A Ride on the Ryan Express

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Prior to the 1989 season, the Texas Rangers signed Nolan Ryan, and a new era of Rangers baseball began.

Until that time, the Rangers were a major–league joke. They were seldom competitive in the American League — in fact, in the previous two seasons, they had been last or next–to–last in their division. In my memory, baseball in north Texas in those days was nothing more than a place filler between football seasons.

Nolan Ryan changed that. He energized the team's fan base and attracted new fans. Turned out, north Texas was itching to support a baseball team that was committed to at least trying to win, and signing Ryan was the clearest signal to date that the Rangers management definitely wanted to win.

That really makes all the difference in whether a professional sports team succeeds. There have always been — and always will be — people who watch sporting events for other reasons (those who watch auto races just to see a crash or a hockey game just to see a fight). They exist in every city. In my experience, the larger that demographic is within a team's local fan base, the less seriously that team is taken elsewhere.

I went to a few Ranger games before Nolan Ryan came along, and most of the people I saw were there to see the Rangers' Keystone Kops–style baseball. A few were tourists in the Metroplex, taking in a baseball game because there was nothing better to do.

But, as I say, Ryan changed that. The Rangers of '89 leaped from the gate and took first place in their division on the fifth day of the season. They were 15–4 on April 28 when they began a weekend series at home against the defending AL East champion Boston Red Sox.

A friend of mine and I had been following the pitching results and rotations and we figured that, if there were no rainouts or injuries, Ryan and Boston ace Roger Clemens would be on track to face each other in Arlington on Sunday, April 30. In a remarkable display of confidence at which I can only marvel today, we purchased tickets roughly two weeks ahead of time.

We knew it was risky. We knew the old saying about April showers. We knew it was possible that either team could be rained out at any time. And we knew that either pitcher could get hurt (Ryan, we figured, was particularly vulnerable, being 42 when the season began). But none of those things happened, and Ryan and Clemens faced off as expected in Arlington 25 years ago today.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny late April day in Arlington, Texas. A crowd of 40,429 came out to the ballpark to see the game — it was the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere I had ever experienced at a Rangers game.

The Red Sox took a 1–0 lead in the first inning, and that was the score until the bottom of the eighth when Rafael Palmeiro hit a home run off Clemens with Cecil Espy on base. The Rangers, leading 2–1, then relieved Ryan in the ninth. Jeff Russell retired the Red Sox in order to earn his fifth save of the season, and Ryan's record improved to 3–1. Clemens suffered his first loss of the season.

It wasn't until I was in the car driving home, listening to the postgame program on the radio, that I learned that Ryan had been pitching with back spasms from the second inning on — yet he only yielded three hits all day. (If he had been playing for a National League team, he would have had to take his turns at bat — and, as a result, might not have lasted as long as he did.)

The Rangers didn't make the playoffs in 1989, but they went from being 33½ games out of first place in 1988 to 16 games out in 1989. They didn't make the playoffs before Ryan retired in 1993, but, had it not been for the baseball strike in 1994, the Rangers might have been in the playoffs that year (they led their division by a single game when the strike began).

They did make the playoffs in 1997 and 1999 — and they were in the World Series a decade later.

And I will always believe they did all that because Nolan Ryan joined the team 25 years ago.

Fenway's Centennial

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I've been to Boston a few times in my life, and I've seen the historic sights that there are to see there, but I've never been to Fenway Park, the home of the Red Sox.

It's long been a fantasy of mine to go there — and to some of the other classic ballparks in America. A friend of mine and I used to talk about going on such a road trip — the way guys often do — and, to a certain extent, I think we were both serious about it.

But, on a more realistic level, I think we both realized it was just a fantasy, nothing more. Certainly nothing that we were ever likely to do.

The prospect became more remote as many of those historic, classic ballparks — Tiger Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Comiskey Park — disappeared. (I went to the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis several times when I was younger, but it has been replaced in recent years, and I went to the Astrodome in Houston when I was about 10 years old — but the 'Dome hardly qualifies as a classic ballpark.)

Fenway is the oldest active major league ballpark, and today is the 100th anniversary of its opening.

It's hard to imagine a Red Sox great who never played in Fenway. Babe Ruth pitched there. Tris Speaker roamed its outfield, as did Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski.

After I had graduated from college and went to work on sports copy desks for daily newspapers, Wade Boggs was a regular at third base for the Sox, and Roger Clemens set all kinds of records on the mound.

Talk about a field of dreams.

I, for one, will never forget watching Carlton Fisk wave his game–winning homer into fair territory against Cincinnati in the 1975 World Series.

(Not that the folks who put together the postseason highlight reels would ever let me forget it.)

The "Green Monster" is a fixture in left field, one of many quirks in an old ballpark where, apparently, amenities have always been rather sparse for spectators.

"It's not easy to find in the labyrinth Boston calls a city plan," writes Stephen Cannella in Sports Illustrated. "If you manage to get there by car, it's nearly impossible to park."

And that's just outside the ballpark.

I gather it's always been a kind of Joe–Friday–just–the–facts–ma'am sort of place.

"The Red Sox didn't even hold an opening ceremony ... until May 17," writes Cannella. "The implicit message from the new Fenway to its fans: This is a baseball park. You are here to watch baseball."

They still come to Fenway to watch baseball — which isn't such a bad thing at a time when so many entertainment venues seek to be all things to all people simultaneously — and they'll be celebrating this centennial in Boston all year.

For the rest of 2012, the ballpark and the ball club will have to share the billing.

But today, everyone's attention is, as it should be, on Fenway and its connection to the history of the city and the sport.

There is a game being played at Fenway this afternoon, and it's appropriate that Boston's longtime rivals, the New York Yankees, are in town this weekend.

I have no evidence to support this, but I have to think the scheduling was by design.

Even if it wasn't, even if the opponent had been scheduled completely at random and the Sox were playing the most unexciting, nondescript franchise in the league (and, based on the 2011 standings, I suppose that would be the Twins or the Mariners — or, if the schedule makers wanted to keep it in Boston's division, the Orioles), this would still be a special day in Boston.

But the fact that the foe at Fenway today will be New York makes it that much more special.

Happy birthday, Fenway — and many, many more.

Gary Carter Dies

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I had mixed feelings today when I heard that Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter had died.

I wasn't one of Carter's fans. Just the opposite, as a matter of fact. He played most of his career for teams other than the Dodgers — who have been my personal favorites since I was a kid.

Twenty years ago, as his 19–year career was nearing its end, he spent a season with the Dodgers. But he spent most of his career being a thorn in their sides.

In 1981, when a strike wiped out about one–third of the season, Montreal faced Los Angeles in the National League Championship Series (which the Dodgers won, three games to two). Carter hit a blistering .438 for the Expos in that series.

Then, in 1988, as a member of the New York Mets, he came up a game short against the Dodgers again.

But, while there were many highlights in his career (which included 11 All–Star Game appearances and three Gold Gloves), Carter probably will be remembered most for the role he played in his only World Series, the 1986 Fall Classic against the Boston Red Sox.

It was the sixth game, and the Mets trailed, three games to two. In the 10th inning, the Mets trailed by two runs and there were two outs when Carter stepped to the plate. Boston got two strikes on Carter and was only one strike away from ending a title drought that was, at that time, nearly 70 years old — but then Carter got a hit and sparked a come–from–behind victory that is — justifiably — regarded by many as the greatest World Series game ever played.

The Mets went on to win the seventh game — and the Series — but that 10th–inning rally in the sixth game shifted the momentum irreversibly in New York's direction, and Carter was responsible for that.

There are still some Red Sox fans who will complain — loudly and at length — about Bill Buckner's infamous error, But if Boston had gotten Carter out, that error never would have happened, and Red Sox fans would not have been forced to endure 18 more seasons without a World Series title.

Any ballplayer can catch lightning in a bottle, of course, even on a stage as big and in a spotlight as bright as the World Series, and I would never suggest that Carter was the best player — or even the best catcher — I ever saw play the game.

But in just a few hours since I heard of his death, the thing I have heard mentioned the most about Carter — more often than the '86 Series or his All–Star selections or anything else — by sports writers and athletes alike was his infectious, ever–present smile.

"I cannot conjure a single image of Gary Carter with anything but a smile on his face," writes Tom Verducci for Sports Illustrated, and I must agree.

I did a little informal research and looked back at all the photos I could find of Gary Carter, both on the baseball field and off, and that smile was always there. It was contagious, in a way, capable of bringing a smile to the sternest of visages.

I think that was because Carter never came across as being insincere. He had been known as "The Kid" since, well, since he was a kid, and he always seemed to have that youthful zeal and exuberance.

"He was as genuine a person and as tough a ballplayer as you would ever want to come across," Verducci writes, and that certainly is true. He was a competitor. You don't spend nearly two decades playing catcher in the majors if you aren't.

They're remembering Carter with great fondness in New York, as you might expect. Mike Lupica writes in the New York Daily News that Carter is "dead much too young, the old Met they knew and we knew as Kid, the one who played the game with talent and joy and a smile."

And the New York Times, which has raised obituary writing to an art form, observes that "Carter's exuberance complemented his prowess at the plate." Considering that the Times is also mourning the loss of Anthony Shadid, its Pulitzer Prize–winning foreign correspondent, I think that's pretty generous.

In what may be the most impressive tribute paid to Carter, though, the writers in Red Sox country are being generous, too.

Ben Walker writes in the Boston Globe that "[h]is smile, bubbly personality and eagerness to excel on a ballfield made him a joy to watch at the plate and behind it."

In seven weeks, the 2012 major league baseball season will begin, and baseball fans will see every player who takes the field showing the kind of excitement that Carter showed every day of his playing career, even when his legs began to slow and his bat lost its pop. The enthusiasm fades for most ballplayers as the season progresses, but, for Carter, it never did.

Every day was like Opening Day for Carter. It was his default position.

Billy Buck's Boo-Boo

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At one time or another, I guess, most American boys play organized baseball.

And most probably fantasize about driving in the run that wins the World Series for their teams.

If that is the dream, then what happened to Bill Buckner on this night 25 years ago is the nightmare.

Buckner's Boston Red Sox were one out away from ending a World Series drought that had existed since 1918. In fact, the scoreboard in New York's Shea Stadium flashed a congratulatory message — briefly.

But that turned out to be premature.

The Mets, who had given up two runs in the top of the 10th, scored a run, then had the tying run on third and the winning run on first. Mookie Wilson was at the plate against a new pitcher, who threw a wild pitch, scoring the tying run and putting the winning run at second.

Wilson then hit a slow grounder in the direction of veteran first baseman Bill Buckner, who seemed sure to make the play. But the ball took a strange hop just before it got to Buckner and rolled into the outfield, allowing Ray Knight to score the winning run from second.

The cameras almost immediately zeroed in on home plate, where Knight was scoring the winning run, but they lingered for a few seconds on Buckner after the ball got away from him, providing the image I will always remember from that night — Buckner standing forlornly at first while his teammates scrambled to retrieve the ball in the outfield.

My instinct would have been to run after that ball, even if I knew deep in my heart that there was no way I could reach it before one of the other players did — and, even more importantly, before Knight could score that winning run. My mind wouldn't let me accept that the die had been cast, that it was over.

But it was as if Buckner realized, in that split second when the ball took its inexplicable jump, that it was over, and he was resigned to the abuse that he knew would come his way.

Actually, it wasn't the end of the Series. The Red Sox brought a 3–2 lead to New York and needed to win either Game 6 or Game 7. The game that was played 25 years ago tonight was only the sixth game. The Red Sox could have won the seventh game and been world champions, but the pitching staff fell apart, as it had been inclined to do against the Mets.

As it did in Game 6 when that wild pitch allowed the tying run to score.

It wasn't Buckner's fault that Boston lost that seventh game, either. He went two for four at the plate and committed no errors in the field. In fact, Buckner even scored a run in Boston's comeback attempt in the late innings, but it simply wasn't enough.

Besides, the Mets were favored to win that Series before it began — and they weren't slight favorites, either. The Mets were heavy favorites that year.

The fact that the Mets won it was no real surprise. What was surprising was the way that title was won.

I knew it was a bitter experience for Red Sox fans — to be so close and see it slip through their fingers — and I empathized with them. But that did not excuse how they treated Buckner when the Series was over.

One would have thought he was a latter–day Shoeless Joe Jackson — except Shoeless Joe at least got the gamblers' money. As far as I can see, Billy Buck got nothing but abuse.

Say it ain't so, Billy Buck. But it was so. It just wasn't intentional.

What happened 25 years ago tonight had to be one of the strangest finishes of any game in World Series history — and it was almost immediately taken to be the latest confirmation of the existence of the "Curse of the Bambino" — the superstitious belief that, when the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees, a "curse" was put on the franchise, preventing it from winning a championship.

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I always felt it was unfair for Buckner to be subjected to the abuse of the frustrated Boston baseball fans — just as I always thought it was unfair when the fans of another long–suffering baseball franchise blamed their team's 2003 postseason defeat on a fellow fan's innocent reach for a foul ball.

Team sports are precisely that — team sports. On extremely rare occasions, a team's loss is clearly the fault of a single player or an official's bad call; on even rarer occasions, a loss is the fault of an innocent bystander.

Most of the time, though, it is the result of a team effort. Teams win and lose as teams.

Whether such a thing as the "Curse of the Bambino" ever really existed, the Red Sox, who had won several titles before selling Ruth to the Yankees, went on to lose the 1986 World Series to the other New York team.

The Sox did not win another title until 2004. The Yankees, meanwhile, became the most successful franchise in major league baseball after acquiring the Babe.

I don't know if that was a curse, but 25 years ago tonight, Buckner probably would have told you that it sure wasn't a blessing.

Anyway, after the perceived "curse" was gone, the Red Sox were just another team again, and they were free to play ball without the weight of all those years on their shoulders.

A few years later, they won another title, and no one, as I recall, said anything about a "curse." As he watched the Series, Buckner (who, ironically, played for the Cubs before coming to Boston) may have thought about it and reflected that 21st century ball players don't know the meanings of the words pressure, expectations and superstition.

But the following spring, Buckner participated in the unfurling of the world championship banner at Boston's Fenway Park. The fans gave him a standing ovation, and Buckner later spoke of a sense of closure that came from being in the ballpark on that day.

"I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston, per se, but I would have to say in my heart I had to forgive the media for what they put me and my family through," he said.

And now, Billy Buck's boo–boo is a part of baseball lore.

Boston's Memorable Comeback

The year 1929 seems to be inescapable for Americans these days.

Of course, the financial crisis has had people thinking about the Great Depression (which began with the stock market crash in October of that year) for awhile now.

But last night the Boston Red Sox gave sports fans a chance to reflect on 1929 as well.

(Considering that the last comparable comeback in baseball occurred only a couple of weeks before the legendary Stock Market Crash of 1929, Americans outside the Boston area may not find much comfort in last night's rally by the Red Sox.)

With their 8-7 win over Tampa Bay, the Red Sox remained alive in the American League Championship Series. They trail, three games to two, as they return to Tampa for the final two games this weekend.

The comeback, as has been stated, was the greatest in baseball's postseason since 1929, which was 40 years before the American and National Leagues split into divisions. In 1929, the only postseason games were the World Series itself — which matched the Philadelphia Athletics and the Chicago Cubs that year.

The A's won the first two games in Chicago, then lost the third game when the series shifted to Philadelphia. Thus, when the teams met for Game 4 on Saturday, Oct. 12, 1929, in Philadelphia, the visiting team had won each of the first three games.

It looked like that trend would continue through the first six innings of the fourth game.

The Cubs led, 8-0, going into the bottom of the seventh. But left fielder Al Simmons led off the at-bat with a home run for the A's, and Philadelphia scored nine more runs on nine more hits — taking a 10-8 lead into the eighth. The score held up, giving the A's a 3-1 lead in the series.

The Athletics clinched the world championship with another come-from-behind victory two days later, on Monday, Oct. 14, 1929, at Philadelphia's Shibe Park. The Cubs took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but the Athletics rallied for three runs to finish off Chicago in five games.

Does last night's rally have any historical significance — for either the economy or baseball?

It's hard to say what, if any, relationship the two things have to each other — and, therefore, whether the occurrence of an historic comeback should serve as an omen of an impending economic collapse.

It seems to me that a few things can be said with some certainty:

• Although we often hear sports analogies used in economic conversations, the fact is that the advantage in an athletic contest is more permanent than the advantages most consumers realize with most investments.
  
  As we've seen in the recent wild fluctuations of the stock market, the value of stocks can change drastically on a daily basis — if not hourly or even by the minute.
  
  But, unless a rules violation is discovered long after a game is over, and a team is required to forfeit a game it won on the field, a win is a win is a win. Fans can "what-if" an outcome indefinitely, some fans may desert a team because of it, but the outcome itself doesn't change. Nor does the value of any championships that were won.


• Also — unless I missed something — I didn't get the sense that this was a deal breaker for Tampa Bay.
  
  In 2003, at Chicago's Wrigley Field, when the Cubs were a few outs away from winning the National League title in Game 6 and blew it when both a fan and a player failed to catch a fly ball, igniting a fateful (and nearly as improbable) eight-run rally by Florida, I clearly got the feeling that the air had gone out of the team and the fans, even though Florida did not clinch the league title that night.
  
  The difference between the 2003 Cubs and the 2008 Rays is that the Cubs were playing at home. The crowd for Game 7 at Wrigley Field seemed more subdued than one would expect, perhaps with the memory of the previous game fresh in the fans' minds.
  
  And the Cubs' long-suffering fans were eliminated as factors in the game when Florida rallied from a 5-3 deficit to take the lead for good in the fifth inning.
  
  Only time will tell if a similar fate awaits the Rays. But they lost Game 5 on the road, and now they have two opportunities to wrap up the American League title at home. I like their chances.

Here's a sampling of the media response to last night's game:

• If you pull for the Boston Red Sox, you've lived with a history of postseason futility that was nearly as paralyzing as the one the Cubs' fans have endured for a century.
  
  In the end, it may take something as dramatic as Boston's championship season of 2004 to snap them out of it.
  
  In 2004, as you may recall, the Red Sox came back from an 0-3 deficit against the rival New York Yankees to win the league title in seven games, then won the World Series with a four-game sweep of St. Louis that was capped by a total lunar eclipse on the night of Game 4 that colored the moon red over Busch Stadium.
  
  Anyway, the Red Sox's fans know what's it like to have their backs against the wall.
  
  "Pedigree matters," says Bob Ryan in the Boston Globe. "The Red Sox are the defending champions. They always come to play nine innings, and if it takes the greatest postseason comeback in 79 years to stay alive, then they will give you the greatest comeback in 79 years."


• The rally was "unbelievable," as Joe Posnanski writes in his blog.
  
  "This was like something out of a kid’s dream," he writes. "Do you remember being a kid and concocting these fantastic scenarios when your team was losing, these preposterous comebacks that boggled logic and the space-time continuum?"


• Gary Shelton concedes, in the St. Petersburg Times, that Boston put together a remarkable comeback.
  
  "The Rays lost a devastating game," Shelton writes. "They didn't lose anything else. They did not lose momentum, they did not lose their confidence, and they did not lose their grip on the ALCS. Saturday night, Sunday at the latest, they will close out this thing. Just you watch."


• But judging from the tone of his recap in today's Tampa Tribune, Martin Fennelly believes the tide has turned — and that, in spite of their 3-2 lead with the last two games to be played at home, the Rays are finished.
  
  "Seven runs up. Seven outs away," he writes. "It goes on. How will the Rays?"

The Final Four

Baseball's 2008 divisional series are complete now, and three of the four survivors that I predicted last week have advanced to the next round.

The surprise entrant, at least as far as my predictions are concerned, is the Boston Red Sox. I predicted they would lose to the Los Angeles Angels. But they didn't, winning a 3-2 ballgame at Fenway Park last night to eliminate the Angels.

And they will go on to meet the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series. That series starts on Friday.

If Tampa Bay defeats Boston, that will make two consecutive seasons in which a team that has never been in a World Series before wins its league's title and advances to the Fall Classic. The Colorado Rockies played in their first World Series last year, but they failed to win a game against the Red Sox.

It would also be the fifth time in this decade that a team has played in its first World Series. The others were the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Anaheim Angels and the Houston Astros.

Playing for a World Series berth is nothing new for the Red Sox or their fans. Only the Yankees (who have more World Series championships — 26 — than any other team) and the Athletics have represented the American League in the World Series more often than the Red Sox.

Both the Dodgers and the Phillies have been to the Fall Classic before, but the Dodgers have been there more frequently. In fact, the Dodgers have played in the World Series more often (18 times) than any other National League team. By contrast, the Phillies have been in the World Series five times with only one title to show for it — the fewest of non-expansion teams.

But numbers from the past — even the recent past — really don't mean anything in the playoffs. Already, the teams with the best records in both leagues (the Angels and the Cubs) have been eliminated.

In fact, Scoop Jackson of ESPN speculates that the Cubs' meltdown against the Dodgers was their worst ever. If he's right, that's a pretty impressive achievement, considering the Cubs' record of failure in the playoffs.

Here's my prediction:

• In the National League, I predict the Dodgers will defeat the Phillies in five games.
  
  The first game will start at 7:22 p.m. (Central) on Thursday. It will be televised on FOX.


• In the American League, the Rays may be the sentimental favorite, but I pick the team with the postseason experience — the Red Sox — to win the championship in six games.
  
  The first game starts at 7:37 p.m. (Central) Friday. It will be televised by TBS.

Fasten your seat belts. It could be a bumpy ride.

Here Are My Playoff Predictions

Milwaukee and Philadelphia are due to get the baseball postseason started in a couple of hours.

And I want to get in my first-round predictions before the first pitch is thrown.

In the National League:

• Milwaukee vs. Philadelphia: Both teams performed well at home, winning about three-fifths of the time. The Phillies played a little better on the road than the Brewers did.
  
  Both teams were pretty weak at the plate. The Phillies were 10th among the 16 N.L. clubs with a .255 average. The Brewers were 12th with a .251 average.
  
  According to the old saying, though, pitching and defense win championships. There have been exceptions, but that certainly seems to be true in short series.
  
  If it becomes a matter of pitching, who has the edge between the Brewers and the Phillies? Based on the numbers, it looks pretty close. For that matter, the top four teams in the N.L. in ERA are the same four teams who are in the playoffs. Milwaukee had a 3.85 ERA during the season, the Phillies had a 3.88 ERA. Pitching should be pretty strong in the N.L.'s playoff games.
  
  The bullpen appears to be about equal, with Milwaukee getting 45 saves during the season and Philadelphia getting 44.
  
  I predict it will go five games and I'll give the edge to the team with the homefield advantage — Philadelphia.


• Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs: Hands down, the Cubs were the best home team in the National League, winning two-thirds of their games at Wrigley Field. The Dodgers were pretty good at home, too, winning a little more than 59% of the time.
  
  On the road, the Cubs had a winning record (winning 52% of their games) while the Dodgers won less than 45% of their road games.
  
  The Cubs had the best team batting average of any team in the playoffs — in either league (.278) — and their pitchers' ERA was a respectable 3.87, which was fifth-best in the majors (although it trails the Dodgers' 3.68 ERA, the best in the National League).
  
  Those numbers should suggest an easy Cubs win. In fact, they should suggest an easy win against the Dodgers and another easy win against either the Phillies or the Brewers, making a trip to the World Series virtually inevitable.
  
  But these are the Cubs we're talking about. When you look up "futility" or "error-prone" — or "curse" — in the dictionary, you should see the Cubs logo.
  
  History tells me that, because we're talking about the Cubs, we will see a magnificent collapse. And, if history provides any indication of what to expect, it will be grander and more heartbreaking than any of the Cubs' previous collapses.
  
  So my question is, will the Cubs collapse against the Dodgers and their N.L.-leading ERA? Or will they win in the first round, only to wilt against either the Phillies' league-leading home run hitters or the Brewers' pitchers, with their 3.85 ERA and league-most complete games?
  
  I'm going to guess that they'll end the suspense quickly and lose in the first round to the Dodgers, three games to two.

In the American League:

Chicago White Sox vs. Tampa Bay: Tampa Bay had better winning percentages at home (70% to 66%) and on the road (49% to 43%) than the White Sox did.

The White Sox led the league in home runs, but, other than that, neither team's offense was at the top of the A.L. charts. The Sox were 11th of 14 teams and the Rays were 13th in batting average. Tampa Bay showed pretty good speed during the season, leading the A.L. in stolen bases, but their problem was getting on base in the first place, ranking 13th in base hits.

The key, in addition to winning percentages at home and on the road, may be found in pitching. Tampa Bay was second in the league in ERA (Chicago was sixth), tied for third in complete games (Chicago was 11th) and virtually tied for third in strikeouts with the White Sox (Chicago had 1,147 while Tampa Bay had 1,143).

If it comes down to the bullpen, Tampa's relievers recorded the A.L.'s second-best tally in saves (52) while Chicago was 12th in that category (34).

Plus, Chicago may be a little tired after having to play two additional games on Monday and Tuesday just to qualify for the playoffs while everyone else was resting and licking their wounds.

I pick Tampa in four games.


• Boston vs. Los Angeles Angels: Boston was a stronger team at home than Los Angeles, winning 69% of the time in Fenway Park while the Angels won about 62% of the time at home. Boston struggled on the road, winning 48% of its games while the Angels again won about 62% of the time.
  
  At the plate, the Red Sox had a better year than the Angels, recording a higher batting average of .280 to Los Angeles' .268. Boston was sixth in the league in home runs (L.A. was ninth), but the Angels finished second in steals (129), just ahead of Boston (120).
  
  Who has the edge in pitching? L.A.'s ERA was 3.99 while Boston's was 4.01. The Angels' bullpen led the A.L. in saves with 66; Boston was a distant third with 47. But Boston led the league in strikeouts with 1,185, while the Angels were sixth in the A.L. with 1,106.
  
  It doesn't really seem to matter to the Angels whether they're at home or on the road. The Red Sox will be competitive, but I pick the Angels to win in four games.

Enjoy the playoffs!

Almost Set Now

Sunday was the last day on the major league baseball schedule, and the initial pairings in the playoffs are almost set now.

It's a done deal in the National League.

The Los Angeles Dodgers will play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field in the opener of their series on Wednesday. Milwaukee and Philadelphia will open their series that afternoon in Philadelphia.

Likewise, the American League's playoff schedule is almost complete now.

Today, the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers have to play a makeup game. If Chicago wins, the White Sox will be tied for the A.L. Central title and will play host to the Minnesota Twins in a one-game playoff tomorrow. If Chicago loses today, the Twins win the division and the final playoff berth.

The winner of the A.L. Central will travel to A.L. East champion Tampa Bay for the series opener on Thursday. Meanwhile, the other A.L. playoff series begins Wednesday when the Boston Red Sox travel to Los Angeles to take on the Angels.