by David Everett Fisher
The Red Sox won their 9th World Series 4 to 1 and I could give a fuck. It’s not like it was a bad World Series, but the two teams really never pulled me in like other teams have in the past. The Dodgers haven’t won it in 30 years: Yawn! The Red Sox won 108 games: boooooooorrrriiiiiiinnnnnnggg!
What makes great World Series? Well, the Houston Astros winning it last year was exciting because they have never won a World Series and it happened the same year as Hurricane Harvey, so there was this feeling of hope for a city that was devastated by a monsoon of rain. It was also against the Dodgers.
The year before that was the Chicago Cubs winning their first World Series since 1908 against the Cleveland Block Cs, who haven’t won one since 1948.
You’re probably thinking that it takes a club having a long dry World Series drought to make a World Series exciting, but actually the only exciting part of this last World Series is the fact that the Dodgers still haven’t won since 1988.
The Kansas City Royals won in 2015 against the New York Mets, and that was a fun World Series because Kansas City played such fun and exciting baseball. They really ran the bases, created runs in every which way they could, and they took down a large market juggernaut, which is another recipe for a fun World Series.
The year before, 2014, was one of my favorite post seasons with San Francisco beating the Royals in their last Even-Year-World-Series-Wins. I rooted for Kansas City because of them providing me one of the best baseball games I had ever watched against my beloved Oakland A’s in the Wild Card game, but San Francisco was still a very fun team to watch both on the mound and with a bat. Hunter Pence is a baseball treasure and Madison Bumgarner is a fucking Ace.
I have always found the past World Series to be somewhat exciting by way of drama unfolding with the teams, or the match ups, or even the mismatch ups like the 2009 World Series with the Phillies beating the Tampa Rays 4-1. This year it just didn’t matter. I knew Boston would win, my podcast mates thought it would be 4-1, I wished it was 4-3, but knew that Boston had this.
There will be questions about Dave Roberts ability to run a bullpen or trust his starters. There are those that are calling for his termination. The L.A. bullpen had been good all year, but just couldn’t perform when it was needed.
It wasn’t a “bad” World Series. We haven’t seen a “bad” World Series since 1994. This year’s Series was just too predictable. The games were fine. There was the really long game that went 18 innings, but the ending score was 3-2 L.A. I went to bed before it ended. I wasn’t even excited for free baseball. I woke up surprised that it was L.A. that was able to finally win it. The only surprise of the whole series.
I guess I wished that any other team that had made the playoffs were in the World Series instead. Milwaukee or Atlanta would have been great. Both teams were exciting, Atlanta had a young squad and Milwaukee was just so fun to watch. The Yankees may have been as exciting as Boston, but they were the Wild Card winners, but how fun would the A’s have been? I really prayed for an Athletic Brewers Series. Colorado was really trying to do it this year, and Chicago might have been somewhat boring since they could only win if the score was one home run to zero. Cleveland Block Cs would have been great, but I think they shouldn’t win until they get rid of their outdated name and logo. Houston winning back to backs would have been a great feat by a fun team.
It bums me out more because now the Boston Red Sox have won just as many World Series as the Athletics.
The Red Sox have become the new American League Evil Empire. They spend the money, they dominate the division; except the Dodgers are the Evil Empire of the National League. It’s like being some person in Mozambique in the 80s rooting for either the Soviet Union or the United States of America to win the Cold War.
Don’t get me wrong, I liked this year’s World Series, but I could give a fuck that Boston won, and I don’t think I would have cared all that much if Los Angeles had won. I am already looking forward to next year and how the teams try and build better squads. I am hoping that whomever makes it the Fall Classic next year and wins it, that I will care a little more than I did this year.
