A SEASON TO REMEMBER
In my 80-plus years as a lover of baseball, I never saw a finish like Sunday’s closing day. Imagine, on the last day of the regular season, nine cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Houston, Milwaukee, Toronto—still had a shot at the World Series Championship. Unheard of! Talk about a pig-out! A fan like me could channel surf away the day from the comfort of his Lazy Geezer.
It’s a sign of the quality of the teams that elimination day lessened the number of contenders by only two—that being the wild card Seattle Mariners, who lost to the also-ran Angels, and the Blue Jays who pecked the wingless Orioles to death, but still finished a game behind the Yankees and Red Sox in the wild card race.
That quality—or call it parity if you will—unsettles me, having promised to give you my winning picks for the playoffs and assuring you of a handsome retirement income. And guaranteeing it, moreover. It forces me to fall back on the wisdom of baseball catcher and dugout philosopher Yogi Berra, who once said “it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” How wise he was.
Anyway, here goes. Though my heart’s still with the Dodgers, who finished the regular season dramatically with seven straight wins and humbled the Brewers in Sunday’s wild card game, they didn’t catch the winning Giants. On Wednesday they will eliminate the Cardinals in a close wild card game against that ageless wonder Adam Wainwright, but Sunday’s elbow injury to Dodgers clutch hitter Max Muncy really tips the scale San Francisco’s way in the NLDS. The Giants, winner of an amazing 107 regular season contests, seem destined to be crowned world champion, taking it all from the very sound Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series seventh game. Atlanta will dispatch the fading Brewers in the NLDS, only to bow to the Giants in the NLCS.
In the American League Wild Card, the Red Sox will edge their longtime enemy the Yankees, only to collapse again when meeting everybody’s nemesis, the Tampa Bay Rays, in the ALDS. The Astros will breeze by the White Sox in the ALDS, then lose in a tough tussle with the Rays in the ALCS.
Repeating my endgame, Giants over the Rays in seven. Enjoy!
This year our motto is Get Rich Cautiously. May I suggest a ten-dollar parlay?