2016 postseason baseball

[Brian]

The Dodgers defeated the Nationals in the first game of their National League Division Series in Washington, while I was at Friday's Montrose Peace Vigil.  Saturday's game was rained out.  They'll make it up at the godly hour on the Left Coast of 10 a.m. Sunday.  My church will be Channel 400 on the cable box.

I'm more obsessed with the other contest, because of my Dodgers.  They were swept by the Giants in the last three games of the season, which allowed the Giants to advance to the National League Wild Card game and humiliate the New York Mets and all of their fans.  In the NLDS so far, the Chicago Cubs have taken the first two games from the San Francisco Giants at Wrigley Field.  I take no comfort in the Cubs' 2-0 advantage.  In 2012, the Giants lost their first two NLDS games yet won the next three in the five game series  -- on the road! -- to advance to the World Series and prevail there too.

God forbid that the Giants achieve another miracle like that one.  Then they could face the Dodgers for the National League pennant as they did in 1951, when Bobby Thomson hit a home run off of Ralph Branca in the ninth inning in the last game of a three game playoff, which became known as the Shot Heard 'Round the World, and went on to the World Series.  It was the first nationally televised baseball game.  The teams have not met in the postseason since.

[Brian]

I got my dream match up for the National League Championship Series. After defeating the Nationals last night in Game 5 of their Division Series in Washington, the Dodgers are flying straight to Chicago to meet the Cubs on Saturday evening.  For once, I think the two best teams in the league are playing for the pennant -- no flukey Wild Card teams that got hot for a couple of weeks, you know, like the Giants this year (or the Cubs last year).  The Cubs and the Dodgers have shown tremendous soul all season.

If the Cubs prevail in the NLCS, it will be their first trip to the Fall Classic since 1945.  The Cleveland Indians -- who haven't won a World Series since 1948 -- will face the Cubs if they get by the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Championship Series.  Somebody's long, sad history would be over.

[Brian]

The Dodgers are teetering on the edge of elimination.

After splitting the first two games with the Cubs in Chicago, the Dodgers lost two out of three in Chavez Ravine.  If the Dodgers lose Game 6 in Wrigley Field on Saturday, the Cubs will be National League champions.

I wasn't pandering to my old buddy Sue in Chicago when I predicted that the Cubs would win in six games on another message board.  It was my honest assessment of both teams.  But a fully rested Clayton Kershaw is pitching, so it could come down to a Game 7 on Sunday.  If the Dodgers win, the story will be about curses and that damn goat, how the Chicago Cubs choked again in yet another century.  You won't hear much about why the Dodgers prevailed.  But I could live with that.

The Cleveland Indians won the American League pennant in five games.  I actually kind of rooted for them in 1997, the last time they appeared in a World Series.  The only other time that I favored a team from the junior circuit in the Fall Classic was 2004, when the Boston Red Sox ended their historic losing streak. I'm not likely to root for another American League team until the Indians face the Giants.

[Brian]

Which team is the real underdog?

Is it the Chicago Cubs, who haven't won a World Series since 1908, before Wrigley Field was built?  But this year's team won 103 games in the regular season, by far the best in baseball.

Or is it the Cleveland Indians, who haven't been champions since 1948?   Seems like the only people who are rooting for them are Ohio residents and expatriates, alongside diehard American League fans.

The pundits who predicted that the Cubs would sweep the Indians in four games were immediately proven wrong when the Indians won Game 1 in Cleveland.  Then the Cubs evened the series in Game 2 before heading home for the next three games.

I picked the Cubs in five games because I was being a little cautious and contrary.  And I want the Cubs to win the championship in Chicago this Sunday.

[Brian]

In the early 1970's, I was one of those boys who sneaked a transistor radio into school to listen to the World Series. Back then, Major League Baseball and the television networks still scheduled day games for the Fall Classic. Until I was 10 years old, the World Series began immediately after the season ended, at the beginning of October, before the weather turned cold and rainy back east. And the radio was a wonderful way to experience the games live, not just keep up with the score.  Little wonder that fewer people today are baseball fans.  For two generations now, kids in the Eastern time zone have been sent to bed in the third inning, and the adults have to stay up until midnight to see an entire game on television.

I wanted to listen to the third inning of Game 6 when I got in my car after work Tuesday, but no radio station in Los Angeles was airing ESPN Radio's broadcast. The two AM sports stations that carried earlier games from the network had basketball and hockey games instead.  After all, it was already November.  Yet the temperature was warmer in Cleveland than it was here in L.A.  By the time I got home, the Cubs were leading the Indians 7-0.

Improbably, the Cubs won the last two games to force a Game 7.  I will have to ditch work early on Wednesday.