I want the Rangers to win the World Series. It's been that way since the postseason field was settled, and it's not changing now.
My appreciation for the Cardinals hasn't been this low since Herzog and the mid-1980s. Is it my imagination or is Albert Pujols cranky and dismissive in EVERY interview? Meanwhile, there are number of Rangers players that I like. Every team should have a Michael Young. Not even Nelson Cruz's disturbing obsessively groomed facial hair will get me down.
But really, when you get down to it, I view this year's World Series in terms of one issue.
Nolan Ryan, the Rangers' owner, president and CEO, has encouraged the Rangers' starters to turn to themselves for confidence. Imagine that. Don't look in the dugout, don't look to the bullpen, don't look at your pitch count. It's all on you, man. And it's worked (well, except for the ALCS, maybe). The Rangers are in the World Series a second straight year.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, this annoying dude used six pitchers -- six! -- in a game in which his team scored nine runs in the first three innings and won 12-6.
I am so looking forward to those four-hour-plus World Series games. Work should be a hell of a lot of fun for the next week.
Go, freakin' Rangers, go.
-----------------------------------------------------
Night Card Binder candidate: Nolan Ryan, 1992 Mother's Cookies Nolan Ryan No-Hitters Set, Card #2
Does it make the binder?: No! For the first time a night card can't crack the binder. Ryan's cool and all, but there are other night cards of Ryan and I can't boot this card in order that Ryan can take its place.
Comments
I have a feeling I'm not going to get much sleep this week.
http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20080121&content_id=2352353&vkey=news_stl&fext=.jsp&c_id=stl&affiliateId=CommentWidget
"In a follow-up question, Pujols was asked whether he planned to take any legal action in the wake of the reports. He said he did not, then started to express the depth of his displeasure with the story.
"It's a good thing that it happened so that the people out there in the United States and here in St. Louis, they can look at it and say 50 percent of the things that you guys write are not true," he said.
"I'm really disappointed about the media in St. Louis, whoever from Channel 2 or FOX that started that thing here in the city of St. Louis. I didn't appreciate that. If it was New York or somewhere else, I wouldn't care. But here in St. Louis? My people? It hurt. It hurt."
Pujols is cranky because sports media is absolutely terrible right now, right down to the local level. Everyone wants to behave like ESPN, the so-called gold standard, and all they care about is football handshakes and the Red Sox.