Congratulations to the 2007 Boston Red Sox, winners of the 103rd World Series. Now with their 7th title they are only 19 away from the Yankees’ 26 titles. Suddenly, with the way these two teams are heading, that doesn’t seem like such an insurmountable disparity. Since losing to the Diamondbacks in a game 7 come-from-behind victory, the Yankees have reached the postseason 6 times and have lost all 6 times, advancing to the World Series only once. Last night, as the Sox were about 6 outs away from winning their 2nd world series in 4 years, Ken Rosenthal reported that Alex Rodriguez, who is widely considered “the best baseball player”, would opt out of his contract and would be leaving the Yankees based on uncertainty about the organization’s future—namely the expiring contracts of Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, and the departure of Joe Torre.
As I digested what this news implied about the Yankees-Red Sox dynamic, the Sox’s 4-1 lead narrowed to 4-3 in the 8th inning off a Garret Atkins 2-run homer served up by Hideki Okajima (who just happened to be overworked but otherwise had a phenomenal postseason). Fortunately, the new and improved curse-free Sox don’t let anything break their spirits in this post-2004 ALCS era, and they called on Jonathon Papelbon who came in and shut down the Rockies plain and simple, retiring 5 straight batters, including a strikeout on Seth Smith to seal the victory.
In the post-game analysis Peter Gammons was asked about the irony of an A-Rod announcement on the same day as the clinching game of the World Series and called Rodriguez out as a “buyer beware” commodity who’s more into the A-Rod show than the game itself. He went on to basically call him a loser who isn’t able to win the big game. With a potential vacancy at third base for the Red Sox in Mike Lowell (who, thankfully, Theo Epstein says he’s sure they’ll resign), is this the kind of guy I want on the team? I’ll pass. Better to let him exit the AL East and do his regular season damage elsewhere just in time to forget his bat when the postseason rolls around.
Anyways, I’m getting off topic here. The important thing to note is that the Red Sox dominated the 2007 regular season just as they dominated the 2007 post season, and the emergence of their young players (Pedroia, Ellsbury, Papelbon, Lester, Buchholz) along with their incorporation of the Asian world (via Matsuzaka and Okajima and their interpreter who gets to sit in the dugout) and the consistency of their veteran players all indicate that they’re just going to get better and better. Meanwhile, the Yankees just had an ugly fallout with one of the most successful managers of all time, had their collective face spat upon by the game’s best player, and are left just hoping that some of their unsigned players still value the Yankee mystique enough to re-sign. The Yanks still have plenty of up-and-comers stashed away and I’m sure the Steinbrenner Sons won’t just squander the franchise but it will be interesting to see not only if the Evil Empire has the patience to sacrifice some championships to develop their youngsters, but also if they can regain their former swagger.
Here’s to 19 more titles in my lifetime.
As I digested what this news implied about the Yankees-Red Sox dynamic, the Sox’s 4-1 lead narrowed to 4-3 in the 8th inning off a Garret Atkins 2-run homer served up by Hideki Okajima (who just happened to be overworked but otherwise had a phenomenal postseason). Fortunately, the new and improved curse-free Sox don’t let anything break their spirits in this post-2004 ALCS era, and they called on Jonathon Papelbon who came in and shut down the Rockies plain and simple, retiring 5 straight batters, including a strikeout on Seth Smith to seal the victory.
In the post-game analysis Peter Gammons was asked about the irony of an A-Rod announcement on the same day as the clinching game of the World Series and called Rodriguez out as a “buyer beware” commodity who’s more into the A-Rod show than the game itself. He went on to basically call him a loser who isn’t able to win the big game. With a potential vacancy at third base for the Red Sox in Mike Lowell (who, thankfully, Theo Epstein says he’s sure they’ll resign), is this the kind of guy I want on the team? I’ll pass. Better to let him exit the AL East and do his regular season damage elsewhere just in time to forget his bat when the postseason rolls around.
Anyways, I’m getting off topic here. The important thing to note is that the Red Sox dominated the 2007 regular season just as they dominated the 2007 post season, and the emergence of their young players (Pedroia, Ellsbury, Papelbon, Lester, Buchholz) along with their incorporation of the Asian world (via Matsuzaka and Okajima and their interpreter who gets to sit in the dugout) and the consistency of their veteran players all indicate that they’re just going to get better and better. Meanwhile, the Yankees just had an ugly fallout with one of the most successful managers of all time, had their collective face spat upon by the game’s best player, and are left just hoping that some of their unsigned players still value the Yankee mystique enough to re-sign. The Yanks still have plenty of up-and-comers stashed away and I’m sure the Steinbrenner Sons won’t just squander the franchise but it will be interesting to see not only if the Evil Empire has the patience to sacrifice some championships to develop their youngsters, but also if they can regain their former swagger.
Here’s to 19 more titles in my lifetime.
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