A Look Ahead to 2017

                It’s hard to believe that another baseball season has come and gone. This is the saddest part of the whole year, knowing that baseball is gone for five months. (Four until Spring Training games.) Besides the success of the MLB season, we also had some great success at Top Of The Third. This year was my first full season blogging and it was challenging, some times frustrating, but a lot of fun being able to put out a blog post for 248 consecutive days (March 1^st—November 4^th) and a total of 248 posts.

                The primary focus of 2016 was the 40^th Season of the Toronto Blue Jays but we also focused on the 1981 Montreal Expos, the 100^th anniversary of the Chicago Cubs playing at Wrigley Field, and we introduced a new segment (Recommended Reading) where I gave my review on some baseball books.

                It’s time for a break now, I’ll relax a bit, watch some football, a little bit hockey, and start to prepare for the 2017 season. Plans are already in the works for next season, and the focus will turn to less history and more opinion-type posts.

                But we won’t turn our back on history completely. Baseball, more than any other sport, honours its history and always remembers the great moments, players and games. Our “This Day In Baseball History” segment will continue, but to a lesser scale, maybe two or three posts per month. In July, we will devote one week to the All-Star Game and another to the Hall of Fame like we did this year.

                And while we won’t take the whole season to focus on a team like we did with the Blue Jays this year, 2017 will focus on some milestone moments. For example, it will be the 50^th anniversary of the 1967 Boston Red Sox who took their fans along for the ride in The Impossible Dream. It will mark 55 years since the second-year Los Angeles Angels balked at the establishment and took on the New York Yankees in an unforgettable chase for the American League pennant.

                On April 15 of next year, it will have been 70 years since Jackie Robinson broke the colour barrier and played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers. But rather than look at only Robinson, 2017 will see us focus on the importance that the Negro Leagues had on baseball. Exactly how I will approach that hasn’t been decided yet, but it is important that the stories from a league that defied MLB’s segregation be told. I’m looking forward to learning them along with you.

                So while we may be saddened by the end of the 2016 season, we can always take comfort in the fact that winter goes by quickly.

No More Curses

                Bye-bye, billy goat. The curse is over. The Chicago Cubs capped a memorable season with a thrilling 8-7 Game 7 victory over the Cleveland Indians in ten innings last night, to end a 108-year World Series drought. As for the Indians, they will have to wait until next year to end their now 68-year wait. And while I was rooting for Cleveland to win, you have to be happy for the Cubs and admire their effort. Down three games to one, and seemingly having no answer for the Cleveland pitching staff, they pulled off the comeback, the first team to rally from such a deficit in the Fall Classic since the 1985 Kansas City Royals.

                Aside from that, Chicago is also the first team to win Games 6 & 7 of the World Series on the road since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, who also rallied from being down three games to one.

                So now that the Cubs have won, there will be no more talking about a curse. Boston destroyed the Curse of the Bambino, the White Sox wiped out the Curse of the Black Sox, and now the Cubs said good-bye to the Curse of the Billy Goat.

                And while you must feel good for players like Anthony Rizzo, Jake Arrietta, Dexter Fowler and Kris Bryant, who can’t help but feel a bit sorry for all those great Cubs’ player of the past 108 years who never got to win the Fall Classic: Ernie Banks, for example, or Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg or Sammy Sosa.

                And now it’s on to the next lengthy drought. But it will be some time before the Indians’ streak of futility reaches the epic ineptitude of Boston or either of the Chicago teams. Those three streaks were pretty, pathetically long and the way the Indians roster is stacked with talent, their drought should be over in the next couple of years.

                Anyway, congrats to the Cubs and here’s hoping winter goes by quickly.

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This Day In Baseball History: November 2, 2009: Phillies Stay Alive

November 2^nd, 2009

World Series, Game 5

New York Yankees at Philadelphia Phillies

Citizens Bank Ballpark, Philadelphia

            Well, I didn’t have much of a choice on this one as the game we will look at is the only MLB game to have ever been played on November 2^nd. So let’s get to it.

            The Philadelphia Phillies were the defending World Series champions having defeated the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2008 World Series in five games. The Yankees were looking for their first championship in nine years despite throwing hundreds of millions of dollars around in attempt to buy another championship. Thus far, it had not worked.

            After the Phillies took the first game by a score of 6-1, the Yankees responded by winning three consecutive games (the scores were 3-1, 8-5 and 7-4) and now had a chance to wrap up their 27^th World Series title. A.J. Burnett would get the start for the Yanks while the Phils would counter with Cliff Lee.

            The Yankees would score in the top of the first when Alex Rodriguez doubled in Johnny Damon with two outs. But the Phillies would respond in a big way in their first trip to the plate. Shortstop Jimmy Rollins singled. Centre fielder Shane Victorino was hit by a pitch. Then second baseman Chase Utley connected for a three-run home run to give Philly a 3-1 lead.

            They would add three more runs in the bottom of the third. RBI singles by outfielders Jayson Werth and Raul Ibanez, and an RBI ground out by catcher Carlos Ruiz would increase the Phils lead to 6-1. Burnett was knocked out of the game after the Ibanez single.

            The Yankees scratched a run back in the fifth when a ground out by Damon scored Eric Hinske, but a pair of solo home runs (by Utley and Ibanez) increased the lead to 8-2. It was turning into a laugher and it looked safe to assume the Series was headed back to the Bronx.

            A double by A-Rod in the top of the eighth scored Damon and Mark Teixeira, and then A-Rod scored on a sac fly by Robinson Cano, to close the gap to 8-5. Then the Yanks put together another threat in the top of the ninth when they had runners on first and third and none out. But Derek Jeter grounded into a double play and although one run scored, the threat was over.

            Phillies’ closer Ryan Madson struck out Teixeira to end the game and the Phils were back in the Series. But the momentum didn’t last long as the Yanks rebounded to take the sixth game by a 7-3 score.

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This Day In Postseason History: More Yankee Magic

November 1^st, 2001

World Series, Game 5

Arizona Diamondbacks at New York Yankees

Yankee Stadium, New York

            Since we looked at Game 4 of the 2001 World Series yesterday, there’s no way we can move on without looking at Game 5 today. The fifth game would prove to be just as dramatic, with the Series now tied at two games a piece, with the winner to take a three games to two lead back to the desert for Game 6 and, possibly, Game 7.

            For the Yankees, who now had all the momentum and a jacked-up Yankee crowd behind them, Mike Mussina would get the start on the hill while the Diamondbacks would counter with Miguel Batista. Both pitchers would get into a little trouble early on but the game remained scoreless through four innings.

            With everything stacked against them (the momentum, the Yankee mystique, the fans, the media, the broadcasters) the D-backs were the first on the scoreboard in the top of the fifth. Centre fielder Steve Finley led off the inning with a solo home run off of Mussina. Two outs later, catcher Rod Barajas also went deep, another solo shot to give Arizona a 2-0 lead.

            Even worse for the Yankees, they were having no luck against Batista as inning after inning, the right-hander stymied the New Yorkers. Batista’s line for the game would be 7 2/3 innings pitched, no runs, five hits three walks and ten strike outs. He was lifted with two out in the eight inning after surrendering a walk and a single, but left-handed reliever Greg Swindell got Tino Martinez to fly out and preserve the 2-0 lead.

            No runs for Arizona in the ninth meant for the second night in a row, they would take a two-run lead into the bottom of the ninth. And again, D-Back manager Bob Brenly would call on his closer, Byung-Hyun Kim, to get the final three outs.

            Yankee catcher, Jorge Posada, got the Yankee fans into it when he led off the inning with a double. But Kim quickly got a ground out from Shane Spencer and struck out Chuck Knoblach. Now with two out, and Posada still on second, Kim would face Yankee third baseman Scott Brosius.

            On the second pitch of the at bat, Brosius belted a high fly ball over the wall in left for a game-tying two-run home run. Unbelievable that New York could pull off the same comeback with two out in the ninth inning two nights in a row, but it had happened. With Yankee Stadium going berserk, Kim would be removed from the game. He wouldn’t pitch in the World Series again.

            The Yankees failed to score again in the inning and for the second night in a row, the game would go into extras. Neither team scored in the tenth or eleventh, although the Diamondbacks loaded the bases in the top of the eleventh, but couldn’t get any runs out of it. After Arizona went in order in the top of the twelfth, the Yankees came up to the plate for their turn.

            Now facing relief pitcher Albie Lopez, Knoblach led off the inning with a single. Brosius dropped down a sacrifice bunt, moving Knoblach into scoring position. That brought Soriano to the plate with a chance to give the Yankees the Series lead. On the fourth pitch he saw, Soriano did just that with a single to right field. Knoblach came racing around third and slid into home with the game-winning run. The Yankees had come back two nights in a row and now needed one more win for their fourth straight World Series title.

            But the D-Backs wouldn’t have any of it. After thrashing New York, 15-2, in Game 6, Arizona provided some ninth-inning magic of their own in the seventh game. Trailing 2-1, they Diamondbacks rallied for two runs off of Yankee closer Mariano Rivera to win the game and the World Series, denying the Yanks their chance at four-in-a-row.

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