KC Should Have Sent Gordon

Congrats to the Giants!
The TV ratings may have been down, but that was a fun World Series. Back-to-back shutouts by different teams. Has that ever happened before? Yes. In 1905 the New York Giants played the Philadelphia Athletics in a 5-game series. All five were shutouts. Game 1 by the Giants, Game 2 by the A's, Games 3, 4 and 5 by the Giants. In 1906 the White Sox and Cubs exchanged shutouts. In 1908 the Cubs and Tigers did it. In the 1919 "Black Sox" series the White Sox had a shutout in Game 3 followed by Reds shutouts in Games 4 and 5. In 1940 the Tigers and Reds exchanged shutouts in Games 5 and 6. In 1946 the Cardinals shut out the Red Sox in Game 3 and Boston returned the favor in Game 4. In 1949 the Yankees and Dodgers had back-to-back shutouts in Games 1 and 2 and in 1956 they swapped shutouts in Games 5, 6 and 7. In 1958 the Yankees and Milwaukee Braves swapped shutouts in Games 3, 4 and 5. But it hadn't happen for the last 56 years.

What would have been even more exciting?
It's Game 7, bottom of the 9th, two outs, Giants leading by one run. Madison Bumgarner has set down 14 straight in an incredible 5 innings of relief. Alex Gordon represents the last chance for Kansas City. He hits a single to left-center that gets bobbled by both Gregor Blanco and Juan Perez and he winds up on 3rd, representing the tying run. That's as far as he gets. KC's Salvador Perez pops up to Kung Fu Panda for the 3rd out. That's the game and the Series.

It probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but...
If instead of holding Gordon at 3rd, Kansas City 3rd base coach Mike Jirschele had given him the big arm wave and sent him home it would have tied the game if he slid in safe. Even if Gordon had been out...what an exciting finish...the World Series ends with the tying run thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the 9th. That would have been right up there with Bill Mazeroski (1960), Carlton Fisk (1975), Kirk Gibson (1988) and Joe Carter (1993) as a highlight for the ages.

The Most Exciting Games I've Ever Seen

That was a fast decade.
It was ten years ago that I took my daughter Caitlin Kelley to the Red Sox-Yankees playoff game at Fenway Park. It was a Sunday night, October 17th.

The night before I had taken my other daughter, Kara Kelley, to Game 3 in the series. The Sox were already down two games to none after Curt Schilling (Ace #1) and Pedro Martinez (Ace #1A) had both lost in the Bronx on Tuesday and Wednesday. Friday night was a rainout, and in Game 3 the Sox were pounded. We actually left during the 7th inning stretch when we were losing, 17-6. We got home in time for the opening of Saturday Night Live where they were making fun of the Red Sox being down 3 games to none and they might as well give up now and go golfing. I think that was the night Ashlee Simpson was caught doing a bad job of lip-synching.

Sunday night the place was buzzing.
A packed house, of course, with a ton of police presence. Every surrounding town was called in for backup. We bumped into Larry David on the way in, and I decided that I should say something to him. "Hey, you're Larry David" would be way too lame, so I decided to say, "Larry - who are you rooting for...the Padres?" He looked at me with his WTF expression and said, "Why would you ask me that?" I had no reply, and we went to our seats in Section 29. I had been thinking of an episode in "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where Larry is invited to a Padres-Yankees game but doesn't show up.

Then came the 9th.
The Yankees were leading in the game, 4-3, and leading in the ALCS, 3 games to none. No team had ever come back from a 3-0 deficit, and it's the bottom of the 9th, and we're facing the best closer in the history of baseball, Mariano Rivera.

We all know what happened.
Kevin Millar works a leadoff walk, Dave Roberts goes in to pinch run. Everyone in the ballpark knows that Roberts is going at attempt a steal, and Rivera throws over four or five times so Roberts doesn't get too good a lead. On the fifth throw over, Dave Roberts slides back to the base, then gets up and starts walking toward the dugout. From our vantage point in Section 29 it absolutely looked like Roberts was picked off. Oh, well...there goes the season. We'll wait till next year...again. But wait...Dave Roberts was not picked off. He was just brushing the dirt off his pants. They were pretty dirty after five straight slides back to first.

My favorite Jeter moment.
During the year-long Derek Jeter farewell tour in 2014 writers and fans talked about their favorite Jeter moments. Here's mine:

Jeter fails to make the tag.

Bill Mueller singles, Dave Roberts scores to tie the game, we go on to the 12th, when Big Papi hit a 2-run walkoff to send everyone home tired but happy. Joe Castiglione said, "We'll see you for Game 5 later today." (I was there, not listening to the radio, so I didn't hear that line until later.) When we got home at 2:30 AM...Caitlin had a class at 9AM at Providence College...I went online to figure out which episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" I had been thinking of. Turned out it was actually a "Sopranos" episode, where Finn, the boyfriend of Meadow, is invited to Yankees game by Vito but is afraid and doesn't show up. That's why Larry David had no idea what I was talking about.

Then the 14-inning marathon.
I went with my brother Hugh Kelley. It was a 5PM start. A mere 15 hours after the previous night's game ended. We were both scoring the game, as we usually do. The Red Sox took 2-0 lead, but New York went up 4-2 in the 6th, and the Red Sox tied it in the 8th (Mariano Rivera again giving up the tying run). As we flipped our scorecards over after each half-inning it seemed like the Yankees had jerks like Jeter and A Rod and Matsui and Bernie Williams and Hor-hay Posada leading off every inning. Tim Wakefield pitched the final three innings, and even though Jason Varitek was having a tough time catching Wake's knuckleballs, the Yankees got only one hit and no runs. In the bottom of the 14th Papi delivered again with an RBI single that scored Johnny Damon.

The rest is history.
Game 6 was the Schilling "bloody sock" game, Game 7 was all Red Sox. Then the sweep of the Cardinals to finally end the curse.

The most exciting games I've ever seen.
I've been going to games at Fenway since 1957. I've been to games at every Major League Ballpark (a total of 41), I've been to the All-Star game and seven World Series games...even saw the Red Sox clinch at Fenway last October, which was a very memorable game, but those two nights in 2004 were the most exciting games I've ever seen. Hard to believe it's been a decade.

O's Are Out. Now What?

The Baltimore Orioles were swept.
It was the first time in the history of the franchise. Only 7 teams have never been swept in the playoffs, and that's mostly because they aren't in the playoffs that much. Those 7 are the Blue Jays, Rays, and Mariners in the American League, and the Mets, Nationals, Marlins and Brewers in the National League. I should note that four those those seven have never won the World Series, and with the exception of the 2000 Mariners (they swept the White Sox in the 2000 Division Series), none have ever swept anyone.

Most have multiple instances of sweeping and getting swept.
That basically means that the playoff system is pretty good, as there are few blowouts. Of 119 World Series to date, only 18 have been sweeps: Eight by the Yankees (6 of those were more than 60 years ago), two each by the Red Sox, Reds and Giants, and one each by the Braves, Dodgers, Orioles and A's. Of those eight teams, 6 have also been swept in the World Series. The Red Sox and Orioles are the only exceptions. And they're my two favorite teams.

So now...
It's the Royals against the Giants or Cardinals. In the NLCS I'll root for the Giants because of Buster Posey, former All-Star catcher for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox of the Cape Cod League. But in the World Series, it has to be the Royals so that only the Red Sox have three championships in this century. Makes sense to me.

No Beltway Series. For Whom Do We Root Now?

The Nationals are out.
The long wait continues for our nation's capital. 81 years since a World Series appearance, 90 years since a championship. That's the longest drought ever for any team in any major sport in America. The winning run for San Francisco came in the bottom of the 7th in a tie game. With the bases loaded and Kung Fu Panda at bat, Nats reliever Aaron Barrett uncorks a wild pitch and Joe Panik (an excellent baseball name-right up there with Brock Holt) scores the winning run for the Giants.

So it's Giants-Cardinals in the NLCS.
I like both teams, and both have excellent ballparks. The Giants star catcher, Buster Posey, played for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox of the Cape Cod League in 2006 and 2007. "Now batting for Yah-mith Dennis, the catcha, Bustah Posey." YD won the Championship both times, and again this year, so in the NLCS I'll go for the Giants.

ALCS
No question here. Orioles. My second favorite team. We lived in Baltimore when I was Program Director at Mix 106.5. My daughter Kara was born there. I took my daughter Caitlin to her first game at Memorial Stadium. I started my Major League Ballpark World Tour when my wife Kathy got me tickets to the very first game at Camden Yards as a Father's Day present in 1992. Note: I had already been to four ballparks at that point, but it was at Camden Yards that I decided to hit 'em all. The World Tour of every major league ballpark was completed this summer in Cincinnati.

World Series matchups.
Even if the Orioles don't make it to the Big Dance (I realize that's a basketball term, but I'm using it anyway) I'm not rooting for the National League. Why? The Cardinals won in 2006 and 2011, the Giants in 2010 and 2012. Twice each in this century. The only team to win three times this century is the Red Sox, and it should stay that way so we can hold our heads high for another year.

Dodgers are out.

So much for Carl Crawford, Hanley Ramirez and Adrian Gonzalez.
The former Red Sox will not be in the Big Show. The LA-LA Series won't happen this year. Neither will the redux of the Giants-A's Earthquake Series or the 2002 Wild West Series between the Angels and Giants or a replay of the 1971 and 1979 Orioles-Pirates match ups.

Still on:
A 1985 rematch of the Cardinals-Royals All-Missouri Series. Or Misseries, if you will. Other than that, it's all new. Cardinals-Orioles (new, unless you count 1944, when the Orioles were the St. Louis browns and lost to the Cardinals), Giants-Royals (never met), Giants-Orioles (never met), Nationals-Royals (never met) and Nationals-Orioles in a Parkway Series, which would be my favorite.

We might have another update tonight.
I hope not, because that would mean Washington, a city waiting for a World Series Championship for 90 years, would be out. Fingers crossed.

What We Won't See..What We Might See

The Wild Card is in the books.
The A's are out, the Pirates are out. So we won't have a redux of the 1909 Pirates - Tigers matchup or the Orioles - Pirates from 1971 and 1979. The Pirates won all three of them.

The Giants and A's have met three times...1911 and 1913 as the New York Giants and Philadelphia A's and again in 1989 as the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A's. The A's have won all three. The Philadelphia A's and the Cardinals went back-to-back in 1930 and 1931 and split the pair. The Oakland A's faced the Dodgers in 1974 and 1988, each team winning one.

What could still happen?
The St. Louis Browns, who became the Orioles in 1954, played the Cardinals in the first all-Missouri series in 1944. It was actually all-St. Louis. Not a subway series, as they don't have a subway there. All the home games were played at Sportsman's Park, the home field for both teams. Same place that Johnny Pesky held on to the cutoff throw while Enos Slaughter scored the winning run for the Cards in the 1946, beating the Red Sox in their first post-Babe Ruth series appearance. They'd wait another 58 years to sip the champagne. But we could have an Orioles-Cardinals series. The Cardinals and Royals could reprise 1985 with a third all-Missouri series.

What other repeats might happen?
Well, the Angels and Giants could do 2002 again...LA of Anaheim, known simply as Anaheim back then, won it. And then there's the potential Cardinals-Tigers matchup. They've faced each other three times in the World Series: St. Louis won in 1934, Detroit in 1968 and St. Louis in 2006.

16 possibilities, 4 potential repeats.
Not sure how that averages compared to other years...but at least the Yankees are not part of the fun.

As the Playoffs begin...

For whom are we rooting?
First, let's think of the possibilities. We could have the Dodgers and Angels in the LA Series. Maybe The I-5 Series (the word The gets a capital letter because in LA you always include it before the number of a freeway). The Angels won their only Series in 2002. The Dodgers last won in 1988 the year Kirk Gibson hit his fist-pumping, limping walkoff. That was the moment that Dennis Eckersley, the pitcher who gave up that home run, coined the term walkoff. It originally referred not to the hitter but to the pitcher who threw the pitch. As Eck said, "At that point there's nothing for you to do but walk off."

We could have an All-Missouri Series (a Misseries?) between the Cardinals and the Royals. A 1985 redux. The Cardinals got screwed by a bad call at 1st base that turned the series in KC's favor. That was KC's only win ever.

The A's and Giants could meet in a Bay Area Series. A repeat of the Earthquake Series of 1989. They could call it the Wild West Series, as both teams are Wild Card playoff entries, but that name was used in 2002 when the Angels and Giants, both Wild Card winners, faced each other in the Classic. That could happen again this year. Maybe it would be Wild West II, or Return to the Wild West.

My favorite, as noted in an earlier blog, would be the Orioles and the Nationals. The Parkway Series. Someone on ABC News called the possibility a Beltway Series, and both Baltimore and Washington have Beltways (I-695 and I-495 respectively), but they don't connect and neither actually goes near a ballpark. However, the B-W Parkway, Route 295, goes directly from Camden Yards past BWI Airport to the Anacostia River in DC, which abuts Nationals Park. The O's haven't won since 1983, and Washington has waited 90 years for a World Series championship.

We could have the Orioles and Pirates for the 3rd time. They faced each other in 1971 and 1979, with the Pirates winning both. When I was Program Director at Mix 106.5 in Baltimore we were warned to never play "We Are Family" because it was the Pirates theme song in 1979.

We could have the Orioles and the Dodgers in a redux of 1966, when the Orioles won the first championship in franchise history by defeating the defending champion Dodgers. LA ace Sandy Koufax refused to pitch during the Jewish holidays.

Let's see...Detroit and St. Louis? A repeat of 1968. The Cardinals did what the Red Sox couldn't do the year before...solve Bob Gibson.

What else?
Combos we've never seen: The Angels versus anybody but the Giants, the Royals facing anybody but the Cardinals, the Pirates facing anyone but the Orioles, the Nationals facing anybody at all. The Tigers have the distinction of being the last team to face the Cubs in the World Series (1945 - the Tigers won, of course).

A's and Royals tonight.
Jon Lester v. James Shields. Naturally, I'm rooting for Lester, but this is a one-and-done and if the A's lose it might increase the Red Sox chances of re-signing Lester for 2015. I'd like that.

Might we have a Parkway Series?

Traffic on the Parkway could be busier than usual in October.
Last night the Baltimore Orioles, my second-favorite team, clinched the AL East for the first time since 1997. That year the Cleveland Indians knocked them off in the ALCS and subsequently lost to the upstart Florida Marlins, who wound up winning the World Series in only their fifth year of play. That was the second-fastest franchise to win the World Series. Four years later they lost that honor to the Arizona Diamondbacks who won it all in their fourth year.

Okay you're wondering which team won it the fastest, right?
Why, it was the current (but not for long) defending World Champions from Boston. The Red Sox,, then known as the Americans, won the very first World Series in only their third year of play, in 1903.

But back to Balmer.
The last time they clinched the East was 1997, as noted above. The year before that they won the AL Wild Card and advanced to the ALCS. That was the year they got screwed by a kid in New York named Jeffrey Maier who reached over the short right field fence at old Yankee Stadium and interfered with a fly ball that was hit by Derek Jeter and most likely could have been caught by right fielder Tony Tarasco. It was the 8th inning and the Orioles were leading 4-3. The ball deflected into the stands and was ruled a home run rather than fan interference. The Orioles wound up losing the game and the series.

And that had been a 15-year wait.
Had Baltimore won that ALCS (or the one the next year) and then gone on to win the World Series they would have been the only team to win it all in the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's. Their previous win was back in 1983 when they knocked off the Phillies. People were calling it the I-95 Series as it's only a 90-minute drive up the highway.

Meanwhile, a half-hour south on I-95...
Or on the B-W Parkway, which is a much nicer drive, we have the Washington Nationals who also just clinched their division last tonight. The last time a team from Washington DC won the pennant was...(drum roll)...1933. The Senators lost the series that year to the New York Giants four games to one. The last time (and only time) a team from DC has won the World Series was in 1924 when the Senators beat those same Giants. That's 90 years ago. Way worse than the Red Sox 86-year drought and even the White Sox 88-year drought that no one paid any attention to. That old expression "Washington...first in war, first in peace, last in the American League" wasn't born from nothing.

Yeah, but they didn't have a team for a big chunk of that time.
True. The original Washington Senators became the Minnesota Twins in 1961 and were replaced by a new Washington Senators who were worse than the originals. They gave up and moved to Texas in 1972 and became the Rangers. The Nationals of today were the Montreal Expos from 1969-2004 when they moved to DC. So you can count either the team that left DC without baseball...or the one that brought it back...but either way there were no championships connected to our nation's capital. So it's 90 years and counting.

A Parkway Series?
That would be a good name for a Baltimore-Washington series. The Baltimore-Washington Parkway (no trucks allowed), also known as Route 295, actually goes almost directly from Camden Yards at the Inner Harbor right past BWI Airport to Nationals Park on the Anacostia River.

2013 was so much fun...
...The Red Sox going worst-to-first and winning the World Series at home...it will last me through 2015, when they might go worst-to-first a second time. So this year I'm hoping for a Parkway Series and I'd be happy with either team winning, but my heart would be with the O's.

Bucket List Complete!

My daughter Kara Kelley and I flew to Cincinnati to see the Red Sox play the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ballpark.

That completed the World Tour.
The Red Sox won, 5-4. As of that game I have now been to Every Major League Ballpark.

Not just visits.
I'm talking actual games. At 41 places. There are 30 Major League Ballparks, and I've seen games at all of them. Also at 11 parks that are no longer around or no longer used for baseball.

In order.
1957: Fenway Park, Boston.
1958: Griffith Stadium, Washington DC.
1987: Memorial Stadium, Baltimore. Angels Stadium, Anaheim CA.
1992: Camden Yards, Baltimore.
1993: Veteran's Stadium, Philadelphia; Arlington Stadium, Arlington TX.
1994: Ballpark at Arlington, Arlington, TX.
1997: Turner Field, Atlanta.
1998: Wrigley Field, Chicago.
2000: Olympic Stadium, Montreal; Shea Stadium, NYC; Yankee Stadium, NYC; Pac Bell Park, San Francisco; Coors Field, Denver.
2001: Dodger Stadium, LA; QualComm Stadium, San Diego; PNC Park, Pittsburgh.
2002: Minute Maid Park, Houston; Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City; Comerica Park, Detroit.
2003: US Cellular Field, Chicago.
2004: Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia; Skydome, Toronto.
2005: Jacobs Field, Cleveland; RFK Stadium, Washington DC.
2006: Miller Park, Milwaukee.
2007: McAfee Coliseum, Oakland CA; Chase Field Phoenix.
2008: Safeco Field, Seattle; Petco Park, San Diego.
2009: Metrodome, Minneapolis; Nationals Park, Washington DC.
2010: Citi Field, NYC, New Yankee Stadium, NYC; Target Field, Minneapolis.
2011: Sun Life Financial Field, Miami; Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg FL.
2012: Marlins Park, Miami.
2014: Busch Stadium, St. Louis; Great American Ball Park, Cincinnati.

But wait, there's more.
I've also been inside old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, which was set up for soccer, and The Kingdome in Seattle. That was in October 1998, and the Mariners don't play in October, so it was set up for football. I've also peered through the closed gates at Tiger Stadium and Candlestick Park, sat in the old right field grandstand at Braves Field in Boston and stood where home plate used to be at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds in Boston, where the Red Sox played from 1901-1911. There's a statue of Cy Young where the mound used to be.

So which one is best?
I'll have a ranking by topic (best fans, best food, worst park, most local color, etc.) shortly. Then a weekly one-by-one writeup on each park. That will take almost a year to post. Don't touch that dial.

Off to Cincy...

Early morning flight to Cincinnati.
My daughter Kara Kelley and I will hop a 6:30 flight in the morning to Cincinnati. We'll actually land in Coventry, Kentucky, where the CVG Airport is. We'll head over the bridge they used on the titles of WKRP in Cincinnati and go to Great American Ballpark to see the Red Sox play the Reds.

Why this matters.
First, the team names Red Sox and Reds come from the same origin. The Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first professional baseball team. (Stockings was the common term for men's socks back in the 1800's.) In 1869 and 1870 they played exhibition games against various teams representing companies in the area. Much like today's Men's Slowpitch Softball leagues.

Going pro.
The game was becoming very popular, so in 1871 a professional league was formed: The National Association of Base Ball Teams. The player/manager of the Cincinnati team and half of the roster decided that they'd rather be in Boston, so they moved there and took the team name with them. When league began play in 1871 with 9 teams, one of them was the Boston Red Stockings. Cincinnati did not have a team. Several teams came and went during the five years of the National Association, but only the Boston Red Stockings, who were champions in four of the five years, lasted all the way until 1876.

Enter the National League
The National League, as we know it today, began in 1876. The same time as the American Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Custer's Last Stand at the battle of Little Big Horn and the introduction of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in Boston. In fact, all four happened on the same day.

So about the names.
Cincinnati wanted to use their original name Red Stockings, and the Boston team decided that two Red Stocking teams would be weird, so they changed their name to Boston Beaneaters.

Beaneaters? Really?
It got worse. Beaneaters lasted into the late 1890's, when they became the Doves (just to really inspire fear in their opponents), then changed it to the Braves. When the American League showed up in 1901 there was a second Boston team that didn't really have a nickname. Newspaper writers called them the the Americans because of the league name. After all, the Braves had been in town for 30 years at that point.

Fast forward to 1907.
The Braves decide to change their uniform socks from red to blue, so the American League team that never really had a good nickname decides to go with red socks and adopt the nickname Red Sox. The Braves didn't care about that, but they were bothered by the fact that the Red Sox attendance outdrew the Braves every year. Even when the Braves won the World Series in 1914 and went to the World Series in 1948. So in 1953 the Braves got tired of being a distant second fiddle and decided to get out of Dodge and they moved to Milwaukee, where their AAA team played. It was good for a while. They even beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series, but then fan interest faded, and in 1966 the Braves packed up once again and moved to Atlanta, where they hang today.

So...
So the Atlanta Braves are the franchise with the most consecutive seasons of Major League Baseball...143 years. And Boston is the city that has had professional baseball longer than any other city...also 143 years.

So Kara and I can celebrate.
It doesn't matter who wins. I will have seen games at every Major League Ballpark, including 11 ballparks that are long gone or are no longer used for baseball. And the Bucket List wraps up in Cincinnati, where it all began.