Final Thoughts on the 2011 Major League Baseball Season

Allow me by first saying that I wholeheartedly hate the St. Louis Cardinals. As an Astros fan, I'm already been conditioned to can't stand them. The Cardinals have ruined, in a way, four seasons for me (2001, 2004, 2006, and 2011)  However, they have some of the best fans in Major League Baseball and for what it's worth, St. Louis is the quintessential baseball town. But it still doesn't change the hatred I have for the team. Nonetheless, before I hate any team and before I love any team, I am a baseball fan first.

Which is why the 2011 World Series is one of the best World Series ever played, the second best World Series played since 1991 (the only World Series better since then is the 2001 World Series, even though the 2002 Series had its moments). I'm guessing every 10 years or so we are in for a treat. Aside from the Cardinals blowing out the Rangers in Game 3 and an anti-climatic Game 6 where the Rangers could not solve Chris Carpenter in anyway, shape, or form, the remaining five games, including the breathtaking classic slugfest of Game 6, was intense and exciting.

And this World Series is exactly what baseball needed.

This is the highest rated World Series not to include the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees since 2002 when the San Francisco Giants lost to the then-Anaheim Angels. It served as the culmination of one of the greatest postseasons in recent memory, as 38 out of 41 possible games were played. The World Series featured two teams -- a Rangers team that was widely seen as one of the most complete teams in all of the Major Leagues and a Cardinals team that had Lady Luck on their side from the conclusion of the regular season to the final fly-out of the World Series. What a story Cardinals fans will be able to tell for generations and this eclipses their improbable championship runs of 1964 and 2006, which I'll write about in a separate post.

I can't stress how badly baseball needed this World Series. The World Series was increasingly becoming an afterthought, especially with the absence of the pop culture phenoms Yankees and Red Sox. This World Series should serve as a reminder as to why baseball, despite the long season and the slow pace of the games, is, was, and always will be the true heart and soul of American sports, no matter how many football fans try to dispute this fact. It's the only game where you'll never be able to rattle off how many hits Sid Bream had in his career, but you'll always remember the slow runner for beating out Barry Bonds throw at Fulton County Stadium with the late, great Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray screaming "Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!". It's the only game that you'll never remember how many teams Aaron Boone played for but you'll always remember that moonshot to left against the Boston Red Sox in 2003. The Shot Heard Around The World in 1951. Bill Mazeroski in 1960. Bob Gibson sinking a dynasty in 1964. "We'll see you tomorrow night," says Jack Buck after Kirby Puckett's game winning shot in 1991. The Stolen Base that ended the Yankees season in 2004. And now, one pitcher, one arm, and an 11th World Series title to the one of the most storied franchises in the senior circuit in 2011.

With the 2011 World Series, baseball has showed that it can be in the national conscience without it's two most popular franchises being involved in the final stage. It took timely hitting and breathtaking pitching performances. It took home runs that set the pace. It took too many men being left on base. It took promising seasons ending in heart break. It took one team that was apparently anointed as the chosen team by the baseball gods. It took the Boston Red Sox beating themselves out of a postseason berth. It took Delmon Young bashing the Yankees out of the playoffs. It took Chris Carpenter matching wits and pitches with Roy Halladay. It took a baseball renaissance in Milwaukee. It took the venerable Rangers bullpen against the comeback kids from Tampa Bay and the darlings of a depressed city and state in the Detroit Tigers. It took the Cardinals surviving from being a strike away from oblivion not once, but twice. There were so many great stories about this postseason that led to an amazing World Series that it could not be covered all in this post.


I hate the fact that the Cardinals won, but I guess in a way its poetic justice. Here's a team that was left for dead at the beginning of September and they kept playing. They kept showing up everyday and competing. And from there things seemed to go into their favor, just as they did when they stormed up on the Philadelphia Phillies in 1964 and fended off the Houston Astros in 2006. The Cardinals crashed the party when the Phillies finished off the Braves in the last week of the season. Ironically, they would then rid the Phillies in the Division Series. In the NLCS, they kept the Brewers from doing what they did better than any other team in the National League -- winning at home. And finally, in the World Series, the Cardinals were simply clutch when faced with being one strike away from their season ending.

What a story.

What a World Series.

What a postseason.

What a game baseball is.

The Boston Meltdown

Boston Red Sox on final day of 2011 Major League Baseball season (ESPN/Getty Images). FAIR USE: these images were only used for educational purposes only.

Boston's last colossal meltdown march to the post season -- way back in 1978 -- culminated in the infamous 163rd game of the season where the words "Bucky Fucking Dent" entered into the Bostonian sports lexicon.

However, what largely gets ignored is that the Red Sox actually had lost the lead by mid September and if it was not for an 8 game winning streak towards the end, the Red Sox would have never pushed that 163rd game. In fact, Sox had an opportunity to come back, only for that to be dashed with Carl Yastrzemski's pop up that concluded the game.

The same thing could be mentioned here for the 2011 Boston Red Sox, for that the season was over well before it officially ended on Tampa Bay Ray's Evan Longoria's game winning home run against the New York Yankees a mere three minutes after Jonathan Papelbon blew a save at the worst time of his career against the last place Baltimore Orioles. The Red Sox are now two years removed from their last postseason appearance and four years removed from their last world title. The fallout has already begun with manager Terry Francona departing the Red Sox after 8 seasons, two world titles, five post season appearances, and the distinction of being the second winningest manager in the history of the franchise.

Chemistry problems and apparent selfishness riddled the clubhouse; and on top of that Francona had suggested that he had lost the clubhouse in meetings he held with Red Sox management on Friday. ESPN's Gordon Edes reported a troubling anomaly about this season -- that Francona called not one, not two, but three clubhouse meetings over issues, including a meeting Francona publicized in the press conference on Thursday that took place after a 14-0 win against the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in September. In previous seasons, Edes said, Francona would only call a meeting once a year.
 
Let's face it, their season concluded in April. However, with the run that the Red Sox went on throughout the summer, Red Sox fans (including myself) were led to believe otherwise. Yet, whether you believe it is the baseball gods or the simple idea of karma in baseball, successful seasons are not meant to be had for a team that loses 10 of their first 12 games; especially a team that has their hometown publication (the Boston Herald, in this instance) declare it to be the best team ever before it even took the field to play a game. A problem with the 2011 Red Sox is that they did not play like a team and that reality was crystal clear as the collapse intensified.

The Red Sox's collapse is the worst in major league history -- erasing the "Phold" of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies and easily eclipsing the Atlanta Braves collapse of this year, which only reached its conclusion about twenty minutes before Boston's did. In fact, the Braves only did a half-a-game worse. However, Boston's bloated payroll and their position as one of baseball's two most popular franchises, has the spotlight shined on Yawkey Way. From a statistical standpoint, Boston lost 20 of the 27 games that they played in September, the Red Sox only won once when they scored fewer than 9 runs, fell 5 out of 7 times to the playing-for-pride Orioles, and blew a 9 game lead in the American League Wildcard to the never-say-quit Tampa Bay Rays.

There were base-running mistakes (see, Marco Scutaro and David Ortiz), horrible starting pitching performances (Lackey and Wakefield were total nightmares), aces faltering (see Josh Beckett's last two starts of the season), cold bats, and defensive errors (the ball that Carl Crawford should have caught). They made managers look brilliant (Buck Showalter out managed Francona) and they made mediocre pitchers look like Justin Verlander (A.J. Burnett's start against Boston). Baseball pundits took note specifically with the disaster zone known as the Red Sox starting rotation. Boston used 7 starters over the course of September: Lackey, Wakefield, Beckett, Jon Lester, Erik Bedard, Andrew Miller, and Kyle Weiland. Combined, they went 4-13 with an ERA of 6.67, a WHIP of 1.69, and their average starts lasted five innings. The pitching staff overall struggled in September: their 5.84 ERA and 6 blown saves was the worst in baseball and only the Cleveland Indians had a higher WHIP.

The more bone chilling thing is that the Red Sox's playoff hopes depended on the team that surged past them in the standings in September -- the Yankees. However, to the chagrin of the Red Sox, the Yankees had nothing to play for in Tampa for they already won the AL East, already secured the best record in the American League, and all Joe Girardi had to focus on is setting up the rotation for the Division Series. The Red Sox needed to look within themselves if they were going to succeed this post season and did the complete opposite.

Keep in mind, that for four months this season, the Red Sox were the best had the best record in baseball (the best team in all of baseball still remains the Philadelphia Phillies), but the injury issues that the Sox had -- notably Kevin Youkilis and Clay Buchholz, neither of whom returned this season -- and their starting rotation issues served as Boston's Achillies' heel. Boston, always bailed out by their potent offense, could not get the runs when they needed them, even though the team was third in runs scored (146), fifth in batting average (.284), on base percentage (.342), and OPS (.804), and fourth in slugging (.462).

Philosophically, it can be observed though that Boston was simply not meant to win this season, given how they started and how they finished. However, from a basic sporting standpoint, baseball is still a team sport and the best team wins. That's the real reason why Joe Maddon is leading his team into playoffs for the third time in four years and why Francona is no longer manager in Boston.