Baseballhead:
It's Raining Frogs

Michael Cox

Welcome to the postseason, where we've already catalogued the first major sign of the impending apocalypse: the New York Yankees have been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

To an awful lot of people, that's huge news, and maybe it is. Despite enjoying one of the longest dynasties in Yankee history, George Steinbrenner made no bones about his feeling that a World Championship trophy is his ongoing birthright. He was so pissed that the Diamondbacks took the Series last year that out of pure spite he made a frantic offer to David Wells just as Wells was dropping crumbs on his D-Back contract. (That the signing worked out was probably as much a surprise to the Yanks as it was to the rest of us.)

Judging Tino Martinez past his prime, Da Boss anted up for the premiere free agent of the offseason, Rondell White...er, Jason Giambi (whose deodorant ad makes the acting in Derek Jeter's commercials look Shakespearean). Throughout the season, if there was a premiere starter to be snatched up, the Yankees were doing the snatching. They were an unstoppable juggernaut, a team built specifically for the postseason because the regular season was a foregone conclusion.

So when the Angels and their frickin' Rally Monkey did the unthinkable without even the professional courtesy of allowing a Game Five, all hell broke loose. (Hmm...monkey...loose...did anyone besides me notice that a particular Clint Eastwood movie followed the games on ABC Family the other night? Was it some sort of Disney theme evening?)

But all that aside, the quick Yankee exit illustrates the point I've been making for years: you can have the finest squad of players alive as scientifically proven via six months of daily testing, but it isn't worth beans if your opponent gets hot for three games. The Angels are the very definition of a streaky team, and last week they streaked right through the Yankee rotation.

I've been trying to remain somewhat neutral this postseason, but I must say I won't shed a tear while lamenting the absence of the phrases, "the road to the World Series runs through the Bronx," or "those Yankees just know how to win." Bidding adieu to Yankee Stadium, Home of the Four-Hour Game, isn't the worst feeling in the world either. (Even the Yanks' own radio crew lamented the smoke breaks that Bernie Williams took between pitches.) Wait 'til next year -- or if Steinbrenner makes too many of those changes the papers are promising, wait 'til the '10s.

In the meantime, baseball fans everywhere will enjoy the sweet irony that either the Angels, whom Bud Selig said were so unwanted that Disney couldn't unload 'em on Ebay, or the Twins, the team he wanted to contract, will be playing in this year's World Series.

It's just unfortunate that only one aberration could move on from the first round. Have the A's lost enough Division Series yet that the media can start wondering what's wrong with them instead of the Giants? Apparently not, because despite winning Game Four to force a final game in Atlanta, talking heads everywhere wondered how much longer Barry Bonds can keep dragging his team down.

I tried shouting at the TV. "Come on! The guy's got a .976 OPS in this series! That's better than anyone else on his team, and all but three Braves! Every time I look up, Javy Lopez is standing behind Bonds with his left hand in the air!" It was no use, as SportsCenter's Stuart Scott and Tim Kurkjian continued to obsess over Bonds' .214 batting average.

Tonight the Giants and Braves will determine who faces the Cardinals, this season's Team Of Destiny who made last year's World Champs look like...well, this year's Yankees. Granted, an Arizona offense without Luis Gonzalez is a bit like a Vin Diesel movie without special effects, but even Gonzo couldn't have prevented the Cards offense from slapping around not one, but two Cy Young candidates. Schilling and Johnson were last seen curled in a fetal position, each mumbling something about tipping pitches.

The Cards had their own bump in the playoff road when new long-term signee Scott Rolen collided with a D-Back runner (Alex Cintron, for those Missouri residents wishing to send hate mail), spraining his shoulder in four places. Oddly, this may only sideline Rolen (who looks like a young Kevin Spacey in his photo on BigLeaguers.com) for another week.

On the bright side, Tino Martinez continues his remarkable League Championship Series run, having played in an LCS in seven of the past eight seasons: five as a Yankee, one as a Mariner, and now his first NLCS. He missed only the 1997 ALCS, and that really wasn't his fault.

Other quick observations:

-- The ESPN brass, who teamed Dave O'Brien and Tony Gwynn as one of their rotating announce teams, quickly added Rick Sutcliffe when it became apparent that the future Hall of Fame hitter wasn't exactly a Hall of Fame announcer. This astute insight from Game One of the Giants/Braves series: "And there's the umpire...uh...pointing into fair territory..." Add to that the fact that Gwynn's probably got the goofiest voice in sports (if I didn't know what he looked like, I'd probably visualize Bill Gates) and it just ain't pretty.

-- Baseball reporters seemed to swallow their collective tongue (and that's a lot of tongue) over Mike Scioscia's failure to use Angel closer Troy Percival with one out in the eighth inning of Game One, despite the fact that Scioscia's decisions were quite solid. The festival of moronitude reached its apex with ESPN's Jeff Brantley, whose sole argument for using Percival was, and I quote, "Special players do special things in the postseason." Isn't that, er, special.

-- In my head, I imagine the producer working in the broadcast truck at the Metrodome, supplying the strategy for covering the Twins' playoff games: "Get me a frickin' decibel meter! Scratch that! Get me two decibel meters, in case one of them breaks! It is imperative that we provide constant sound level updates to our viewers!" Did you know that when the crowd reaches 107 dB, you can't hear someone speaking to you from three feet away unless they scream like a maniac too? Thanks, Dr. Science.

-- Both the saddest and the oddest side issue was the Phoenix "shock jock" (read: junior Howard Stern wannabe) who phoned Darryl Kile's widow to ask if she had a date for the Division Series. This not only spurred a nationwide hubbub over this type of radio host (ironically, as Mark McGwire marched to the home run record, he befriended controversial LA jocks Mark and Brian), but also resulted in Tony La Russa calling for bodily harm to befall the dumbass radio personality (ironically, La Russa spends much of his off-field time crusading against cruelty to animals).

-- I'm not sure which commercial was most disturbing to see on the ABC Family Channel: the Rafael Palmeiro Viagra ad (although I guess, you know, if you want to have a family...) or the Don Zimmer Preparation H ad (I believe this one speaks for itself). However, I prefer either infinitely more than any promo involving the phrase, "The 13 Days of Halloween."

Now, if you liked last week's highly successful Division Series predictions, you'll love our hastily cobbled-together LCS previews:

Anaheim Angels vs. Minnesota Twins

In what I call the War Of The Totems, the legendary power of Minnesota's Homer Hankies (was I just imagining the dust cloud rising from the crowd the first time they swung their fabric last week?) meets its match: the Yankee-toppling juju of the Rally Monkey.

Both have captured the hearts and minds of fans who have been staying away from their teams' games for years, and both are potentially collectible after the fans stop attending again (an Ebay search shows 61 Homer Hankies, 9 Rally Monkey dolls, and one disturbing hybrid: a Rally Monkey Towel). Both are found to be at least mildly annoying by casual observers, and at least one has been insulted by the players themselves (three guesses which one).

Yes, this series will hinge not on both teams' dominant pitching or balanced offense, but on which team will get more irritated by its own good-luck charm.

Victor: Minnesota. Reason: M-m-m-m-m-m-m-onkey!

St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Francisco Giants or Atlanta Braves

This prediction is made much more complex by the fact that at press time I have no idea who'll be playing. However, when faced by a dilemma such as this, I have but to ask myself, "what would Keith Olbermann do?"

You remember Keith Olbermann, right? I mean, he was the biggest damn name in sports broadcasting! Now he's with...uh...okay, so you don't remember Keith Olbermann. I'll just ask myself what William Shatner would do. Then again, he'd only ask the Priceline.com supercomputer.

Victor: Cardinals. Reason: They're the only team I'm sure will be playing.

about the author

Michael Cox will not accept Rally Monkeys mailed C.O.D. However, Giant fans are welcome to send ice-packed garlic chicken sandwiches to mc@strikethree.com.