The Phillies take Game One, but there’s hope for the Yankees

Cliff Lee pitched brilliantly tonight as the Phillies defeated the New York Yankees 6-1 in Game One of the World Series. The only run Lee gave up was unearned, in the ninth inning when Jimmy Rollins made a throwing error that allowed Derek Jeter to score.

The New York media will go into convulsions, blasting the lineup for being unable to hit in clutch situations and the bullpen for allowing the Phillies’ lead to expand. But the Yanks can turn it around quickly with a victory in Game Two. I note that Jeter got the Yankees moving in the ninth inning tonight with a single that fell at the feet of hard-charging Shane Victorino.  The Yankee hitters will produce. Count on it.

Besides, I don’t put too much meaning into a Game One victory. In 1982, the Milwaukee Brewers creamed the St. Louis Cardinals 10-0 in Game One, only to lose the series in seven games.

As Lawrence Peter Berra has been known to say, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

The baseball gods are angry

There’s only one plausible explanation for the rainout that postponed Saturday’s American League Championship Series game between the Yankees and Angels: The baseball gods are angry.

They’re angry that the mere mortals who run Major League Baseball would show such hubris to schedule the playoffs so late into the year. Assuming no weather delays and a seven-game series, the World Series this year is scheduled to finish on Nov. 3.

That’s right. In November, when the NFL season is headed toward its own playoffs and the NBA and NHL are well under way.

Baseball is the summer game, and it’s supposed to wrap up with the “Fall Classic.” November is technically in autumn, but it’s simply too inclement then in most major-league cities for the games to be played as scheduled and without significant disruption from the weather.

Major League Baseball needs to change its way. The gods demand it.

Google baseball and what do you get?

The top three Google results for “baseball” are mlb.com, the Wikipedia entry on the sport and — drumroll — The Official Site of the New York Yankees.

A mere hour or so after the Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, what’s the lead video highlight on the Yankees’ site? The triple Robinson Cano hit to give the Yankees a short-lived lead in the game. Evidently the Yankees can’t handle defeat, so they settle for a mid-game highlight.

Ironic offer from MLB.com: A cold-weather Cubs cap

I’m fighting off the common cold, swine flu or for all I know bubonic plague tonight, so I’ll make this quick. I got an e-mail from mlb.com pointing out that they’re having a post-season sale. Batting practice caps — those ugly variants on regular caps with goofy curved side panels — are just $9.99.

I followed the link and was tickled to see this Chicago Cubs cold-weather cap with ear flaps — the ultimate accessory for the franchise that for a century has rarely played in the post-season chill wafting off Lake Michigan.

Last October, I noted the flap cap worn by the Phillies’ Jimmy Rollins, who will likely pull it out of his locker for home games against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series starting with Game 3 on Sunday. Oddly, I could find no Phillies model like the Cubs version. For northern franchises like Boston, Cleveland and Milwaukee, I’d think they’d be a natural.

They might come in handy for home openers, too.

UPDATE: The earflap caps are made by New Era, and I was able to find the Phillies model at this link. The New Era site also has them for the Red Sox, Indians and Brewers. I’ll bet there are more, too. Good news!

So long, St. Louis Cardinals

That didn’t take long. The Los Angeles Dodgers made short work of the Cardinals in the National League Division Series, closing out the sweep this evening 5-1 in St. Louis. The Cardinals and their fans are thus stuck with this National League Central cap to mark their achievements this season.

My fingers want to type “There’s no shame in going to the playoffs and getting swept in the opening round.” But that’s not what I believe.

Getting swept is a humiliating experience in baseball — and there a many equivalents to it in real life. In the NFL, it stings to lose in the first round of the playoffs but not as badly as it does in Major League Baseball. Three and out — ouch.

It hurts even worse if you had one of the games seemingly within reach, only to bobble it as badly as the Cardinals did in the ninth inning of the second game.

If the Cardinals had squeaked into the playoffs as a wild-card team, it might not hurt so bad. But they cruised to their division title. They and their fans expected much more.

It will be a long, cold winter in St. Louis.

The Twins win, and we’re stuck with more games in that horrid dome

Twins win

The Minnesota Twins defeated the Detroit Tigers 6-5 in 12 innings Tuesday night to win the American League Central title, and I’m not happy.

Not because the Twins won per se. They’ve been a terrific story this season, charging from behind to tie the Tigers and force the one-game playoff for the division title.

What irritates me is the prospect of at least one more baseball game being played in the  abomination that is the Metrodome. Although I’ve never set foot in it, I’ve loathed that dome for years.

When the Brewers were in the American League and played there, I hated it on general principles.

When Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek and that generation of Twins were in their heyday, I hated it for the homer hankies the fans waved. (I’ve always hated any team whose fans in an act of mass silliness wave hankies or towels or – please, God, no – thundersticks.)

I even hate the dome in football season, as in the past two weeks when the 49ers and Packers lost in succession to the Vikings.

Why do I find the dome so revolting? I don’t begrudge the Twins and Vikings fans a warm place to sit when it’s freezing outside. But the Metrodome is an over-the-top artificial environment, a chamber of Nordic screams designed to rile and rattle the opposing team. The building is a huge advantage for the home squad, and unfairly so.

There are other domes in professional sports. I’ve been in Skydome or whatever it’s now called in Toronto and the old Kingdome in Seattle (inset), for which I had a minimal, grudging tolerance. I’ve also been in Miller Park in Milwaukee, with the roof open and closed. None of those parks approaches the Metrodome in affecting the outcome of a game.

Quirky differences among ballparks parks add to baseball’s appeal — the Green Monster at Fenway Park, the ivy at Wrigley Field, McCovey Cove in San Francisco, the arches at Yankee stadia, old and new. Those features constitute charm and give the home team a bit of a boost. But they don’t loom oppressively over the game as does the Metrodome.

That the Twins are moving to the new Target Field next season is good news. It can’t come soon enough.

For most of us, it’s ‘Wait Until Next Year’

Playoffs notwithstanding, for most baseball fans today is the first day of the long winter. The season is over, the concession stands are empty, the lockerrooms bare as the players have packed up to go fishing or hunting or whatever they do in the off-season.

For followers of the Chicago Cubs, the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas City Royals, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the San Francisco Giants, another year has passed without post-season play. We small- and mid-market fans will watch glumly as the Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Rockies, Angels, Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers or Twins stretch their seasons.

For those teams, hope remains for October glory, a pennant, a World Series champagne spray. But for most of us — like this crushed Cubs fan — our refrain is “Wait until next year.”

Spring training can’t come soon enough.

Less than excited about baseball wild card races

We’re in a wild card race. Awesome!!!

Well, hardly. Wild-card races in Major League Baseball have been running for a couple of decades, and I still can’t fully accept them.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take a wild card berth. As I write this post, I’m listening to the Giants and the Dodgers. I want the Giants to sweep LA this weekend as I simultaneously pray for the Colorado Rockies to drop each game in their series with the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But the race for a wild card berth doesn’t nearly get me as excited as someone claiming a league or division title. Way back in the late 60s as baseball contemplated following the NFL into multi-division playoffs, I can remember my father telling me that the playoffs were supposed to be the antidote to the all-too-frequent runaway teams atop the old single-division American and National leagues.

In many years, that vision has come through. But — Yankees and Red Sox fans, don’t hate me — I grow weary of the same teams returning to the playoffs year after year after year. The seemingly endless run of playoff appearances by the Atlanta Braves is a good example. They hoarded playoff appearances, although I must admit my judgment carries the bitter tinge from their only Series victory in recent memory, in 1995 over the Cleveland Indians.

Then there was the ‘97 series, in which the NL wild card team – the Florida Marlins – defeated the Tribe in the series. Where’s the justice in that?

I know I’m fighting the last war by whining about the wild card concept, so let this be my last harangue on the subject. I will now turn my attention back to the Giants, and hope against hope that their stellar pitching and anemic hitting manage to sneak them into the playoffs, on the road to a World Series victory against an AL team that won 20 more games in the regular season.

Caps on sale at MLB.com

In the market for a new cap or two? Major League Baseball has a sale on at its online store: Buy one cap, get the second of equal or lesser value at a 50 percent discount.  The sale runs through Aug. 3. It’s a great way to build your collection. A Seattle Mariners trident model, anyone?

Baseball resumes today, and that’s a good thing

The All-Star break is over, and the games resume today in Major League Baseball.  For the players and the fans, it’s a fresh start and a reason to think optimistically about the drive for the playoffs.

It’s also a good occasion to quote the sage advice of Yogi Berra: “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”