Damned purists! Whatta they know?
Well, they know that after another 162-game regular season, baseball’s two best teams, including the 102-win Phillies, will not be playing in the World Series. Again.
They know that the World Series, again this year, will be played between pretty good teams, but not the best, following a six-month, 162-game season.
The purists also know that neither of the two best regular-season teams made it through their best-of-5 opening-round series — hardly unusual for baseball, a game in which the worst teams frequently beat the best in three- and four-game series, April through September. (See: Red Sox vs. Orioles, Sept. 2011.)
Purists know that 162 baseball games separate the best from the rest — and recognize the difference between baseball and other sports.
The Cardinals, tied for this season’s eighth best record, are alive to win the championship. In 2006, with the 13th best record, they won the World Series. Purists know that, too.
Still, whatta they know?
For perverse pleasure, the YES Network on Saturday replayed Game 6 of the 2009 World Series. The Yankees, the best 162-game team, beat the Phillies, fifth-best. Close enough, I guess.
Last year, after a 162-game season, the No. 5 Giants beat the No. 8 Rangers in the World Series.
And more playoff/World Series-eligible teams are coming, more chances for also-rans to become the champions of our National Pastime. We’ll show those damned purists!
Whatta they know?
Get this broadcast some more useless info, STAT!
Any Stat, Any Time: FOX yesterday reprised its simple-minded, full-screen graphic telling us Seattle is feckless playing in the Eastern Time Zone, where the Seahawks had lost 11 of their prior 12. Is the time zone the issue or does have it have to do with a bad team playing on the road?
Troy Aikman, bless his heart, debunked the stat with, “I don’t recall the 49ers having that kind of trouble.”
On SNY on Saturday from Morgantown, Big East Network play-by-play man Mike Gleason told us, “UConn has never beaten West Virginia in this stadium.” Gee. UConn had played four games there.
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MSG did not send its Rangers voices — Sam Rosen, John Giannone and Joe Micheletti — to Stockholm to call the team’s first two regular-season games. Instead, they called them from an MSG studio. Too cheap? Perhaps, but that’s the kind of decision that allows The Garden to keep ticket and food prices so low, low, low!
With the Rangers down, 1-0, after two periods Saturday in Sweden, Ron Duguay, from MSG’s studio, saw two Dolan-ized reasons: Bad ice and bad officiating.
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NCAA Character-Builder Game of the Week: On MSG, Saturday, in an SEC Network telecast, South Carolina led Kentucky, 47-3, at home with 18 seconds left. South Carolina had it on the Kentucky 8. Take a knee, shake hands, sing alma mater.
Instead, sub Dylan Thompson, who already had thrown several times during the 76-yard drive, faked a pass, then ran it in to make it 53-3, with 8 seconds left. Another Steve Spurrier lowlight.
And at no time did SEC Network voices Dave Neal and Andre Ware even mumble a discouraging word.
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An ESPN graphic presented Saturday to demonstrate the impressive academic backgrounds of Vanderbilt assistant coaches listed offensive coordinator John Donovan as a graduate of “John Hopkins.” So close, yet so far.
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NFL Network did a good job Saturday quickly ditching scheduled programming for live interviews and old footage upon learning that Al Davis died. I wasn’t aware that Davis was so saintly, but revisionism can be excused, even appreciated, for a day.
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Is there a TV pair you would rather sit between at a football game than Jim Nantz and Phil Simms? Nantz’s rhetorical question during Jets-Patriots yesterday, about how many were eliminated from survivor pools after Seattle beat the Giants, was dead-on — especially for a square guy — wasn’t it? (Mike Francesa‘s Lock of the Day yesterday: Giants.)
Simms and Joe Girardi should be arrested for taking money under false pretenses. Both are paid to speak with Francesa, yet never get to say a word. They just have to listen to Mike explain football and baseball to them. Both could just put the phone down, pay some bills, and return every five minutes with, “You’re absolutely right, Mike.”
Wil-Ponzi story not adding up
Recent rulings in the clawback suit against Fred Wilpon & Co. by Bernie Madoff victims represented by Irving Picard — rulings that favor the Mets’ owners — are irrelevant. Certain points remain:
1. The story the Wilpons told following Madoff’s arrest kept changing, starting with “it doesn’t financially affect the Mets a bit,” to Wilpon’s later claim that he lost “half a billion dollars, cash.”
2. Wilpon’s business was involved in — and fined for — its involvement in an earlier Ponzi scheme, yet never took care to prevent it from happening again.
3. What minimally logical businessman, on behalf of his entire company and family, invests a fortune with a man whose only rule is that you “don’t ask any questions”?
4. If Wilpon & Co. had suffered huge losses with Madoff while the rest of the world was getting rich, they would have demanded a full explanation. But when the reverse occurred, they stayed stupid.
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Baseball, mom and apple freakin’ pie: There was TBS’ Sam Ryan, trying to interview Nyjer Morgan after the Brewers eliminated Arizona on Friday night. Morgan, who had busted in on an interview she was conducting with Ryan Braun, then busied himself shooting hand signals to the crowd while twice hollering, “F–, yeah!”
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Q: Reader Brian Price asks why TBS sees fit to show its pitch-tracker box during intentional walks. A: For added enlightenment.
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Bud Ball: With 2 hours of rain delay added to a 3-hour game, Saturday’s ALCS Game 1 on FOX ended at 1 a.m. Eastern. But had it begun at 7:10 instead of 8:10 . . .
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Joe Aceti, an ABC then longtime CBS Sports director, and among the most skilled, decent and fall-down honest men I’ve met in his industry, died Thursday. We used to talk. He was 76. What a good man.