Locked in a Cage

Jason Michael Barker

OK, I'll admit it -- I saw more of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on Tuesday than I saw post-season baseball action. Before you get upset and question by dedication to the great game, let me assure you that I was caught in the grips of higher education most of the day -- having classes only on Tuesday and Thursday is generally a good deal, but it makes for a pair of long days.

I did manage to catch bits and pieces of the game most important to me -- Mariners vs. White Sox -- between classes. I heard Alex Rodriguez put the M's up 1-0 in the top of the first before my "Money, Credit and the Economy" class began, then heard the White Sox get to Freddy Garcia for four runs in the third and fourth during a five-minute break in the middle of the two-hour lecture.

Seattle tied the score at four on a clutch two-out single by Mike Cameron in the seventh, just minutes before my "International Trade" class. The score was knotted as the bottom of the ninth -- and the lecture -- began. Needless to say, the first hour on gains from trade and the relationship between production and wages didn't command my full attention.

Barring extra innings, I knew the game would be over by the time my professor granted us a five-minute respite an hour or so into class. The break was just long enough to run outside -- you try getting a decent AM signal inside Savery Hall -- and catch the end of a post-game interview with Cameron, who scored the go-ahead run in the top of the tenth on Edgar Martinez' two-run homer. A brief one-man celebration ensued, followed by another hour on relative price and its role in hypothetical trade between France and Germany.

The game was full of nice little individual stories on the Seattle side. After Garcia was pulled after just 3.1 innings, the Mariners got stellar relief work from an assorted cast of characters. Bret Tomko, the forgotten man in the Ken Griffey Jr. trade, who has been in Lou Piniella's doghouse all season and pitched just four times over the final month, went two and two-thirds scoreless. He was followed by Jose Paniagua, a former waiver claim. Jose Mesa, who many felt wouldn't even be on the post-season roster, got the final out of the ninth to pick up the win, and rookie/veteran Kazuhiro Sasaki worked the tenth for his first post-season save not on Japanese soil.

Alex Rodriguez, bashed by the fans and media in Seattle alike for his poor showing two weekends ago against the A's in the biggest series of the year, was three-for-five. And the aforementioned Cameron, who came to Seattle this season with huge shoes to fill, went two-for-four with two runs scored.

Yankees-Athletics

Hey, at least one game was on in prime time for those of us who actually have things to do during the day.

A quick look around reveals that most people fall into one of two camps when it comes to this series: 1. The old struggling Yankees are no match for the up-and-coming A's, or, 2. This is the post-season, dammit, and despite their recent slide the Yankees will show those young punks from the Bay Area a thing or two about what baseball is like when the games really count.

After one game, the folks in the first camp look right on track. People picking the Yankees like to point to the much vaunted pitching staff -- Clemens, Pettitte, El Duque and a good bullpen -- but this series is all about offense. Namely, the A's have one and the Yankees don't. Oakland scored about half a run more per game than the Yankees did this season, and walked 119 more times to boot.

New York is getting essentially nothing from three traditionally offensive positions, in Tino Martinez at first, Ed Sprague at third and Paul O'Neill in right, and Chuck Knoblauch is no great shakes either (particularly when Joe Torre uses him at DH, adding the weak bat of either Luis Sojo or Luis Vizcaino to the batting order).

What we're seeing, then, is a changing of the guard in the American League. I don't necessarily think the A's will make it to the World Series this season, but they've certainly positioned themselves to be the best team in the AL over the next four or five years, and possibly longer if they can keep their current group together. When Ben Grieve wins his first MVP award in 2003, the Yankees will be faced with a .500 club and a $100M payroll, and they'll probably still be playing Brosius at third base "for his glove."

Braves-Cardinals

Thanks to these great early starts, all I have to go on for this game in the boxscore. And thank goodness -- a few years ago you and I would have had to wait until the morning paper for even that. Don't tell anybody, but I think this Internet thing is really catching on.

Tony LaRussa drew more than a few raised eyebrows by deciding to start rookie Rick Ankiel over his ace, Darryl Kile. I suppose the argument is that you might as well "save" your ace and concede Game One to Greg Maddux, an argument I'd counter by saying you should give your team the best chance to win each individual game.

Yet heading into Thursday's Game Two, the LaRussa's Cardinals have a 1-0 lead in the series and their ace on the mound against Atlanta's "other" ace, Tom Glavine (who, despite his 21-9 record, shouldn't finish in the top three of the National League Cy Young voting). And given the weird schedule of this series (Tuesday, off, Thursday, off), LaRussa could bring Ankiel, who threw just 66 pitches, back for Saturday's Game Three on three days' rest if he were so inclined, though Ankiels's performance might dictate otherwise.

All the cliches and standard rhetoric aside, be sure to stop and enjoy the post-season while it's here. It only comes once a year, and though it just began, the World Series will be over before you know it. And then we'll all be looking for ways to get through what's always the longest part of the year -- that horrible period of time from the last out of the World Series to the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

See you Friday at Safeco Field?

I suppose now isn't the best time to tell Jason Michael Barker that some of us got to watch post-season baseball with our bosses over a nice lunch. Tell him that, "Hey, them's the breaks" at jmb@strikethree.com.