2023 MLB World Series thread

I really enjoyed Game 1.

It was a good one. Didn’t you say you’re going to be in Phoenix? Attending a game?

in the day, Strom led the minor league pitching and Duncan led the big league side. Both had their proven methods and successes, but I am not sure if they were in sync. When Luhnow left, so did Strom along with about a dozen staffers.

My thinking is they are not too far apart. Some 30 years ago, pre-Money Ball, Pulitzer Prize winner George Will wrote a book about the ‘craft of baseball’ called Men at Work. In it he positioned LaRussa and Duncan as making use of stats, and their analysis, more so that any others in the game at the time. (And we all remember Dave’s binder.) The divergence that has developed in the post Money Ball baseball world is not really that stats analysis is good or bad, but rather in its proper usage as a tool to assist baseball decision makers. I think Duncan and Strom would be squarely on one side of that divide, and Mo would be on the other. They use the tool to drive nails and Mo uses it to mash thumbs.

I fear the same TC, but it hasn’t happened yet, so there is still hope. Whatever goes down this winter, come opening day we will be tied for first place. In baseball you never know what is going to happen until it does or doesn’t.

Bikemike makes a good point. With multiple rounds and the possiblity of over 20 post-season games in one season to amass numbers to place into record books such as HR’s RBI’s, K’s, W’s etc. you have to really keep those numbers in context. I think there should be seperate conversations regarding overall post-season numbers and WS numbers, with the overall WS numbers that are placed into the books being the records that are superior for obvious reasons. The grandaddy series is limited to 7 games and should always remain the one in which the most focus is placed. When you condense the career and single season records down to WS games, the names that appear along with those records are the ones that are genuinely legendary.

Yep, there’s more than one way to record an out or two and it’s my view that K’s are vastly overrated unless a runner’s situated at 3B with less than 2 outs in a close contest.

If AZ holds on to this lead to tie this WS after last night’s tough loss, it’ll once again demonstrate the persevering nature of their ballclub. They swept a very good Dodger team and then had to win 2 games in row at Citizen’s Bank to survive and advance to this WS, so this team may be better than their regular season W/L record indicates. At any rate, I get the feeling that they’re a team that’s playing on house money and that in and of itself makes them dangerous.

Pham is 4 for 4.

DBacks add on. Going to the bottom of the 9th, now 9-1.

I bet Mr Ballgame might be a little low on muscle mass now that he’s in his 50s. If you go see the Orioles play you might see Boog Powell at his barbecue stand talking to customers. A few years ago we did and he was not nearly as tall as I remembered him to be when I was a kid. I think the years humped him over a bit, LOL, as it does most of us.

Yeah, when I was still a young boy, Boog Powell was probably the first guy that impressed me as a giant among men although, him being an AL player, my view and perception of him was limited to TV or his baseball card. Later on as a young adult, two players that really stood out on the field of play when I was in attendance and situated in a seat at Busch Memorial were Dave Winfield and J. Rodney Richards. Winfield was what I would term a perfect specimen of a gracefully athletic big man, and when I looked down on the field of play when Richards was situated on the pitcher’s mound, he looked like the Empire State Building surrounded by eight two story flats…Haha! He was really an impressive sight out there. These days neither Winfield or Richards would be anything considered really extraordinary. It sometimes seems like all of these guys, especially pitchers, come from the land of the giants.

Oh, and speaking of guys not being so massive when they are older – this goes back to the 1990s, but there was a game we had when I was playing vintage ball against a team made up of mostly former Denver Broncos. Some guys on that former Bronco team had been offensive lineman, and they looked like a shadow of their former selves.

Now this was the ‘90s, so my assumption then was,”man, when these guys stop using the ‘roids they are just normal dudes.”

Me too, gscottar. I think our DNA strands have evolved in a manner which creates an instinctive tendency to always pull for a NL team unless, of course, the Mets or Cubs are invloved, in which case there is the natural occurance of a mutation of that DNA strand…Haha!