October 02, 2006
Rematches
MetsBlog.com remembers the 1988 NLCS:
...i was a happy-go-lucky child growing up...after the fall of 1988, i became quite cynical and a huge skeptic and i blame that series, and specifically Mike Scioscia, for making me this way...
It turns out there are lots of possible rematches this year. The Twins and Athletics faced off in 2002. St. Louis and San Diego played just last year. The Mets and Cardinals met in the 2000 NLCS.
The A's and Yankees played a number of memorable ALDS games, but also met in the 1981 ALCS. Detroit and Minnesota faced each other in the 1987 ALCS.
The Padres lost the World Series to both the Yankees and the Tigers. The Mets and Yankees played a subway series in 2000, the last time the Yankees won the fall classic. The Dodgers defeated the Twins in 1965, and the Athletics fell to the Dodgers in 1988 (although they won in 1974). The Cardinals are the only NL team with long term success against the Yankees in the World Series. And the Yankees/Dodgers World Series are the stuff of legend. The Twins and Cardinals played the first World Series in which all the games were won by the home team in 1987. And Detroit won an exciting seven game series against St. Louis in 1968 (although they lost in 1934). And who can forget the 1973 World Series in which the Mets took Oakland to game seven before falling, losing the last two games on the road.
There's lots of opportunities for retribution this post season.
Correction: The Tigers/Cardinals played in 1968, not 1967.
that 1934 series brings back a lot of great memories
Detroit played the Cards in 1968. 1967 was the Red Sox against the Cards (Impossible Dream season).
re: Tigers v. Yankees
It's nice to see two original American League teams (non-expansion) from their original cities lineup for the playoffs. This makes it a lot like the Bosox-Yankees rivalry or when the Indians would play the Yankees.
There's tradition involved in this one.
The A's and Twins are both teams that have moved; the Padres and Mets are expansion teams; the Dodgers abandoned Brooklyn; which leaves the St. Louis Cards as the only original team in its original city. That's why it would have been good for the Phillies to be in the series instead of the Padres--tradition.
Nonetheless, the Met-Yankees would be a great series this year, due to the Mets being loaded up. It would be a far more competitive series.
With all fairness to Joe Mauer, he's not Ernie Lombardi, and Lombardi won two batting titles, and would have won more if he wasn't the slowest player in both leagues, as the honorable Bill James has pointed out at length in his writings on the late great Schnozz Lombardi, one of the greatest hitting catchers of all time, but tortured by the death of Willard Hershberger for many, many years.
--art kyriazis, philly
I'd love to see a Mets vs. A's series.
Or Mets vs. Tigers would be really neat.
Mets v. Twins would be palatable.
Yup. Thems the only matchups I'd really care to see.