This Day in World Series IV

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

Billy Bucks' miss, two decades ago today.

Not much to say about this one, 20 years ago today.

If you're a Red Sox fan, it was another stab in the heart from fortune's sword. If you were a Mets fan, you'd already done a Hernandez and gone back to the clubhouse to plan the drive home.

This is all an excuse, of course, to point back to this ingenious web re-creation of earlier this year: The entire, gory 10th inning, re-enacted with the 1980s video game RBI Baseball, and Vin Scully's original call. It's a bit long, but well worth it. What the internet was invented for, this.

As for tonight - 'cause really, I wore the Frankie Says Relax T-shirt, I don't wanna go back there - it's Game 4. And yeah, it's that Neate Sager guy again, looking into a theory that had come to my overcooked mind as I watched last night: The Tigers are back to their free-swinging ways, and it's really hurting them:

It should have been apparent earlier. However, amid the media focus on Detroit's dominance of the league playoffs and the Cardinals' poor regular-season record, St. Louis' far superior plate discipline was downplayed.
Just how superior is it? Looking back at the previous six World Series, the difference in SO-to-BB ratio between the opposing teams ranged from .06 to .20 (that's without accounting for National League not using the DH).
The Cardinals' advantage over the Tigers is .89. That's practically off the charts by comparison, especially when you consider it's the Tigers who come from a league where pitchers don't bat regularly.
I can't believe I didn't realize this sooner. Honestly, I feel like a total schmuck. Now, a correlation between hitters' SO-to-BB ratio and World Series success doesn't appear clear based on just six seasons' worth of World Series matchups.
It can be argued, however, that the Cardinals have a huge, hidden advantage that has gone almost unnoticed among fans and media.

Meantime, Hardball Times now has the Cardinals with a 60 per cent probability of winning the Series.

Another one from the vault: USA Today on The only known copy of the broadcast of Don Larsen's perfect game.

And I quite like this: Stats on umpires.

Photo of the Day: Cujostled

JOHN ULAN/CANADIAN PRESS

Curtis Joseph gets iced by Oleg Saprykin on Monday night.

This Day in World Series III

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

At least they didn't botch the anthem.

Going back to 1992 today, and another fine moment in local lore with the Blue Jays' first appearance in the fall classic.

What's to remember about this one? Couples: Winfield and Morris, Jane and Ted. The upside-down Canadian flag on the U.S. colour guard. Devon White's catch (and the ensuing blown triple play call). The tomahawk chop. Pat Borders, MVP. And Bobby Cox, who'd left the Jays after their initial '85 ascension to playoff baseball, in the opposite dugout. A less celebrated but quite gratifying element was that the clinching game 14 years ago today took place in Atlanta, thus silencing one of the most annoying fan rituals in sports.

Most infamous personal moment, though, came in Game 5 at the nee-SkyDome. I was there with my brother in our usual spot in section 525, way up high, behind the plate and just shaded toward third base (we'd had season tickets, sharing with a group of half a dozen since 1984, when it became impossible to walk up to the Exhibition Stadium windows and get a decent seat). We'd never got so much as a sniff of a foul ball, and being up in the fifth deck having one come within even a couple sections was about as close as it got. A righthanded power pitcher and a lefty fastball hitter was the best combo to launch it just off target up to that altitude, but it never happened when we were there. Still I hoped for a Blue Jays Series-clinching win - and a baseball.

TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO

That's better.

About the third inning I went out to get a drink. When I came back, Warren nudged me. "You won't believe it," he said. "A foul ball came up here. And it hit your seat."

I thought he was kidding me, but he was absolutely serious. Then the guy in front turned around, brandishing the ball and flashing a way-too-wide grin, and you ever get that kick-yourself-in-the-ass moment? The rest of the game was agony. Every 10 minutes, it seemed, I'd turn to Warren with one of those "I can't believe what I just did" looks. Words couldn't do justice, etc.

And of course the Jays got hammered that night, thus delaying the celebrations until they were back in Georgia.

As for tonight we're on to Game 3, Joe D. in the comments is still calling for a classic - I'm not sure yet, but that Game 1 win by the Cardinals certainly has put some juice into this one, not to mention on Kenny Rogers' hand - and hey, if someone hits a homer to left, it's free tacos. For the whole freakin' United States.

Vaguely related: Blog regular Neate Sager's Top 5: Worst World Series Teams.

Related: Double Play Depth (via David Pinto) ruling out alien abduction to explain the old Kenny Rogers (awful) up against this new Kenny Rogers (unhittable cheater competitor).

Update: From a link supplied by reader Dave Lake from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Tribe didn't scoff at Rogers' scuffing, about a moment four years ago from the dossier of Mister Rogers:

Four years earlier, the Indians did more than wonder about Rogers. They blatantly accused him of dirty dealing during his start for Texas on Aug. 9, 2002, at Jacobs Field. The most interesting part? The Indians leveled the charges while Rogers was attempting to pitch the second perfect game of his career.
After Rogers retired Karim Garcia on a grounder in the sixth for 17 up, 17 down, Tribe interim manager Joel Skinner informed plate umpire Andy Fletcher that the Indians had noticed scuff marks on the same spot of ball after ball they collected. Each of 12-15 balls was scuffed between the logo and the seam, team personnel said.

Photo of the Day: Horse tale

REUTERS

Phar Lap: Preserved, mounted and celebrated in the Melbourne Museum, but still a mystery.

Related: Claims Phar Lap Murdered and Phar Lap murder rap still just a daffy yarn.

Phar Lap 80th birthday marked.

This Day in World Series II

RICK EGLINTON/TORONTO STAR

Touch 'em all, Joe.

Not much trouble finding something for today. Let's go back 13 years, when Mitch Williams was still Wild Thing and Joe Carter was just an ordinary Joe, albeit a rock-steady, 30-HR, 100-RBI fellow with a World Series ring from the previous season.

This is World Series moment No. 1 for any Blue Jays fan aged 21 or so and older, and I'm no different. It was at home. It was as dramatic as it gets, just the second Series-clinching walk-off HR in history. And it gets more sepia-toned with each passing year.

I thought this was going to be the season where the Jays returned to not necessarily a division flag, or even a playoff spot, but something equally elusive for this franchise in recent years: September prominence. They're not there, and until they get back there, the generation that's been growing up since Carter's Series-winning HR has almost no idea what that kind of month is like day to day. There's nothing in a sports fan's experience quite like a pennant race.

This year, anyway, Detroit is the closest to Canada the World Series has been since Carter hit the biggest home run of his career.

Some links: Tom Cheek's radio call of Carter's home run (QT); Retrosheet's Game 6 boxscore and play-by-play; Steve Rushin of Sports Illustrated's report; ESPN ranks it No. 5 on its playoff performance list; Canada's top-grossing movie for the week ended Oct. 22/1993.

Into the weekend: From Pro-Line to No-Line

Time to wrap things up, looking ahead to the annual exercise in masochism known around JABS Mansion as Browns Weekend. It's even supposed to rain. Joy.

But first, with all this idiocy at Queen's Park about outlawing online gaming advertising, a word about the province-run sports lottery, which ought to be sued for false advertising after they played chicken (again) last Sunday, taking the Bengals game off the board. In other words, it's not such a bad weekend to be away after all.

On to the usual . . .

One last read. The New York Times' Vincent Mallozzi caught up with Joe Frazier in Philadelphia this week:

Ten pounds heavier, but millions of dollars lighter, according to Frazier and the marketing people who work with him. Over the years, Frazier has lost a fortune through a combination of his own generosity and naïveté, his carousing, failed business opportunities and a deep hatred for his former chief boxing rival, Muhammad Ali. The other headliners from his fighting days — Ali, George Foreman and Larry Holmes — are millionaires.
But while Ali has benefited from lucrative licensing agreements and remains one the world’s most recognized and celebrated athletes, Frazier lives alone in an apartment one staircase above the gym where he and others train young fighters in a run-down part of town.
“This is my primary residence,” he said. “Don’t matter much. I’m on the road most of the time, anyway.”

One last e-mail. Monday's Notes from a Weekend post wondering where the hell all the hats were when Mats Sundin completed his hat trick brought this one to raise hopes that there is some life in the old ACC-mausoleum-on-Leaf-nights after all, from Aunt Wendy:

My two nephews, Steven, 19, and Matt, 23, were at the game, sitting in the Gold section (I might add that this was a once in a lifetime ticket for them, to celebrate a 19th birthday) behind the Flames bench and when Mats scored his 500th and third of the game in overtime, both of them, along with several others, threw their hats on the ice!
Steven, the 19 year old, had just bought his hat a couple of weeks before (camaflouged Leafs hat, of course!!) and hesitated for only a second in throwing it, sure that he would be able to buy another one after the game, only to be disappointed in finding out that particular hat was no longer available!
So there's at least one hat in a pile of them, that truly was thrown in the best of moments, with no regrets afterward, although a little disappointment.

One last salute. To Eric McErlain, whose Off Wing Opinion is one of the best hockey-centric sports blogs around. Eric has been picked up by NBC Sports, so check him out.

One last view. Joe (Jellybean) Bryant, otherwise known as Kobe's dad, dunks on Kareem (thanks to the TBJ's J.E. Skeets).

Sports around town.  The Pattison Canadian International has a field of 10 at Woodbine on Sunday, along with the E.P. Taylor as good as it gets for major-league thoroughbred racing in these parts - although according to Jennifer Morrison, the heavy rain of this week isn't exactly what International favourite Go Deputy likes.

Watching. Well, whatever comes up in front of me - I'm away, right? But Real Madrid-Barcelona is one of those matchups that carries some potential for fireworks, Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. on GOLTV.

Pooch punts. Jinks the Viszla went 0-5 last week. Which is, frankly, amazing. I mean, 2-3 or 1-4 is just crappy. But 0-5? That's perfection. This weekend he's scarfing down: KANSAS CITY +5, Denver -4 1/2 (BAD Dawg!), New England -5 1/2, HOUSTON +9 1/2 and the NY JETS -3 1/2.

Photo of the Day: Catch of the days

CHARLES KRUPA/AP (LEFT) RICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STAR (RIGHT)

Endy Chavez's catch was one for the ages; Devon White's in '93 was pretty good too.

At least, that one on the right, 14 years ago today, was what came to my mind immediately after Chavez's catch last night. White's catch off Dave Justice's deep fly ball to dead centre wasn't just poetry, though -- it began the infamous triple play that was somehow missed by umpire Bob Davidson (Baseball-Almanac.com has the sanitized version. As every Jays fan knows, the only person who missed the tag was the ump. Gruber tagged out Deion Sanders - yeah, that Deion - so forcefully, Dave Perkins wrote, "Gruber actually tripped Sanders").

(Thanks to TEP guy Brett Smith for the side-by-side here.)

This Day in World Series I

It's that time again. Starting today and through next week, it's something pulled out of the archives to augment your World Series experience, which, frankly, sometimes amounts to pulling z's on the couch. But c'mon. It's the World Series. I've slept through it many times. I'll sleep through it again.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Fisk: 31 years ago Saturday (and Sunday morning).

I'm jumping the gun just a bit with this first instalment, because This Day actually lands tomorrow - 31 years ago tomorrow, Oct. 21, and Game 6 of the '75 Series, which actually went into the next day.
It all ended with Fisk's just-fair home run, of course. But that was merely the climax of a whole evening of craziness, from Tiant to Armbrister to Lynn and Carbo. For all that, it's No. 2 on my all-time favourite Series moment list - we'll get to the top, and a few others, over the next week.
You want to watch the Fisk blast, here it is.

MLB.com's account of the game goes here, and for Retrosheet's boxscore and play-by-play, go here - including a little bit of lore about that 12th inning:

RED SOX 12TH: Fisk homered; great unintentional video from NBC due to one of the residents in the wall; cameraman watching rat and not paying attention to director; 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Reds 6, Red Sox 7.

Here's your CHUM Chart for the week of Oct. 18, 1975. And here's your fashion tip of the day: Perms.

Getting up to date, Saturday will mark the opening near San Francisco of a replica ballpark of Fenway circa 1975.

More great moments: Michel Therrien vents

Following on the Lee Elia retrospective of a couple days ago, e-mailer Cliff sends in this one - "While not quite Jim Mora grade, it was classic material" , he writes - a what-the-hell-they-don't-care postgamer from Penguins coach Michel Therrien last season:

"I think that's their goal - to be the worst defensive squad in the league ... There's a lot of guys don't care. They pretend to care. I know they don't care."

Photo of the day: Fire water

STEVE HOLLAND/REUTERS

The Asian Games torch relay gets a dragon-boat cruise in Manila.

Related: 15th Asian Games website.