Posted on 10/28/2006 9:36:15 AM PDT by raccoonradio
ST. LOUIS - The current kings of baseball are the worst World Series winners in history, though the St. Louis Cardinals are hardly bothered by such trivialities.
For the rest of us, however, the question is whether to bury them or to praise them.
That is what we are left with today, the first unofficial day of winter, following the fifth and final game of the World Series last night at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers, 4-2, concluding a wildly improbable playoff year during which 12 teams, including Detroit and, yes, the Red Sox, finished the regular season with more victories than these Cardinals.
Make of it what you will.
“The team that wins the world championship is the team that plays the best (in October),” said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who joins Sparky Anderson as the only manager to win a world title in each league. “And this year we played the best.”
Maybe so.
Or did everyone else just play worse?
None of this is meant to detract from the Cardinals, who endured more than their share of adversity.
Center fielder Jim Edmonds missed much of the second half suffering from the aftereffects of a concussion.
Closer Jason Isringhausen and left-hander Mark Mulder, among others, were lost to injuries.
Starting pitcher and Game 5 winner Jeff Weaver, this year’s Derek Lowe, was designated for assignment after going 3-10 with a 6.29 ERA for the Los Angeles Angels.
And shortstop David Eckstein, often deemed too little to succeed in the major leagues, now has served as the everyday shortstop on two of the last five World Series winners. Designated for assignment by the Red Sox in 2000, Eckstein was elected the Most Valuable Player of this year’s Series after helping the Angels win in 2002.
Great stories all.
Yet, for all of the praise the Cardinals deserve, there is one thing we simply can’t get past: They shouldn’t have been here at all. The baseball season is designed to weed out the weak, the mediocre, the inept and the brittle. The Cardinals simply slipped through the cracks. This St. Louis team won 22 fewer games than the last Cardinals club to reach the World Series, the 2004 edition that was steamrolled during the historic run of the Red Sox.
But at least those Red Sox won 98 games. They were championship-caliber. They were every bit as good, if not better, than any major league team that took the field that season.
But really, can we say that about these Cardinals? For all of the good baseball has experienced during the wild card era, parity has come at a price.
The San Diego Padres won the NL West last year with 82 victories. This year, the Cardinals won the NL Central with 83.
Neither of those clubs would have qualified for the postseason during another era and neither would have had a complaint.
Over the years, for whatever reason, one of the more popular theories in competition is that America loves the underdog. That is nothing more than rubbish.
What Americans truly love is excellence, primarily from our professionals, particularly over an extended period of time, from Tiger Woods to the New York Yankees to our very own Patriots.
The Cardinals? Let’s not put them there with the 1985 Villanova Wildcats or the 1968 New York Jets or even the 2001 Patriots. Those were good clubs that unexpectedly ascended to the heights of greatness at a time few expected.
“Having the opportunity in 2002, nobody expected us to win,” said the likable Eckstein, whose Angels that year won 99 regular season games en route to the World Series. “We just got on a roll. We believed in our club.”
Good for them. We think.
A heartfelt congratulations to one of the classiest franchises in pro sports. If any team was due for a world championship, the Cardinals were.
Now let's hope that the Redbirds' victory will keep their fans in a happy enough mood to reelect Jim Talent!
Yes it does give one hope, too, that "small market" teams
(or at least low budget ones) can do OK in playoffs or even win it all (Marlins '03, Cards '06 etc.) and also it's interesting that we've had diff. winners the past few years
and not the same team year after year...
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