[This column of mine was first posted on “Flushing University” on Thursday, February 22, 2007. To see my latest Thursday column, entitled "The First Exhibition Game," please click on the “Flushing University” link to the right.]
DO WE HAVE TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES?
Fred Wilpon has announced that “Our goal is to win the World Series.” Fans are clamoring for it. Nobody wants to come up short again. Willie Randolph is even wearing his 1977 World Championship ring, hoping that the players will see it and think “gee, maybe I’ll try to win one of those things too.” Yeah. Yeah.
Everybody wants to win the World Series. Why?
I know the answer to this question as well as you do. I understand how baseball is structured and how, given that structure, winning the World Series is the biggest and best thing a team can do in any baseball season. But I want to take just a couple of minutes of your time to go through the reasons why this is stupid.
Nobody needs to be reminded of the fact that the best team, according to whatever standards you wish to apply, doesn’t normally win the World Series. Is there anyone in the world, is there anyone even in Missouri, who thinks that the St. Louis Cardinals were the best team in baseball last year? I’d be hard-pressed to put them in the top 10.
If winning the World Series doesn’t tell you that the 83-79 Cardinals were the best team in baseball, what does it tell you? It tells you that they won the World Series. That isn’t nothing, but I don’t think that it’s as much as it’s made out to be. What it tells you is that however hard it was over six months for the Cardinals to win just a few more games than they lost, they did get hot at just the right moment.
Now you’re probably thinking, well maybe we shouldn’t make too much of it, but people do. That’s what people remember, that’s what people care about, who wins the World Series. But you know what? This isn’t even true.
Look at your own baseball memories. Think about National League baseball and great National League teams in the past two decades. What do you think about? What do you remember? I remember Atlanta’s astounding and unprecedented decade and a half of dominance. I remember the great Astros teams of the late ‘90’s built around Bagwell, Biggio, and Alou, the great Cardinals teams with and without McGwire, the great Giants teams around Bonds and Kent (yeah, I know, I know). I remember Arizona’s few years in the spotlight with their one-two pitching punch of Johnson and Schilling. I remember, of course, the four exciting years the Mets had from 1997-2000. So what National League team has won more World Series than any other in the 1990s and 2000s? You know? The Florida Marlins. What does this tell you? What does this mean? Do you remember more about the Marlins and their glory than you remember about these other teams? Are you likely to tell your grandchildren about the turn of the millennium being the era of the Marlins?
I started following baseball in 1962. When I think back on National League baseball in the period between the first year of the Mets and their first World Championship, I cherish my memories of all the great teams: the Giants with Mays and McCovey, the Braves with Aaron and Matthews, the Pirates with Clemente, Stargell, and Clendenon, the Reds with Robinson, Rose, and Pinson. Quick, old timers! How many World Series did the Giants, Braves, Pirates, and Reds combine to win between 1962 and 1969? You know the answer. Zero. Zip. Does that make those legendary teams any less legendary? The Dodgers and the Cardinals did win World Series in this period because of their overpowering pitching, but when I remember that era, the Dodgers and the Cardinals are just part of the mix. Their World Series victories don’t erase, they don’t even dim my memories of these other great teams that didn’t win the Series.
Look, making a big deal of winning the World Series is a necessary fiction. You need goals. You have to have something to aim for, and winning the Series has been defined as the ultimate baseball accomplishment for a team in a given year. But we all know that it is not as big a deal as we make it out to be. The Mets have, I think, a 90% chance of having an exciting and satisfying season of baseball. But even the most optimistic projection can’t give them more than a 10% chance of winning the 2007 World Championship. I think it will be fun to aim for that 10% and to hope for it. I want the players to play as if it’s absolutely necessary. But if I ever really reach the point where I need it, and crave it, and think I deserve it, and am not going to be happy unless I get it, then I will have become no better than a heroin addict.
So maybe this will be the year in which we go all the way. But this may also be the year when we will have the best Mets lineup ever, when Jose Reyes reaches the outer limit of what an infielder can accomplish, when David Wright reaches the level of Musial, when Oliver Perez gets it back for good and becomes a latter-day Koufax, when Pelfrey and Humber pull a Gooden and Darling, when Pedro Martinez returns resurrected, when Lastings Milledge puts it all together the way Jose did last year. We have so many possible miracles to hope for. We’ll only get one or two of them, if we’re lucky. And the Series may or may not be in the cards. But as the curtain rises, I’m not going to spend all my time thinking about winning the World Series. I can’t wait to see what this season brings me, to remember all my life.
Dana,
You are so right about the best teams not necessarily winning the World Series. I had forgotten about all those teams we watched in the 60’s with their All Star players, and only a few of those teams actually won. They say baseball is a game of inches, and that certainly applies to the 2006 Mets in playoff game number 7. But although I was disappointed, on the whole I was pleased about the season and I will be happy if the Mets play the same way in 2007 that they did in 2006. If they can always be competitive, I will be more than satisfied. However, I will be ecstatic if they do win the World Series at least once in the next few years. I think if most fans use the common sense that you express in your blogs, we will all be able to enjoy the games and our team.
Well, at least with Wilpon he’s obviously just spouting P.R. nonsense for the fans. Unless he actually looked at what the Mets did and did not do in the off-season and said to himself “A-ha! Now we have them exactly where we want them.” In which case he needs serious medical attention, immediately. Because other than – - arguably – - the bullpen (which may be stronger) they didn’t really address (in my opinion) last years needs. When your number 1 and 2 are Glavine and El Duque…..then you don’t really have a number 1 and 2.
Anyway, I generally agree with the substance of your piece, but would add one other component, philosophically. Life often comes down to a series of moments and having to perform under pressure in 1 game, or 4 games, or 7, and all your stats and other accomplishments are dimmed in view of that. Any true Mets fan knows this by vurtue of 1969. In nearly every metric you can point to (other than perhaps SP), the 1969 Orioles were a zillion times better than the Mets. I think their starting infield still has the record for fewest errors (99 Mets came close to breaking it). But pretty much all anyone (outside Maryland) remembers is the Mets somehow pulling it together to win it in 5. And often that was the result of lucky breaks (F.Robinson gets hit by a pitch and doesn’t get awarded the base because the ump is blind), or pulling a fast one (according to Koosman – Jones was NEVER hit in the shoe…Hodges learned that chicanery from Stengel, and even if he was tapped in the foot, the ump NEVER should have awared Jones the base once the ball rolled in the dugout.)
But even setting aside the breaks, I don’t think its fiction. The alternative is fantasy baseball, or the BCS Bowl System, which itself is even more subjective than simply saying “win one game and you are world champions.” It ain’t about how you get there – its about getting there. (Again, critical for any true Mets fan. Witness the dreadful record of the 1973 Mets, who lost the WS in 7 games to the As.)
I agree with the points you’ve made, JD. And the 1969 World Series did not convince me that the 1969 Mets were better than the 1969 Orioles, just as the 1973 Mets were certainly not anywhere near as good as the Reds team they beat and the A’s team they almost beat (though the 1969 Mets were closer to the great Orioles team than the 1973 Mets were to their rivals). This is certainly part of my point. Winning the World Series is something to respect and aim for, but it is not and should not be treated as if it were the whole ballgame or even the most significant indicator of the best team in baseball in a given year.
Agreed. Like I wrote before, even from a business standpoint, it seems that “close but no cigar” increases revenues. Look at the Yankees attendance figures in 2000, and then look at them now.
well said….lets go mets
you suck the best team does win the world series and the mets are the best!