The San Francisco Giants have defeated the Texas Rangers in the 2010 World Series. As a Dodger fan, I must say, this fuckin' sucks. We have to beat 'em next year. But, from a non-personal perspective, this is the Giants' first World Series championship since 1954, which had been the third longest in baseball behind the Cleveland Indians (since 1948) and the Chicago Cubs (since 1908, more than a century ago). In the deciding Game 5, Giants pitcher Tim "The Freak" Lincecum (the two-time defending NL Cy Young award winner, although that reign is likely to end this year) the pride of UW, easily defeated Rangers pitcher Cliff Lee (who seems to always be in the World Series and will likely sign with the New York Yankees as a free agent this offseason) in a rematch of Game 1 in order to win the deciding game. The MVP was Edgar Renteria (a native of Colombia, who hit a 3-run homer to win this game for the Giants) who also won the 1997 World Series with a walk-off hit while a member of the Florida Marlins. Their manager was Bruce Bochy, who had never won the World Series but appeared in it twice with the San Diego Padres; as a player in 1984 and as a manager in 1998.
The Giants had dubbed themselves "The Misfits," with players such as Tim "The Freak" Lincecum, Brian "Fear the Beard" Wilson (who hails from Londonderry, New Hampshire where John Best lives) and Pablo "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval. They weren't in first place until the last day of the regular season, but in the playoffs they easily mowed over the Atlanta Braves and pitcher Derek Lowe (and ended the illustrious career of longtime manager Bobby Cox), the Philadelphia Phillies and pitcher Roy "Doc" Halladay (who is likely to win the NL Cy Young award this year after 12 years in the AL, and pitched a no-hitter in the first round of the playoffs after pitching a perfect game in May) and finally the Texas Rangers and pitcher Cliff Lee. Their catcher Buster Posey is likely to be the NL Rookie of the Year, defeating Atlanta Braves star Jason Heyward.
Hopefully, the Dodgers will be better next year with their new manager Don Mattingly. The next meaningful game that the Giants (their archrival to the north) play is April 1 against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. That is Opening Day, which I go to every year. Hopefully, the Dodgers will get off onto the right foot next year by beating the defending champions, and eventually by winning the NL West and the World Series
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Oliver, let's just put aside our differences for a moment and have a chat about baseball because I do like the game and I do watch it when it's on down here. I saw the first three games but I missed the last two and I missed the clincher you're talking about because I was traveling to Adelaide (which is where I am right now at their state library using their free WiFi on my laptop).
After the whitewash in game one I figured the Giants had them. The Rangers pitching staff just wasn't up to scratch. Wilson (I'll avoid the obvious remark about where he's from for the sake of harmony - I do understand that the region around Londonderry, Nashua and so on is quite nice - WWE wrestler Triple H is from Nashua originally) is a very good closer and plays from the gut. He shows that with the sign he gives when he clinches the win for the Giants. I heard in game four that it was San Francisco's defence that shut the Rangers out and because they showed they were a high scoring team - which is always good in baseball - they had the tools to take the Rangers out.
What was the final score of game 5?
Tex won't be that happy, even though he's actually an Astros fan he's Texan and would have a soft spot for the Rangers I assume. I think he's still getting over the Astros effort in the World Series a few years ago (oh am I going to get it for that on my forum!).
I'll tell you what though. If the Dodgers want to get near the Giants in 2011, they need a good strong pitching staff and they need some strong hitters. Especially the latter if the Giants get going early. I'm not surprised there's a rivalry between the two. That goes back to the original franchises when it was Brooklyn and New York (I think the Giants were still in New York when they won that World Series you mentioned back in the 50's) when they hated each others guts. I know that because I know the story behind the famous "Shot Heard Round The World" in 1951 - partly because they did an episode of M*A*S*H around it!
Here we go. Oliver, you just demonstrated a really big positive you have. A special interest in baseball. You know as much about it as I do about Australian football. This is the sort of thing you should be concentrating on.
You told me a few things that I didn't know. Why Brian Wilson makes the sign that he does (that makes perfect sense) and a few stats rattled off easily like a typical Aspie. And nothing to be ashamed of either. You'll lose that ability if you get yourself a cure. You know what? A female baseball fan would love that. The trick is to not talk about it all the time. That's hard I know. I could talk the proverbial lid off a chamber pot about Australian footy. But I choose my audience carefully. Think about that one.
3-1? That was lower scoring than I thought it might be, but then you said that the Giants home was a run scoring paradise and I guess the Rangers home isn't. There's a little local baseball park in Melbourne that was very hard to score at back in the day. We're getting new national baseball league starting this month, with the support of MLB - and a few Aussies presently playing in MLB are coming home to play in it. Like Luke Hughes from I think the Atlanta Braves. Hit a home run in his first at bat - the first Aussie to do that ever.
Rameriz is gone? That'll hurt the Dodgers. Money won't buy a championship by itself, so they have to be smart with where they spend it. It's no good shelling out stacks of money for the best. There's an old saying - a champion team will beat a team of champions every time. And it proves to be true as well. In all sports.
Tex has been living in Australia for a long time, so I don't know if any rivalry between the Astros and the Rangers really means that much to him anymore (he didn't say). The only team I've always known he hates is the Yankees, but then I'm told everyone hates the Yankees unless you're a Yankees fan. However I have noted that he doesn't like the Giants either as he did tell me off (not so seriously) for that comment about the Astros being swept by the White Sox.
I did know that Bobby Thompson died not that long ago, and they did speak to both Branco and Newcombe at the time. That's how I knew about the rivalry because they mentioned it. We get ESPN here and I think I saw the piece on Baseball Tonight. Or it might have been on "Sportscenter".
I'll tell you what you would lose if you were cured - a love of the statistics. Okay, maybe you haven't got your head around it yet, but you have the skills to and you could thrash your father next season if you wanted to. Give it a shot come April! Funny thing - the MLB season almost mirrors the AFL here (Australian rules football), except our season ends in September and next year early October.
Ah! I was getting Moylan and Hughes mixed up! Thanks for that - you're right. Moylan's playing in the Australian league as well. Not sure about Oeltjen but I would assume he would be if he's on an MLB roster. Fair comment about Ramirez. I didn't know he was pushing 40 and the designated hitter spot for him would be better. I did know that the National League make the pitchers bat and the American League doesn't.
Yes Tex did move here in September 1982 - and there's a funny story attached to that. He got his first taste of Australian football at the end of that month in the grand final on TV (that's our World Series - and it's just one game that decides the premiership as we call it) and that was the year we had a female streaker!! She was wearing nothing more than a navy blue and white scarf (the colours of one of the teams - Carlton) so you can imagine the furore from officials and police and the delight of the male fans in the crowd. Even the umpires had a laugh about it! Point taken about rivalries - that is after all where it all started for the Giants and the Dodgers in New York and it made sense that the rivalry continued once they were both on the West Coast.
No we don't get the MLB Network. The baseball is covered by either ESPN or our own Fox Sports (not related to the Fox Network in the US - Fox here is short for Foxtel). Fox Sports has three channels covering a heap of sports, and during the winter it has a concentration on football and rugby league - which it shares with the free to air networks. Free to air gets the grand finals of both codes although Fox Sports has the rights to replays.
You have to admit though - the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry is written into baseball folklore more than any other. And it goes back to the Babe Ruth trade for which the Red Sox never forgave the Yankees (I think that was the right way around). The Curse of the Bambino is well known world wide - heck it even made it into wrestling one time. At Wrestlemania 14 in 1998, they had Pete Rose as a guest ring announcer and the show was in Boston. And he ribbed the crowd about that and they HATED him for it. Kane was supposed to be a heel (the evil guy in wrestling terms) but he decided to give Pete a piledriver and the crowd LOVED it! Have to say I felt happy for Boston when they finally broke their hoodoo in 2004. The White Sox had a long wait as well the following year - and in the same year down here Sydney won in the AFL for the first time since 1933 when they were South Melbourne. Yes we have teams shift from one city to another as well, but that was only one of two and the other was a merger anyway.
PS - Could you delete the duplicates of my previous post? There was a problem when I posted it.
I think curing myself wouldn't eliminate my ability to memorize things but I don't know.
It would.
Fantasy baseball is quite hard to win, and a lot of it is just luck.
That's true because you never know when someone is going to get injured or hit a bad patch in form or conversely a great patch. No hitters come from nowhere for example. So do grand slam home runs. And a number of other things as well.
Our league had a live draft, and neither my father nor I studied very hard prior to the draft.
Even that is fraught with danger, although I guess MLB has more to go on through the college stuff. We don't have that. We have elite junior competitions that aren't school affiliated at all, up to 18 years of age. We also don't have a random drawing as to who gets the first pick. The order or drawing goes in reverse of the finishing order of the teams with the lowest getting the first pick. We don't have conferences. Of course those picks can be traded - that's something I think the draft here does have in common with those in the US.
The seasons for baseball and Aussie football may be similar in terms of months, but they are opposite in terms of seasons, since the seasons are reversed here.
That's true too. Football is a winter sport, and doesn't even stop for rain. I've umpired many a game in the wet. Baseball is a summer sport and like cricket if it rains, everyone hits the locker room!
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