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| The Major League Baseball Thread: Did SI Swipe The 2025 Sports Almanac? |
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| NWR_insanolord:
That was a disappointing finish, but taking the World Series to 7 games, into extra innings, despite all the injuries and issues we've faced, is still a hell of a season. Next year we'll get Michael Brantley, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar back, the rookies will have another year of experience, and maybe a guy like Bradley Zimmer emerges as a major part of the team. We'll be back stronger in 2017, and won't have the longest drought in baseball for long. |
| Ian Sane:
Okay, NOW you can say the curse is over! Hell of a game to watch as a neutral fan. Overall I found the series kind of boring as the games tended to be one-sided but this game seven was an absolute classic. I totally thought when the Indians tied it up that the Cubs were finished. Nothing would be more typical Cubs then to be four outs away and then blow it. Oh and to have Chapman give up the tying run after Joe Maddon made the questionable decision to work him hard the day before in a blowout? Yeah, that's like Grady Little-Pedro Martinez level stuff that only happens to "cursed" teams. I can't imagine what it was like for Cubs fans at that point. But then maybe that's how this stuff has to happen. The 2003 team wilted and died when that Bartman thing happened but this team handled adversity well and hung on to win it all. I think it's pretty remarkable that in my adult life I have seen three baseball teams with 80+ year droughts win a championship. There are people that lived full lives that never saw the Red Sox, White Sox or Cubs win a World Series and I have. |
| Khushrenada:
Wow. Just wow. I'll admit it took a while for me to warm up to baseball. Hockey was a bigger interest of mine as child. I remember my dad tuning in as the Jays won their two back to back World Series and that was a big deal. Then the World Series got cancelled and I thought that was strange and just meant the Jays were automatically champs since no one else had defeated them yet. But my interest in baseball waned for some time and I just knew bits and pieces of it. The Yankees won a lot at the end of the decade but were despised for their high spending ways. Seinfeld sort of tempered my dislike for the Yankees though. I knew the Braves were a good team from commercials on TBS that would promote them a lot. It was always exciting to be able to stay up late and see something like SNL as a kid. I remember there was one bit on Weekend update and the Braves were playing the Indians in a series. A Native American was interviewed and was talking about all the ways that the Braves name and logo were offensive to Native Americans. But when asked about the Indians name and logo he was all positive about them and how it was all inoffensive. It’s funny what sticks in your head but I’ve always remembered that little segment. |
| Khushrenada:
After the World Trade Center attack, I remember also how people were actually rooting for the Yankees to win because of wanting to see something positive happen for New York. Watching that World Series is what started getting me into baseball. However, it was 2003 that really got me into a fan of baseball (at least for the playoffs). Having watched most of the episodes of Cheers by this point, I had begun to develop an affinity for the Red Sox and knew about their tortured history from the curse of the Bambino and other notable World Series losses. So, I was hoping to see them win to end that hex belief and make history having not won the World Series since 1918. At the same time, the Cubs also made the postseason that year and I became familiar with them and how they also were supposedly cursed and had not won since 1908 which was 10 years longer than the Sox. Both teams advanced to their League Championship series which of course resulted in more media coverage of the team’s histories. I was really excited since it seemed they might both have a chance of making it to the World Series. The Cubs were up 3-1 in their series and while the Red Sox were behind 3-2 in their series against the Yankees, they tied it up and got it to Game 7. However, they lost in extra innings and the Cubs choked on their 3-1 lead with the Bartman incident happening in Game 6. It was so disappointing. I believe that was the year the Red Sox owner or GM called the Yankees the Evil Empire and referred to his team as the Rebel Alliance trying to topple them. A Star Wars reference like that helped endeared me to the Red Sox even further. Those early 2000 Red Sox / Yankee rivalry games were something though. |
| Khushrenada:
It was even crazier the next year when the Red Sox and Yankees again met up for the ALCS. The Yankees had acquired A-Rod that season making them more hated in my eyes because the Red Sox had tried to make a play for him and the Yankees just continued to keep buying all the top players they wanted even though the Red Sox did acquire Shilling. When the Yankees went up 3-0 that series, it was so tough to watch especially with the Game 3 blow-out. The ESPN 30 for 30 episode that documents the last 4 games of this series and the Red Sox comeback perfectly encapsulates my feelings through those final games and what it was like and is still amazing to look back at and see play out. Having defeated the Yankees in this way, it just seemed to give all the players and fans this sense of invincibility and confidence so that when the World Series began against the Cardinals, it was like a foregone conclusion they were going to win it and they swept that series ending the drought and curse. My great-granddad was still alive at that time. He was 5 years old at the time that the Red Sox has last one in 1918 and was 91 years old when they finally did it again in 2004. He lived another 3 years before dying. I’m not sure that he really cared all that much about baseball or the Red Sox but I’ve always thought that was pretty amazing to have that sort of connection in one’s life and to know someone who lived through that span of time. Yet, in his whole life time, the Cubs never won a World Series. I’ve been thinking about all the history that has occurred between the Cubs 1908 – 2016 wins. The amount of people on Earth who have come and gone in between that span. It is a special thing right now just like when the Red Sox finally won it again in 2004. |
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