There is but one way to look at this.
At Rogers Centre here in Toronto, the biggest news is that a bizarrely located aquarium has opened next door. At Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, preparations have begun to host an outdoor NHL game between the Kings and Ducks – just to be clear: ice hockey, outdoors, in southern California – now that the pesky Dodgers have bowed out of the post-season.
In San Francisco the most momentous event of the month at AT&T Park occurred Monday evening when Kanye West presented Kim Kardashian with a 15-carat diamond ring on the field where the Giants play, reportedly paying the mere pittance of $35,000 to rent out the ballpark and stage the most Kanye-est proposal ever, complete with a 50-piece orchestra.
Meanwhile, this week at Fenway Park and Busch Stadium, the Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals will play baseball. They are the only two major league teams on the planet still doing that. You’d better believe it’s the only thing that matters.
You’re going to read and hear a lot over the next week about how boring this World Series matchup is. How self-righteous, privileged and arrogant the two teams’ fan bases are. How once again the Commissioner’s Trophy will be presented to a member of baseball’s old guard; a crew of good old boy Americans who play the game the right way and live by the unwritten rules. It’s fine and all. But know that you’re only hearing so many of these unnecessary adjuncts because no one can make a sound argument for why neither of these teams deserves to be here. The meritocracy that is Major League Baseball’s annual competition has been successful in channeling the two best teams to the World Series. And what could be more sporting than that?
The goal of any MLB season is to play baseball longer than every other team and win your final game. That’s it. Every year only one club out of 30 gets to do it while another comes very close. That the Cardinals and Red Sox decided they would be those two teams by consistently pitching well, finding hits in timely situations, limiting unforced errors, playing steady, textbook defence and winning more games than any other team in their respective leagues, really isn’t something that should be held against them. It’s true that neither team has a mercurial roller coaster of a player like Yasiel Puig or an inspiring underdog story like the Pittsburgh Pirates, but if what you’re looking for this October is stirring protagonists and heartwarming narratives maybe you should consider a movie. Sport doesn’t wait for satisfying plot points. Like it or not, the most capable often win. Not the most interesting.
Plus, isn’t this the way everyone should have wanted things to work out? In baseball, you want the guys who deserve to win to win. You’ve spent six months playing 162 games, plus a wild card competition, plus two rounds of elimination playoffs to get to this point. If those who didn’t warrant success made it safely through that entire gauntlet, the system would be broken. Sports are great because nearly everything is earned. If you’re better than the other guys, and you get a large enough sample size to prove it, you will be rewarded. The system is designed so that nepotism, partisanship and blind luck shouldn’t decide success. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything were like that?
Imagine if last season’s Baltimore Orioles – a truly average team that scored just seven more runs than it allowed, yet nearly had the best record in the American League because of their luck – powered 29-9 record in one-run games – the best since 1890 – made it to the World Series. Imagine Wei-Yin Chen and his 4.02 ERA starting game one, while J.J. Hardy and his .282 on-base percentage hit second. Think about Tommy Hunter and his 5.45 ERA starting game two, with Lew Ford and his .183 batting average holding down the designated hitter spot. Is that really what you want to see in championship games? Do some men just want to watch the world burn?
You should want to see Adam Wainwright starting game one. The 32-year-old studied under the mentorship of Blue Jays and Cardinals great Chris Carpenter and was dominant in his absence this season, pitching to a 2.94 ERA while setting league highs in complete games and shutouts. You should want to see Carlos Beltran hitting second. The 16-year veteran and borderline Hall-of-Famer is one of the greatest post-season performers the game has ever seen, with a .337/.449/.724 triple-slash line in 45 career playoff games.
You should want to see David Ortiz as the designated hitter. In his 11th season with the Red Sox and 17th in the league, Ortiz has continued to defy the realities of age and do what he has done throughout his career-paste the ball. He has a .972 OPS over the past three seasons with nearly as many walks as strikeouts, and his resumé of timely hits in high-leverage playoff situations is as decorated as anyones.
You should want to see Koji Uehara pitching the ninth inning. In just his fifth season since arriving from Japan, the 38-year-old’s 0.565 WHIP set the record for the lowest by a qualified reliever in baseball history. He went one stretch from June through September when he pitched 33 straight scoreless innings, including a run of retiring 37 consecutive batters. He is pure devastation for anyone unlucky enough to face him.
You should want to see all that – to experience the best. That’s why everyone has been at this baseball thing since the first day of spring training back in February. For this moment. Common narratives and players with touching story lines make for good highlight packs and help some people make sense of it all – but in this world those things are empty. Talent, skill and ability are real. That’s Horace Mann’s great equalizer.
There is good reason that Fenway Park and Busch Stadium will host playoff baseball this week and 28 other venues will not. The two best teams play there. Now let’s watch them tear into each other.