Phillies Complete a Proper MLB Round of Four

And then there were four. Late last evening in Denver, the Philadelphia Phillies, the defending World Series Champions, joined the Los Angeles Dodgers, the New York Yankees and the Angels of Southeast Name Confusion in Major League Baseball's version of The Final Four. Their final N.L.D.S. score this year was 5-4 as they basically executed baseball's version of a wresting reversal. After falling behind, 4-2, in the bottom of the eighth, they grabbed an arm and flipped Colorado's Rockies onto their back with three runs in the top of the ninth, and that's where the score stayed. What is notable about this situation in a global sense is that the Fightin's round out a final four field for the L.C.S. competition that very arguably comprises this year's actually best four teams. This does not always happen in the modern post-season "tournament."

Recall last year, for example: The A.L. representative in the World Series turned out to be the Tampa Bay (Lordy, don't call us "Devil") Rays. The Rays had made a nice run in '08, but prior to that never posted so much as a single winning season. After falling to the Phillies in the Series, four games to one, they quietly removed those patches Bud Selig had made them wear that read "FLUKE."

This year, however, the pesky Wild Cards have both been eliminated. Nice seasons, you Sawks and Rockheads. Purists should be delighted; maybe the complaints about the best teams being bumped too early and the season being too long won't be made this year as they do every year that a Wild Card eliminates an actual "champion" (as viewed from whatever perspective). Last year, for example, the editor of a Philadelphia on-line journal complained about the absence of the "best teams" of '08, the Cubs and Angels, as measured by regular season records. He extended his point to claiming that MLB's modern World Series crown is "meaningless." I sent him a polite letter in disagreement, polite first and foremost since he occasionally pays me reasonably well to write about other subjects than baseball. I pointed out that the modern scheme is no worse than the ancient, hallowed, one-round playoff that was usually completed well before Halloween, that the play in the modern playoffs is usually of a very high quality, and that if it's cold out, well, then the players have those Elmer Fudd caps (that the Phils and Rockies wore for their game three this year). Very kindly, and somewhat surprisingly, he decided to revise his post a bit.

This year he should have no complaint. All four remaining teams are division champions, indeed double champions in some fairly "meaningless" sense. All four won at least 93 games, and all four showed particular resilience in their division-series clinching wins.

Highlights? In the A.L., the Yankees dispatched the scrappy Twins on a bullet home run by A.L. HR and RBI king Mark Teixeira, who is expected to be charged in the death of a cotton candy vendor later this week. That ball got out in a hurry. In the N.L., the Phillies, who stumbled and bumbled around this season as much as any team can and still win a division, showed absolutely no inclination to collapse any time soon in the post-season. Their bullpen isn't as strong as it was last year, but after 98-mph fireballer Ryan Madson gave up three runs in the 8^th last night, they exhibited an almost spooky calm in taking down the Rockies' closer Huston Street in the very next frame. With one out: Rollins - single to right; Victorino - fielder's choice out (now two), Rollins to second; Utley - walk; Howard - long double into the right field corner. Tie game. Jason Werth then made a tennis serve into right center, and The Big Guy rumbled all the way home. Once he gets up a head of steam, he isn't really that slow at all. In the bottom of the ninth, much maligned closer Brad Lidge struck out the Rockies' home run champion, Tulowitzki, and saved his second post-season game in a row.

Could we be looking at a re-match of the 1950 World Series between the Phillies and Yankees? Maybe. The Angels and Dodgers say, maybe not. To make predictions this year is really to take $500 into a back-alley dice game...but hey, why not?

Angels in seven; Phillies in six. Two red hats at the end.

Then the Phillies take home only the second consecutive World Series championship by an N.L. team since that other team that wears red hats did it in the 70s.

Source:

Soisson, Rick. Letter [The "derivative" World Series]. The Broad Street Review 29 October 2008.