Go Cardinals!
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ReformedWretch
Puritan Board Doctor
Braves fan here, but I wanted the lowly Lions to win.
Scott Bushey
Puritanboard Commissioner
BERARDINO: St. Louis is best of the worst
Published October 28, 2006
ST. LOUIS · Congratulations, Cardinals.
You are the worst, er, world champions. No team has ever worn baseball's crown with fewer regular-season victories, strike years aside, than the 83 you managed in a dreadful National League this year.
You should be very proud of your victory in this Worst, er, World Series. All it took to beat these stage-frightened Detroit Tigers in five messy games was the skill to remain upright and occasionally throw the ball to its intended target.
Lord knows, the Tigers couldn't do it again Friday in a 4-2 loss at rain-soaked Busch Stadium.
For the fifth time in as many games, a Tigers pitcher was charged with an error. This time it was rookie Justin Verlander throwing wildly past third after fielding Jeff Weaver's sacrifice bunt in the fourth.
That toss allowed Yadier Molina to score from second with the tying run, and one batter later the go-ahead run came home on David Eckstein's groundout.
As you might have guessed, this didn't just extend a dubious World Series record. It probably put it out of reach for generations to come.
Poor Jim Leyland. The Tigers manager came out of retirement to manage these upstarts to 95 wins and their first American League pennant in 22 years only to be subjected to a week's worth of Bad News Bears reruns.
"I haven't seen anything like it," Leyland said before Game 5, sounding suspiciously like Walter Matthau.
This wasn't exactly true. Leyland's '97 Marlins set the previous mark for pitcher fielding futility. From Games 3 through 5 in Cleveland, those Marlins got errors from Al Leiter, Tony Saunders and Livan Hernandez.
No one could blame Leyland for blocking that out, but at least his Marlins came back to give him the sole world title of his star-crossed career. What's he supposed to do with this memory?
You know who had to be the most relieved guy in the stadium?
Not Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who finally notched a second title 17 years after grabbing his first with Oakland.
Not even Weaver, who put aside a career's worth of demons, including one from the 2003 World Series loss to the Marlins, with a nine-strikeout gem against his original team.
No, it had to be Cardinals right fielder Chris Duncan, son of the team's pitching coach.
Dubbed a defensive "butcher" by one national newspaper before this series began, the younger Duncan was determined to prove his doubters wrong. Unfortunately, he tried to do this while wearing a glove on his left hand.
A Magglio Ordonez pop fly clanged off the heel of Duncan's glove to set up a two-run fourth, and two innings later Duncan misplayed Sean Casey's modest drive into a two-out double.
Duncan looked like a man trying to wrestle a wounded iguana ... blindfolded. He couldn't have been more awkward if he'd been trying to open a box of snakes while wearing handcuffs.
Amazingly, the Tigers were even worse in the field.
It wasn't just the pitchers, either. Third baseman Brandon Inge threw wildly across the diamond in the second after making a diving stop behind the bag.
That let in the first of three more unearned runs for the Cardinals. That gave them nine unearned runs in the series, or nearly one-sixth of the Tigers' total (57) in the first 170 games they played this year.
Inge also got caught off second on a baserunning error that cost the Tigers a run in the third.
All of it had Leyland musing about the first days of his next spring training. He has already decided to have the grounds crew water down the grassy area in front of home plate and make his pitchers work on fielding bunts in wet conditions.
When it happens pitchers' fielding practice (PFP) will reach a new level of national scrutiny.
"It may sound crazy, but we're going to do it," Leyland said.
He gave a little half smile. If only he'd thought to run such a drill during the weeklong lay-off his team had to endure before this Worst Series.
"You always try to find silver linings in everything," he said. "So obviously next spring when we talk about PFP, none of the pitchers will be [complaining] about it, when they see what happened in the World Series."
Edited last comment/spbushey
Congratulations, Cardinals.
Mike Berardino can be reached at [email protected].
Published October 28, 2006
ST. LOUIS · Congratulations, Cardinals.
You are the worst, er, world champions. No team has ever worn baseball's crown with fewer regular-season victories, strike years aside, than the 83 you managed in a dreadful National League this year.
You should be very proud of your victory in this Worst, er, World Series. All it took to beat these stage-frightened Detroit Tigers in five messy games was the skill to remain upright and occasionally throw the ball to its intended target.
Lord knows, the Tigers couldn't do it again Friday in a 4-2 loss at rain-soaked Busch Stadium.
For the fifth time in as many games, a Tigers pitcher was charged with an error. This time it was rookie Justin Verlander throwing wildly past third after fielding Jeff Weaver's sacrifice bunt in the fourth.
That toss allowed Yadier Molina to score from second with the tying run, and one batter later the go-ahead run came home on David Eckstein's groundout.
As you might have guessed, this didn't just extend a dubious World Series record. It probably put it out of reach for generations to come.
Poor Jim Leyland. The Tigers manager came out of retirement to manage these upstarts to 95 wins and their first American League pennant in 22 years only to be subjected to a week's worth of Bad News Bears reruns.
"I haven't seen anything like it," Leyland said before Game 5, sounding suspiciously like Walter Matthau.
This wasn't exactly true. Leyland's '97 Marlins set the previous mark for pitcher fielding futility. From Games 3 through 5 in Cleveland, those Marlins got errors from Al Leiter, Tony Saunders and Livan Hernandez.
No one could blame Leyland for blocking that out, but at least his Marlins came back to give him the sole world title of his star-crossed career. What's he supposed to do with this memory?
You know who had to be the most relieved guy in the stadium?
Not Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who finally notched a second title 17 years after grabbing his first with Oakland.
Not even Weaver, who put aside a career's worth of demons, including one from the 2003 World Series loss to the Marlins, with a nine-strikeout gem against his original team.
No, it had to be Cardinals right fielder Chris Duncan, son of the team's pitching coach.
Dubbed a defensive "butcher" by one national newspaper before this series began, the younger Duncan was determined to prove his doubters wrong. Unfortunately, he tried to do this while wearing a glove on his left hand.
A Magglio Ordonez pop fly clanged off the heel of Duncan's glove to set up a two-run fourth, and two innings later Duncan misplayed Sean Casey's modest drive into a two-out double.
Duncan looked like a man trying to wrestle a wounded iguana ... blindfolded. He couldn't have been more awkward if he'd been trying to open a box of snakes while wearing handcuffs.
Amazingly, the Tigers were even worse in the field.
It wasn't just the pitchers, either. Third baseman Brandon Inge threw wildly across the diamond in the second after making a diving stop behind the bag.
That let in the first of three more unearned runs for the Cardinals. That gave them nine unearned runs in the series, or nearly one-sixth of the Tigers' total (57) in the first 170 games they played this year.
Inge also got caught off second on a baserunning error that cost the Tigers a run in the third.
All of it had Leyland musing about the first days of his next spring training. He has already decided to have the grounds crew water down the grassy area in front of home plate and make his pitchers work on fielding bunts in wet conditions.
When it happens pitchers' fielding practice (PFP) will reach a new level of national scrutiny.
"It may sound crazy, but we're going to do it," Leyland said.
He gave a little half smile. If only he'd thought to run such a drill during the weeklong lay-off his team had to endure before this Worst Series.
"You always try to find silver linings in everything," he said. "So obviously next spring when we talk about PFP, none of the pitchers will be [complaining] about it, when they see what happened in the World Series."
Edited last comment/spbushey
Congratulations, Cardinals.
Mike Berardino can be reached at [email protected].
jaybird0827
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Go Cardinals! I may be a Yankees fan - but I'm especially happy for "Jay II", who is a Cardinals fan.
It's a good thing it's not Boston v. Cardinals - what you're seeing above is nothing compared to what it would be if that were the case.
ReformedWretch
Puritan Board Doctor
OUCH!
Re: Scott's article.
Re: Scott's article.
jaybird0827
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
Adam,
My wife and her family are all Brave's fans...so I guess I am linked to them. She was pulling for the Card's too.
Sorry Jay,
But I am always glad to see the Yank's out of it. (Are we still allowed to visit w/you guys at the PRC now?
Absolutely! (... at your own risk, of course.)
Really, I hope you will.
Ivan
Pastor
Whether 83-79 or 161-1, THIS year the Cardinals are the 2006 World Champs and they will ALWAYS be the 2006 World Champs.
ChristopherPaul
Puritan Board Senior
Well said.
I wanted Detroit to win, but in the end the best team won.
Now on to 2007 - Go Orioles!
Bittersweet year for me. First, I was thrilled to see the Yankees lose. As life long Met fan I cannot stand anything to do with the Yankees. To see the vaunted Bronx Steinbrenners lose to the Tigers was almost as good as Met victory. Beating the Dodgers in the first round of the NLDS was also sweet. But losing to the Cards was hard. Losing is one thing, the way in which we lost stung. I couldn't root for either team in the WS. Couldn't watch it.
Here is to '07.
Here is to '07.
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