Well, ain't this a bummer. After my Twins were eliminated from the playoffs, I had been pulling for the Mets -- mostly because my buddy Rollo is a huge Mets fan. So last night we all sat at the Old Dundee eating nasty Home Team pizza (the Grand Slam!) and drinking $5 pitchers of PBR, watching Game Seven of the Mets-Cardinals NLCS. Its weird, rooting for an NL team, after I've spent my entire life claiming the NL is inferior.
While the game played on several TV's, the speaker system in the bar played The John Tesh Radio Show. And you wouldn't think so, but it was better than hearing Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Our own running commentary was much funnier anyway. You won't hear McCarver making bold proclamations like "the more players you have wearing gold chains during play, the further you get from it being an actual sport", or "any sport that has delays because of water is not for real men". Continental said that. But he hates baseball. Dick tolerates it. Rollo and myself are both big baseball guys, he for his hometown Mets and me for the Twins.
The game coasted along 1-1 for most of the night, with Rollo becoming increasingly agitated the longer the Mets left their bottom-barrell starting pitcher in the game. Injuries had reduced them to using a castoff from the Pirates -- THE PIRATES!! -- as their 7th game starter, and they'd coaxed four innings out of him and were tied. He was leading off the next inning, so it seemed time to tell him "nice job", and go to the pen. No dice. As he batted, thus ensuring he would pitch another inning, Rollo immediately ordered another pitcher.
A couple innings later, he was in a jam, stayed in the game again, and gave up a long ball that would have been a two-run homer, except Endy Chavez in left field robbed it away. Amazing catch. Even the non-baseball guys were excited by this.
It looked like the Mets would win it. So of course, the Cardinals won on a 2-run homer by one of the Molina Brothers in the ninth inning. Shocking: there's another Molina Brother who looks identical to the others, short stocky and slow. More shocking: a New York star came to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, watched strike three buzz by without swinging, and it wasn't Alex Rodriguez. Welcome to the New York Choke Club, Carlos Beltran! (Never mind the 11 postseason homers he has -- you're only as good as your last At-Bat in NY).
Trust me on this: I listened to the WFAN Mets Postgame on my XM during the drive back, and they were throwing Beltran under the bus big time. Hilarious.
So its Cardinals-Tigers in the Series, a rematch of 1968. Bob Gibson against Kirk Gibson. The Gibsons, a sitcom by the guys who brought you "Benchwarmers" and "The New Bad News Bears"! See Kirk hit a long homerun off Bob, and rub it in by running real slow around the bases! See Bob knock him on his ass the next time up! Good times!
What's that, Bob and Kirk don't play anymore? Oh well, I've got Cliff's wedding this weekend anyway, so I won't see the first two games.
You bet.
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