I flashed back to this earlier in the year, but it seems appropriate to return to it now, as the year comes to a close. This week former baseball star Roy Halladay was killed in a plane crash. SI.com said it well when it referred to him as the "beloved hurler" - not only accurate, but a most appropriate use of retro baseball lingo for a man who by all accounts epitomized the grittiness of the old-time ballplayer.

This post originally ran in 2010, when Halladay became the only the second pitcher to ever throw a no-hitter in the post-season. Read and remember the good times for which Roy Halladay was responsible.

If ever there was a player who exemplified the joy of baseball, the delight in playing what is essentially a kids' game, it was Ernie Banks. No celebration of baseball could be complete without a tip of the cap to the man whose entire career was a celebration. Would that he would have been able to see the Cubs win the Series last year.

E rnie Banks, the Chicago Cubs baseball star, was buried today in Chicago. His performance on the field was spectacular—19 seasons, an 11-time All-Star, the first National Leaguer to win back-to-back Most Valuable Player trophies, a total of 512 home runs, Hall of Fame first ballot in 1977. His character off the field was even more exemplary—a spirit of joy, optimism and enthusiasm that was contagious way beyond the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.

Yes, Ernie Banks certainly was, for all the right reasons, Mr. Cub.

There were times, many probably, when that spirit was tested. Banks was the first African-American player on the Cubs when he joined them in 1953. Even as tributes flowed at the news of his passing last week at age 83 from a heart attack, references were also made to early ‘50s encounters that hadn’t been so welcoming. “People said terrible, racist things to him,” one long-time Cub fan recalled. “But Ernie just smiled right through it.”

And then there was the losing. The Cubs have become the longest-running “lovable losers” in major league baseball, if not in all of pro sports. They haven’t been in a World Series since 1945. They haven’t won one since 1908. In Ernie’s first 14 years as a Cub, they only had one winning season. Ernie played 2,528 major league games. None were in the post-season. (That futility is summed up in a riddle. “What did Jesus say to the Chicago Cubs?” Answer: “Don’t do anything until I get back.”)

Losing didn’t dampen Ernie’s spirit, though. “Let’s play two!” became his well-quoted catchphrase. He loved playing the game, it was all about the game, win, lose, whatever. It was the friendly, positive spirit of competition that he most enjoyed. That spirit infused Cub fans, it seems. It lingers at Wrigley, and perhaps in a few other, sadly vanishing, ball fields today.

I wasn’t a natural Ernie Banks fan. Growing up near San Francisco, I was a Willie Mays guy. I resented anyone crowding Willie’s spotlight. (With some justification. In 1958, when Banks became the first player on a losing team to win an MVP, he hit .313. Willie hit .347 that year. Just saying). But I always respected Ernie Banks and enjoyed watching Cubs games on TV, amazed at this slim shortstop who could pretty much do it all.

I realized in a new way this week how much I admired, and will miss, Ernie Banks. It took a Super Bowl to do it.

First it was the sports media machine pumping out endless, rancorous stories about possible cheating in the NFL, in what’s being called “DeflateGate.” Then it was the Super Bowl media day circus where one player in particular—Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch—became the poster-child for today’s arrogant, self-obsessed, pampered, obscenely overpaid, and repugnant professional athletes by ignoring reporters’ questions by smugly repeating  just one phrase (“I’m just here so I won’t get fined”) for nearly five minutes.

Apparently for Mr. Lynch, and many other pro athletes today, the joy has gone out of the game. They put up with it, grab their paychecks, and fly off to the Bahamas or Vegas or wherever they go to spend that money. They certainly don’t want to play two.

So, thank you, Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, for doing what you did. And more important, for being who you were. Thank you for leaving a legacy that hopefully will not diminish with your passing. We need people like you today. More than we know.

It's often said that baseball is the most lyrical of sports, and few writers can capture that lyricism better than our own Steve Harris, who, writing about the death of Minnesota Twins legend Harmon Killebrew, reminds us all of the emotions that the game can bring, and why baseball - unlike football - will always be the National Pastime, if not the National Obsession. 

It is Tuesday afternoon, October 7th. I am sitting here in an office at 9th and LaSalle in Downtown Minneapolis, on an absolutely gorgeous autumn day. From my window I see blue skies, puffy white clouds, and I hear that the temp is in the mid-70s. Fall weather in Minnesota just does not get better than this. What a day for a walk around Lake Harriet, coffee with a friend at an outside cafe on the Nicollet Mall, and finally, once again we can say this...a baseball game.

As we continue our salute to baseball's opening week, I'm reminded of the end goal for each team: the playoffs and, hopefully, the World Series. Back in 2010 the Phillies' Roy Halliday slew baseball's great white whale, the post-season no-hitter. It was only the second such time it had happened in baseball's long history, and as I wrote at the time, it becomes even more impressive the closer one looks at it.

There was, not surprisingly, only one topic of conversation around the sports water cooler this morning, that being Roy Halladay's no-hitter in Philadelphia’s opening game against Cincinnati yesterday. As just about everyone knows by now, Halladay’s was only the second no-hitter ever thrown in postseason play, joining Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

Oddly enough, this was the very thing I had been planning to write about tomorrow. Not Halladay's no-hitter, of course, since he hadn’t thrown it yet, but Larsen’s. October 8 is the 54th anniversary of Larsen’s perfecto, and for the hard-core baseball fan that date triggers a Pavlovian response in much the same way that July 4 or November 22 or December 7 do to the historian.*

* I don’t mean in any way to equate Larsen’s no-hitter with these other dates, some famous and some infamous. It’s just that if you say “October 8” to the aficionado, many of them would immediately respond “Larsen.” It just does.

I’ve long thought that Larsen’s performance was perhaps the most remarkable in the history of sports, or at least baseball. This piece by Cliff Corcoran lays it out very well – we’ve had postseason baseball since 1903, when the first World Series was played. From then to 1956, a span of 53 Series (there was none in 1904), you had a maximum of 371 games that could have been played. In all that time, there was only one no-hitter.

Since then, we’ve added a Championship Series in each league (starting in 1969), expanded it from five to seven games (in 1985), and added a Wild Card round (in 1995), meaning that in the 53+ years since Larsen, you’ve had a maximum of 1,245 games that could have been played, or almost four times the potential number since Larsen.* And in all that time, with all the opportunities we’ve given them, no pitcher was able to match Larsen until last night. If that doesn’t meet the definition of remarkable, I don’t know what does.

* I know, many if not most of these series went less that the maximum, but you get the point.  And anyway, I didn't have the time to count all the games.

And why should this be?

Well, one obvious reason is that pitchers aren't conditioned to go nine innings anymore.  Their charge is to get six or seven good innings, then turn it over to the bullpen.  Which means today's pitchers may not have the physical or psychological fitness to go the distance, even if they're being fueled by the adrenelin of a no-hitter.  Halladay led the league in complete games this season, and I don't think that's a coincidence.

Then there's the pressure of the post-season.  This seems to me to be the explanation that makes the most sense.  Just because we're told by the television people that the postseason is "a whole new ballgame" doesn't mean it isn't true.  The pressure of a short series, combined with the national spotlight, was bad enough before 24/7 sports channels came along - now, it's probably been magnified three or four times.

(There is a flip side to this, however, namely that the pressure can work both ways, producing performances that might be beyond the normal expectations from a given pitcher.  That was certainly the case with Larsen, who was little more than a journeyman either before or after his perfecto in the pivotal fifth game*, and it might have played to Halladay's advantage in the crucial opening game yesterday.**)

* With a series tied at two games apiece, as it was in '56, the fifth game is always pivotal.  You could trademark it.

** See above.

This morning I heard someone saying that, statistically, there have been too many no-hitters in the postseason, or at least more than the odds would suggest.  I know, that doesn't sound right at all.  But, according to the stats, .1% of all regular season games result in no-hitters, whereas the figure is .2% in the postseason.  Whatever.  I'd guess, if I had to, that it might have something to do with the number of bad teams playing bad games in the regular season.  One could argue, as I do, that if the best hitters make the postseason, that makes it harder to throw a no-no.  But you could also argue, I suppose, that having the best pitchers in the postseason makes a no-hitter more likely.

In the end, I think this is something where you have to selectively ignore stats.  Fact of the matter is that we've had more than one hundred years of postseason baseball, and until last night there had only been one no-hitter.  If we have two or three more in the next decade, maybe we'll have to revisit the whole thing.  But until and unless that happens, I'm sticking by my original thesis that Larsen's perfect game was the most remarkable, the greatest, pitching performance of all time.  A no-hitter in the World Series would have been incredible enough; Larsen's perfect game, the first in 34 years, defies description.

And that makes Halladay's perhaps the second greatest.

As Baseball Week continues, a look back at a "This Just In" feature from a few weeks ago that's outdated now, but it does point out how remarkable last year's World Series was.

Cubs Take Field for Season Opener, Are Officially Eliminated From Pennant Race

In honor of baseball's Opening Week, I thought we'd take a look at some of the best of this blog's posts on America's Pastime. Today it's the story of a baseball team and its new owner, who just happens to be an ill-tempered cat.

Based on the novel by H. Allen Smith (one of the finest humorists of his time), Rhubarb tells the story of a yellow feral cat with a nasty disposition who's "adopted" by a wealthy businessman, T.J. Banner (Gene Lockhart, whom you might remember as the judge in Miracle on 34th Street). Banner, who's constantly surrounded by "yes" men, admires how the cat treats everyone with distain, rich and poor alike. This cat, he says, has spirit. He's a fighter, and if there's one thing T.J. Banner has always admired, it's a fighter. T.J.'s greedy daughter Myra thinks he's crazy, but his public relations man, Eric Yeager (Oscar-winner Ray Milland), affectionately tolerates the old man. It was Eric who was assigned to capture the cat from the golf course where he lived (stealing golf balls off the greens), and when Eric finally succeeds, he has the scratches to prove it.

Although Banner owns many successful businesses, his pride and joy is his baseball team, a bunch of losers named the Brooklyn Loons (read: Dodgers), managed by Len Sickles (William Frawley, Lockhart's political boss in Miracle on 34th Street). If only, Banner thinks, his team had the same fight his cat had, they might win for a change. After watching the cat trash his study, Banner decides to name him Rhubarb, after the term for a baseball imbroglio. (In one scene, trying to explain what the cat's name means, Eric explains: "Lady, you know what happens at a sale, when two women get hold of the same dress? THAT's a Rhubarb!")

After many years Banner dies and, to the amazement of his business associates and Myra (who has been fairly counting down the days to the old man's death), he leaves the balance of his estate, including the baseball team, to the only living thing that ever showed him trust and loyalty - Rhubarb. Realizing the limitations inherent in a cat running an empire, the will provides that Eric will act as Rhubarb's guardian. He's not sure at first, but when Myra attempts to murder Rhubarb, Eric remembers T.J.'s words that "if you're right, fight for it." Rhubarb's always been a fighter, which is what the old man loved about him, and Eric is determined to fight as well.

His biggest fight concerns the baseball team - the players, perhaps understandably, are reluctant to pay for a cat, even if he does own the team. Fans around the league meow at them, and an umpire even left a bowl of milk at home plate before the start of the game. The players are threatening to sit out the season and Eric, along with his fiancee Polly (Jan Sterling), manager Sickles' daughter, realize something has to be done. Eric convinces them that the miracle Boston Braves of 1914 - a team that rallied from last place on the 4th of July to win the World Series (true, by the way) - owed their success to a lucky yellow cat that served as their mascot, they start to have second thoughts. When the Loons' hitters come through in the clutch after having petted Rhubarb, the superstitious players become convinced: with Rhubarb on their side, they can do no wrong.

The Brooklyn team - now dubbed the "Rhubarbs" by the tabloids, with Rhubarb and Eric accompanying them to every game home and away - catches fire and wins the pennant. Now, they're prepared to face their archrivals, the New York club (read: Yankees) in the World Series. The entire city is electrified, and in the days leading up to the Series seemingly everyone in Brooklyn is placing bets on the Rhubarbs to win. The alarmed bookies calculate that if Brooklyn wins, there's no way they'll be able to cover their losses. Then one of them, Pencil Louie, strikes upon an idea - if something were to "happen" to the cat, it would almost certainly mean defeat for Brooklyn, and the bookies would save their skins.

Pencil Louie's first thought is simply to kill Rhubarb, but then he realizes there's money to be made - surely Myra would pay them to get rid of the cat. With Rhubarb thus out of the way, Myra gets her father's fortune, Brooklyn (and the people betting on them) loses, and the bookies get their necks out of the noose. In short order Rhubarb is catnapped, New York evens the series, and all of Brooklyn is in a panic. Eric and Polly launch a desperate search for the missing cat, even resorting to seeding the clouds with dry ice to cause a rainout that postpones Game 7 for another day.

In the end the good guys win, of course. Rhubarb is found, the bad guys are captured, and Brooklyn rallies to win the series. Eric and Polly marry, and Rhubarb is last seen with the female cat who's been sitting in the box behind Rhubarb with her lady owner throughout the season, trailing a litter of little kittens.

Rhubarb is a charming fantasy, featuring a top-notch performance by Milland (including a hilarious send-up of his drunk scene in The Lost Weekend), wild slapstick comedy, and Smith's satiric jabs at television and commercial sponsors (a pivotal moment in one game is interrupted for a "much more important" message from the ever-present Friendly Financial Company, whose commercials are a running joke during coverage of the games).

It tells of a time when baseball was an ingrained part of the American culture, when teams were part of the very fabric of the cities they played in (as the Dodgers were when they played in Brooklyn), and when the idea of a cat owner/mascot wasn't perhaps all that outrageous. And of course it's perfectly believable that baseball players, a superstitious lot since the game began, would become convinced that petting a cat before going to bat would bring them good luck.

Best of all is Rhubarb himself - one source says fourteen cats were used to portray him, with the prime cat being a tiger named Orangey. His transformation from feral loner to tycoon to good-luck charm is the stuff dreams are made of.

Smith's original book spawned two sequels, neither matching the charm and outrageousness of Rhubarb. As both novel and movie, it is the essential baseball story - the tale of a team and its lucky cat.

From Charles Pierce at Grantland, an instructional aid as to when one should start worrying about the end of the world:

According to some very reliable crazy people on the Internets, the world was supposed to end Wednesday night. It was something to do with the blood moon and the prophecies of an old Christian radio host. Proving that something beyond human understanding was afoot, the Chicago Cubs won a wild-card, win-or-go-home playoff game in Pittsburgh. But the odds are that fate or the universe is just playing us all for suckers. The world will not end until the Cubs are one strike away from winning the World Series. The last pitch will be halfway to the plate and the asteroid will come to call. Blood moons and superannuated radio preachers are one thing. The Chicago Cubs and postseason baseball are a whole different and deeper level of cosmic burlesque.

Is this the year that this story becomes obsolete?

Lawrence  Peter (Yogi) Berra passed away earlier this week, at the age of 90. This remarkable Yankee catcher had an even more remarkable career, participating in World Series as a player, coach and manager. He was an All-Star selection 15 times. He won his league’s Most Valuable Player Award three times. As a manager, led both the Yankees and the Mets into the World Series.

Yogi didn’t look like an athlete; his somewhat squatty and dense, 5’8” frame made him look more like a construction worker than a professional ballplayer. He had that broad face and those protruding ears. (“You’re ugly, Berra,” a rival catcher told him one day. “I don’t hit with my face,” was Yogi’s reply. Along with a double into the gap.) You could see why one day years later Yogi would inspire a cartoon character. Yes, that famous bear.

Yogi Berra was no Joe Dimaggio, some might say.

But while Dimaggio, the graceful Yankee Clipper, is praised for striking out only 369 times in his entire career,  Yogi, also a power-hitter, struck out only 414 times in nearly 1,500 more plate appearances. Percentage-wise, Yogi tops his legendary teammate on that one. “You could,” as their shared skipper used to say, “look it up.”

Yes, Yogi was an athlete. A great athlete. And one of sports (all sports) greatest winners. From 1957 through 1981, the New York Yankees were in the World Series 13 times. Yogi—as a player, a coach, a manager—was on every one of those teams.

He got more famous later for his “Yogi-isms,” those witty, seemingly spontaneous comments he made (or supposedly made) about life. (“When you come to a fork in the road, take it,” is one often quoted.)  Those funny sayings sold books and t-shirts. They shouldn’t make us forget what an amazing athlete Yogi Berra was.

Let’s imagine a Yankee Mt. Rushmore. Who should be up there? Babe Ruth, arguable the greatest baseball player of all-time (and a giant of a character himself), is so far above everyone else that we’ll let him be the foundation that this Rushmore sits on. On the mountain itself has to be Lou Gehrig, Dimaggio, and Mickey Mantle. We will officially add the fourth right now: Yogi Berra.

Yogi’s talents, his child-like enthusiasm while playing a man’s game, his almost Forrest Gump-like prowess for being right in the middle of so many memorable baseball moments (including calling Don Larsen’s perfect game in the Series of ’56), his ability to embody a baseball  era like few others—it all adds up to quite a career, and a life. Oh yeah, he was a 19-year old American soldier who hit Omaha Beach on D-Day. Yes, there is a lot to say, and to remember, and to honor, about Yogi Berra.

My wife and I operate a Bed & Breakfast in a small town in southeastern Minnesota. This morning, eight new guests gathered around the breakfast table. These first moments can be a little tense, awkward even, for people who’ve never met who are about to share a meal together.

These folks, from Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa, smiled politely and seated themselves quietly. One young man was wearing a Kansas City Royals shirt. Mention was made. The conversation would start with baseball.

“Did you hear?” one woman asked the group. “Yogi died this week.” No prompting was needed. They all knew who she meant. Immediately the early table tension melted. There were knowing smiles all around. “He was so funny, the things he said,” said another lady. Soon they brought up shared memories of that stubby little Yankee catcher with a gift for making people smile. These were not sports fans, baseball fans. But somehow they all knew Yogi. They were Yogi Berra fans.

I was trying to think of another American professional athlete in the last 50 years who could do that for people. (Last century even.) An athlete that ordinary people could relate to, and not just admire, but genuinely like. An athlete who seemed authentic and approachable.  It did help that Yogi was a hugely gifted athlete, one of the best of all time at his position.  But that wasn’t the most important thing about him. It  isn’t what people immediately and fondly recall.

How many of those athletes are there? A handful at best. One was certainly Yogi Berra. And now he is gone.

“It ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” Manager Yogi Berra famously told his Mets players in the summer of 1973, stirring them to an improbable World Series run. With his passing, it is over. And it’s all a little bit sadder.

Ernie Banks, the Chicago Cubs baseball star, was buried today in Chicago. His performance on the field was spectacular—19 seasons, an 11-time All-Star, the first National Leaguer to win back-to-back Most Valuable Player trophies, a total of 512 home runs, Hall of Fame first ballot in 1977. His character off the field was even more exemplary—a spirit of joy, optimism and enthusiasm that was contagious way beyond the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.

Yes, Ernie Banks certainly was, for all the right reasons, Mr. Cub.

There were times, many probably, when that spirit was tested. Banks was the first African-American player on the Cubs when he joined them in 1953. Even as tributes flowed at the news of his passing last week at age 83 from a heart attack, references were also made to early ‘50s encounters that hadn’t been so welcoming. “People said terrible, racist things to him,” one long-time Cub fan recalled. “But Ernie just smiled right through it.”

And then there was the losing. The Cubs have become the longest-running “lovable losers” in major league baseball, if not in all of pro sports. They haven’t been in a World Series since 1945. They haven’t won one since 1908. In Ernie’s first 14 years as a Cub, they only had one winning season. Ernie played 2,528 major league games. None were in the post-season. (That futility is summed up in a riddle. “What did Jesus say to the Chicago Cubs?” Answer: “Don’t do anything until I get back.”)

Losing didn’t dampen Ernie’s spirit, though. “Let’s play two!” became his well-quoted catchphrase. He loved playing the game, it was all about the game, win, lose, whatever. It was the friendly, positive spirit of competition that he most enjoyed. That spirit infused Cub fans, it seems. It lingers at Wrigley, and perhaps in a few other, sadly vanishing, ball fields today.

I wasn’t a natural Ernie Banks fan. Growing up near San Francisco, I was a Willie Mays guy. I resented anyone crowding Willie’s spotlight. (With some justification. In 1958, when Banks became the first player on a losing team to win an MVP, he hit .313. Willie hit .347 that year. Just saying). But I always respected Ernie Banks and enjoyed watching Cubs games on TV, amazed at this slim shortstop who could pretty much do it all.

I realized in a new way this week how much I admired, and will miss, Ernie Banks. It took a Super Bowl to do it.

First it was the sports media machine pumping out endless, rancorous stories about possible cheating in the NFL, in what’s being called “DeflateGate.” Then it was the Super Bowl media day circus where one player in particular—Seattle’s Marshawn Lynch—became the poster-child for today’s arrogant, self-obsessed, pampered, obscenely overpaid, and repugnant professional athletes by ignoring reporters’ questions by smugly repeating  just one phrase (“I’m just here so I won’t get fined”) for nearly five minutes.

Apparently for Mr. Lynch, and many other pro athletes today, the joy has gone out of the game. They put up with it, grab their paychecks, and fly off to the Bahamas or Vegas or wherever they go to spend that money. They certainly don’t want to play two.

So, thank you, Ernie Banks, Mr. Cub, for doing what you did. And more important, for being who you were. Thank you for leaving a legacy that hopefully will not diminish with your passing. We need people like you today. More than we know.

We did not get Game One coverage of the World Series here in my part of South Carolina until 35 minutes into the broadcast, because of a Gubernatorial "glorified press conference" on our local Fox affiliate.  That meant when the game broadcast began, we were joined in progress as the Kansas City pitcher was in his opening tosses.

This was the same affiliate that pre-empted the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Fred's 250 presented by Coca-Cola at Talladega for an ACC gridiron match, not informing us of a tape delay until roughly 90 minutes before it aired.  By that time the results were known and the DVRs weren't set.  Fans complained on their boards.

And speaking of television history, did World Series games move to night over concerns over an FCC rule in 1971?  Remember in 1971 the FCC imposed a rule that networks could not program on Mondays to Saturdays the 7 PM ET hour under "Prime Time Access," a rule that lasted until 1996.  Local stations relied on 6 PM news broadcasts, and news broadcasts had expanded from 15 to 30 minutes (and now, often 5 PM 90 minute local news broadcasts are commonplace).  With an increased proliferation of West Coast baseball clubs (two in Los Angeles, two in the Bay Area, one in San Diego), the Noon or 1 PM local World Series game was no longer feasible.  If there was a Dodgers, Giants, or Athletics game (remember that the Angels and Padres were expansion teams, while the other three were established teams that had moved west), there would have been a 3 PM or 4 PM start to the game.  And a 4 PM start would mean if the game lasted extra innings, the 7 PM hour creep would have run into trouble with the new federal regulation, though it was exempt as sports runover, with stations invested heavily in syndicated programming for the 7 PM hour, it would have been trouble.  Could you imagine network daytime dramas not knowing if it will air because of a game's start time?

That was the primary reason for the World Series games starting at 8 PM since 1971, as to avoid Prime Time Access regulations.

[Editor's Note: Read this story at Awful Announcing wondering if the World Series might eventually wind up off broadcast television altogether, airing instead on Fox Sports 1.]

Woman's Death Marks Extinction of "Cub" Species 
Last person alive when Cubs won World Series, she's end of an era 

Poor Bobby lost everything on the seventh question. After wheezing by six questions correctly, he misses the seventh question on Channel 4's spectacular format (but didn't succeed in the US, unfortunately) "The Million Pound Drop," placing all £1,000,000 on a question, only to see it all drop down.

And this banner is what I must fly . . .

Most of us who have read the blog will know that I was an 8th grader at Prep when a certain Randhawa girl was in 12th grade, and we know very well who she is today.

But today on Classic Sports Thursday, how many people know that George Herbert Walker Bush, in 1947, played on the Yale baseball team in the first two NCAA DivisioN I baseball tournaments, and the Bulldogs lost each time in the final, first to California at Berkley, and Southern California in the second year (and it was the first of twelve). Jackie Jensen, a future American League Most Valuable Player, was on the first Bears team.

The tournament was actually held on the campus at Western Michigan University's Hyames Field. After those two years, they moved to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in 1949, in 1950 it moved to its home for now its 63rd year, Omaha, with the first 61 seasons (1950-2010) at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium before its move to Toronto Dominion Ameritrade Park last year in downtown.

It's time for what has become one of the most exciting events in all baseball -- a championship that has been held annually since 1947 -- the only major professional level of baseball has been continuous that long save maybe a rookie league or two. (The current NPB title series has been played since 1950, and continuous; MLB sine 1995 thanks to labour, and most minor leagues since 2002, as most leagues' championship series were cancelled in 2001 as a result of the terrorist attacks.)

This year's storyline? Three in a row? C! A! R! O! L! I! N! A! Goooooooo-COCKS!


(Sorry, folks, had to say that . . . but when the ring says South Carolina, and you've enjoyed so much in Omaha after having been dry for centuries . . . ) ◙

It's Opening Day for baseball, or at least one of the opening days - the season actually started last week with a couple of games in Japan, and there was an "Opening Day" last night in Miami, but today seems to be by consensus the real opening day.

Traditionally, Opening Day meant Cincinnati - in honor of being the first professional baseball team, the Reds always had the privilege of opening the major league season. They don't, anymore, although they always open the season at home, and it's just another of the great traditions that baseball seems to have cast off.

So we'll do our own tribute to the Reds, with this rare footage of the fifth game of the 1961 World Series, as Cincinnati took on the New York Yankees at one of the great ballparks of baseball's Golden Age, Crosley Field. ◙

Unlike Mitchell, I've never been that much of a baseball fan - football was always my game (and I don't even watch much of that anymore). But as I read this article, it began to become clear to me just why baseball doesen't cut it for me. Could this have something to do with it?

On Sunday, you could have flown from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., and watched all of Gone With the Wind and quite a bit of Gandhi en route, while simultaneously undergoing -- start to finish -- an in-flight sex-change operation before landing, 4 hours and 15 minutes after takeoff, in an altogether different climate, as an altogether different gender.

Or, in the same 4 hours and 15 minutes, you could have watched the Red Sox and Yankees complete a single game of major league baseball.

You know how whenever people talk about the weather in desert climates they'll mention how it isn't the heat, it's the humidity? Maybe it's true that with baseball it isn't the time, it's the pace. But, like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives (to coin a phrase), and maybe there just aren't that many sands left to cover the infield of a baseball stadium and have anything left over? ◙

College baseball's major showcase returns to Omaha with a new home at Toronto Dominion Ameritrade Park in the Nebraska city's downtown.

Last year: As I'm driving home from Mass in C Major, and come home to watch Whit Merrifield close out Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium's last NCAA Championship game with an 11th-inning hit to score Scott Wingo. The current Royals prospect (ironic, considering their AAA club moved to the suburbs with a new smaller stadium as their own field was too large thanks to college baseball's 24,000-seat capacity) scored the just-drafted by the Dodgers infielder who will close his college career with the new park.

From a perspective inside.

Radio call by Andy Demetra.

As new traditions begin, let's look at what might be the greatest way to end a playoff. 1996, Louisiana State down one to Miami (FL), runner on third, two out, bottom of the ninth. The way that game ended is a title decider that hasn't seen seen at the professional level. ◙

First, a story. I know I've told it before, but bear with me one last time.

I was nine years old, and my aunt had taken me to see Harmon Killebrew at the Northwestern National Bank Building in downtown Minneapolis. He was making a public appearance signing autographs, there was an ad in the paper, my aunt worked downtown, and so there we were.

You will read, or have read already, many things about Harmon Killebrew, and one of the things is about how gracious he was. This is a true fact, as they say. He was gracious and friendly and must have asked my name, because the autograph he signed read "To Mitchell, Best Wishes, Harmon Killebrew." The name was perfectly legible - as Steve Rushin writes today, Killebrew believed the fan who waits for a player's autograph should be able to read it. I had him sign a picture that I'd taken earlier that year, at a Twins game against the Seattle Pilots. He was concerned that it wouldn't show up well enough on the glossy photo paper, but enough of the ink made it, and he wrote it hard enough that it left the imprint on the picture. More than easy enough to read.

I still have that autograph, along with the ad for the event. It's packed away in a box, or I'd show it to you right now. I'm sorry I can't get to it at the moment, but when you're a child you never expect your heroes to die, and even when you grow up that part of you doesn't change.

Anyway. After the session, my aunt and I had gone about our business, the big day downtown. We had probably gone to lunch, perhaps at the Sky Room in Dayton's which at the time offered one of the best views there was of downtown. We'd then gone to Woolworth's, where I'd gotten a poster of Harmon to put up on my bedroom wall. As we were headed back, walking through the skyways that were still very new in downtown Minneapolis, there he was - all by himself. No handlers, no posse, just Harmon Killebrew. He was lost in the skyways, which happens to people in downtown Minneapolis even to this day. He couldn't remember how to get back to where he'd parked his car. My aunt, who knew downtown like the back of her hand, was easily able to tell him which way to go.

The point of the story. He rememberd me. By name. "You're Mitch, aren't you?" he said. Even though he'd met probably hundreds of kids that day, and had only seen me that one time. Talk about making an impression on a nine-year-old. Forget being a role model: hero worship after that is inevitable.

So that happened in 1969, during his last great season. It was 42 years ago, and if you're using your fingers you can figure out how old that makes me. I never saw Harmon to speak with him again, although he was no stranger to the area and often appeared at Twins functions even after he retired in the 70s. I saw him play ball a few more times, including a home-run hitting contest he had with Willie Mays out at old Metropolitan Stadium. But I never forgot that day, and even after all these years I can remember what happened as clearly as I'm writing them right now.

There are those who say we ask a lot of our professional athletes and singers and actors, expecting them to be stars when they're at work and role models when they aren't. Never mind the idea that all of us, you and me both, are called to be role models every minute of our lives (c.f. John 13:35), it's a tough thing to be "on" 24 hours a day.

Besides Rushin's piece today, Joe Posnanski (as always) writes a wonderful article here. Again, you'll read others, most of them from people who knew Killebrew or had met him many more times than I had. But in the end it doesn't matter, because the Harmon Killebrew they're talking about is the Harmon Killebrew I knew.

And that, I think, is the moral of the story. Harmon Killebrew wasn't "on" 24 hours a day. He was just being himself. ◙

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