Wrapping the Fall Classic

Glen Arbor Sun

How fitting that on the very night in October the Boston Red Sox captured their second World Series championship in four years Alex Rodriguez, the most talked-about and highest paid athlete in America, shunned the New York Yankees and opted for free agency. The old guard is in disarray, and the epicenter of baseball in this new century has officially moved two states north, to Beantown: goodbye Joe DiMaggio, hello Manny Ramirez; eject Paul Simon, and welcome back James Taylor.

Entire libraries have been written about the rivalry between the Red Sox and Yankees: the Bostonians selling their rising star Babe Ruth to the New Yorkers in 1918 for cash, and the subsequent 86-year drought wrought on the banks of the Charles River as Ruth went on to invent the homerun and the Bronx Bombers tallied 26 championships; the countless near misses and late-season heartbreaks in New England, and parade of superstars turned goats, Bill Buckner, Bob Stanley, Grady Little.

But the curse of the Bambino is a twentieth century museum relic now. The Yankees have been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for three years running, and the deckhands and captain, former skipper Joe Torre, have been jumping ship since the season ended early this autumn. Meanwhile, a ragtag, blue-collar bunch who often neglect to shave, wash their batting helmets, or button up their jerseys are America’s new team.

They are unorthodox, to be sure: dreadlocked slugger Manny Ramirez stumbling around left field as if he had smoked a joint before the game; menacing closer Jonathan Papelbon dancing an Irish jig in his Speedos for the media; designated hitter David Ortiz, who looks something like an armchair sofa and rarely plays in the field, though he packs a Ruthian swing; Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka who wiggles his hips back and forth before throwing toward home plate.

The Red Sox walloped the Colorado Rockies in four games during the 2007 World Series and looked like a teacher towering over their student. The Rockies, whose franchise is only 15 years old, landed in the Fall Classic after winning an unprecedented 14 of 15 games to close the regular season and then swept the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks — each surprises in their own right this season — for a date on the ultimate stage. But a week off after disposing of the rattlers hurt Colorado, and just like the Detroit Tigers last year, the Rockies looked rusty, or intimidated, in the World Series. Their young phenoms collectively stopped hitting, or maybe they woke up one morning during the extended in-season vacation and realized that their late-season run was so unlikely, that it was nothing more than a mile-high dream. The Rockies never really showed up to the World Series, and their quick defeat cost me a bottle of scotch to my father. I had made the grave mistake of betting on numbers (the Rockies’ winning streak) and not on baseball wisdom (the Red Sox were clearly the better, and more experienced team).

We haven’t seen a close Fall Classic, now, since 2003, when the Florida Marlins knocked off the Yankees in six games. In fact, the last couple contests have been grossly under-played by the losing team and, at times, tedious. Four of the seven postseason series (eight teams qualify, meaning three rounds of games) this year ended in sweeps, and only one match-up required the maximum number of games: Boston’s comeback victory over the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series. I ought to be writing about that contest instead.

So once again the recently departed baseball season will be remembered less for its climax and more for its buildup. This season — to no one’s surprise and to everyone’s relief because we’d finally stop hearing about it — the smug San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds eclipsed Hank Aaron’s all-time homerun record on Aug. 7 amidst allegations of steroid use that threw sports fans and non-sports fans alike into a moral frenzy. The fan who caught record-setting blast number 756 was a 22-year-old stockbroker visiting the Bay Area from New York who eventually sold the ball online to fashion designer Mark Ecko for $752,467. We live in the age of netroots democracy, and Ecko let baseball fans decide via an Internet poll to brand the cowhide with a demeaning asterisk (for Bonds’ alleged performance-enhancing drug use) before donating it to the baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.

But perhaps this baseball season’s greatest moment came on April 15, which Major League Baseball named Jackie Robinson Day in honor of the African-American who broke baseball’s color barrier as a Brooklyn Dodger 60 years earlier. Cincinnati star outfielder Ken Griffey, Jr. asked Jackie’s widow Rachel for permission to wear his retired number 42 for the day, and baseball commissioner Bud Selig later invited all players to do so. Three clubs elected to have their entire team wear number 42 to honor Jackie Robinson: blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians alike.

For baseball is a universal game now, played by athletes from around the globe, even though its top league is confined to North America. From the colonial streets of Havana, to the jungles of Nicaragua, to the fish markets of Japan, kids play stickball and emulate their heroes in the big leagues, only now those heroes are more likely clad in Boston Red than in Yankee pinstripes. Indeed, “where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?”