If your pop-psychology take on why I’ve spent my time since Saturday mostly writing about the demise of the 2004 Dodgers instead of the impending Yankees-Red Sox heavyweight bout is because I’m afraid of what the outcome might be, I won’t argue with you. Two weeks of double duty, absorbed in rooting for teams on opposite coasts, has left me without the energy to do so. More than anything, I simply wanted to avoid tapping into the negative vibe that this rivalry inevitably summons before I absolutely had to.

I loathe the Red Sox with a passion and for deep-seated reasons that go back to my time living in New England and commuting to Boston. Blue laws, a twice-stolen car, and a subway system that shuts down before 1 AM are just the tip of the iceberg. This explains perfectly why I suffer from Tourette’s Syndrome when talking about the Sox, why I want to see Manny Ramirez’ head on a spit, Pedro Martinez passed around like the Sweetheart of Cellblock C, and Curt Schilling ritually disemboweled while his family looks on in horror. If you’re a Sox fan, doubtless you feel the same way about Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Jorge Posada, and that is your prerogative. If there’s one thing the two fan bases should agree upon it is this: hunting Enrique Wilson for sport would make for a far more amusing seventh-inning stretch in the Bronx than the current medley of “God Bless America,” “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” and “Cotton-Eyed Joe.”

Anybody who tells you they know what will happen in this series is lying. In the 45 contests between the two teams over the past two years, we’ve seen Pedro Martinez thrashed, Curt Schilling bawling like a baby, Aaron Boone elevated to hero status, Mariano Rivera coughing up multiple leads, A-Rod sucker-punched in the mouth by Jason Varitek and John Flaherty getting his first game-winning hit since tee-ball. A prediction that the balance of the series will be tilted when one team’s middle infielder gets mauled by a tiger and the other squad’s top setup man runs off to join a zombie-like cult is as likely to be right as anything you’ll hear from the experts or the drunk on the next barstool. Nobody knows anything, so just sit back and enjoy the games. Failing that, try to avoid having a nervous breakdown or throwing your TV set out the window in frustration or triumph. You might need that sucker on Election Day.

Two cents’ worth of analysis: these two teams are very evenly matched, especially on offense. Both have question marks in the middle of their bullpens. The Sox advantage with the rotation, even if Schilling is less than 100 percent and Pedro is the hittable 2004 model, is still likely to be decisive, especially because the Yankees have not yet solved Bronson Arroyo. In a seven-game series, the Yankees can afford no worse than a 2-2 record in the games Curtis and Petey start. Mike Mussina and Kevin Brown will have to pitch up to their reputations as wily 200-game winners rather than as fragile, intermittently effective geezers to avoid exposing the team’s shaky middlemen too often. Javier Vazquez and Jon Lieber will have to be at the tippy-tops of their games as well. Don’t bet on it.

One of these years, the Groundhog Day spell which dooms the Red Sox to find new ways to implode will be lifted (here’s a hint: it will involve a manager with the horse sense to back six innings of Pedro with three of Keith Foulke). Sox fans will wake up to find that contrary to what they expected to happen once they defeated the Yankees, things won’t really have changed all that much; pennies will not fall from heaven, cats will spurn mating with dogs, Rhode Island won’t float off into the Atlantic Ocean because the entire state of Massachusetts will still suck (just kidding on that last count, folks — old college joke), and using the word “wicked” to describe anything other than a knee-high 98 MPH fastball on the black will sound silly.

So in the spirit of all of the above, I’ll hazard a guess — Red Sox in six — and look forward to the Yankees offering me and the rest of their fans a pleasant surprise and another chance to drink the yummy tears of Boston’s unfathomable sadness.

“You may glory in a team triumphant, but you fall in love with a team in defeat. Losing after great striving is the story of man, who was born to sorrow, whose sweetest songs tell of saddest thought, and who, if he is a hero, does nothing in life as becomingly as leaving it.” — Roger Kahn, The Boys of Summer

The 2004 Dodgers finally ran out of miracles on Sunday night. After six-and-a-half months of thrills and chills, capped by the outpouring of emotion that was Lima Time on Saturday night, their season ended with more whimper than bang. Managing only three hits, they fell to the mighty St. Louis Cardinals 6-2 and were eliminated in four games. Albert Pujols drove in four runs, three on a tiebreaking, backbreaking, heartbreaking shot off of middle reliever Wilson Alvarez in the fourth inning, and the outgunned Dodgers simply had no answer for that. Make no mistake: the better team won this series.

Alvarez had come on to clean up starter Odalis Perez’s dirty work. For the second time in the series, Perez failed to make it out of the third inning, walking five batters and leaving manager Jim Tracy little choice but to go to his bullpen early. With the Dodgers already trailing 2-1 and with two on and one out, Alvarez wriggled off of the hook by striking out Jim Edmonds and Reggie Sanders, who had homered in his previous at-bat. But the next inning brought trouble in a big way with Pujols’ big blast.

Still riding a wave of optimism after Saturday night’s raucous celebration, the Dodgers had gotten off to a promising start on a first-inning homer by Jayson Werth against Jeff Suppan. They put two runners on in the second to no avail, and threatened again in the third when Werth walked and took third on a Steve Finley single. That brought activity from the Cardinal bullpen, but Adrian Beltre could manage only a sacrifice fly — his first RBI of the series — and while it tied the score, it also started a string of fourteen consecutive batters set down by the Cardinal starter.

The umpires gave Suppan some help. Leading off the seventh, Milton Bradley was called out at first base on a grounder; replays showed he beat the throw. The volatile Bradley, who’s dealt with anger-management issues all too often recently, mustered considerable restraint, especially after a no-catch call had gone against him earlier in the game. On that play, he appeared to have made a sliding snag of a Tony Womack blooper but dropped the ball in transferring it to his throwing hand. He recovered to get a 9-4-3-6 force at second just two batters before Pujols’ homer, not that it made much difference in the outcome.

Yhency Brazoban, Mike Venafro, Giovanni Carrera and finally Eric Gagne kept the score close, allowing only one run over the final five innings. But even that was too far for the enfeebled Dodger offense to surmount this time. As the outs began to dwindle and the outcome grew more apparent, I made a decisive move from my seat on the couch. I muted the blather of Tim McCarver and Thom Brennaman and used the TiVo to synchronize the video with the MLB Gameday Audio feed from Vin Scully. If I was going to watch the Dodgers go down in defeat, I would do so in style; far better to hear it from Vin.

The boys in blue themselves went down in style, and with class as well. When Alex Cora made the season’s final out, Tracy and his players came onto the field to shake hands with Tony LaRussa and the rest of the Cardinals. It was a rare and touching display of sportsmanship that gave the crowd, the largest in Dodger Stadium’s 42-year history, one final chance to send off a team that had given them an improbable, memorable ride. Even at home I was clapping.

• • •

As such, I come to praise the 2004 Dodgers, not to bury them. After spending the better part of the News Corp era in self-induced exile from my Dodger roots and fretting endlessly over their various suitors, I was braced for the worst when Frank McCourt’s seemingly underfinanced bid turned out to be the winning one. Watching the Dodgers lose the Vladimir Guerrero sweepstakes and its nefarious underpinnings only fed my skepticism. Hearing that McCourt might sell naming rights to Dodger Stadium had me even angrier:

McCourt’s very presence, particularly via the potential abandonment of Dodger Stadium or hanging of a corporate moniker upon it, poses no less a threat than the utter rape of the once-visionary franchise. How long before the Dodgers become a ramshackle squad of faceless ballplayers wearing head-to-toe teal uniforms in a domed mallpark? The time just drew a lot closer.

Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts, a man with similar fears, voiced a bit more optimism:

No matter how many misgivings have built up to this point, I don’t think there’s a Dodger fan in town who won’t come to like McCourt if he can do the job.”

The new owner had at least one stroke of genius when he took over the club, hiring Oakland A’s assistant GM Paul DePodesta to be his general manager. The move resonated with me and many others who thought that the Dodgers, as one of baseball’s marquee franchises, deserved to be armed with a creative, cutting-edge braintrust that could undo the mistakes of the Foxies. In DePodesta, the righthand man for Billy Beane during three years of AL West alchemy, McCourt had his man and we had ours.

For years I had begun each Fox-era season with hope but not faith. From 3000 miles away, I would follow their offseason moves intently, slowly losing interest as the team stumbled out of the gate or wilted in the summer heat, only to make a day-late, dollar-short run at the Wild Card that would have me scrambling to keep up. The decision to hire DePodesta — and retain Tracy — began to restore my faith.

Taking the reins from Dan Evans, a man who deserved better after restocking the farm system, DePodesta spent the year improvising masterfully in concert with Tracy, most notably with a bullpen almost completely rebuilt with rookies and castoffs after a flurry of deals at the trading deadline. The team upgraded its offense over last year thanks to the additions of Bradley, Werth, and Jose Hernandez. They watched Adrian Beltre finally live up to his star potential. They turned their defense into the league’s best (a .715 Defensive Efficiency Rating, tops in all of baseball) as Cora and Cesar Izturis emerged as the game’s top double-play combo. They overcame a shaky rotation that nearly dropped an axle down the stretch and a trade that more or less blew up in their face. And they kicked the Giants squarely in the groin on the season’s final weekend, capping a seven-run ninth with a Steve Finley grand slam that will live in the annals of Dodger lore forever. NL West champs, for the first time in nine years.

For all of that and so much more — Eric Gagne’s 84 consecutive saves, Alex Cora’s 18-pitch at-bat, Lima Time, night after night of pinch-grand slams, 53 come-from-behind victories including 26 in their final at-bat, their first postseason victory in 16 years as Lima shut down the league’s most feared offense and got L.A. fans to stay right to the end — the Dodgers showed their hearts every single day and won mine all over again. If I’m a bit misty-eyed, whatever tears I’ve shed over the end of their season have been tears of gratitude and joy. Thank you, Dodgers, for bringing me home.

Now, three time zones away, I might finally get some sleep.

• • •

No sooner does a season end than players begin scattering to the four winds. But the signs so far from the Dodgers are mostly positive. Shortly after the team’s defeat on Sunday night, DePodesta discussed Adrian Beltre’s status. “I’d like to do everything I possibly can to make sure he’s back in a Dodger uniform,” declared DePo of the 25-year-old third baseman, who hit .334/.388/.629 with 48 homers and 121 RBI. With bloodsucking viper Scott Boras representing Beltre, that may well be an expensive and contentious proposition, but at least the GM seems braced for the task. And with one report suggesting that Beltre and Boras are seeking a six-year, $84 million deal, it may actually be quite doable.

Keeping Tracy in place also seems to rate high on DePodesta’s to-do list. Last month he said he hoped to re-sign the manager, and Tracy has indicated his willingness to stay. I hope nothing stands in the way of their union because it will be smashy-smashy time around here if they lose him. Of the free agents, Lima is a good bet to return — hell, he might get a statue by then — while Perez likely punched his ticket out of town with his poor postseason showing. Finley may well be back.

One player who definitely won’t be is Robin Ventura, who officially retired on Monday. Ventura only hit .243/.337/.362 with 5 homers in 175 PA this year, but he excelled in the pinch, hitting .271/.368/.458 with 3 homers and 14 RBI, including a grand slam. That blast, the 18th of his career, tied him with Willie McCovey for the third-most in baseball history behind Lou Gehrig (23) and Eddie Murray (19). Think about all of the great sluggers who aren’t on that list for a moment. Ladies and gentlemen, in that way at least, Robin Ventura was one of the most clutch hitters of all-time. How cool is that?

Ventura will be best remembered for those slams, including two in one game as well as the “Grand Single” he hit with the bases loaded to end a rain-soaked 15-inning League Championship Series game in 1999. He’ll also be remembered for his hilariously misguided charging of the mound on Nolan Ryan. Back in 1993, the 46-year-old fireballer had hit the 26-year-old Ventura, who took offense. When he attacked, Ryan grabbed him in a headlock and broke out a can of Lone Star-brand Whupp Ass, and the footage often gets aired on blooper reels everywhere.

But there was plenty more to Ventura’s career. At Oklahoma State, he set a collegiate record (since broken) with a 58-game hitting streak in 1987. Two years later, he made his major-league debut with the Chicago White Sox, and the next season, he was in the bigs to stay. He won five Gold Gloves with the Sox and played on their 1993 division winner. Despite suffering a gruesome ankle injury that cost him most of the 1997 season, he recovered his top-flight form in the field and won another with the Wild Card-winning Mets in ’99 while hitting 32 homers and driving in 120 runs.

After that, back problems slowed his bat speed considerably, and his batting average fell into the .230s. But his power and plate discipline kept his shelf life going, and when he was traded to the Yankees for David Justice to replace plate discipline-challenged Scott Brosius, he found a home in Bronx Bomber lineup. He hit .247/.368/.458 with 27 homers and 93 runs, and made the All-Star team for only the second time in his career.

After getting off to a strong start with the Yanks in 2003, he fell into a dismal slump during June (.578 OPS) and July (.613). At the trading deadline, the team pulled the trigger on a fateful deal for Cincinnati’s Aaron Boone, and Ventura was sent packing to the Dodgers for outfielder Bubba Crosby and pitcher Scott Proctor. His first homer as a Dodger was an improbable inside-the-park job made all the more amusing by Ventura’s slow-footed reputation. “Usually, someone has to go on the DL for me to get even a triple,” he quipped afterwards.

That was Ventura too, witty and perceptive, popular in the clubhouses and with the more astute fans. One time I was at a Yanks’ game with Alex Belth and we considered the question, “Which current Yankee would you most like to have dinner with?” Both of us chose Ventura independently. When I blindly put the question to my pal Nick a few days later, he had the same response. Great minds…

Retiring at 37, Ventura now joins a class of third baseman who won’t make the Hall of Fame but who are better than most of the ones who are in there. Last week in a Baseball Prospectus article, I took a look at the Hall of Fame credentials of several players using my JAWS system, which deals with career and peak Wins Above Replacement totals by averaging out the player’s lifetime total with his five-best-consecutive-season total. The average Hall of Fame third baseman scores at 74.7, the average Hall hitter a 75.3.

Mike Schmidt (108.4), Eddie Mathews (94.9), and George Brett (92.8) top the list of enshrined third basemen, which is weighted down by some dubious choices such as George Kell (52.4) and Fred Lindstrom (44.4), who’s fourth-lowest among all hitters. Meanwhile on the outside are the criminally neglected Ron Santo (88.4) along with Darrell Evans (78.3), Graig Nettles (76.4), Ken Boyer (73.9), and Ron Cey (70.1). Ventura, at 75.0, is at home in that company as well, thanks to no fewer than six outstanding seasons of 9.0 WARP3 or more. He’s easily as good as the average Hall of Fame third baseman.

Ventura says he may consider returning to baseball in some capacity. Whether it’s as a coach or a commentator, he’d be a fine addition anywhere. He’s welcome in my book any day.

• • •

Yankees-Red Sox: as you can see, I’m just dying to dive into the fray. There’s really not much that needs to be said at the outset of the series. The Yanks are hungry, the Sox are hungry, their fans starved. The hype in the press is thick, the rhetoric in the blogosphere is sure to be even thicker. Now that I’ve tucked the Dodgers in for the season, you know where I’ll be.

In which Double-Duty Jaffe returns to his East Coast bias…

After the rollercoaster Game Two of the Yankees-Twins Divisional Series, I voiced the sentiment that Yankee haters might be getting tired of such seemingly scripted October heroics. Following Saturday’s ballgame, the response from anyone answering my rhetorical query might echo a certain pinstriped sage: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Of course, Yankee fans might sieze upon an even more applicable Yogi Berra quote: “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

The Twins had the Yankees down 5-1 after five innings, in position to force a decisive Game Five. After Granny Gooden-ing his way through the first four frames, Yankee starter Javier Vazquez had finally slipped on the icy staircase, giving up a homer to .206-hitting Henry Blanco and a pair of runs on a double by smilin’ Lew Ford. When Esteban Loaiza, a pitcher who has “stunk up New York like a 30-day garbage strike” came on with his mop and bucket to clean up aisle six, I turned to the All-Baseball Alexes (Belth and Ciepley) with whom I was watching the game and noshing, and called the move a white flag. Master of the obvious, I told them, “They’re saving the real pitchers for Game Five.”

But Twins starter Johan Santana, pitching on three days’ rest, had given way himself in the top of the sixth. After 87 pitches and seven strikeouts — two of Derek Jeter on changeups in the dirt as the raucous Metrodome crowd chanted “over-rated!” — the young ace stiffened up while the Twins added to their lead. From the New York Daily News:

“He was done. He was going to go back out there, but then the inning got really long and he was trying to stretch, and he told me you better get someone to go back out for me,” [Twins manager Ron] Gardenhire said. “He told me he was tired, but he would go at least one more (inning).

“But as the inning went along, you could see he was done. The kid had done everything he could do. He did what he was supposed to do.”

Santana had uncorked 57 pitches over his first three innings. He believed the Yankees intentionally adjusted the approach they had taken against him in the series opener, changing from aggressive first-ball swingers into their more traditional patient tact.

“I think they were trying to wear me out,” he said, “but I stayed with it. I’m not going to let you hit me.”

When Grant Balfour took the baton from Santana and mowed down six straight Yankee hitters — 28 pitches, 19 strikes, it looked as though Santana’s fatigue would matter little. The Yanks looked cooked.

But on the other side of the ball, Loaiza held the Twins at bay. Despite racking up three hits in the sixth and one in the seventh, the Twins failed to put a run over thanks to the golden arm of Jorge Posada. The Yankee catcher gunned down Michael Cuddyer trying to steal for the first out of the sixth and nailed Ford to end the seventh. Still, it seemed as though the efforts of the Yankee battery would do little but keep the score respectable.

When Gary Sheffield beat out an infield single to lead off the eighth against Juan Rincon and Hideki Matsui followed with a walk, our little party came to life. Ciepley, who was rooting for the Twins, foretold doom three hitters down the line in the form of the Yankees’ ancient, bald-headed DH. “Ruben Sierra is going to tie this game,” he declared, drawing guffaws and my own imitation of Sierra’s mellifluous voice.

Bernie Williams stroked a single to narrow the gap to 5-2 and bring the tying run to the plate. As the tying run strode to the plate in the form of Posada, the Fox cameras panned the crowd and showed poignant shots of fretting Twins fans. After going to a full count against Rincon, Posada struck out, allowing Sierra to test Ciepley’s thesis. When Ruben smacked Rincon’s sixth pitch into the Hefty Bag in right-center for a game-tying three-run homer, the boisterous Metrodome crowd fell dead silent. Belth and I high-fived as Sierra, the Yankees’ prodigal son, circled the bases. We shouldn’t have doubted Alex; as a Cubs fan, he knew too much about foretelling doom. The telecast cutting to show several shots of heads in hands, Twins fans on the verge of tears. Yes, Minnesota, the Yankees break hearts for a living. You already knew that.

As if Gardenhire were still in shock, he left Rincon in for one more hitter. John Olerud doubled to deep centerfield while the Twins manager summoned Joe Nathan. The Twins closer struck out Miguel Cairo to end the inning, but the damage had been done.

With the game tied, Joe Torre switched to his A-list of relievers. Tom Gordon yielded a two-out double to Jason Kubel, pinch-hitting for Blanco, but escaped further damage when Jeter snared Shannon Stewart’s liner just before it could fall.

The Yanks threatened in the ninth against Nathan. Just as they were showing the relevant footage of Game Two, Alex Rodriguez hit a carbon-copy ground-rule double to left-center. Nathan retired Sheffield on a popup, walked the hot-hitting Matsui intentionally, then outlasted Bernie Williams for a seven-pitch strikeout. But a strike to Posada got away from catcher Pat Borders, who had replaced Blanco. A-Rod took third, Matsui second. Two pitches later, Posada whiffed, but for the 41-year-old former World Series MVP, it was a bad omen.

Gordon worked a spotless ninth. Kyle Lohse, the Twins’ fourth starter and the inferior alternative to short-rested Santana, came on in relief of Nathan and worked a 1-2-3 tenth. Mariano Rivera took the ball in the bottom of the inning and erased the Twins on ten pitches.

Lohse struck out Jeter to start the eleventh, Jeter’s fourth K on the day. But Rodriguez doubled down the leftfield line, and when Lohse got his second strike on Sheffield, A-Rod boldly stole third base. People know about his power, but the man was an impressive 28/32 swiping bags on the year. Money.

Battling back from 1-2, Sheffield fouled off a couple of pitches and took a ball. Lohse’s seventh pitch was a slider in the dirt that Borders couldn’t handle, and the $252 million dollar man scored the go-ahead run standing up. That was all the Yanks needed, as Rivera Mo’d the Twins down in the eleventh to clinch the series and set up a hotly-anticipated ALCS rematch with the Red Sox. Boston, who eliminated the Angels on Friday, ought to be well-rested by the time the series opens in the Bronx on Tuesday.

No sooner than the Yanks had broken out the bubbly to celebrate than reality intruded. First, Flash Gordon was hit in the eye by a cork popped at close range. Worse — much worse — the sobbing wife of Mariano Rivera’s wife entered Torre’s office and delivered shocking news that two of her family members had died when they were electrocuted by an electric fence surrounding a swimming pool at Rivera’s Panamanian home. A horrible capper to an otherwise great day.

• • •

Somewhere, the hyperbole and trash-talk between Sox and Yanks fans has already begun, but before I turn my attentions to the ALCS, I’m determined to enjoy this Yankee win a bit more. Additionally, I’ve got the Dodgers to savor for at least nine more innings.

My to-do list also requires that I extend a tip of the cap to the spunky Twins and their fine fans — bloggers such as the Twins Geek, Batgirl, Seth Strohs, Twins Fan Dan and Aaron Gleeman, their legions of followers, and my fianceé Andra’s extended family — on a fine season that ultimately came up a bit short. The Twins battled the Yankees valiantly but were undone by their own mistakes, many of them emanating from Gardenhire’s bullpen blueprint or lack of same. As good as they’ve been in winning three straight AL Central titles, I suspect there will be plenty of discussion whether Gardy’s the man to take them the next step of the way, and I don’t envy that in the least.

Finally, I’m going to have to spend some time poking through the stats so that I can fill out my ballot for the Internet Baseball Awards whose banner I designed and whose voting ends Monday at 11 PM PST. Vote if you haven’t already.

In which Double-Duty Jaffe places a single Dodger postseason victory ahead of a Yankee clincher…

After watching eleven gut-wrenching but ultimately rewarding innings of Saturday’s Yankees-Twins game chez Alex Belth (which I’ll get to in my next post), we kept the party going a bit longer as the Fox Annoy-o-vision broadcast switched over to the Dodgers-Cardinals game. With the Cards up two games to none, it was a must-win for the Dodgers, who were staring down the barrel at their third consecutive postseason sweep — if eight years since their last October appearance can be considered consecutive.

In the first two games of the series, the devastating squad of Cardinal hit men had rolled up 16 runs on Dodger pitching and KO’d starers Odalis Perez and Jeff Weaver before they’d combined for eight innings pitched. With their season on the line, the Dodgers offered up loose nut Jose Lima, a man who encapsulates the one-man’s-trash-is-another-man’s-treasure aesthetic of this year’s team.

This is a junk-tossing pitcher picked up off of the scrap heap, a guy who can’t hit 90 on the gun, a guy who was pitching in the Atlantic League last season before resurrecting his career with the Kansas City Royals. Lima has posted an ERA below 5.00 in only three of his nine big-league seasons. His last big year was 1999, when he won 21 games for the Astros and made waves (and enemies) with his animated style and eccentric ways. When he couldn’t agree to terms with the Royals last winter, the Dodgers signed him to a minor-league deal. He was a reliever and spot starter until midseason, when the pitching-thin Dodgers were out of other alternatives. He went 13-5 with a 4.07 ERA for these Dodgers, including 9-1, 3.08 at Chavez Ravine. His crazy-like-a-fox demeanor won ballgames, and won over his teammates and Dodger fans as well.

With the Yanks-Twins having gone extra innings, we joined the game in progress. Lima had survived leadoff hits in the first two innings to shut down the potent Cardinals. He came to bat in the third inning with runners on first and third. Cardinal starter Matt Morris, who had apparently cruised through the first two frames, had hit Alex Cora with a pitch to lead off and then yielded a single to Brent Mayne.

Lima bunted the ball, which hit directly in front of the plate and appeared to bounce up and hit not only his bat (again) but also his leg. Wisely selling the play, he hustled to first base and was safe, loading the bases. The Cardinals understandably objected — he should have been out — but the umpires, without the benefit of instant replay, let the play stand. Two outs later, Steve Finley poked a double down the leftfield line, scoring two runs and sending Lima to third. But Adrian Beltre couldn’t keep the rally going, striking out to end the threat.

As Lima worked through the meat of the Cardinal lineup — Larry Walker, Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen — Andra and I had to depart to attend a friend’s birthday party. We were waaaaay the hell out of the city, up on 238th street, the second-to-last stop on the 1/9 line, with miles to go before we could sleep.

Nearly an hour later, we were off the train and headed crosstown in a taxi. At that point I realized I’d left my jacket at Alex’s — I’d been so overheated by baseball that it had totally slipped my mind. I rang him up on my cell phone and he briefed me: Dodgers up 4-0 in the eighth on two Shawn Green solo homers, Lima still pitching. I let out a cheer. I figured that Lima would hand the ball off to Eric Gagne who would take care of business while I partied on.

A phone call to my friend Nick later confirmed the game’s result but not it’s details, and so when I got home at 1:30 AM, I decided to check the TiVo to see the end. I picked it up in the bottom of the seventh. Lima was still his animated self, shaking his head and muttering after walking Edgar Renteria, then pumping his fist after retiring Reggie Sanders on a warning-track fly ball to Finley on the next pitch. The Dodger Stadium crowd was PUMPED in a way I had never seen before, waving the L.A. equivalent of the Homer Hanky in delight.

With one out in the top of the eighth, the telecast cut to Gagne warming up in the Dodger bullpen. The decision seemed academic; at the beginning of the ninth or the first sign of trouble, the goggled closer, perhaps the best in the game, would take the ball. Lima retired pinch-hitter Marlon Anderson for the second out, and Fox showed a montage of the pitcher’s antics on the evening, one that I insisted on showing Andra to give her the flavor. They then cut to a graphic illustrating that with Anderson’s out, Lima had outdistanced the first two Dodger starters combined.

When Tony Womack escaped a full count by singling to center with two outs, I figured Jim Tracy would cue Gagne, but he let Lima press onward against the dangerous Walker. Ball one in the dirt brought pitching coach Jim Colborn out of the dugout, likely to issue the “get him or sit down” ultimatum. Lima huffed and puffed, pointed and gesticulated, then fired. Walker hit a sharp one-hopper right to Green in front of first base, and both Lima and the Dodger Stadium crowd went apeshit.

As the Dodgers batted in the eighth, the Foxies kept cutting to the Dodger dugout, searching for clues as to whether Lima was done for the night. Even Tim McCarver in his exalted omniscience didn’t know.

Even knowing the outcome of the game, I have to admit I got goosebumps when Lima emerged for the ninth to face the Cardinals’ trio of MVP candidates. A line from former Cardinal manager Johnny Keane about Bob Gibson after Game Seven of the 1964 series (for which McCarver was the catcher) came to mind: “I had a commitment to his heart.” Jim Tracy, a student of the game’s history, had to have that line in mind as well.

A fly ball to rightfielder Milton Bradley at the edge of the warning track retired Pujols. A drive to Finley in center took care of Scott Rolen, who remained hitless in the series. A popup to Beltre at third base disposed of Jim Edmonds and sealed the deal. In stark contrast to his previous gestures, Lima knelt near the mound for a serene moment, presumably thanking his local diety for allowing him to stymie the National League’s most fearsome offense on a five-hit shutout before resuming the festivities.

You would have thought the Dodgers had won the series by the fans’ fervor. They haven’t and they may not. But with the win, they’ve shed a 16-year burden of postseason futility and have now gone farther than any Dodger team since the Orel Hershiser-led 1988 World Champions. Their spot in the hearts of Dodger fans has been clinched, their accomplishments worth savoring for every last minute. Dodger Blues ought to reset that infernal clock which shows that it’s been 5837 days since the last great Dodger moment. Until tonight’s first pitch — Perez against Jeff Suppan — Lima Time is in full effect.

Jon Weisman was lucky enough to be at Chavez Ravine:

I was forced to be at home for the Dodgers’ amazing division-clinching comeback against San Francisco two weeks ago. I saw the entire game on television (Dodgers, I’m hopelessly TiVoted to you) and was thrilled.

But the difference in being able to attend the game is the glory of being able to genuflect, to offer your praise and feel it being received. And it was just a magnificent experience. I mean, I was waving and yelling to Lima from the Loge level – and I’m pretty sure he knew it.

…You didn’t want to see Lima’s outstanding outing marred by a collapse – and you had a rested Gagne ready. But then again, with a four-run lead, wasn’t it worth a shot to see if Lima could ride this horse all the way back to the stables? The Dodgers certainly planned to remove him if one batter reached base in the ninth.

Facing the three All-Stars, Pujols, Rolen and Jim Edmonds, Lima retired them in order on 10 pitches – 10 pitches! – Beltre flairing a basket catch of a popup to end it.

Lima kneeled down and genuflected. As did we all.

What an incredible night in Los Angeles baseball history.

Amen to that, brother.

Once upon a time, nearly half of the baseball games I watched were played on synthetic turf. Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Minnesota, Toronto, Montreal all played on the stuff and won plenty, those teams taking turns winning 15 pennants, 10 World Championships and oodles of division titles from 1975-1993. The high bounces, fast grounders and ugly backdrops were simply part of baseball.

But while the stadium-building movement and the replacement of turf with grass in older ballparks have improved aesthetics considerably, they’ve homogenized the game at the expense of speed-and-defense teams like Whitey Herzog’s Cardinals. The Minnesota Twins are an anachronism, their success over the past few years perhaps the dying gasp of the turf team. They’re built for speed in a way most teams simply aren’t, and when they play in the Metrodome they would seem to have an advantage.

The problem, of course, is that they keep running into those infernal Yankees in the postseason. Capable of winning anywhere, the Yanks beat them twice at the Dome in last year’s Divisional Series, eliminating them. Friday night, to the Twins’ chagrin, turned into more of the same.

With the series knotted at one game apiece, taking the hill for the Yankees was Kevin Brown, he of the rage-induced broken hand and a man hardly suited to pitching on turf. Brown’s anger appears to be directed at his own limitations, as the ravages of age and injury prevent him from blowing his mid-90s fastball by hitters like he did in the late-’90s. From 1997-2003, Brown struck out 8.2 hitters per nine innings, but he’s only whiffed 5.7 this season. Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre has tried to convince him to put the ball in play, not the easiest sell given the team’s reputation for less than stellar infield defense. And not an especially good idea on a surface where infield grounders quickly become base hits.

Brown got off to a rocky start on Friday night, serving up a home run to Jacque Jones on his 11th pitch of the evening. It was the second homer of the series for Jones, who’s spent the last two days living down the distinction of being (according to Joe Sheehan) “the first player in history to be criticized for hitting the cutoff man.”

But the Yankees quicky bailed out Browns against Twins starter Carlos Silva. Silva is a sinkerballer who gets a lot of ground balls himself while striking out very few hitters — 3.4 per nine innings this year. He was nearly ground-balled to death in the second inning. After he got two quick outs, Jorge Posada laced a single to centerfield. On the next pitch, John Olerud hit a grounder that skipped past Cristian Guzman at short. Two pitches later, Miguel Cairo poked a single down the rightfield line, scoring Posada to tie the game and sending Olerud to third. The flurry of singles continued as Kenny Lofton blooped Silva’s first pitch into left for another run. Silva got Jeter to two strikes before he too singled to through the left side for the fifth straight Yankee hit. Finally, Alex Rodriguez popped out to end the madness, but the damage had been done, 3-1 Yanks.

The turf continued to be a factor. Brown got into trouble with two infield singles in the second by Lew Ford (compounded by a Jeter throwing error) and Guzman. With runners on first and third and one out, Brown dispatched Michael Cuddyer on three pitches, and then came up lucky when A-Rod speared Henry Blanco’s sharp liner to end the inning. He continued to dodge trouble. In the fourth, with two outs and a man on second, he gave up an infield single to Guzman, the fourth time that the Twins beat one out. Again, Cuddyer was the safety valve, Brown retiring him on a grounder to Jeter.

Silva pitched reasonably well through five innings, allowing only the three runs despite seven hits. But the Yanks broke the game open in the sixth. Following a leadoff single by Hideki Matsui, Silva left one out over the plate for Bernie Williams, and the all-time leader in postseason home runs (yeah, three tiers of playoffs, blah blah blah) hit his 20th on a liner to right to widen the gap to 5-1. Another Posada single chased Silva, and the Yanks simply piled on reliever J.C. Romero, who had given up the game-winning sac fly on Wendesday night. Opening against Olerud with a head-scratching pitchout — on catcher/track star Jorge “Thunderthighs” Posada? — Romero went to 3-0 on John Olerud. The Yankee first baseman took two pitches for strikes and then worked a walk. Cairo bunted the runners to second and third. Romero recovered to strike out Kenny Lofton, then gave way to 23-year-old rookie Jesse Crain. Jeter bounced Crain’s second pitch through the box — welcome to the postseason, kid — for a two-run single that put the game seemingly out of reach.

Down 7-1, the Twins became desperate and foolish. Leading off the bottom of the sixth, still facing Brown, Torii Hunter chopped a ball over A-Rod at third base. Matsui, looking to cut the ball off, tried to barehand and ended up kicking the ball into left-center with his right heel. Hunter dug hard around second, looking to stretch the miscue into a three-bagger, but Matsui recovered and made a perfect peg to Rodriguez to nail the speedy Twin. Two batters later, Corey Koskie laced a gapper to left-center — one that easily would have scored Hunter, had he settled for two bases — and tested Bernie Williams’ subpar throwing arm. Williams aced the test, firing an accurate peg to Cairo. The headfirst-sliding Koskie got a mouthful of dirt for his trouble in addition to being tagged out.

That ended Brown’s evening. He’d given up eight hits over six innings, walked none and only struck out one. But of the eight hits, four were infield singles, two were outfield hits erased by baserunning mistakes, one was Jones’ homer, and the other a Koskie single of no great consequence. As I’ve said before, timing is everything. Though not dominant, Brown’s outing was an impressive one for a pitcher who many — myself included — didn’t expect to be wildly successful. I’m not exactly in his corner yet, but he took a big step toward atoning for his fist-pounding foolishness.

Meanwhile, the bad breaks continued for the Twins, particularly Hunter. In the seventh, he made a spectacular catch off of a long Matsui fly, but when he crashed into the left-centerfield wall, the ball popped out and dribbled over the fence. Hunter crashed to the ground in agony as the Metrodome crowd gasped. A confused Matsui, who thought the centerfielder had held the ball, stopped circling the bases before Williams, beating the umpire, signaled “home run.” When Hunter finally got to his feet, the Dome crowd, more concerned for their star player than for the increasingly out-of-reach ballgame, gave him a hearty heartland ovation.

Paul Quantrill and Felix Heredia carried the Yanks to the ninth, still leading 8-1. But on consecutive pitches, Heredia drilled Twins hitters, first Koskie and then Ford. A dyspeptic-looking Joe Torre brought in his new favorite toy, Tanyon Sturtze. Guzman chopped a ball which Cairo cut off in short right but had no play on, loading the bases. Cuddyer poked Sturtze’s next pitch into centerfield for an RBI single, at which point Torre brought the hammer down in the form of Mariano Rivera. It wasn’t a save situation, but with a six-run lead, Torre was taking no chances. Mo and the Yanks willingly traded outs for runs. One scored on a groundout, another on a sac fly, and then with two outs, A-Rod made a nifty play on a Jones grounder, fired to Olerud to clinch the ballgame and gave the Yanks a 2-1 edge in the series.

But it most definitely ain’t over. Johan Santana, the best pitcher in the American League, stands in the way of a rematch between the Yankees and the Red Sox, who after blowing a five-run lead thanks to a Vladimir Guerrero grand slam, recovered to eliminate the Anaheim Angels yesterday. With Orlando Hernandez still not 100 percent, Torre has tapped Javier Vazquez to start. You couldn’t get a pair of pitchers whose post-All Star Break fortunes contrast more:

          W-L  ERA    K/9

Santana  14-0  1.13  10.83

Vazquez   4-5  6.92   6.24

I had Vazquez as my preseason AL Cy Young Award winner, but he’s been a basket case with bad mechanics over the last three months. Santana, on the other hand, has gone out and earned the damn hardware. The Yanks have to be heartened that they scraped nine hits off of him and that he’s coming back on three days’ rest, uncharted territory for the 25-year-old ace. If they want to become the best, they’ll have to beat the best.

Throwing the shaky, homer-prone Vazquez at the Twins in the Hefty Bag would seem to be a bad idea, but the Hubert H. Humphrey ain’t the Homerdome of yesteryear. The Twins and their opponents hit 172 dingers there, while clouting 186 in opposing ballparks, an eight percent edge. Still, it’s hardly an ideal environment for Javy, who got bombed there for six runs, including two dingers, on August 17.

Andra and I are trekking up to Riverdale to enjoy the game and break bread with Alex Belth and his gal Emily. Alex Ciepley will join us but doubtless remain true to his midwestern roots by cheering for the Twins while the rest of us squirm. Should be a barrelful of monkeys.

Speaking of Belth and this series, if you haven’t caught his back-and-forth exchanges with Twins blogger extraordinaire Batgirl (she of the hysterical Lego re-enactments), check them out on All-Baseball.com.

Unless my work schedule changes in the next few hours, I’m not likely to get a chance to catch up with Thursday night’s Dodger debacle in a timely, detailed manner. I’m disappointed withGame Two‘s result, of course, and hold myself to blame for years of trash-talking Cardinals catcher Mike Matheny (career OPS .629), who drove in four runs (that weak-hitting SOB probably drowns kittens in his spare time).

After consecutive 8-3 drubbings, there’s not much else to say except that this isn’t too far off what I expected. But the night’s outcome certainly could have been different. The Dodgers’ celebrated defense let them down, with both shorttop Cesar Izturis and second baseman Alex Cora, as good with the leather as any keystone combo you’ll find, failing to prevent key singles. Shawn Green dropped a pickoff throw from Jeff Weaver. Milton Bradley misplayed three balls that helped St. Louis score runs. And the pitching certainly could have been handled differently. Jon Weisman points to Jim Tracy sticking with Jeff Weaver in the fifth, when the bases were loaded with two outs and the Dodgers trailed 4-3:

…in a must-win situation, already down by a run, if you have a fresher, better option than Weaver – particularly with his spot due up in the top of the sixth inning – you have to take it.

I don’t like to second-guess Jim Tracy, but this one seemed obvious to me. He potentially needed only 13 outs to close out the game, most of which could be taken by rested Eric Gagne and Yhency Brazoban. That left Duaner Sanchez, Wilson Alvarez and Giovanni Carrara, all fresh, to go after St. Louis catcher Mike Matheny.

Heck, why not bring in Gagne right then. Did you need a bigger moment?

Baseball Prospectus’s Joe Sheehan got to the heart of the problem on the other side of the ball in his column today:

Blown opportunities didn’t turn out so well for the Dodgers, who might have scored 11 runs in the first four innings last night with some better distribution of their actions. As it was, though, they hit three solo home runs while stranding seven runners in the first four innings.

Sometimes, you can see the moment when a dream dies. With the Dodgers having tied the game at three in the fourth, and having chased Jason Marquis from the mound, they were one pitch away from taking the lead and bringing Adrian Beltre to the plate. In relief of Marquis, Cal Eldred had walked consecutive batters and gone to a 3-0 count on Steve Finley with the bases loaded.

Eldred got a fastball over for a strike, with Finley taking all the way. Finley then overswung at the 3-1 fastball, perhaps the key moment in the series. He then popped up a well-placed heater on the 3-2 pitch, ending the threat. The Cardinals picked up three runs in the bottom of the fifth, the Dodgers were shut out the rest of the way, and the series likely came to an end.

My poor Dodger cap took quite a beating, especially as I watched Weaver and the defense unravel. To answer the Weaver/Kevin Brown question — who would you rather have in October — more authoritatively: until I see Brown pitch like the bastard in the catalog, I’ll offer up the great Abe Lincoln quote which my pal Steven Goldman used a few weeks ago: “If this is tea, please bring me some coffee, but if this is coffee, please bring me some tea.” Weaver wasn’t so hot last night, but he should have gotten better support on offense, on defense, and from the dugout. I wish Brown better luck.

I question whether Bradley should have been in the lineup last night. After his second recent high-profile outburst (one with considerably different circumstances from the on-field incident) the day before, he looked simply lost in the field. But he did hit one 461 feet, and poked a double as well, providing a good chunk of the Dodger offense. Like everything else with Bradley, I take the ups with the downs and hope this talented, intelligent player gets his shit together. But man, his timing needs work.

I’m not ready to shovel dirt on the Dodgers just yet. Even down 2-0, they’re headed back to L.A., where they played better than .600 ball this year. But the same things I just said about Bradley apply to the rest of them: they need to get their shit together, and their timing needs work.

Yankee haters, I can understand how you might be getting tired of stories like this. Four hours into a thrilling rollercoaster of a ballgame, the Minnesota Twins had the New York Yankees two outs away from heading to the heartland down 2-0. They had touched Mariano Rivera for a blown save, that rarest of postseason occurrences, and then Torii Hunter had produced some extra-inning heroics with a towering home run off of Tanyon Sturtze. The Twins had their own first-rate closer, Joe Nathan, in place to nail things down. Though Nathan had thrown 32 pitches in his first two innings, manager Ron Gardenhire was going for the kill.

But before you could say, “Break out the Homer Hankies at the Hefty Bag,” the Bronx Bombers were at home plate, dancing and high-fiving around Derek Jeter. The Yankee captain had taken a bold risk in tagging up from third base on a short fly ball, caught the defense napping, and capped another dramatic rally, the 62nd time the Yanks have come from behind this season. Now it’s Splitsville, and this game will stand as more evidence of the Yankee mystique and aura. Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one.

The Yanks had every reason to be on eggshells. They had squandered numerous opportunities in the series opener against the Twins ace, Johan Santana, getting nine hits but failing to score against a pitcher who came in on a 13-0, 1.18 ERA run since the All-Star Break. Five double plays, including one where Hunter threw out Jorge Posada at the plate, and a pair of homer-robbing catches by the Twins outfielders had kept the Yanks off the board on Tuesday night. And they quickly fell behind in this one; six pitches into starter Jon Lieber’s evening, he’d allowed two hits and a run on a Justin Morneau RBI double, though Morneau produced an inning-ending out trying to stretch his hit into a triple.

But the Yanks got even quickly. Leadoff hitter Jeter drilled Brad Radke’s third pitch, a high fastball, not just over the wall but into the black centerfield batter’s eye of Yankee Stadium. Hallowed ground: only 20 hitters have driven balls into that area since the remodeled Stadium opened in 1976, and among Yankees, only Reggie Jackson, with his climactic third homer in Game Six of the 1977 World Series, had done so in the postseason. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Flavor Country.

The Twins came right back against Lieber, who couldn’t seem to get his slider down. A leadoff walk, a pair of singles, and a sac fly put them up 3-1 in the second. But Radke couldn’t hold the lead for long. In the third he gave up a single to Alex Rodriguez, and then Gary Sheffield whipped one of his trademark homers down the leftfield line to knot the score. A-Rod added a homer in the fifth to put the Yanks ahead, and when Lieber struck out Corey Koskie with Hunter on second to end the sixth, things looked as good for the pinstripes as they had all series. Any time was bullpen time from that juncture, with Tom Gordon and Mo Rivera more than capable of getting the last nine outs.

Gordon game on with two out and a man on in seventh. Lieber had settled down admirably, stalling the Twins at three runs since there were two outs in the second — five full innings. An additional Yankee run in the seventh on a Miguel Cairo leadoff walk, a Jeter sacrifice (ugh), and a timely A-Rod single, his third hit of the game, had given the Yanks some leeway.

Gordon escaped the seventh on a Jose Offerman (!) liner and then got the first two batters in the eighth, inducing a fly out to Shannon Stewart after an eight-pitch at-bat and striking out Jacque Jones. But strike three got away from Posada and rolled to the backstop, while Jones rolled to first base uncontested. Hunter singled to put runners on first and second, and Joe Torre went to his bullpen for Mo.

Rivera has been the closest thing to automatic that October has ever seen, converting 30 out of 32 save opportunities in his postseason career. But his only two miscues are well etched in memory: the deciding game of the 1997 Divisional Series against Cleveland, when he gave up a decisive homer to Sandy Alomar, Jr., and Game Seven of the 2001 World Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, when all hell broke loose with the Yanks on the precipice of their fourth straight championship. He hasn’t messed up often under these circumstances, but when he has, it’s meant curtains for the Yankees.

Visions of such curtains ran through my mind as Morneau blooped Rivera’s first pitch into rightfield. A charging Sheffield was nowhere close to catching the ball, but in a rather awkward way he kept it in front of him. Still, Jones crossed the plate to narrow the lead. Koskie then battled out of an 0-2 hole to bound a double down the leftfield line; it couldn’t have landed fair by more than a foot before bouncing into the stands. As bad as it was, a game-tying double and a blown save for Mo, it could have been worse; Luis Rivas, Morneau’s pinch-runner, was forced to hold up at third. Mo then recovered to strike out rookie Jason Kubel on three pitches and then get a comebacker from Cristian Guzman.

Still, the blown lead felt demoralizing. The Yanks worked some long at-bats off of reliever Juan Rincon over the next two innings, but they couldn’t put up a single baserunner. Rivera departed, to be replaced by Sturtze, the newly-annointed #3 reliever out of the Yankee pen thanks to a hot couple of weeks and a brand new cut fastball he learned from Rivera that helped to bring his ERA down from the stratosphere. Sturtze and Nathan valiantly matched zeroes for two innings before the former blinked, feeding Hunter a meatball that brought the Yankees face to face with being skunked in their own stadium.

Nathan extended the Twins’ bullpen’s dominance over the Yanks to four innings in that span — thirteen hitters, no hits, one walk, six strikeouts. But with a one-run lead, Gardenhire sent his closer back out for the bottom of the twelfth.

It was an understandable move from one angle. Unlike the previous night, when Rincon had done the heavy lifitng instead of either Santana or Nathan, Gardy had his best pitcher (at that point) to face Jeter and perhaps Rodriguez and Sheffield, the scheduled third, fourth, and fifth hitters of the inning.

But Jeter and company had already seen Nathan the first time around, and though Nathan led off the inning by striking out John Olerud, his four-pitch walk of Cairo had me and every other Yankees partisan licking their chops. Nathan was cooked, and the Yanks smelled it.

The Twins closer missed on every pitch to Jeter, some high, others inside, and gave up the walk. Rodriguez loomed, having already figured in three other scoring events. After Nathan missed inside for his ninth straight ball, A-Rod laid off an inside strike that might have made for a game-ending double play. Instead he waited and drove an obviously gassed Nathan’s next pitch to deepest left-center, where it bounced over the wall for a game-tying — but not game-winning — ground rule double. Jeter was forced to stop at third, but the Bronx Bombers were still in business.

The Twins walked Sheffield to keep the DP in order, then Nathan departed for J.C. Romero. The newest Twins reliever threw only one pitch to Hideki Matsui, who lined a short fly ball to Jones in right. Jones has been riding a rollercoaster of his own this past week. Sadly, his father died of cancer at the age of 52 early on Friday. He left the team to be with his family, but returned in time to hit a solo homer and catch the final out of the first game of the Series.

His mind might have been elsewhere when Matsui’s ball reached his glove. It seemed too short to score a run, but Jeter must have been aware of Jones’ limitations — only two assists this year and a weak arm, not to mention whatever extracurricular thoughts might understandably be floating around his head. The Yankee captain bolted from third while Jones, not quite nonchalantly but with a lack of urgency, relayed the ball to first baseman Matt LeCroy. LeCroy’s throw pulled catcher Henry Blanco away from the plate towards the first base side as Jeter popped up from his slide and pumped his fist as if to say, “Yeah, I can do this every day,” as if it were his birthright, while his teammates spilled out of the dugout to join him in celebration.

These heartless October automatons show no mercy even for the bereaved. When they do business at this time of year, it’s in the vicinity of the jugular, and the splattered blood from their feral attack ends up looking like some Jackson Pollack masterpiece worthy of a museum presentation. No wonder you hate them.

• • •

So the Yanks head to Minny knotted at one. The latest situation with their makeshift rotation has Kevin Brown, 39 years old going on four, taking the ball instead of ageless El Duque, Orlando Hernandez, whose shoulder is balky at best. After being lit up by Boston in his first game back from a self-inflicted broken hand, Brown tossed five innings of one-hit ball at the Toronto Blue Jays on the second-to-last day of the season, thus earning his postseason pinstripes.

At least to the Yankee brass’ satisfaction, that is. From where I sit, Brown still makes me uneasy. His hypercharged emotions, rage against his own lack of perfection, and ability to embarrass his team with his outbursts echo a bit too much of the man he replaced, Roger Clemens. Though the Rocket finally washed away the stench from the Mike Piazza affair by keeping his cool under postseason duress numerous times, he nevertheless maintained a disturbing ability to implode. Still, after catching a glimpse of his October handiwork yesterday — seven gritty innings while still recovering from a stomach virus — I’d take my chances with the big galoot any day over Brown. A quick comparison of the two this year:

          W-L   ERA   IP    K/9  K/W  WHIP  VORP

Clemens  18-4  2.98  214.1  9.2  2.8  1.16  61.3

Brown    10-6  4.09  132.0  5.7  2.4  1.27  26.4

Not that there’s much they could have done besides buying the entire state of Texas and having it moved to New Jersey for Clemens’ benefit — hey, George Steinbrenner has his limits — the Yankees got smoked on that tradeoff. They also got smoked on the actual Brown trade, in which he arrived from Los Angeles for Jeff Weaver, Yhency Brazoban, and Brandon Weeden. As preopsterous as it sounds to Yankee fans, Weaver was the Dodgers’ most reliable starter and Brazoban, a converted outfielder who couldn’t master A ball last year, their late-season version of K-Rod. The two combined to be 49.7 Runs Above Replacement according to Baseball Prospectus’ VORP statistics (Weaver 37.9 runs, Brazoban 11.7), about twice Brown’s total.

Weaver will have his hands full as he faces the Cardinals tonight. St. Louis’ version of Murderer’s Row bashed five homers off of Dodger pitchers, three off of starter Odalis Perez, who lasted less than three innings on Tuesday afternoon. It’s not quite a must-win game, given that the Dodgers will be headed back to L.A. this weekend. But it would be a whole lot cooler if Weaver could muster some moxie and avoid the big innings that make the Cards so dangerous.

As if I hadn’t written enough in the last 24 hours, this afternoon’s drubbing of the Dodgers (down 7-1 in the sixth as I write this… no, 7-2… now 8-2) has sent me back to the keyboard to tie up a few loose ends.

First up are my postseason predictions, which I’ll offer without comment but for posterity:

National League: Cardinals over Dodgers in 4, Braves over Astros in 4, Cardinals over Braves in 6.

American League: Yankees over Twins in 5, Angels over Red Sox in 5, Angels over Yankees in 6.

World Series: Cardinals over Angels in 6.

Looking back at my preseason predictions, I’m pleased to note that I called the winners of each division and the Wild Card correctly in the AL. In the NL? Not so much. I did get the Wild Card right, but that’s simply because I’m stubborn enough to pick the Astros there every year. Elsewhere, I had the Phillies, Cubs, and Padres at the top of their respective divisions, none of which came to pass.

It’s interesting to go back and read what I wrote about the NL West:

Somebody has to win this division, right? Tempted though I am to wishcast the Dodgers into first place, I’ve restrained myself from doing so, with the caveat that since it will only take about 85-88 games to win this division, this one will probably go down to the wire. The Padres have done some interesting upgrading since late last year, adding Brian Giles, Ramon Hernandez, and David Wells, so what the hell, I’ll put my nickel on them. The Dodgers have improved slightly since Paul DePodesta took over the helm; the Milton Bradley deal, while it may bite them in the ass down the road, give the team a needed shot of offense. But unless Cesar Izturis and Alex Cora morph into productive hitters (hold on, I haven’t stopped laughing) or Adrian Beltre lives up to that long-lost promise (no, really), these guys ain’t going nowhere. On the other hand, the right late-season deal could give any team in the division the edge, and the Dodgers have a lot of minor-league talent to offer. Besides Barry Bonds, the Giants don’t scare anybody, except their own medical staff. Even if Jason Schmidt is healthy they won’t have enough pitching. And that outfield… Michael Tucker? Marquis Grissom? Jeffrey Hammonds? Dustan Mohr? Elsewhere, the Diamondback will continue to age less than gracefully, and the Rockies will score some runs while allowing even more.

I overestimated the Padres’ improvements, mostly due to the drastic effects of their new ballpark, which heavily favors pitchers and eats homers. The Padres and their opponents hit only 132 dingers at Petco, 191 away from there, a 45 percent difference. I was pretty much on the money with regards to the Giants (Bonds and Schmidt and the Rest Was Shit, Especially That Bullpen When It Mattered).

Dodgerwise, the Bradley deal was a boost even though he hit only .267/.362/.424 and had a couple of high-profile meltdowns. As for Cora, Izturis, and Beltre, I’m certainly not laughing any more:

          ---PRE '04---   ----2004----

          AVG  OBP  SLG   AVG  OBP  SLG 

Izturis  .246 .270 .319  .288 .330 .381

Cora     .241 .301 .344  .264 .364 .380

Beltre   .262 .320 .428  .334 .388 .629

Neither Izturis nor Cora will scare many pitchers, but both put up OBPs that were at least 60 points higher than their career marks, and improved their SLGs considerably as well. Beltre improved his OBP by over 60 points as well, and raised his SLG by a jaw-dropping 201 points. Throw in Cora’s platoon partner, Jose Hernandez, at .289/.370/.540, and you’ve got a Great Leap Forward from one-third of the Dodger lineup, one that was a huge factor in their winning the West.

Another pair of games like this afternoon and it won’t matter much, though…

When the Dodgers and the Yankees were last in the playoffs simultaneously, my view of baseball was much different than it is today. The year was 1996. I was 26, had hair down to my collar, and worked as the Associate Art Director at Wolff New Media, where we published topical guides to the Internet that were obsolete by the time they hit the street. Instant doorstops.

I had moved to New York City only a year and a half earlier and had not yet been seduced by the temptations of the pinstripes. The Dodgers had unwaveringly been my team from the time I’d begun following baseball in 1977. But that summer, Tommy Lasorda, the only Dodger manager I had ever known, had stepped down. The venerable, voluble, volatile skipper of 20+ seasons had suffered a heart attack in late June and was replaced on an interim basis by Bill Russell, who had been a member of the Longest Running Infield (with Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Ron Cey) that had anchored Lasorda’s inaugural pennant-winning teams.

The Dodgers, who had won the NL West the previous season, had been in first place when Lasorda suffered his attack, and under Russell they continued to hold the lead. It was an interesting, likeable team whose nucleus featured five consecutive Rookies of the Year at various spots: Eric Karros (1992) at first base, Mike Piazza (’93) at catcher, Raul Mondesi (’94) in right, Hideo Nomo (’95) as one of the team’s United Nations blend of starters, and Todd Hollandsworth (soon to win the ’96 award) in left. Karros and Piazza combined for 70 homers and 216 RBI, and Mondesi added power and speed as well. Nomo (Japan) joined Ramon Martinez and Pedro Astacio (Dominican Republic), Ismael Valdez (Mexico) and Tom Candiotti (America) in the rotation. Todd Worrell was the closer.

With four games to play, the Dodgers led the Padres by three games in the loss column and two-and-a-half overall. But on the eve of a three-game series with the Pods, they lost their game-in-hand to the Giants. They lost the first two games to San Diego, bringing the NL West title down to a final showdown on Sunday.

Ace Ramon Martinez, Pedro’s older brother, was slated to start for the Dodgers, and it was assumed that Joey Hamilton, the Padres #2, would come back on three days’ rest. My brother, who had moved to New York City a year after I did, hunkered down with me to watch the game. We were jazzed. Except…

Except that the year before, a new-fangled concept had been introduced into the world of postseason baseball, the Wild Card. As a result of their 90-win seasons, both teams were guaranteed a playoff spot regardless of the game’s outcome. What should have been a dramatic climax to the season quickly turned anticlimactic. The Pods started #4 Bob Tewksbury instead of Hamilton. The Dodgers went ahead with Martinez, but pulled him after one scoreless inning in favor of their #4, Astacio.

It was a strange new world.

• • •

The game ended up scoreless through nine innings, with both teams managing only four hits. The Padres prevailed in eleven frames, scoring two runs off of rookie Chan Ho Park on a double by Gwynn. Chris Gwynn, that is — Tony’s useless brother, who had spent seven of the first nine years of his career in Dodger blue, reminding us that baseball genes weren’t necessarily hereditary. Oh, brother.

By losing the game and the division, the Dodgers deprived themselves of home field advantage in the first round against the 88-win St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, they faced the defending World Champions, the Atlanta Braves, who had won 96 games. They opened by losing two tight ones in L.A. (the home field advantage at that point was simply to have the final three games in the superior team’s ballpark). Martinez and John Smoltz allowed one run apiece, and the game went into extra innings. In the tenth, Antonio Osuna yielded a solo homer to Javy Lopez, and they lost 2-1. Oops.

In the second game, the Dodgers scraped two unearned runs off of Greg Maddux by virtue of errors by Ryan Klesko and Marquis Grissom. Klesko atoned by homering off of Ismael Valdes, but the Dodgers took a 2-1 lead into the seventh. Alas, Fred McGriff and Jermaine Dye each hit solo shots off of Ish to take the lead, and the Dodgers never countered. The team was eliminated two days later when Nomo was bombed for five runs in 3.2 innings while they could manage only two off of Tom Glavine and company. Thus they had been swept in back-to-back postseasons, still having not won a playoff game since the 1988 World Series clincher.

• • •

In the New York market, with the Yankees having made the postseason for the second consecutive year after a thirteen-season drought, I didn’t see more than the occasional highlight (or lowlight) from the Dodgers series. It didn’t help that I wasn’t all that interested in the Yanks either, catching only glimpses here and there of their wins in the Divisional Series over the Texas Rangers.

But I had followed the team in print for most of the season. With all-time blowhard Dallas Green managing the Mets and polluting the local sports pages with his tabloid-ready toxic spew, I was drawn to the contrastingly calm professionalism of new Yankee manager Joe Torre. Unlike the dozens of predecessors who had ended up with their heads on George Steinbrenner’s chopping block in short order, Torre seemed able to tame the megalomaniacal Yankee owner.

The nucleus of the team contained none of the vocal malcontents, free-agent flops, or rap-sheet regulars which crowded the Yankee roster in the ’80s and early ’90s — Steve Howe, Mel Hall, Luis Polonia, Danny Tartabull, et al. But I was particularly drawn to the plight of David Cone, the hired-gun starter who had come to the team via midseason trade the year before and had been hung out to dry — 147 pitches, his last a ball to Doug Strange which forced in the tying run — by then-manager Buck Showalter in the deciding game of the ’95 Divisional Series against the Mariners.

Cone had gone on to miss four months of the ’96 season due to an aneurysm in his pitching arm. I still had no great affection for him at this point in his career, but his seven innings of no-hit ball in his post-aneurysm comeback on September 2 — and his willingness to call it a day at that point — exemplified these new Yankees: they had perspective, a rarity in New York sports.

The Yankees went on to beat the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS, thanks in part to 12-year-old fan Jeffrey Maier ensuring that a Derek Jeter fly ball became a home run. In the World Series, they would be matched up with the Braves, the defending champs and self-proclaimed “America’s Team” with their obnoxious chanting and their tomahawk chop and their ownership by Ted Turner, whose Time Warner Cable had just raised my monthly bill. Faced with the cognitive dissonance of actively rooting for the Yankees, the team I had hated all of my life, for the first time, I was a pushover. “Fuck the Braves,” I muttered to myself, and watched a thrilling World Series from a decidedly different vantage point.

• • •

As the years went by, I settled into my New York digs and became more seduced by easy pleasures of rooting for the pinstripes. At the same time, the once-reassuring continuity of the Dodgers had crumbled. Not only was Lasorda gone, but in 1998, Peter O’Malley had sold the team to the Fox Group. Soon after, they traded Piazza and descended into an unpalatable mediocrity that was difficult and painful to follow from 3,000 miles away.

I drifted away from the Dodgers, but not too far away. Always keeping one eye on the team, getting my hopes up if they were close when September rolled around, I knew that if nothing else I would still be spending October watching and cheering — and even attending — the Yankees postseason. Under manager Jim Tracy, who took over in 2001, they kept things interesting thanks to the Wild Card, but they couldn’t make it back to playoffs. Until this year.

Earlier this season, the Yanks and Dodgers met in a regular-season ballgame for the first time. I reveled in the matchup, writing no fewer than four pieces about the two teams, their intertwined history, and my own personal stake in it. I had no trouble determining my allegiances that weekend; as I titled three of my articles, I was “Wearing My Dodger Blues.” Blood really is thicker than water.

And so that’s the attitude I’m taking into this year’s postseason. On the American League front, I am certainly rooting for the Yankees against the Twins, a rematch of last year’s series. I like this Yankee team and have followed it on a year-round basis. But it’s a deeply flawed squad, built on the faulty premise that star ballplayers remain healthy and productive forever. They could roll through the playoffs on memory like they’ve seemed to in 2001 and 2003, or they could be easy meat like they were in 2002. I won’t be much surprised either way, nor will I be quite as invested as I have been in years past.

The Yanks are uncharacteristically weak in the pitching department and will require smoke and mirrors to string together four effective starts from Mike Mussina, Jon Lieber, Orlando Hernandez, Javier Vazquez, and/or Kevin Brown. All of those pitcher have been shaky and banged up at one time or another, and with the exception of Moose and Lieber, none of them is in a very good groove right now. The bullpen is even worse off; besides Mariano Rivera and Tom Gordon — admittedly, two difference-makers — there’s the shaky Paul Quantrill, who looks cooked, and the implausible Tanyon “Boom Boom” Sturtze, who has put together a string of six scoreless outings totalling 12 innings (three hits, four walks, 14 Ks) and brought his lofty ERA down to 5.47.

The lineup is a strong one, featuring the by-now-familiar big bats at the top: Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Hideki Matsui, and Jorge Posada. Bernie Williams isn’t what he used to be, but he’s shown enough heroics lately — including a homer to clinch the AL East — that he’s a plus right now. Jason Giambi, in all likelihood, won’t make the playoff roster, leaving Tony Clark and John Olerud to play first base.

The Twins have the pitching edge, thanks in part to Cy Young favorite Johan Santana and Brad Radke. They allowed 4.41 runs per game, the fewest in the AL (the Yanks allowed 4.99). Their offense can’t touch the Yankees — they scored only 4.81 per game, well below the Yanks’ 5.54. But as they say, good pitching will beat good hitting, and I won’t be surprised at all if they advance.

But while I’ll follow the Yanks, my heart is with the Dodgers as they face the Cardinals. They’re heavy underdogs against the team that won 105 games and demolished opponents thanks to a triumverate of MVP-caliber sluggers in Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds, not to mention late-season pickup Larry Walker. The Cards scored 5.28 runs per game, best in the NL, and they allowed 4.06, also tops in the league. The Dodgers, by comparison, put up 4.7 runs per game and allowed 4.22.

Neither team has dominant starting pitching. The Dodger staff has been held together by duct tape, chewing gum, and sheer chutzpah down the stretch. The Cardinals are missing top starter Chris Carpenter, who’s suffering from a nerve irritation in his pitching arm similar to Dodger pickup Brad Penny, who’s done for the year. They’ll open with Woody Williams, a 38-year-old of no great distinction, but Jason Marquis, Matt Morris and Jeff Suppan provide a much deeper front line than the Dodgers, who will go with a trio of starters in Odalis Perez, Jeff Weaver, and Jose Lima. If you had told me last October that the latter two would be the linchpins of a playoff team, I’d have demanded that you put down the crack pipe.

This might be a rout except for the fact that the Cards, especially Rolen, Pujols and Morris, may not be entirely healthy. St. Louis wrapped up the division months ago, and while they may be well-rested, they may also be flat. The Dodgers, if they can jump on the Card starters, have a legitimate chance so long as their bullpen — with Eric Gagne showing some wear — holds up. I don’t have overwhelming faith that it will happen, but I’ll be fully absorbed, wearing my Dodger cap and cheering this scrappy bunch.

• • •

For more fine coverage of from the Dodger and Yankee viewpoints, check my amigos at the All-Baseball group, Jon Weisman for the former and Alex Belth. For their opposite numbers, see the estimable Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation and the epic-length stylings of Aaron Gleeman at his blog and at the Hardball Times. For more objective takes on the two series, Baseball Prospectus’ Dayn Perry covers the Yanks-Twins, while Jonah Keri takes the Dodgers-Cards matchup. Enjoy!

After a fun and eventful weekend, we have much to discuss…

• It didn’t get posted over the weekend, but my Baseball Prospectus piece on Barry Bonds, “One Man is an Island,” is up today. It’s my sixth BP piece of the year, and though it was written in a bit of a crunch, when I look at it with the benefit of distance and smart editing, I’m quite proud. While it’s not a hardcore sabermetric innovation itself, I do think that the JAWS (Jaffe WARP3 Score) system has something useful to offer when gauging players’ Hall of Fame cases. Too often we get attached to players hanging on for the sake of accumulating milestones while dragging their teams down. One thing that JAWS shows, I think, is that players who don’t linger long past their usefulness end up helping their cases more than those who do. More on that in a moment.

• Additionally at BP, the Internet Baseball Awards, featuring a banner I designed, have opened for voting. The polling — your chance to elect the MVPs, Cy Youngs, Rookies of the Year, and Managers of the Year — will run until October 11. I’ll get to my picks sometime before then.

• I spent a great weekend in Washington, D.C. among some great friends and fantastic baseball minds. With the district’s freshly-restored status as a major-league city adding an unanticipated buzz to the backdrop, we visited the “Baseball as America” exhibit during its closing weekend at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and tried to catch as much playoff-relevant action as we could. Between the Dodgers-Giants and Angels-A’s series, hell, this was the playoffs.

By the end of the weekend, our various rooting fortunes ran the gamut from elated and relieved Dodger fan (myself) to excited but nervous Yankee fans (Cliff Corcoran, Steven Goldman, and, shamelessly double-dipping, myself again) to despondent, philosophical A’s fan (Chris Kahrl, our gracious host for the weekend) to disconsolate Cubs fan (Alex Ciepley). By Friday night, Alex already appeared to have passed through Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief. Me, I was still celebrating Dave Ross’ home run from 24 hours earlier even as the Dodgers coughed one up to the Giants. We all winced at having to inform Chris that Alfredo Almegaza had hit a grand-slam to widen the Angels’ lead over the A’s, and could only nod in distant understanding when Alex said about his team, “I’m already over it and looking forward to the off-season.” Ouch.

Sightseeing to the Smithsonian, the World War II Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and other stops took us out of range of Saturday afternoon’s key games, though it did keep us talking about the coming Washington team. The consensus among us was in favor of the movement to name them the Grays, in tribute to the Negro League’s Homestead Grays, who played in Washington during the ’30s and ’40s and featured Josh Gibson. Other suggestions on our part veered away from the obvious (Sentators, Nationals, Federals, Diplomats, Monuments) to the ridiculous (Beltway Bureaucracy, Capital Punishers) to the really ridiculous (Bloodcougars — a favorite of Steve Goldman, and in a similar spirit, the Fightin’ Eels). We got our yuks all weekend long.

As for missing the games, I rationalized that watching Elmer Dessens start for the Dodgers was beyond the scope of healthy fandom, contemplated the shaky specter of Odalis Perez beating the Giants on three days’ rest on Sunday, and took solace in the fact that only a string of four consecutive victories by the Giants could knock the Dodgers out of the postseason. But when the score of Saturday’s ballgame (7-3 Dodgers on Steve Finley’s walk-off grand slam) was relayed to me as we rode the Metro back to Chris’ place, I let out a yell and danced in the aisle. “NL West Champs!”

For the Dodgers to win the west during the first year of new ownership, with most experts saying that they didn’t have a chance in hell, is sweet. No matter what happened this past weekend or what happens this coming month, they’ve been playing with house money all year long. Give Paul DePodesta an offseason to revamp the team and apply some of Moneyball‘s principles while taking advantage of the Dodgers’ deep farm system and considerably stronger financial state, and this could be a team hunting much bigger game.

For the Dodgers to win by kicking the Giants squarely in the cojones on the season’s final weekend is even sweeter. 1951, 1962, 1982, the fact that under Jim Tracy they had never won a September series against the Giants until last weekend… all of that matters little right now. To quote South Park‘s Eric Cartman, “Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness. Yummy, yummy!”

I’ve been convinced for the past few years that Tracy is a hell of a manager, especially when it comes to getting more out of less by putting players with limitations in positions at which they can succeed. It’s a pleasure to see his hard work and perseverance rewarded, especially in the face of so many detractors and so much misfortune. The Dodger starting pitching damn near dropped an axle down the stretch, and a trade made for all of the right reasons blew up in DePodesta’s face due to injuries (of course, another trade worked out quite well, thankyouverymuch Mr. Finley). Yet the team found innumerable ways to keep winning, managing to eke out good pitching performances from the likes of Jeff Weaver, Jose Lima, and even Kaz Ishii, not to mention a great one from Odalis Perez. The relievers, most of them in-season pickups or recalls, kept picking each other up, and the hitters kept fighting until the final out through the rocky stretches of the past few weeks. Even if they repeat the postseason futility they have shown since the final out of the ’88 Series, they are deserving of their division championship and of their place in the hearts of Dodger fans everywhere.

• Elsewhere around the game, a tip of the cap to Adam Dunn of the Cincinnati Reds as well as his manager, Dave Miley. Dunn broke Bobby Bonds’ single-season record for batting strikeouts, a record that had stood since 1970. That it lasted so long, and that I note its passing here so vociferously is in no small part due to the chicanery of the managers whose players recently approached it.

In 2000, when Preston Wilson of the Florida Marlins reached strikeout number 185 in his team’s 155th game (Wilson had missed only one), manager John Boles limited him to single at-bats in back-to-back games to slow his progress. He did play as a starter in his team’s final three games, and finished with 187.

In 2001, Jose Hernandez of the Milwaukee Brewers racked up his 181st K in game 156. From then until the end of the season, manager Davey Lopes pulled him in mid-game three times and sat him three times, and he finished with 185. Not to be outdone, Lopes’ replacement, Jerry Royster, did the same thing to Hernandez the next yearwhen he racked up number 188 in the Brewers’ 151st game. He played in only three more games the rest of the season, though he avoided striking out even once.

Dunn finished this season with 195 strikeouts. He also hit .266/.388/.569 with 46 homers, 102 RBI, and 108 walks. He refused to sit when chasing the record, missed only one game all season, and faced the mark with self-effacing humor: “That is the one Bonds that I will have a record over,” he said. “Now I will just try to add on to it before the year is over.”

In this age of unprecedented power numbers, strikeouts don’t carry the stigma they used to. Nor should they, given that they actually go hand in hand with many positive offensive metrics. Bonds’ record was an anachronism, and for Dunn to assume the mark without shame amid such a fine season ensures that I’ll find room for him on my MVP ballot.

• Another player who will find room on my MVP ballot (though not at the top) is Ichiro Suzuki, who broke the 84-year-old hit record of George Sisler. Yes, he did it with a longer schedule than Sisler, yes, most of those 262 hits were singles (225 of them, to be exact), and yes, he doesn’t really walk much (49 times in 762 PA). Anybody who wants to tell me how a guy hitting .372/.414/.455 with 36 steals in 47 attempts while playing above-average defense isn’t helping his team — even if it is a crappy one — is wasting his or her breath.

• Speaking of the Mariners, a fond farewell to one of the classiest players in the game and one of the finest hitters I’ve ever seen, Edgar Martinez. The numbers are pretty damn impressive: .312/.418/.515 with 309 homers and 2247 hits despite not getting a regular job until age 27 and losing a fair amount of time due to injury even after that. His style of hitting frozen ropes off of the best pitchers at the best (or worst, depending on your perspective) times was impressive as well. Since his incredible AL Divisional Series in 1995, culminating with the series-winning hit, he absolutely KILLED the Yanks, and like no other player, he had Mariano Rivera’s number. In 19 plate appearances, Edgar hit .625 off of him with an 1.888 OPS.

If you missed Derek Zumsteg’s tribute, written last October when it was unclear whether he would come back, do check it out. Here’s a snippet:

I saw fans cry for the first time on Sunday, the last day of the Mariners season. Edgar Martinez was at bat in the eighth for what may be the last plate appearance of his career, and the standing ovation rolled on and on.

In Friday’s game, during his last-at bat of the first game of the home stand against the A’s, it started. Edgar always stares at the pitcher, intent on his job. But between pitches, he stepped back and his eyes glanced around, as if not sure the fans were cheering for him. That’s Edgar, though: 17 years as a Mariner, one of the best hitters to ever pick up a bat, in his last home stand, he wasn’t sure the M’s hadn’t just announced free hundred-dollar bills for every fan or something. We couldn’t have cheered that hard for free money.

Elsewhere, Zumsteg has made a case for Martinez in the Hall. With the benefit of JAWS, I’ll make another one. Here are the average career and peak Wins Above Replacement totals for each Hall of Famer by position (for a description of how these are computed see the aforementioned BP article)

POS       #  WARP3   PEAK   JAWS

P        59   90.2   41.6   65.9

C        13   95.7   41.4   68.6

1B       18   96.6   42.6   69.6

2B       16  111.8   47.0   79.4

3B       10  105.7   43.8   74.7

SS       20  101.2   43.6   72.4

LF       19  107.2   44.1   75.6

CF       17  112.2   47.4   79.8

RF       22  115.4   44.7   80.0

Hitters 134  106.2   44.4   75.3

Edgar     1  108.0   46.1   77.1

Despite his late start and despite spending most of his career as a DH, Edgar scores better than not only the average third baseman (of which half in the Hall are the wrong ones anyway) but also the average hitter. Among the Hall of Fame hitters I’ve seen in my lifetime, that score tops Willie McCovey (74.1), Kirby Puckett (71.6), Willie Stargell (71.1), Tony Perez (68.8), and Lou Brock (62.9). It also tops about 75 other hitters I didn’t see play, including Johnny Mize, Joe Medwick, Harmon Killebrew, Hank Greenberg, Ralph Kiner, Hack Wilson, George Sisler, Tinker-Evers-Chance… the list goes on. He should make it in.

• Speaking of emotional farewells written by Baseball Prospecus authors, Jonah Keri’s “Au Revoir, Mes Amours,” a tribute to the Expos as their departure becomes tangible, is required reading (and it’s free, so you’ve got no excuse). In the piece, Keri, who grew up in Montreal and played hooky at Expos games with his pals, touches many a nerve not just with regards to the sad fate of his hometown team, but also to the highs and lows of being a baseball fan anywhere. A sample snippet:

Fandom, more often than not, is about the city in which the team plays. Your hometown team becomes part of your identity. When your team wins, your hometown walks a little taller — you walk a little taller. When your team loses, you’re not quite right — a piece of yourself has been knocked down a peg. I was born and raised in Montreal. For as long as I can remember, an Expos victory has provided that bounce in my step; an Expos loss slumped my shoulders ever so slightly.

Tracing fandom can lead you to an even smaller place than your hometown. It goes to the ballpark where you grew up watching the games. It extends to the chesterfield (sofa, for you Yanks) where you sat, feet nowhere near touching the floor, seeing your first images of your baby-blue pajama-top wearing hometown heroes. I remember getting my first taste of Expos baseball watching games with my grandfather Max, sitting in his living room, watching a scratchy old TV, listening to him cheer Andre Dawson, rail against Rodney Scott. “Oh no, not The Woodchopper again!” he’d cry as Scott strode to the plate, his trademark ugly swing about to unleash another hopeless grounder to second on Expo Nation.

Really, that’s what being a fan of a sports team is all about. Enjoying the moment, cherishing the memories.

While I don’t envy Jonah’s pain, as somebody who grew up far from any major-league ballpark, I’m green at his descriptions of a not-so-misspent youth, and just reading about some of his favorite moments (and those of other Expos fans) is enough to induce both goosebumps and tears.

I’m reminded of a favorite piece written by the late, great L.A. Times sportswriter Jim Murray, anthologized in The Last of the Best as well as The Best American Sportswriting of the Century. “If You’re Expecting One-Liners,” written in 1979, is about Murray losing his good eye. “He stole away like a thief in the night and he took a lot with him,” wrote Murray, “But not everything. He left a lot of memories. He couldn’t take those with him. He just took the future with him and the present. He coudn’t take the past.”

Instead of bemoaning his cruel fate, Murray enumerates some of the things he saw and would like to see again, among them “Reggie Jackson with the count 3 and 2 and the Series on the line, guessing fastball. I guess I’d like to see Rod Carew with men on first and second and no place to put him, and the pitcher wishing he were standing in the rain someplace, reluctant to let go of the ball… Come to think of it, I’m lucky. I saw all of those things. I see them yet.”

Like Murray, Keri has written a powerful and graceful piece, bittersweet with an emphasis on the sweetness rather than the bitterness. Great stuff.

• The playoffs are coming! The playoffs are coming! I’ve maneuvered my schedule to work at home on Tuesday. But I had to had to pass up the opportunity to attend that evening’s Yankees-Twins opener because I’m finally going to see Wilco play, something I’ve been waiting years to do. Within my ticket group, I’ve foregone any other claim for a chance to see the World Series. A Dodgers-Yankees matchup would make my year, even though I’d probably have to take a week off of work just to keep from hyperventilating.

More on the playoffs next time…