AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2006 > October > 21
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Cardinals in … No, I can’t
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So many people are predicting a Tigers sweep or, at best, one or two wins for the Cardinals, it raises concern for me. When the popular sentiment is this overwhelming, my intuition says to go the other way.
And so, after much analysis and a look far deeper than the glaring, obvious reasons to pick Detroit, I’m going to predict … oh, I can’t do it.
I’ve gotta go Tigers, too. Like a sheep. But I’ll at least be daring and say six games. Bit whup, huh? Bold, courageous, I know. That’s me….
By the way, the Tigers go 19-31 in their final 50 regular-season games and the Cardinals go 22-28 in their last 50. Guess that shoots a hole in the theory so many of us have espoused about one reason the Braves have fared so poorly in the postseason — because they clinch the division too early and aren’t able to flick the switch out of cruise control when the postseason begins….
Actually, on second thought, it doesn’t. Instead, it’s a reflection of two things, in my opinion: 1. Jim Leyland is the rare manager with the ability to get his players back into the right mindset and get max effort from his guys when it counts, and 2. NL competition in this postseason was injury-depleted and/or simply underperformed against the Cardinals in the first two rounds, and St. Louis got enough good pitching from Suppan and Weaver — Jeff Weaver? — to beat the Mets, whose hitters slipped when they needed to carry the team….
Just saw that an AP poll shows 48 percent of fans don’t want Bonds to break Hank Aaron’s record. Just 48? Are the other 52 percent feeling sorry for the maligned Mr. Bonds, or perhaps sensing some inner beauty others are missing?…
Jeff Weaver facing the Tigers in the World Series is an underplayed story and such delicious irony. But since it’s a touchy subject for TV as to the final straw for why Weaver got booted by Tigers prez Dave Dombrowski in 2002 — let’s just say it reportedly involved smoking something in the back of the team plane — it’ll probably not get the full treatment. Besides, it’s easier to focus on so many other storylines in this series….
Nine teams have filled the 10 spots in the World Series field during the past five years. Nine teams. Amazing. Only the Cardinals have made more than one appearance in that span….
Mickey Lolich won three games for the Tigers in their 1968 World Series win vs. St. Louis, including Game 7 on two days’ rest. Can you imagine that happening today? Today we do backflips celebrating a starter if he pitches an inning of relief on two days’ rest in the postseason, and spend multiple paragraphs discussing the decision to pitch a guy on three days’ rest instead of four….
OK, the Drive-By Truckers. Let’s just say if the World Series is remotely as entertaining as that 2-1/2 hour spectacle that the preeminent present-day Southern rock band put on Friday night at the Majestic Theatre only blocks down the street from Comerica Field, well, then it’ll be a Series to remember.
The DBT’s — Athens-based but most of them from Alabama — were amazing. What a show. At the end, sweat-soaked and inebriated front man Patterson Hood told the crowd it was the greatest (expletive here) audience the band had played in front of all year, and he might have meant it. The place was jumpin’ and the band was so tight, playing before an adoring packed house in smoke-filled, steamy old converted movie theatre.
Fans of the band should know they played EVERY big song off their last four albums and even a few off the first two. Even went all the way back and played Bulldozers and Dirt, a song they put out as a single before their first CD came out.
The highlights for me were the inclusion of possibly my favorite two Truckers songs, “Outfit” and “Carl Perkins’ Cadillac,” during the encore. Tremendous. As were the steamrollin’ versions of “Ronnie and Neil,” “Life in the Factory,” “Marry Me”, “Decoration Day,” “Sin City,” “Butt&@ville” (they ended the show with a long, smokin’ version of this)…
Too many songs to remember. And their cover of Alice Cooper’s “Eighteen” … stunning.
Anyone who ever gets a chance to see the DBTs, it’s the best $20 you’ll spend. I felt like I should have left them some more money on the way out the door.
