I know it's like deliberately goofy and stuff, but I just love the title of
this gem by Bryan Burwell, published 2 days ago over at MSNBC.
A little more than a year ago, the [Cardinals] were on an unconscious roll toward an unlikely World Series title and this ballpark was alive with championship noises.
No. A little over a year ago, the Cards were finishing up a shitty 12-16 September and limping into the playoffs.
Down in Miami, the first-place (NL Central) Cubs are battling all sorts of ghosts, curses and have been swept by the suddenly feisty Marlins, and because they are the Cubs, we are almost positive that some cruel and unusual punishment will befall Cubdom once again. I don’t know when, I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but over the next three days, the sky will fall and there will be a darned little blue bear smashed on the pavement.
Cubs won tonight, 6-0. 2.5 game lead with two to play as I type this.
This is why sports are fun. This is why the wild card is one thing Bud Selig got right. I love the wild card. I love the idea that seven teams cannot fit into four NL slots. I love that it’s a mad scramble and it’s impossible to tell how it will all end.
Except that you "know" that the Cubs will collapse, because they are the victims of a curse.
Twice a day — maybe more — Lou Pinella, the Cubs manager, keeps telling anyone who will listen that his team will not fall victim once again to a century’s worth of bad fortune. He swears the Cubs will hold on to their division lead. He swears that the long-suffering Cubs fans will not add another horrid chapter to a 99-year-old legacy of torment and heartache.
“There is no curse,” Piniella said before Tuesday’s game.
The Cubs then went out and lost a two-hitter to the worst team in the National League, 4-2.
Only explanation for a 4-2 loss: supernatural forces.
Time is running out, and if I was a betting man,
"Were." Hypothetical subjunctive, man. Come on.
here’s what I’d put my money on:
The Mets will hold to their division lead.
Mets lost today. Phillies won. Mets are a game out.
The Cubs will not. There is a curse. There is a curse.
Again, Cubs won. I am watching the Brewers lose to San Diego right now. That will mean a three game lead for the Cubs with two to play. That will mean a division win for the Cubs. Unless...........the curse should strike! And add more games!!!!
Philadelphia will find its way into the playoffs, and Charlie Manuel will save his job and win manager of the year.
Yes. They will probably win their division, beating those selfsame Mets you said would not collapse.
The Brewers win the NL Central because they finish the season at home, where they are 20 games above .500.
The Brewers have lost the NL Central.
The Colorado Rockies will win the NL West, knocking off first-place Arizona with the season-closing series in Denver this weekend.
Colorado has lost the NL West. You didn't make these bets, did you?
A year ago, the last team you could have imagined won the World Series. The Cardinals finished the regular season with a paltry 83 victories. They lost 10 of their last 14 games, and had a seven-game losing streak that stretched into the game’s final week.
You know, Bryan Burwell, a writer I very much admire once said this about the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals: "A little more than a year ago, the [Cardinals] were on an unconscious roll toward an unlikely World Series title and this ballpark was alive with championship noises." You know who that writer was? It was you, like five seconds ago. Please jibe the sentence you just wrote with the one you wrote five seconds ago.
Twelve months later, the mad rush toward October baseball is back in full affect. It doesn’t matter what we think. It doesn’t matter what insurmountable odds are piled up against these players. Miracles can happen and usually do.
Except for the Cubs.
There is a curse. There really is.
No, there is not. There is no such things as curses. Just as there is no such thing as hobgoblins, wood sprites, Poseidons, Giant Aardwolves, Godzillas, orcs, teeth fairies, psychics, daemons, or true Yankees.
The Cubs just won the Central. The curse is reversed!!!!!!!
Labels: bryan burwell, cubs, curse boner
What's happening in St. Louis today? Let's check
St. Louis Today and their prognosticator extraordinaire, Mr. Bryan Burwell.
Halfway through the tale of the 2007 baseball season, the Cardinals have not exactly given us some mind-twisting whodunit to solve. The Redbirds, in fact, have been no riddle at all. They reach the All-Star break giving us the rather predictable story of a struggling defending champion beset by too many injuries, and we all know how that plot line is supposed to go.It's a little disingenuous -- or ignorant, take your pick -- to blame the 2007 Cardinals' woes on injuries. Because the 2006 Cardinals were two games over .500. They were a mediocre team that played in a terrible division, got hot at the right time, and won it all. Good for them. It's what makes baseball great and unpredictable. But it's not like they went from a 105-win team to a 75-win team because
Lord Scrapford von Gritt tweaked his hustlebone.
Let's pause a moment to give Tony La Russa's gritty bunch of Memphis misfits a sincere tip of the cap for the effort that has kept them just on the fringe of contention.Let us also praise him for leaving the best hitter in the history of ever on his bench as Aaron Rowand popped out against a guy who had walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. Why does no one in the world ever allow for the possibility that Tony La Russa is a terrible manager? Sometimes he doesn't just arrange deck chairs on the Titanic -- he fixes the ones with wobbly legs, and then, while clinging to a piece of jetsam in the freezing North Atlantic, arrogantly insists that that chair would've come in handy if the boat hadn't broken in half and sunk.
There is ample reason to believe that what lies ahead must be better than what we've already read. Carpenter is either weeks or days away from returning to the rotation. Eckstein and Edmonds ought to be at or near 100 percent after the break and back in the lineup.Aaron Miles 2007 EqA: .247
David Eckstein 2006 EqA: .251
Eckstein's return will not help you that much, Cardinal fans. I am sorry. Face facts. Grow up. Take four Advil, drink some coffee, and do away with your Scrap Goggles.
The Cardinals will host the Brewers and second-place Chicago Cubs in a six-game home stand at the end of the month that will be the first of 20 remaining games against the two teams they need to overtake to get into the postseason. There are 10 more games left against the Brewers and 10 more against the Cubbies, which will give the Redbirds all the opportunity to narrow that 7½-game gap.The Cardinals have been outscored by 64 runs. Right now they are
overperforming their ExWL by four games. Unless the Brewers go completely into the tank, it's time to make plans for 2008.
There's no need to bombard you with a zillion inside-baseball stats that will convince you that the Cards are on the verge of behaving like contenders or exposing them as gritty but flawed pretenders.Second mention of gritty-ness. And no, it does not take one zillion "inside-baseball" stats. It takes one, and I just gave it to you. Outscored. 64 runs. Bad.
I don't care what the team ERA is over the last 15 games. I don't want to listen to anyone drone on about WIPS, OPS or any other exotic calculations that leave so many seamheads dizzy with delight and serve as all-knowing predictors of the future.WIPS = not a thing, I don't think. OPS is not "exotic," unless you consider the mathematical formula
A + B "exotic." And if you do want to get "exotic," I just checked BP's ExWL PECOTA-adjusted page, and the Cards have a 2.48% chance of making the postseason.
But here's the real money-shot:
I prefer to rely on more pragmatic stuff.You prefer to rely on "pragmatic" stuff. As opposed to hard stats. As opposed to mathematic, science, and reason -- those flighty disciplines. Those wishy-washy, emotional, airy-fairy, astrology/tarot card-like augurs, used by ancient Romans to predict rainfall.
You and
Murray Chass should get together, maybe with Wm. Safire, and just do a real-quick refresher course on
what fucking words mean.
Here's all I care about. The Cardinals are getting healthy again, and that means they need to come back after the All-Star break not only with all hands on deck, but with a sense of urgency that reflects a team that is willing to compete. They also need to hit better, and pitch better. But, sure, I guess "urgency that reflects a team that is willing to compete" would help. Move them from 2.48% to maybe somewhere in the upper 4s.
Labels: bryan burwell, cardinals, david eckstein, new age, tony la russa
