This is what comes of wild cards and playoffs and baseball in a hurry, a World Series between Who and How. The Florida Carp and the Cleveland Knee Socks.
The worst winner from the American League meets the non-winner from the National League, a Series made in gimmick heaven.
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They shouldn’t give a trophy, they should give an eye test. Are we seeing what we think we’re seeing?
Do either one of these teams have two forms of ID and a major-league credit card?
The question is not where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio. The question is, who are you, Chad Ogea, and what did you do with the white Bronco.
Well, better than no World Series at all and they have done that too. But what’s a season for when the Atlanta Braves and the Baltimore Orioles win more games in their leagues than anyone else and are left with the rest of us trying to tell your Omar Vizquel from your Edgar Renteria?
When Tony Fernandez’s 11th-inning home run sailed over the right-field wall at Camden Yards Wednesday night, the ball took sanity with it.
One Cinderella is a treasure. Two Cinderellas are an inventory.
Baseball is now just another end-loaded hustle, concocted not conducted, a lottery ticket, a wrist full of watches. May the best mark win.
What has taken place in these baseball playoffs is exactly what Jerry Reinsdorf was afraid to let the White Sox face, the raw, unexpected caprice of competition.
Football, basketball, hockey, all build their seasons around the notion. Get to the postseason and not only can anything happen, it probably will.
Cleveland wins a game on a swinging strike, the best thing the aforementioned Vizquel does, a missed bunt that turns into the winning run when Baltimore catcher Lenny Webster hears a foul tip.
Cleveland scores two runs on a wild pitch that never gets out of arm’s reach of Webster. Orioles ace Mike Mussina strikes out 15 and loses, gives up one hit and can’t win the final game.
In Atlanta, the Braves’ Cy Young Award staff starts pitching like Sigh Young, without excuse. Greg Maddux, perfectly fine. Tom Glavine, not a wince. John Smoltz, Denny Neagle, no alibis.
All of these are beaten by the Marlins’ batters, a lineup that can’t reach the Mendoza line, even if they have a Mendoza, which they could have for all anyone knows.
The Florida pitching, on the other hand, barely has another hand. The Marlins’ best pitchers come down with a rotator-cuff injury and a viral infection, the greatest bit of strategy since the double switch.
Because Alex Fernandez is gone and because Kevin Brown can’t keep anything in his stomach, a young Cuban defector and former Kane County Cougar, Livan Hernandez, turns into everything the famed Atlanta pitchers are not.
And on the day Hernandez strikes out 15, the umpire sees double, or at least calls the outside pitches that way, and on the night the newest team wins the oldest pennant, the home-plate umpire goes blind.
Is this baseball or burlesque?
Marlins manager Jim Leyland sobs in gratitude and warns the world against cheapening what his team has done.
But how do you get past this? The World Series. In Florida. What next, stone crab in Sandusky?
The Orioles are gone. No Ripken, no Baines, no Mussina, the wrong Alomar gets to the Series.
Baseball’s brave new world has no Braves in it.
So get ready. Do the Wahoo. Buck your teeth and wave your fingers behind your head like a feather. Dance, Orel, dance.
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Or better yet, do the Fish. Hand on the head like a sail, the other hand swimming like a fin. Yeah, Gary, yeah.
Feel the funky music. It’s the World Series.
Baseball has to be just too pleased with itself.