Well, we knew the streak was too good to last! hehe..Welcome back to the Drill. Today is Thursday, or as I like to call it "Tease Day". Why is it "Tease Day" you ask? Because its one more day til Friday. Such a tease!! Today is all about baseball, so if you dont think it would interest you feel free to pass. ;-) OK, on with the show..
World Series Wrap up
After 88 years, the Chicago White Sox are champions of baseball
OK, before I admit how wrong I was about this series, let me point out that I did predict the White Sox to win the whole thing. I didnt get the number of games correct however. Oh well. I guess I gave Houston too much credit. It was a good (albeit, short) series with drama in each game. The White Sox basically wore the Astros down in the four games. Add to that, the fact that the Houston offense pretty much fizzled out and its no wonder they were sent packing quickly.
Wow, I didnt do well at all in this postseason. I had the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals going all the way to end with the Cardinals winning the series. Well, Boston was bounced in the first round and the Cardinals were taken care of by the Astros in the NLCS. Then again I also thought for sure the Dodgers would repeat as NL West champs. Heck, after they started 12-2 all of us in Dodger Nation were talking World Series appearance. Then injuries took their toll and my beloved Dodgers finished a distant 4th. Oh well.
"The Thrill of victory..the agony of defeat"
So the Red Sox ended their curse last year. (More on curses later) The White Sox ended their World Series drought this year. So now it falls on the Chicago Cubs to end 97 years of World Series heartbreak. The last time the Cubs won it all was 1908!!! Is anyone still alive that saw them win it all? Those are some hardcore fans in Chicago's northside of town.
Curses!!
For those of you that dont know, baseball is quite possibly the most superstitious sport of them all. What with curses and lucky charms and omens and such. Here are some of the more well known "curses" in baseball
The Curse of the Bambino....Team: Boston Red Sox
What it is: After the 1919 baseball season Boston owner Harry Frazee sold baseball legend Babe "the Great Bambino" Ruth to the Yankees for a large sum of cash. Frazee believed Ruth wasnt worth the money he was paying him anymore. Low and behold the Yankees suddenly became the mighty powerhouse in the American League during the 1920's (Thanks in large part to Ruth) making six world series appearances and winning 3 of them. The Red Sox? After winning 4 titles with Ruth, never even made it back to the Series until 1946. But then it was just heartbreak and misery usually inflicted on them by their rivals in New York. Finally, in 2004 the Red Sox got the better of the Yankees by becoming the first team to rally back from an 0-3 deficit in the ALCS and then rode that momentum to their first title in 86 years. The curse is now over, but maybe a new one is starting since they got bounced so quickly in this years playoffs. ;-)
The Billy Goat Curse......Team: Chicago Cubs
What it is: This actually is the funniest just because its so outrageous. In 1945, a bar owner by the name of Billy Goat Sianis tried to bring his pet goat "Murphy", into Wrigley Field before Game 4 of the World Series. Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley denied Murphy a seat saying "The goat stinks". An angry Sianis replied, "The Cubs, they aint gonna win again." And of course, they havent. For years Cubs fans have tried to remove the curse, even allowing Sianis' nephew to bring in a goat before Opening Day in 1984. It didnt work obviously. The curse lives to this day.
The Black Sox Curse......Team: Chicago White Sox
What it is: Probably the most scandalous of the curses, in 1919 the White Sox had the most powerful team in the league. They were heavy favorites going into the World Series that year against the Cincinnati Reds. But something was wrong when that series started. White Sox ace Eddie Cicotte hit the very first batter he faced and never really seemed into the game. They lost that game 9-1. Game 2 saw the White Sox fall 4-2. Could the Reds really be handling the mighty Sox that easily? It turned out that nine White Sox players had agreed to "throw" the World Series in exchange for large amounts of money. By the time the players involved realized the wrong they were commiting it was too late. The Reds won the series and the "fix" was revealed to the public about a year later. All nine of the White Sox players were banned for life from baseball. The White Sox (until yesterday) never won another World Series title and the 1919 team were forever known as "The Black Sox"
The West Coast Curse.....Team: San Francisco Giants
What it is: Not so much a curse as it is a theory. Before moving to San Francisco the Giants were National League powerhouses in New York winning 4 World Series titles and 13 National League Titles. That string of success ended when they joined the Dodgers in California before the 1958 season. Since moving west the Giants have been to the World Series only two times and none of those appearances resulted in a title. With an aging team in San Francisco right now, it doesnt seem likely this "curse" will end anytime soon.
OK, that will do it for now. Sorry for the "baseball history lesson". Be back tommorrow to wrap it up for the week! Before I go, here's a comic I found online. It made me smile.
Amen
DQ
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