October is my favorite month. The leaves change. Football season gets into high gear. The academic year gets exciting. The weather’s beautiful. My wedding anniversary comes around. Elections loom. And then there’s post-season baseball. Oh how I love baseball, especially when the bunting covers the stadiums across America.
I’m a Mets fan and a White Sox fan. Before Interleague play began in 1997, there was nothing fishy about rooting for the White Sox and Mets. To a large extent, there still isn’t. The first team I watched as a young boy was the Mets. My father taught me how to read the box scores and I quickly memorized the names of every Met player and their statistics. This was 1982, and the Mets stunk. But they were my team and I loved everything about them. I got a Mets history book that year, and it covered the great and glorious 1969 team as if it was still playing.
I remember reading that Jerry Koosman won Game Five of the 1969 World Series and I decided that he, and not Tom Seaver (who everybody else loved) was my favorite Met ever. Sure enough, I got my first baseball card set and I got a Jerry Koosman card! He was about 40 years old, playing out the string of his career…on the White Sox. For that reason, I decided to root for the White Sox too. Unlike the Mets, the White Sox had a good team, and they had a great team in 1983. I never cared for the Yankees (even though I lived in New Jersey), though I didn’t hate them the way I would later in life. This was the era of the mediocre Yankees, with high-paid free agents that underperformed. The only genuine stud on those Yankee teams was Don Mattingly. He was pure class, and I wished he could play for a different team so I could root for him in good conscience. I felt that way about Bernie Williams in the 1990s too.
Anyway, the two most thrilling moments for me as a fan were, not surprisingly, the heart-stopping 1986 post-season when the Mets beat the Astros and then the Red Sox; and last year when the White Sox broke an 88-year spell of futility. I moved from New Jersey to Virginia in the summer of 1986 (with a September return for my Bar Mitzvah), so I never had the chance to experience a World Series victory in my home town. 2005 was that great chance, and I lived it up, spending hours after Game Four of the World Series in Bridgeport on the South Side of Chicago. It was truly magical.
Well, here we are in the greatest season of the greatest sport in the world. My Mets are favorites to win the NL pennant, and the performance of rookie starter John Maine in Game One was truly inspiring. His gutsy performance against a red-hot Dodger team represented all that I love about baseball: determination, concentration, patience, poise and grace.
But the Mets are one of eight great stories. The Dodgers, a team left for dead early in the year, feature two amazing come-back stories in Greg Maddux and Nomar Garciaparra – the White Sox and Met fan in me loves the sound of Cub fans crying over these ex-Cubs’ new bouts with success. The other two NL teams are less inspiring this year; the Cardinals nearly matched the 1964 in folding down the stretch, and the Padres look about as uninteresting as the mediocre team that won the mediocre NL West last year. Yes, the Pads are better. But sorry Joe and the other folks out in San Diego, I won’t miss their inevitable early exit from the playoffs.
The American League brings us even more drama, none greater than the Yankees and the rags-to-riches Tigers. I live in Michigan, and this state has seen genuine hard times lately. But one thing Michiganders can rally around these days is the Tigers. Three years ago they lost 119 games. Now they’re two wins away from knocking off a superlative Yankee team and advancing to the ALCS. It truly is a great American story; Jim Leyland rescues an underperforming team from former team hero Alan Trammell, and gets them to play to their potential. It’s been frustrating as a White Sox fan chasing them all year. But they are my favorite on the AL side this post-season. The Yankees need no introduction, except to say that this is one of the most hitting-rich Yankee teams I’ve ever seen. Fortunately for the fate of civilization, their pitching is less impressive. And pitching wins championships. I should add that the Yankee lineup is patient and professional. But with the exception of Derek Jeter, it is also filled with primadonnas and pansies. Pitch them hard and inside and they will fold, just like they did last year. They’ll crush a finesse pitcher like Nate Robertson or Kenny Rogers. But a Justin Verlander or Jeremy Bonderman will shut them down. Of the last two teams, we have the great counterexamples to high-price baseball. The bargain basement Oakland Athletics and Minnesota Twins win every year with homegrown talent, shrewd general managership, and solid fundamental play. But I must confess: I hate the Minnesota Twins, even if they do play the “right” way. I’d like to see Oakland finally break through and win a series. Also, I love seeing Frank Thomas make a difference in October.
So, let this be a thread to discuss all things October baseball. This really is a special time of year. Play ball!