sox are used to intense environments. You could argue that perhaps they will play better in Tampa than they did when it was half-empty during the regular season.


4. Jason Bay is not seeing another fastball until the 2009 World Baseball Classic
   DRaysBay has broken down the B.C.-born slugger's at-bats in Boston's first-round win over the L.A. Angels, concluding, "In the entire series, he never seemed to squarely connect on a decent breaking ball." Bay vs. the Rays is a major subplot, since as you will recall, he almost went to Tampa at the July 31 trade deadline.
   
   Has everyone seen the Sitting On the Dock of J-Bay video?
   
   
   
   (Via Boston Dirt Dogs.)


5. He can pitch you into paradise, or bring Big Papi to his knees ... Jazzman.
   
   The Rays best left-handed option in the bullpen, J.P. Howell, likes to listen to Louis Armstrong to get into the right groove mentally. His other superstition? PBJs.


6. Dice-K is not facing Kazmir, which is good, since some of us need to get up in the morning
   
   Daisuke Matsuzaka, who's usually hitting the 100-pitch mark by about the fifth inning, starts Games 1 and 5. Rays lefty Scott Kazmir, who also pitches like he's playing a game of burnout, throws in Game 2. That being said, the game probably still goes past midnight Eastern time.


7. The Rays can't hit lefties
   
This is a problem, since Jon Lester would start Game 7. The Rays' options it goes to The Decider, by the way, will be either Matt Garza or James Shields on three days' rest, and that could be end worse than it did for Cleveland last fall. Tampa Bay will just have to get it done in six games, then!


8. They have also waited 100 years, and for 90 of those, didn't even have a team
   
   "Given demographic reality, there has to be at least one Tampa centenarian whose last, burning ambition is to see a flag raised over the Trop." -- Tim Marchman, Slate


9. Fortunately, no one outside of his ESPN/TSN colleagues pays attention to Steve Phillips
   
   The analyst, so-called, wanted the Red Sox to trade their best left-hander, Jon Lester, in a package for Johan Santana, who of course went to the New York Mets. Lester could be the best left-hander the Red Sox have had since Mel Parnell in the late 1940s and '50s. He won all three of his starts vs. the Rays this season and allowed just two earned runs in 20 innings.
   
10. Why the Rays might win
    
    Their bullpen is getting it done (3.55 ERA in the regular season, 0.77 in the first round against Chicago). They were 6-0 in one-run games against the Red Sox in the regular season (Gordon Edes, Yahoo! Sports). They have the better catcher in the series -- all-star Dioner Navarro over Varitek, who is useless as a hitter -- and could very well only need to win one of the three games at Fenway Park.
    
    They fared well in the regular season against the Red Sox (then again, so did the L.A. Angels). Tampa's entire body of work as a group of hitters is only OK. Once you account for the injuries that kept Longoria and tablesetter Carl Crawford out of the lineup for prolonged stretches, you realize they have enough hitting to win a best-of-7 series.
    
    Throw in a shaky Boston bullpen, the spectre of J.D. Drew re-aggravating something and we could see the twilight of the gods.
    
    Plus, being totally off-the-cuff here, New Englanders totally deserve to go down. Case in point: A Connecticut columnist called Mike Scioscia's ill-fated squeeze bunt call in the deciding game of the Angels-Red Sox series "the biggest managerial gaffe in postseason baseball history."
    
    How soon they forget Grady Little (and John McNamara, and Don Zimmer, and Joe McCarthy, if you count one-game playoffs).
    
    Red Sox Nation no longer knows its own history. You only have the last eight years of U.S. politics as proof of what can come from that.


11. Why the Red Sox will win (and why you have no guts for calling this)
    
    There is always tendency with predicting to focus 75% of your attention on 25% of what matters. Boston had the best run differential in baseball over the run of 162 games. They can ride with their starting pitching -- Dice-K, Josh Beckett and his his iffy oblique muscle, the lefty Lester and bad man with the knuckleball, Tim Wakefield, who throws in Game 4.
    
This could just as easily be a Red Sox sweep as a knock-down, drag-out seven-game epic. It's a form pick, since no one can get wrapped around the Rays' accelerated development. One scenario is the Red Sox scrape by, but many come away convinced Tampa Bay is the better team.


12. Last word to the curmudgeonly Chicagoan, since it's all about you even though both your teams will be watching The Office tonight
    
    "If the Tampa Bay Rays win a World Series a few years after the Arizona Diamondbacks did, I feel it is only fair that the North Side of Chicago be permitted to apply to Major League Baseball for an expansion team." -- Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune

Other business

• Two days ago, MLB Trade Rumours did list the Jays among possible teams who could end up with lefty slugger Prince Fielder if the Milwaukee Brewers trade him. Hey, Lyle Overbay has already been traded once in his career to make room for Fielder -- and speaking with full awareness that he and his dad, Cecil, have been on the outs, who wouldn't want to see him wearing his father's old No. 23 on Flashback Fridays?
  
  (Fielder wears No. 28, which Shaun Marcum has for the Jays.)


• The Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy (savetigerstadium.org) is seeking donations as part of its efforts to save the historic Detroit ballpark. The preservation effort is by no means complete.
  
  The Conservancy has a memorandum of understanding to take ownership of the park and restore it, but need to raise $50,000 US to pay for security costs until all financing is in place. For any U.S. readers, the OTSC has 501(c)3 status from the IRS, so you can count it as a charitable donation.
• Jays catcher of the future J.P. Arencibia had a home run last night in the Arizona Fall League.


• It is crazy to think how much tech-savvy brainiacs such as Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus/FiveThirtyEight.com fame are changing how people analyze in sports.
  
  Meantime, in Canada, editorial decisions get made by Boomers who don't even know what a memory stick is for.
  
  


• Dave Basso is the Jays' Triple-A manager.

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

Playoffs Primer: Dodgers-Phillies; Cheesecake vs. Cheesesteaks, and Manny vs. McCarver

Here's a dozen randomly cherry-picked items you should be aware of about the National League championship series, which opens tomorrow night.

1. Manny Ramírez has the Evil Gene, as evidenced by his insistence in acting like he's playing a game.
   
   Expect Fox Sports, which has the call for the NLCS, to turn this into a morality play on how "That One" can be poised to lead his team to the World Series after what he supposedly did to get banished from Boston.
   
   Tim McCarver seems to have made that pretty clear with his statement to a Philadelphia reporter, "Every sport, there have been people who have held organizations hostage, whether it be Terrell Owens or Randy Moss or Manny Ramírez."
   
   Someone, please, explain why he delicately overlooked Roger Clemens. Or Brett Favre.
   
2. But it's the Dodgers who fear lefties.
   
   It's a small, small sample size, but the two teams the Dodgers pitchers fared the worst against during the regular season were the doomed Nye Mets and the Phillies, whose meanest hitters swing from the left side -- Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and the flyin' Hawaiian, Shane Victorino. The Cubs had no such beast, and worst of all, knew they had no such beast.
   
   L.A.'s only lefty starter is 20-year-old Clayton Kershaw. He is going to be nails some day, but he started the season in Jacksonville. Granted, if you could live in Jacksonville, Florida for any extended period, nothing should ever scare you, even the fairly potent Phils.
   
3. OK, enough about the 84 wins.
   
   The Dodgers, counting the playoffs, are 20-8 since Sept. 1. The Phillies are 20-9. True, as a Jays fans it is teeth-gnashing times ten that over in the National League, a team can catch lightning in a bottle for one month and have a shot at the World Series. Baseball is supposed to measure a gift for dailiness, not reward the slackasses who were C students all year and somehow pulled an A out of their butts on the final pop quiz of the year.
   
   The Dodgers are analogous to the 2006 Edmonton Oilers -- a team that only had to make the playoffs. Once they arrived, they were dangerious. That might be fine in a hockey, but it's anathema to baseball, the sport of those with more discerning tastes.
   
4. The Ex-Cub factor
   
   In 1987, the Cubs rotation included two second-year pitchers, Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux, who posted respective 5.10 and 5.61 ERAs and lost 29 of their 47 decisions. Two decades, Moyer is still going strong, while Maddux is more or less delaying his first-ballot Hall of Fame induction.
   
   It's an old saw in baseball that the team with fewer former Cubbies will win. The Phillies have only two, Moyer and fellow older-than-dirtster Matt Stairs, the ex-Jay. Moyer, who will turn 46 years old a couple weeks after the World Series, apparently wants to pitch until he's 50.
   
   The Dodgers have three -- Maddux, Nomar Garciaparra and Juan Pierre. The ex-Cub factor was negated in the first round since L.A. played the current Cubs. Dodgers manager Joe Torre also buried the latter two on the bench.
   
5. The other 2004 Red Sox hero who's on a big salary drive.
   
   Right-hander Derek Lowe could potentially starts games 1, 4 and 7 for the Dodgers, and he's a killer in the playoffs. For what it's worth, he's also beaten the Phillies the last two times he faced them.
   
6. The pen is mightier
   
   Like the Rays, the Phillies' bullpen has been underappreciated, even though its 3.19 ERA was second-best in the majors. (Who was No. 1? Why, it was a certain fourth-place team in the AL East that used to employ Pat Gillick.)
   
   Brad Lidge, as you probably know, has not blown a save all season, which only means he's due to blow one soon. Or not.
   
7. The ball always bounces for the team with the brighter manager.
   
   Speaking as an American League guy, real baseball includes having nine hitters in the lineup, not eight (unless the exception is named McGlovin). The NL has the pinch-hitting, double switches and the pitchers with their .111 batting averages who barely move fast enough to be described as running when they tap out yet another weak grounder to the second baseman. It's kind of like watching two Ivy League schools play football -- for an afternoon, it's kind of cute, but you wouldn't want to watch it for an entire season.
   
   That being said, having a bench and knowing how to use it is huge in the NL. Joe Torre, by almost all accounts, is always credited with having more on the ball than Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel. Torre's bench includes Garciaparra and Jeff Kent, who can no longer play an effective second base but could still be a factor as a hitter.
   
   It used to be fashionable to project anti-Yankees resentment toward Torre, but he's shown before that he can flat-out manage.
   
8. The ball always bounces for the team with the better catcher.
   
   L.A.'s Russell Martin is the best his league has to offer, behind the plate and at bat. His counterpart, Carlos Ruiz, does a decent enough job behind the plate, but is such a terrible hitter that it essentially reduces the Phillies to a seven-man batting order (unless foul-ball machine Brett Myers is the starting pitcher).
   
   Martin is on a tear of late.
   
9. The curse of Gillick?
   
   Phillies GM Pat Gillick gave a generation of Canadian ball fans the gift of enjoying two World Series titles in the '90s. There have been playoff teams in all three of his subsequent stops, but none has managed to win a pennant. Considering what happened to the 1996 Orioles and how the 2001 Seattle Mariners contrived to flame out after a record 116-win season, one has to wonder if someone has a Pat Gillick voodoo doll.
   
10. Why the Phillies might win
    
    They have the big bats, even though none of Howard or Utley did a whole lot in the easy four-game win over the Brewers and Pat Burrell was stymied until the clinching game. They also scored fewer runs than they did in 2007, but no one seems to have noticed.
    
    The Phillies bullpen is also strong.
    
    Martin and Andre Ethier, he of the .507 BAbip (batting average on balls in play) since Sept. 1, might be due for a big-time evenout. Let's face it, the Dodgers were also a bit lucky against the Cubs, whose hitters did sweet FA to adjust to how they were pitched.
    

11. Why the Dodgers are going to win
    
    They have the starting pitching-and-defence equation mastered to a greater extent than the Philadelphians. Their manager has been here before and last but not least, Manny Ramírez seems to be owning the moment.
    
    The Phillies' combo of power and good-enough pitching works over the Long Season. Beyond Game 1 starter Cole Hamels, though, they're largely a bunch of soft tossers, which is a deal-breaker in the playoffs, when games more often turn on one big inning.
    
    Howard was held in check by the Brewers and Chase Utley quite possibly is playing hurt, much like Robbie Alomar did during the Jays' 1992 run. Shorn of their two big boppers, the Phillies can be had.
    
    Notwithstanding that an 84-win team should not be in the playoffs to begin with, there is reason to like the Dodgers. Besides, after McCarver's remarks about Manny, he deseves another Deion Sanders treatment during the locker-room celebration.
    
    Prediction: L.A. in seven.
    
12. Does either of these teams stand a chance in the World Series against the AL East winner?
    
    Only insofar as post-season baseball is pretty random. Consider this The 2008 NLCS: The Race To Avoid Being The Team Which Has Their Ass Handed To Them In The Fall Classic.

Elsewhere ...

• Jays assistant GM Tony LaCava is interviewing for the top job with the Seattle Mariners.
• Canada's own Rich Harden will be back with the Cubs next season.