"You can't predict baseball," is a phrase used often by New York Yankees radio announcer John Sterling. It is so unpredictable like any other sport but especially in the 2014 postseason. Through six games of the World Series, the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals have won three games apiece. In terms of overall wins, the series is close but not the individual games. So far, there's only been a single game decided by one run, Kansas City's 3-2 victory in game 3. The other five games have been blowouts decided earlier in the game.
It's unfortunate and dumb luck. Major League Baseball has produced so many close and exciting games in the previous three rounds during this postseason, 14 one-run contests with 4 involving Kansas City and 5 involving San Francisco . There have been six extra-inning contests including 3 with KC and two with SF. This isn't World Wrestling Entertainment where there is a written storyline and everything is scripted with an exciting ending no matter who wins. For the record, we have no beef with professional wrestling. No, we're not going to throw any steel chairs at anyone. For goodness sakes, we can't body slam anybody even if we had dozens of other people helping us out. It just popped into our mind due to the comparison of scripted vs. non-scripted.
With non-scripted events like baseball, our fear of great expectations can be cancelled out by uncompetitive disappointing games. The Nationals lost to the Giants in the division series but those games were way more compelling. The scores in a three-games to one San Francisco series win were 3-2 SF, 2-1 SF in 18 innings (longest baseball playoff game ever), 4-1 WAS, and 3-2 SF. As a Nationals fan, I was ticked off because my team lost but at least the games were close. Neutral fans probably enjoyed that series more than Giants fans and even more than Nationals fans.
As a neutral fan in this World Series, the games are boring because they're uncompetitive, The scores from the six previous contests were 7-1 SF, 7-2 KC, 3-2 KC, 11-4 SF, 5-0 SF, and 10-0 KC. A lot has been made about the lower TV ratings in this year's World Series, I wonder why? Let's see, most of the games have been decided before the seventh inning. We think some people tune in expecting a close and exciting game but don't get it and fall asleep or change the channel. We don't know why some don't even bother watching but will watch the NFL's Super Bowl every year. This past February's pro football championship ended with a score of 43-8, Seattle over Denver.
The actual networks broadcasting baseball year-round and the mainstream sports media are both at fault for the decrease in viewers. FOX, ESPN, TBS, and MLB Network are Major League Baseball's broadcast partners and suffer too much from showcasing very few teams. It seemed like each week at least one game featured the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, or Los Angeles Dodgers. Usually, 2-3 games per week involved one of these teams.
The rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox is good but way overblown. You would think every meeting is baseball's version of the Civil War. I'm sorry I can't remember one significant game between these two teams since 2004 when the Red Sox beat the Yankees in the playoffs and finally won a World Series in 2004, the expectation was for the rivalry to be even better than before. Well, it's gotten worse. There is no good vs. evil or favorite vs. underdog angle anymore. Boston spends as much money as New York and has won more championships (2) than the Yankees (1) since 2004.
The St. Louis Cardinals are the TV team in the Midwest region. There isn't any thing really objectionable about the Cardinals outside of opposing fan jealously. St. Louis has won 2 World Series and played in every National League Championship series since the end of 2010.
The L.A. Dodgers are the worst of the bunch because they haven't even participated or won a World Series since 1988. I was five years old at that time, I'm 31 as I write this. Damn, that's a long time, 26 years. We've gone to the war in the Middle East twice with two different presidents named Bush and pulled out both times. Gas was a nickel in 1988! Okay, not that cheap but only a couple bucks per gallon. Compare that to today's "hey it's under four dollars" garbage and you have a bargain.
Meanwhile, general sports reporters not assigned to a specific sport move around between events during the season. It's NFL and College Football in the fall into early winter, a NBA-College Basketball-NHL mix through the winter into early spring, NBA and NHL playoffs in late spring and baseball in the summer into early fall. That's what it's supposed to be. As much as we love baseball, March Madness trumps Spring Training and NBA-NHL postseason takes priority from April to mid-June. Something odd happens after the indoor pro sports leagues finish their seasons, people seem to forget baseball is taking place. I can put up with soccer's World Cup and the Summer Olympics being publicized but not NFL practices. Training camps and preseason games in the NFL are viewed as more important than regular season MLB games.
Somebody cue former NBA star Allen Iverson, "WE TALKIN ABOUT PRACTICE! NOT A GAME! NOT A GAME! WE TALKIN ABOUT PRACTICE!". Was that quote taken out of context? Yes. Do I care? No. Does the general sports media take the NFL too seriously? Um....yes. The Redskins won all four of their preseason games last year. How many games did they win in the regular season? Three...OUT OF SIXTEEN GAMES! They were 4-0 in the practice ones and 3-13 in the real games.
Also, a lot of these mainstream media people are talking about how baseball is dying because fewer viewers are watching this year's World Series. The main topic of NFL discussion during their preseason and into early regular season was players beating their wives/girlfriends and the individual teams plus league looking the other way. Yes, this makes perfect sense...if you had a bunch of beers, a diehard football fan, or a clueless member of the media. Baseball is fine, nobody is getting beat up by their husband/boyfriend, no one is getting memory loss or broken bones from taking too many hits to the head, nobody is cheating using performance-enhancing drugs and treated with kid gloves. Baseball is doing good, it could be better on national TV but the sport is alright for now. MLB has stepped up its drug policy after looking the other way for years. They're looking to improve the game experience by making it faster. Better games would equal better TV ratings. However, as John Sterling says "you can't predict baseball".
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