AJC > Sports > Braves > Blog > Archives > 2007 > October > 28
Sunday, October 28, 2007
There’s only one October — please let it end
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Here’s one positive aspect to having another short, one-sided World Series: We won’t have another four days of Dane Cook telling us how many Octobers there are (if I’m not mistaken, he claims there’s only one).
But really, what’s the deal with the long, beautiful grind that is the baseball season, from spring training to October, ending in such anticlimactic fashion as it has so frequently in the past decade?
If the Red Sox win tonight here in Denver, it will be the fifth World Series sweep in 10 years, and the third in four years. We haven’t had a seven-game World Series since Anaheim beat Barry and the Giants in the 2002 series.
Much as I was looking forward to the atmosphere of covering a World Series in Boston and the first ever in Colorado, hasn’t this series been rather lame, unless you’re a card-carrying member of Red Sox Nation?
Glad we’ve at least had this forum here to exchange pleasantries, opinions … and personal attacks. God bless the Braves/MIB blog. Without it, I’d have actually had to write a lot of inches about these games.
Anyway, am I just being jaded? Or do you agree about this series (actually, about this entire postseason, with almost every series entirely one-sided)?
To me, this World Series has been one of uninspiring performances, from Josh Fogg to Boyz II Men, from Willy Tavares to the aforementioned (and inexplicably popular) Dane Cook, from vanilla Kelly Clarkson to Brian Fuentes and balding James Taylor (J.T. was in fine voice, but made us feel old thinking of erstwhile Sweet Baby James).
Oh, maybe I just need more sleep to be able to properly evaluate this. Maybe I’ll look back in a couple of days and realize what a treat it was to see the Mighty Red Sox, who’ve become the ascendant giant Apple Inc. of baseball to the Yankees’ stagnant monolith IBM.
But I doubt it. I doubt I’ll view this as anything more than it was, a mismatch between an almost perfectly constructed Red Sox machine and a good-not-great Colorado team that played out of its collective mind for 3-1/2 weeks, winning 21 of 22 games to go from fourth place team to NL pennant winner.
Clearly, the Red Sox have shed their “loveable underdog” label they wore for most of a century, transforming themselves into a unit with all engines humming, and they’ve torn through the NL champions on the way to a seemingly inevitable second World Series title in four seasons — both sweeps, if they win tonight.
The Yankees are the Evil Empire? Give me a break. The Yankees haven’t won a World Series in seven years. Spending more money than everyone else just doesn’t make them seem very evil if it doesn’t permit the Yankees to beat the Red Sox.
Meanwhile, Red Sox Nation can no longer cling to angst like a security blanket. Sorry, Sawx fans, you just can’t. It doesn’t legitimately apply to a team that, entering tonight, had won seven consecutive World Series games dating to October 2004.
A team that was batting .352 in this World Series, and had outscored the Rockies 25-7 in three games, and scored 95 runs in 13 games this postseason.
Hey, the Rockies are good. They really are. But they had an eight-day layoff that robbed them of their edge. And besides, the Red Sox aren’t good; they’re pretty great.
This series has played out the way it probably would at least seven times if you had these teams play 10 series.
Rookies take center stage: Red Sox rookies Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia were the story of Saturday’s 10-5 Boston win, the two combining for seven hits, three runs and four RBIs while serving as the first rookie duo to hit 1-2 in a batting order for any team in World Series history.
Since last night, a few Braves fans have asked me if Atlanta might have a rookie or two who could have a similar impact next season. And my first reaction is, you can’t honestly predict such a huge impact from any rookie.
But after giving it some thought, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest Brent Lillibridge could end up having a very big impact for the Braves, who should contend for a playoff spot if they make the right moves this winter to strengthen the starting rotation and bench, and obviously fill their center-field void.
Lillibridge, 23, is a top prospect and strong defensive shortstop who excelled after his midseason promotion to Triple-A Richmond, where he .287 with 10 homers, 41 RBIs and 28 stolen bases (in 33 attempts) in 87 games.
But he also played center field as a freshman at the University of Washington in 2003, when he hit .388 with 13 homers, a .451 OBP and a whopping 1.150 OPS in 54 games, the best of his three college seasons.
When you hear the Braves indicate that they have options in the system to replace Andruw Jones if they can’t sign or trade for a veteran center fielder, they are ostensibly referring to Lillibridge and 21-year-old Jordan Schafer, who was selected as the top prospect in the Class-A Carolina League.
I really don’t believe the Braves view either as most-desirable options, not this soon, not to start the season.
But to say they have options can help in possible negotiations with other teams with tradeable center fielders, or with free-agent center fielders who might want to play for the Braves and would consider signing at a discount, if they believed the Braves had other options. And in Lillibridge, they do have a reasonable option.
Schafer is the future center fielder, I really believe. But I’d be very surprised if he’s on the team before late next season, and probably not until at least 2009. He just turned 21 and hasn’t played above A-ball.
Yes, I know Rafael Furcal made the jump directly to the majors from Class A. So what? Furcal was very much an exception, a kid with blazing speed and a cannon who’d hit .330 with 96 stolen bases — yes, 96 — in his final minor league season.
Which brings us back to Lillibridge. He’s supposed to play the second half of the winter-ball season, provided the left wrist he injured at the end of the season is healed. If the Braves have him play center field in winter ball, we’ll know they’re quite serious about him being an option for the position.
After all, if Kelly Johnson can make the conversion from outfield to second base in one offseason, without any previous experience on the right side of the infield, with less than one season of experience in the majors, and after missing the entire 2006 season for elbow surgery, well, then Lillibridge could make the transition back to the position he played four years ago.
He’d have part of the winter-ball season and all of spring training to do it, if that’s the direction the Braves decide to go. I don’t know if they’re seriously considering it, but we’ll know soon enough.
OK, let’s get ready to watch some ball. Still got nearly an hour until the first pitch, so we’ll have Waylon, Johnny, Willie and Kris sing us a song.
”HIGHWAYMAN” by Jimmy Webb
I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.
I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.
I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I’ll always be around…and around and around and around and around
I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I’ll be back again, and again and again and again and again…
What’s that, still got a half-hour to go? Then let’s turn it over to an old rocker.
“ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY” by Joe Walsh
Spent the last year/Rocky Mountain Way
Couldn’t get much higher
Out to pasture/Think it’s safe to say
Time to open fire
And we don’t need the ladies/Crying ‘cuz the story’s sad
‘Cuz the Rocky Mountain Way/Is better than the way we had
Well he’s tellin’ us this/And he’s tellin’ us that
Changes it every day
Says it doesn’t matter
Bases are loaded and Casey’s at bat/Playin’ it play by play
Time to change the batter
And we don’t need the ladies/Crying ‘cuz the storie’s sad, uh huh
Rocky Mountain Way
Is better than the way we had
Hey, hey, hey, hey
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