My things that are awesome power rankings: October baseball
“The goal is to get to and win the World Series. If we would have lost today’s game, I think everything we accomplished all year would have been meaningless to most of us. It would have all been for naught.” — Ryan Braun, after Brewers defeated the Diamondbacks in a deciding Game 5 of the National League Division Series.
Related awesomeness: 1982 Milwaukee Brewers, playoffs, walk-off wins, rooting for the underdog, unsung heroes, autumn, football season, good authentic sports weather, Oktoberfest
Origins of awesomeness: The popular notion is that October baseball dates back to 1903, when on Oct. 1, nineteen-aught-three, the Boston Americans and Pittsburgh Pirates met at Huttington Avenue Baseball Grounds in a championship pitting the winners of the American League and National League. Boston would defeat Pittsburgh five games to three in the 1903 World Series, which is widely recognized as the first modern World Series.
In actuality, October baseball’s origins delightfully date back to 1884, when the Providence Grays — representing the somewhat-established National League — and the New York Metropolitans — representing a league only very astute baseball fans have ever heard of, the American Association — in the first postseason championship series in baseball history. On Oct. 23, 1884, the Grays defeated the Metropolitans 6-0 at the Polo Grounds in the first World Series contest. The pitching matchup that day featured two future Hall of Famers, Tim Keefe of the Metropolitans, and the incomparable Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn of the Grays. Radbourn’s 1884 season is the stuff of legend, having won a record 59 games with that epic season carefully chronicled in Edward Achorn’s wildly-entertaining book about that colorful period in base-ball history, Fifty-Nine in ’84: Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had. The Grays won that first “World Series”, three games to none.
Something in American sports that dates back to the 19th century and still is a major part of the sports calendar is awesome. Let’s fast forward 127 years to modern times. I should preface that all of this enthusiasm for October baseball is fueled mostly by the Milwaukee Brewers’ playoff run, and first appearance in the National League Championship Series. It has allowed me to be nostalgic for the “good, old days.” That is when, as a young kid I first got into sports with much of the credit going to the Brewers of 1982, a legendary cast of characters that included future Hall of Famers Robin Yount, Paul Molitor and Rollie Fingers, as well as notables such as Wisconsin native Jim Gantner, Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, Stormin’ Gorman Thomas, Charlie Moore, Don Money, Ted Simmons and Pete Vukovich (who, later in life, would star as Clu Haywood, the notorious Yankees slugger who led the league in nose hairs in Major League). The 1982 Brewers are arguably the most celebrated World Series loser in baseball history, thanks in part to the franchise’s lack of success since that season and also a totally awesome logo. I could list the entire roster as a nine year old, and most certainly could do so again now 29 years later. The Brewers lost that 1982 World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. As a kid, I just figured the Brewers would be back again in the World Series next year, and then we’ll finally get back at those pesky Cardinals.
Helping further fuel this adoration for October baseball in 2011 has been the final four field of the league championship series, which is composed of entirely of small-market and mid-major baseball clubs — the Brewers (Milwaukee is MLB’s smallest market, it should be noted), St. Louis Cardinals, Detroit Tigers and Texas Rangers. It’s the year the baseball playoffs have gone rogue, with the likes of the mighty New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies all already eliminated from the chase, watching the teams they wildly outspend for talent play for the title. The teams representing the Northeast Corridor, home of hyperactive baseball fervor, are not a part of the fun. Instead, often-forgotten teams from the Midwest, fly-over states get their moment in the setting sun of autumn.
October baseball is awesome.
