Red Sox Curse 2.0

The post season is why Fox pays the freight for the MLB contract. Regular season baseball is certainly not the highest rated of telecasts. But Baseball games do not struggle to find time for advertising spots like a long drive in football or extended stretches in an exciting basketball game. There is a lot of downtime during a baseball game at any level. Fox gets to pitch their fall lineup while we all get ears jammed with political agendas of non-transparent origins. With the season of the witch and the warlock fighting for our souls, baseball is a tremendous relief from the deluge on political ads while there is game action. The baseball playoffs bring all of the magic that makes baseball so maddeningly entertaining for this Yardiot. Every single pitch is a battle within the game. Every moment within a baseball playoff game can have consequence. 162 regular season battles mean little when the Ides of October suffocate a key at bat. Having the best record in your league only gets you to the first round playing a team that has already won a playoff game. There are several compelling stories in these playoffs beyond the 108-year drought of the Cubs last title. There is no getting around a bad century. The White Sox got it done for the south side but Wrigley Ville has laid barren since the Taft presidency. The Indians have a shot this year to end their 68-year drought ebbing on the shores of Lake Erie. The Dodgers have not sniffed October bunting since 1988. And the immigrant Blue Jays are the most recent champion among the bunch. The Rangers wish Trump had started the wall across Lake Ontario. It is the history of baseball that adds to the historic nature of the sport. But beyond the droughts, the goat, the curses, and Bartman, the Boston Red Sox are the real story of this MLB playoffs. The Bosox enjoyed a solid season with the retiring David “Big Papi” Ortiz. They had all of the reason to win this year and looked to make a long run in the playoffs. Alas the Sox failed miserably to the Indians. The Cubs are the current starlings with their longer curse and tortured fan base. In 2007, the Red Sox had all of the pieces in place to win more than two titles in five years. The curse was bloodied socked off the planet in 2004 and in 2007 the future was validated with the second title for three generations of knuckle heads. Two more titles than Ted Williams was hated for and more titles than the Pesky Pole ever saved. It was two titles in five years after an 86-year drought. Wrap your head around that for 75 years or so. The next Red Sox curse was spawned by the owners of the Red Sox-John Henry and Tom Werner. John Henry is the former investment tycoon whose only solid investment was the Red Sox. Tom Werner was the television guy who was going to revolutionize the product of baseball in New England. After two titles in five years, the Sox were more popular than the Celtics or Patriots at that time. But selling 81 home games versus 41 or 8 was daunting for the revenue streams the Red Sox ownership wanted from their provincial followers. Tom Werner, the TV guy, was put in charge of promoting the Sox on their local television. He reported the Sox needed superstars who would command attention. He knew this because he was the owner of the Cosby show. Bill Cosby was a huge star who was a recurring revenue stream paying for Tom Werner’s investments. The Red Sox regime ran off Theo Epstein and Terry Francona. The architect and field general who slayed a near century of New England baseball futility. They were pushed out by a management team that wanted regular season superstars not World Series heroes. They got Adrian Gonzales and Carl Crawford to spark their television audience when they already had Nomar, Johnny Damon and David Ortiz. Theo knows all about curses, villains, and barren landscapes. He also knew of false expectations and disaffected ownership. Epstein designed and built the re-incarnation of the Boston Red Sox of 2004 into the Cubs of 2016. Theo’s partner in the club house was Terry Francona. Francona managed the Indians into the winningest team in the American League. Theo has rebuilt the Cubs into the story of 100 years and Terry has the Indians one win from the World Series for the first time since 1996. And for Tom Werner, Doctor Clint Huxtable is no longer paying the bills. The Giants have won three World Series in the past six years if you have not heard. Enter any conversation with any Giant fan and they will remind you that the Giants have won the title in each of the even years since 2010. And oh wait, this is 2016 and they were in the playoffs and if history continues to repeat itself, the Giants should win the title. It was a concern when the Giants beat the Mets and took a game from the Cubs. The Giants went all in on starting pitching while blowing 30 save opportunities with their patch work bull pen. It was no more evident in the undecided game four that was decided by four Cubs run against 27 Giant pitchers in the 9th. We had never seen Bochy waddle so many feet in such a short period. AT&T groundskeepers were not pleased either. The Dodgers and Nationals were the most contested playoff series so far. The Dodgers were lucky to win game one with a shaky Clayton Kershaw laboring through six innings of eight hit ball. They won game five with a shaky Kenley Jensen needing Kershaw for the save. The Dodger relievers as they have all season, closed out the game before it became a mess. Dave Roberts has made over 600 pitching changes this year so far. The Dodgers averaged nearly four pitchers per game for the season. One would think that would wear out a bullpen and it could and it might. GM Andrew Friedman uses the minor leagues like baseball purgatory with pitching getting called up from OKC to the pearly gates at the Ravine at a record setting pace. It was not the big signing this off season it was all of the myriad of little signings that are the signature of this team. The Dodgers had fifteen different pitchers start games this year. The Dodgers had seven pitchers who started at least ten games each. There is not another major league team that is close to that number of starters. If the Dodgers win game three at home, the plan is to start 20-year-old Julio Urias in game four. Young Julio was year away in April and here he is in October potentially pitching a deciding game. Young Julio is going to need to win a game this week. Dodgers need to win three. Unlikely but that is the math.