At some point during the extra innings last night — or perhaps it was after midnight this morning — I thought about sending out a Tweet about the tense, exciting, protracted 7th game of the World Series. With everything in doubt, I would have said something like:

Whoever loses this game is going to be far more disappointed than they would be losing any Series I’ve seen up to now…

I didn’t post it because I didn’t want to recognize that my Dodgers might lose. But really, truly, anything could have happened until that very last second when Alejandro Kirk’s bat broke, and my favorite Dodger Mookie Betts scooped it up, hustled to second then threw over to Freddie Freeman for the double play, ending it all. (Here’s a great picture of that moment, with Freddie towering over the Blue Jays’ catcher, leaping with joy while Kirk seems to do a sort of dance of sadness on first base.)

Both teams deserved to win. And those Toronto fans, as well as the players, seemed to want it more. So I felt bad for them. Too bad the last game wasn’t in L.A.

On the other hand, my sympathy had been somewhat tempered because I was sick of the announcers going on and on about how the poor things hadn’t seen their team win a championship for 32 years. They kept saying it. At one point, there was this montage as they cut from one anxious, longing face in the crowd, while yammering again about those 32 years.

You know what happened 32 years ago? I do. So does John Smoltz. At my age, that’s like 18 months ago. They had won the year before that, too! I had been there in Atlanta for the first game of that previous Series, and I’ve always thought it was cool to have been present to hear a foreign anthem played at a World Series — even though they ended up beating my Braves. But come on, guys! You win your first Series ever, and then you win again the next year, and what — you expect to win them all now?

But still, I sympathized. So when I spoke afterward with my brother-in-law, who had rooted for Toronto, I was able to offer my condolences sincerely, and tell him that his guys had deserved to win. But of course, so had the Dodgers. One thing we agreed on — if everybody in America had watched this whole amazing Series, baseball might once again approach something like its former popularity. And America could return to its former greatness.

I’ll just toss out a few things that made this Series wonderful:

• Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The pitcher who is made of iron. As Chelsea Janes wrote, “Yamamoto threw 2⅔ innings of scoreless relief to close out the 5-4 win a day after he threw six innings in Game 6, a performance that combined with his complete game in Game 2 made him the World Series MVP.” Oh, and you know that complete game? He went all nine innings in the game in his last game before that.
• Guys who showed they appreciated getting a chance. I’m thinking about Miguel Rojas, whom I hadn’t seen (or at least hadn’t noticed) in the series before Game 6, who was falling down when he through the ball to Will Smith (because the bases were loaded) to barely, just barely saving the game and the Series, and the season — one of many such moments in Game 7. Also, he hit a rare (for him) home run tying the game. I’m also thinking of Andy Pages, who had just been put in at center field, jumping on top of Kiké Hernández to catch the ball on the wall and… again, saving the game, etc. He was so happy, but he seemed a little worried when he looked back and saw Kiké lying there possibly dead. But he was OK.
• Shohei Ohtani, of course. By this time, his amazing performances in previous days were overshadowed, but hey, he did pitch again — if not as wonderfully as before. And he did have two hits. Which ain’t nothing.
• Will Smith. There’s nothing harder in baseball than catching, and he did it every inning of every game in the Series, including the 11-inning final game and the 18-inning nightmare several days earlier. Try doing that in a squatting position without committing a Series-losing fumble of a wild pitch. He caught 73 innings, “the most by any catcher in World Series history.” Never mind such shining moments as, you know, hitting the homer that put the Dodgers in the lead.

I could, as usual, go on and on. But let me mention some of the other guys for a moment:

• Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — That surname means “Warrior,” by the way. Nobody wanted it more than this guy, who underlined his yearning by writing the name of Diós in the dirt each time he came to bat, and hit as though the Lord was definitely taking his side. And he played some tenacious D, such as his diving catch on the first-base line, and that ball he fielded and threw to second in time to have it thrown back to him for a key double play. No one was more passionate, more celebratory about his own achievements and those of his compadres. And the saddest moment came when the camera caught him apparently weaping in the dugout when it was over.
• Addison Barger — That guy was a terror (from a Dodgers perspective). The internet claims he’s NOT related to Sonny Barger of Hell’s Angels infamy, but think about it — can’t you get “Sonny” as a nickname if you’re called “AddiSON?” Did you notice how several times, Dodgers baserunners decided NOT to try to take an extra base for the simple fact that the hit had gone to right field? That’s because Barger has a cannon for an arm, as he demonstrated to L.A.’s woe a couple of times with throws to home and third base.
• George Springer. The guy was really racked up. He had a bad arm, a bad leg and a bad haircut. But he stood there at the plate and tried, although quite a few swings looked like they could be his last. Yet he managed to hit with very good effect (from a Toronto perspective) a couple of times, and once for an RBI.
• Alejandro Kirk. First, he’s not as short as he looks. He’s 5’8″, but looks shorter because he weighs 245 pounds. I think it’s all muscle, the way he hits. At first he looks clumsy, swinging so hard that he sometimes falls down. But thing his next swing sends the ball over the wall…

OK, that’s enough. I know I’m getting a little like Shooter when he was in rehab, raving so about the game that they had to put the straitjacket on him. Like Shooter, I love “the greatest game ever invented.” He’s just confused about which game that is.

And now it’s over. We have the long, empty winter ahead of us. But this Series gave me enough to tide me through those months — even though the Red Sox weren’t in it.

If there’s another baseball fan out there somewhere, perhaps you’d like to add some words…

It occurred to me that some of you might have thought the other day, “Why is this Red Sox fan so excited about a Dodgers game?”

I’m sure this has worried you. It’s no doubt keeping you awake at night.

So I’ll explain, as I try to do everything. I don’t like having ambiguities linger on my blog.

I’ll explain it with the hats. My father had a huge collection of hats in his later years — most of them related either to the Navy or golf tournaments he played in. I’ve adopted a similar practice (which you are certainly not to assume is a sign of advanced age). About half or more of my hats have to do with baseball.

My favorites have to do with the Red Sox. I have three I currently wear. That’s my best, special-occasion Red Sox hat above. Unlike my other baseball lids, this is a REAL cap — not one of those cheap, one-size-fits-all jobs. I had to go to Lansdowne Street, in the shadow of Fenway itself, and try them on until one fit perfectly.

Where other hats have a strap at the very back that can be adjusted to various sizes, this one has a tiny Red Sox logo, blown up slightly at right, which my wife and daughters think is cute, and I find to be quite tasteful.

I loved the Red Sox long before I was specifically a fan of the team. I have loved their hats more or less ever since I learned that my name started with a B — so, a while. I felt early on that any hat with a B on it was pretty much meant for me.

Add to that the matter of aesthetics. I think it’s a beautiful hat. Dark blue — whether indigo or Navy or whatever the specific nomenclature — is my favorite color. It goes best with either white or a deep, rich red — both of which are present in the B.

Then there’s the fact that over the years, I’ve been aware of and impressed by various Red Sox stars — Babe Ruth (before the Curse), Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Carl Yastrzemski, Wade Boggs, Roger Clemens, Pudge Fisk, Mookie Betts, Big Papi Ortiz, and our own Jackie Bradley Jr. Oh, wait — I forgot Cy Young.

I was also aware of it as a real baseball team with long-term history, dating back more than half a century before my birth. That matters to me. History confers legitimacy.

Then I went to visit Boston for a few days, and loved it — especially the perfect night when we sat there in the Fenway bleachers, right behind Jackie Bradley Jr., and literally ate peanuts and Cracker Jack while we watched the Sox thump the Yankees. I’m not going to blaspheme and call it a religious experience, but as plain old secular ones go, it was pretty special.

Finally, when I shelled out all that money this year to watch Major League Baseball constantly the whole season, my love grew stronger. I watched other teams, but mainly enjoyed and worried over the Sox — my favorites Ceddane Rafaela, Alex Bregman, Jarren Duran, Trevor Story, Garrett Crochet, Aroldis Chapman — well, and all the rest.

They had a good run this year, but it was not to be, as they lost to… oh, let’s not name them — in the Wild Card series.

You might think I’d stop watching at that point, but I actually love baseball, and not just one team. That means enjoying all MLB (and sometimes less glorious) teams. But I do have a hierarchy of preferences, which usually keeps me watching a team I like, if only a little bit in a bad year, all the way through the World Series.

My second fave club is the Phillies.

It’s not the P or the hats or the uniforms in particular, although the one you see above is my fave among the ones they wear. It’s more about a family connection, combined with the way the post-seasons have broken the last few years.

My wife’s first cousin Tim McCarver played the last few years of his career with the Phils. Sure, you might associate him with the Cardinals, and so did I. I was a fan of his when he played for St. Louis in those early glory years — long before I became a bigger fan of his cousin. But by the time he stopped playing ball and started his new career in broadcasting, he had been with the Phillies long enough for a strong identification to develop, in my mind anyway. Besides, he had Steve Carlton — also a former fellow Card — with him (I met Carlton the first time I even saw Tim play in person, down in St. Pete in 1969). It just seemed natural to cheer for their team.

Also, in these recent dark years when baseball disappeared on free broadcast TV, I only got to see ANY baseball by watching the post-season games, which TV deigned to carry still. And the Phillies made regular appearances on that stage the last few years. Thus, I became a fan of the surly Bryce Harper, plus Kyle Schwarber, Brandon Marsh, Alex Bohm, and J.T. Realmuto.

That continued and deepened this season, when MLB.TV finally gave me generous access to baseball every day and night of the season.

But alas, the Phillies fell to my third-favorite team. And they’re still in it (despite the shock of the playoffs, in which they got mistreated by a team I NEVER follow).

My attachment to the Dodgers is a tad more complicated.

First of all, note the B. I of course have no interest in wearing LA on my hat, when I can wear a B. Besides, it goes to my belief in history conferring legitimacy. I think of them as the Brooklyn team that just recently moved (when I was three years old) to another city. Enriching that history we have Jackie Robinson, not to mention Pee Wee Reese, Sandy Koufax, Roy Campanella, and, if you’ll allow one remembered as an owner more than a player, Branch Rickey. Also, they were my Dad’s favorite team.

Today, in that less-reputable West Coast location, they’re still a great team, with Mookie Betts (who should still be in Boston), Freddy Freeman (the only memorable Brave I still get to see, now that MLB.TV lets me watch anything but the Braves), Kike and Teoscar Hernandez and the gentleman I referred to earlier, who is today’s nearest approximation to Babe Ruth… Shohei Ohtani.

Here’s hoping they do better tonight against those strangers from the Great White North…

 

I would have posted this Friday night when it happened, but the item in the Post was only brought to my attention yesterday.

It says things I might have said if I were more confident in my ability to comment on baseball. But on Friday night, I was just saying “Wow,” and not going much beyond that.

Now, I find it being said by an actual professional sportswriter, and said in these words: “Shohei Ohtani just played the greatest game in baseball history.” Sure, Chelsea Janes isn’t Ring Lardner, and she’s young, but she’s The Washington Post‘s “national baseball writer,” and Ring Lardner’s dead. So I’m going with what she said, since the same idea was kinda roaming around in my gut when it happened.

Hers was a daring statement. Journalists don’t usually go out on a limb this far, because they know other journalists will snicker and give them the business. But I think that in this case, what that headline says may well be right on the mark. And that fact alone is pretty exciting.

Here, in part, is how she supports her claim:

Convinced? If you’re not, you probably missed the game…

The celebration in the dugout when Yoshida brought in those two runs.

I’m still feeling the glow of last night, when the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in possibly the most intense game I’ve seen in my life between these ultimate rivals (I can’t compare it to the Summer of ’49, since I wasn’t around yet).

I was glad to have recently renewed my Boston Globe subscription (having dropped it back in August as a cost-saving measure, and immediately signed back on when they reached out to me with an offer that couldn’t been refused — they’re good at that). That meant that this morning I could relive it not only through an indepth main story about the game, but a sidebar about the man (Masataka Yoshida) who hit the single that pulled the Sox ahead after six innings of the Yankees leading, and a Dan Shaughnessy column about how the Sox’s left-handed ace (Garrett Crochet) dominated the Bronx titans for almost eight full innings.

That’s not counting that one homer Anthony Volpe hit off him in the second, which is what put the Yankees ahead for most of the game. This caused me to mull dark thoughts for several innings, fantasizing about banning home runs. I hate the things, anyway. They completely sidestep the game of baseball. Defenders have no chance to deal with them in any way, once the ball has left the bat. Baseball is about carefully balanced skills between players, not about standing there watching the ball go bye-bye. From now on, I almost tweeted (but was too engrossed in the game to bother), anything that goes over the fence should be no more than a ground-rule double — and the hitter should pay for the ball. (Yeah, I know the cost of one ball is nothing to these millionaires — and no one makes more than the big home-run hitters), but there’s a principle here.

Then, I forgot it all when Yoshida hit that beautiful single in the 7th and drove in Ceddanne Rafaela (my favorite player) and Nick Sogard — putting the Sox in the lead. Where they stayed. Note that, while they sometimes hit them, the Sox don’t need taters to win ball games — because they’re real baseball players.

Note that this happened in New York — where the second game of the series will be played tonight. And if the Sox don’t put it away tonight (and I worry about them doing it without Crochet), they’ll have to win again tomorrow. And all three games are played in New York, not in beloved Fenway.

Whoever wins the series goes on to face the Toronto Blue Jays in the AL East division championship.

But let’s not look ahead yet. Let’s look back, at Shaughnessy’s column yesterday morning, before the Sox won the first game. I almost posted it yesterday, but it’s just as good now. It’s important to share because — well, you know about how I love history, and mourn the fact that ignorance of history is destroying the country I love? Well, history is key to fully appreciating baseball. Here’s the column:

Red Sox-Yankees in the playoffs. Does it get any better than this?

Of course, the Globe needs subscribers to survive (which is why they keep offering me those deals), so they might not let you read it for free.

So I will provide you with enough of an excerpt for you to get the idea of why this thing happening in New York right now (and not in Fenway, in case I haven’t mentioned that) is so important:

Red Sox-Yankees. Again.

Do we need to educate the young’uns and remind everyone what this means?

Red Sox-Yankees is an all-timer. It’s Harvard vs. Yale, Kennedy vs. Nixon, Athens vs. Sparta.

It’s Ohio State-Michigan, Army-Navy, Trump-Comey.

It is the ultimate American sports rivalry and we are getting it in the first round of baseball’s ever-expanding playoffs….

The relationship between these franchises goes back to Creation. The Boston Americans (hello, Red Sox) were part of the upstart American League in 1901 and the New York Highlanders (now the Yankees) joined them in the “Junior Circuit” two years later. Since that time, the two have walked hand-in-hand with history, usually at the painful expense of the Boston franchise.

The Red Sox won five of the first 15 World Series, then sold their soul in a Yankee swap when New York owner Jacob Ruppert swindled Boston owner Harry Frazee (a New Yorker with designs on Broadway shows), acquiring pitcher/outfielder George Herman “Babe” Ruth for $100,000 and a mortgage on Fenway Park.

The fallout from that hideous deal lasted 86 years. In that stretch, the Yankees won 26 World Series while the Red Sox won zero. Making matters worse, many of New York’s rings came at the expense of Boston. A three-time champ with the Red Sox, young Babe became the greatest player in baseball history, won four championships with the Yankees, then handed the Bronx baton to Lou Gehrig, who passed it on to Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Derek Jeter, and today’s Ruthian Aaron Judge — 53 home runs, American League batting champ in 2025….

It goes on like that. You get the idea. It’s great, and educational.

I love baseball so much…

You know what? That was a blurry screenshot above. You should watch the full inning when it all turned around last night…

As a reborn sports fan — well, baseball fan — I’m now making like a color commentator, thinking back to the time that so-and-so did a similar thing decades ago. OK, so I do that on all subjects. But now I’m doing it with sports, or A sport, which indicates it’s really become a part of me.

It happened last night. Did you see the Red Sox game last night? Well, you should have. If you missed it, you can read about it in The Boston Globe this morning. They based their main game story on this one play that sparked the memory for me.

(By the way, yes: You can actually read this story about something that happened last night in the actual paper this morning. Like in the legendary days of newspapers. This is one of the things I love about The Globe. It’s why, after ending my subscription recently under various pecuniary pressures, I signed back up almost immediately when they offered me another sweet deal, bless them. I can now return to watching the game before I go to bed at night, and reading excellent analysis of it at breakfast when I get up. What a fascinating modern age we live in.)

What happened is this: I had been watching the game some time before dinner, and things were looking good. I think the Sox were ahead of Cleveland something like 4-1. When my iPad informed me at the table that the score was now 7-7 in the eighth, I got right up and went back to the game. I saw an inning and a half of excellent baseball.

But the main thing was this one play in the bottom of the eighth. Not a homerun, but a true baseball play, the kind worth remembering.

Here’s what happened:

There were 2 outs. The go-ahead run, Curaçaoan outfielder Ceddanne Rafaela, was on third. This was the Sox’s chance to go ahead and chalk up a win. But obviously a sacrifice fly wouldn’t bring in that run, with two outs. Alex Bregman, 31, steps up and hits with “the worst swing I took all night,” but pulls a grounder down the line. The Cleveland third-baseman has to lunge toward the line and snag it just as it’s getting by him, then somehow overcome his momentum to turn back for a long throw to first.

Meanwhile, Bregman is chugging. He knows he’s not exactly pinch-runner material at any time, and especially since his quad injury that put him out for a while in the last couple of months. Manager Alex Cora is quite frank with him about his lack of speed. But he knows the stakes, and he pushes with all he’s got, risking that quad.

And he makes it, and Rafaela goes home, and it’s 8-7. Before the inning ends, three more runs are scored, which might minimize the moment in your mind if you’re just looking at the final score. But those extra runs wouldn’t have come if Bregman had not beat out the throw to first. (Here’s video, although I couldn’t find an embed code.)

So of course, I immediately thought of The Slide — slowpoke 1st-baseman Sid Bream’s miraculous run home, just barely beating out Barry Bonds’ throw to the plate, in that instant winning the 1992 pennant for the Braves (you know, that team the MLB won’t let me watch any more). That night, Bream was a year older than Bregman is now.

OK, the stakes weren’t quite as high, but it felt a lot the same to me last night. And don’t dismiss it. It’s September, and that sprint to 1st kept the Sox a hair’s fraction behind the Yankees. They’re both 2.5 games from catching Toronto and leading the AL East (New York is a statistically behind Boston because while the Sox have won one more game, they’ve also lost one more; I don’t know what the Yankees have been doing instead of playing ball games). This is no time to be dropping one to Cleveland just because the usually infallible Garrett Crochet is having a bad night.

So that’s why Bregman ran so fast…

Wet down your hair and WIN this thing!

Or at least, you know, I do.

As y’all may know, this is the only time of the year that I care about sports, so it’s pretty essential. And who could possibly care about a World Series between… the Texas Rangers (and not the Texas Rangers we used to cheer for in the old Westerns) and… I dunno, some team named for a type of rattlesnake?

Whereas the Phillies — well, they’re like, maybe, my third or fourth favorite team in baseball. When I was a kid I used to cheer for the St. Louis Cardinals, featuring Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Joe Torre, Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver, who — unknown to me at the time — would later be my cousin-in-law. But then, after I married his first cousin, Tim played for the Phillies. So, you know, they’re right up there.

Aside from that, they’ve been around since 1883. They’re a real professional baseball team. If anything in our troubled country is about tradition, it’s baseball. It really brings out my Tory sensibilities. I mean, when you’re talking baseball, I’m practically a Jacobite.

Of course, if you want to get all philosophical, in a fair and just universe, the Phillies wouldn’t be in it, either. In fact, there would be no “it” to be in. It’s obvious that the Braves are the rightful owners of the National League pennant (and the Orioles of the AL’s). I mean, consult the standings. There should BE no playoffs, unless two teams have tied records in the regular season. And nobody was even close to the Braves.

But there are playoffs. And now, since in a degraded America there is no baseball on any station I get on my TV until October, I confess that I’m a bit invested in them.

And the Phillies need to be in the World Series.

Hey, don’t listen to me. Check this piece from The Washington Post this morning: “The Phillies are what makes October baseball great. Can they win Game 7?”

Consider some wisdom from that piece:

Here’s the thing: the 84-win Diamondbacks may be a nice team with some nice players. That’s cute. The Phillies? They have stars. They have thump. They make noise…

And therefore, the Phillies must not miss this opportunity:

Third-baseman Alec Bohm hits the second of the Phillies’ five homers. Click for video…

It’s not just having voted and gotten all that behind me that makes me more cheerful today.

There’s baseball. Good baseball, breaking the way I want it to go. Almost as good as going to Fenway Park and watching the Red Sox pound the Yankees.

Of course, the better game was Game 1, Friday night. I even had a blasphemous thought, in the last moments of the game, when a single ill-fated swing of the bat still could have given it to the Astros… I thought, “This is a great game, even if the Phillies lose.” And it would have been. Fortunately, they won it, 6-5, after having come back from 5-0.

Then there was Game 2, which doesn’t bear talking about, so let’s move on.

Then we moved to the East Coast, which is where the game is best played (even though they still didn’t move the time up to a more reasonable hour). And there was a delay of a day due to rain.

But Game 3 was worth waiting to see. Sure, it was kind of lacking in suspense, but that was fine. I’d like to see a similar game tonight. Then, we can have a close, suspenseful Game 5, with the Phillies winning the way they did in Game 1, and we can all celebrate, and not have to go back to Houston and be subjected to all that loud orange waving around.

Anyway, I enjoyed reading about the game this morning in The Boston Globe. I think I’ve mentioned how much I like that paper now since I started subscribing while I was up there, partly because their sports department actually seems to still understand that baseball is our national pastime.

The Globe, and other accounts I glanced at, focused on the same thing I did in my only two tweets during the game. First, I was shaking my head in admiration for the Phillies’ starter when I wrote:

0 and 2. 0 and 2. 0 and 2. 0 and 2…. Suárez knows how to pitch a ballgame….

— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) November 2, 2022

Then, it occurred to me to follow that up with something on his counterpart:

… and McCullers, it turns out, pitches a very fine Home Run Derby. At least, I’ve enjoyed it…

— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) November 2, 2022

Which was also impressive, in its own way. He tied a World Series record allowing those five homers in only 4⅓ innings.

I hope to see the Astros distinguish themselves similarly tonight. But much more than that, I want to see the Phillies win…