Thursday, October 31, 2019

Expos! Nats! Baseball!

Well, this blog may be just about laid to rest, but it is Halloween, so what better time to raise it from the dead and send it stumbling about in search of topics to devour....

Right. No. I see the last time I managed to post was, in fact, the beginning of the baseball season - so why not come back for another baseball post? I don't get to celebrate the Red Sox this year - but I can settle for watching the Nationals take their first championship.

I've been enough of an Expos fan through the years that this feels really good. I remember watching them from very early in their history. I have relatives in Canada, and we'd visit,a nd we'd watch the Expos on TV. Most fo the Canadian family were Red Sox fans, but I'm not sure they got to watch the Sox on TV - the Expos, on the other hand, had a few games aired - I think. Because I remember the old Spos - Rusty Staub! John Bocabella! Ron Hunt! - on TV up there. sitting in my grandmother's kitchen, watching the game, with my parents and a couple uncles and some older cousins, talking and watching baseball. Through the years, I paid attention to the Expos - usually because of the Canadian connections. A few of the kids my age picked pu the Expos as their favorite team (though most stuck with the Sox, or went with the Blue Jays when they were created - the younger kids, I think.) But all of them knew the Canadian teams, probably, again, because they were on Canadian television. So I knew the Expos more than I knew most of the National League - Ellis Valentine and Andre Dawson and Gary Carter and Stave Rogers - and of course, the Spaceman. (The first Expos team to get screwed by labor strife?)

And I followed the next generation - the late 80s early 90s teams that could drive you crazy. (And got really screwed by labor strife.) Grissom and DeShields and Larry Walker and the Cat, Dennis Martinez, Ivan Calderon, John Wetteland and Mel Rojas; Cliff Floyd, Wil Cordero, Orlando Cabrera, Vlad Guerrerro - Pedro! (Until they very generously donated him to the Sox.) A great team that kept disintegrating and being rebuilt for most of a decade, until their owners managed to demolish them completely and get them moved to Washington. After that - I still liked them, nostalgically, wished them well - but they were just a team. Though not just a franchise....

And so now, after 50 years, they have managed to win it all. In a most spectacular and strange manner - 7 games in which no one managed to win at home! Against a powerhouse team and franchise - though as we were constantly reminded, after the first couple months of the season, the Nats were tied with the Stros for the best record in baseball. The Nats have been there before - very good teams, that collapsed in a heap in the post-season. It's nice to see them finish one off. And very nice to add the franchise to the teams to win a World Series. The last 20 years have been goods ones for baseball teams killing curses - The Angels, Astros and now the Expos/Nats have won their first, after long waits; the Sox (Red and White), Cubs, Giants (who waited 50 odd years between championships) purged their demons, etc. It's always satisfying.

And - it made for a good series. Two very good teams, with elite pitching, two teams you could basically like (Roberto Osuna aside), good stories - and a very fine game to finish it off, Scherzer grinding out five innings with clearly less than his best stuff (since his best is as good as anyone has had this decade), Greinke turning in an absolutely dominant performance, with one changeup sitting in the middle fo the plate to hit all night, and it all turning on a wounded duck home run that hit the opposite field foul pole. Ha! Great fun!

Anyway: I was wondering what I thought about the Nats this year - I see I probably summed up their entire season rather neatly, good and bad:

2. Washington - they underachieved woefully last year, as if they thought they made the playoffs on opening day, and started choking early. Now they don't have Harper anymore - but they are still pretty loaded. Turner and Rendon and Soto, maybe Victor Robles - the rotation, which is very strong. This is avery competitive division, and they are as likely to run the table as anyone.

They wasted the first couple months, but after that, they ran the table, including taking out a couple very very good teams in the Dodgers and Astros. It's a nice result, and helps ease the pain of the Red Sox' pitching staff woes that took them out of the race from day one...

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