So we're now down to just eight teams and no World Champions as the '80 Yankees smacked the '83 Orioles around in four games, outscoring the O's 37-15. The '87 Blue Jays blew the division title the last weekend of the 1987 season but they aren't blowing it here as they took care of the '88 Red Sox in five games. In the West both series ended in thrilling Game 6's. The '88 Twins eliminated the '86 Angels on a Kent Hrbek homerun in the top of the 10th off of Doug Corbett. Then in the most improbab
The '88 Pirates magical run that has captured the nation is finally over as they ran into buzzsaw in the '85 Cardinals. The series did have marathon 15 inning Game 1 that ended on a Jeff Robinson wild pitch to score Jack Clark from 3rd. The Expos may no longer exist but their 1980 team is still alive as they tossed aside the '88 Mets in five games. In the West the the the '80 Astros acutally had to sweat for once in this tournament after falling behind 2-1 to the '89 Giants but they won three st
Finally after nine months I've completed the three World Series DVD boxsets that were released last year, concluding with maybe the two most forgotten games in World Series history.
1975 World Series Game 7 - Reds 4, Red Sox 3 (boxscore and play account)
-They have some cancer kid throw out the first pitch, or at least they say "represents kids with cancer" so I don't know if the kid actually had cancer or if it was just someone's kid from the Red Sox front office and they needed an
We've had a ton of upsets in the first two rounds but one World Champion has survived to make it to the Sweet 16 and that is the '83 Orioles who took care of the '89 Blue Jays in five games and are on paper the tournament favorite now. The '86 Red Sox lost the '80 Yankees and no ball through Bill Buckner's legs although he did go 3 for 46 in the tournament. The upstart '86 Indians pushed the '88 Red Sox to seven games but they could not join the '88 Pirates as a 16th seed into the next round alt
After three #1's were bounced in the first round I guess it's not a surprise that the '88 Dodgers wouldn't last past the second round. What was a surprise was that all three Dodgers' teams that advanced were eliminated in this round including losing both match-ups to the hated Giants who unexpectedly become the first franchise with two teams into the Sweet 16. The '80 Astros cruised again as they needed just five games to beat the '83 Braves are now 8-1 so far.
Stats are for both rounds.
This division/region was completely blown to pieces in the 1st round but this round things almost went to form. The '86 Angels did what the '89 A's were supposed to do and that was sweep the '87 Mariners. The other three series all went at least six games with the one upset by the '83 White Sox as they eliminated the '87 Twins in seven games. Interesting thing about that series is every game was won by the road team, the complete opposite of the '87 World Series. That now leaves no World Series
After the shocking performance of the #16 seeds in the first round, no reason to expect that to change as they now get lesser competition in the 2nd Round. The '88 Pirates continue their Cinderella run by taking care of the '89 Cubs in five games to advance to the Sweet 16. In fact no series in the N.L. East Quarters went further than five games with the '88 Mets sweeping the '82 Cardinals thus knocking off the lone World Champion remaining in the region/division.
Stat lines I throw in are
Hey if the '87 Mariners can beat the '89 A's, why not the '86 Indians beating the '84 Tigers? Well it happened thus meaning the '88 Dodgers were the only #1 seed to get out of the first round and they had to go to seven games to do so. The top half of the bracket in this region/division has been blown wide open as every lower seed won while on the bottom half three of the four higher seeds advanced. We had our second sweep as the '80 Yankees dusted off the '80 Orioles including an 18-0 thrashing
As many of you know the TSM Fantasy Baseball Draft is currently going on. I personally don't really even like playing fantasy baseball that much as I never want to be on those people rooting for players on the team who's playing against their favorite team. Because of this I never play for money as I have enough things to worry about than if Brett Myers gets 10 strikeouts and smacks his wife three times so I can win my game that week. This is the 4th year of the league with it being the 2nd year
Now for the final region/division in the tournament, the A.L. East. The East features just two World Champions but is loaded with great teams who came up just short of winning their division. During the 80's seven of the nine normal pennant chases in the division were decided by three games or less. Of course given how this tournament has gone the '86 Indians will probably win the region as they get in as the only Indians team of the decade to have a winning record.
#1
1984 Detroit Tigers
The biggest shock of the tournament so far...a #1 seed advances! Unfortunately it had to be the '88 Dodgers. We had our first sweep of the tournament as the '80 Astros made easy work of the '82 Braves. The '89 Giants nearly blew a 3-0 series lead but pull it out in seven over the '89 Padres. Plenty of upsets as usual as the #12, #13, and #15 seeds all advanced.
(1) 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers def. (16) 1982 Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3
Game 1: '88 Dodgers 4, '82 Dodgers 2
Game 2: '82 Dodger
The Dodgers were the only team in the '80s to win two World Championships and there were the only N.L. West team to win a title so not surprisingly they lead the way here with six teams, although we saw having a lot of teams didn't really help the Mets in the N.L. East. Every other team here has two reps including the Reds who were the only team in the the N.L. West to not win a division title in the decade although their '81 team was robbed of one.
#1
1988 Los Angeles Dodgers (94-67, def
The 1987 Seattle Mariners beat the 1989 Oakland A's. Yup, this tournament is a mess. In fact only two higher seeds advance in the 1st Round of this division/region. Thought about scrapping the whole idea but might as well see how bizarre this gets and see if every 16 seed advances. All three A's teams were bounced so definately can't be accused of fixing this.
(16) 1987 Seattle Mariners def. (1) 1989 Oakland Athletics 4-3
Game 1: Mariners 4, A's 3 15 innings
Game 2: A's 8, Mariners
Hey it's the one year anniversary of my blog...um, yay? I've been putting off several ideas such as a list of the Top 100 players of my "baseball lifetime" (1986-present) and also the Top 50 Oakland A's of all-time, shrunk from 100 since realizing that the list would be populated with guys who played two years or less with them. So I figured I'd do my biggest staple of my blog over the past year and that was the Award Redos. I originally was going to do the 1991 A.L. MVP but then rememebered, I
The A.L. West features three World Champions, two of them on paper being the two weakest World Series winners in that decade. The Royals lead the way with five teams as some may forget at one time they weren't a complete joke. The White Sox, Rangers, and Mariners have just one team a piece, Mariners being the only franchise in the 80's who failed to have a winning record with their '87 team leading the way with 78 wins. Can they shock the world and upset the '89 A's in the 1st Round?
#1
1
When you run simulations like this there will be bizarre results but I wasn't anticipating the '86 Mets getting bounced by the '88 Pirates but it happened and in only five games. Strat-O-Matic hates the Mets apparently as of their five teams only the '88 team survived. The '80 Phillies were also bounced as the '80 Expos got "revenge" for losing out by a game for the division title in 1980.
(16) 1988 Pittsburgh Pirates def. (1) 1986 New York Mets 4-1
Game 1: Mets 6, Pirates 5
Game 2:
1979 World Series Game 6 - Pirates 4, Orioles 0 (boxscore and play account)
-This game was played on a Tuesday just two days after the Colts played a game and the football yard marks a very visible. Once again it's a very good thing that multi-purpose stadiums are almost gone.
-Howard Cosell spends time early in the game whining about some unamed Baltimore columnist whining about ABC's habbit of showing the players wives on a regular basis, which it did get completely out of hand in a
I needed content and I wanted to do something related to the very competitive decade of the 1980's for baseball so I've decied to run a 64 team tournament between the top teams of the 1980's. Ya 64 is way too many but I'm Bored. I'll be using the computer version of Strat-O-Matic Baseball to run the tournament. I'll be simulating the games and the only thing I'll determine before the games is who the starting pitcher will be for each game. It will just be like the NCAA College Basketball tournam
Start out by giving kudos to the NFL Network for finally airing the original broadcasts of past Super Bowls, if only a small sample of them but it's a start. I can only hope that is a test run that leads to them airing classic games on a regular basis or at least start putting some of them on DVD like MLB and NBA are now doing. Super Bowl XIII is on tommorrow night and I think I might do a write up on that one.
As I've mentioned in the past my memories of sports begin in 1986. I've been tol
I was trying to figure something out to relate to the NFL Playoffs for a blog entry. I originally thought about looking back at random playoff games from the past that may have been forgotten but doing research on the internet for football is a hell of lot harder than baseball. But as I was watching the divisional playoffs and the Bears were on the ropes against the Seahawks I was wondering when was the last time both #1 seeds lost in the divisional playoffs? The Bears of course won but the AFC
Now that the college football season is over I finally had a Saturday morning to sit down and watch Game 6 of the 1975 World Series in one sitting and now eventually will be able to finish off all three World Series box sets. For the remaining games I'll do an entry for Game 6 & 7 of the '79 Series and then an entry for both Game 7's of the '75 & '86 Series.
On a side note while I was doing my post-Christmas shopping with some gift cards I received I found another box set of classi
Wrapping up the 2007 Hall of Fame Ballot with the two slam dunks on the ballot and barring a major upset the only two who will be elected on Tuesday. Since there is no real suspense in whether or not these two will be elected I figured I'd just group them together. Sure one could argue than one or the other was overrated in their own right and there will of course be those who will leave them off their ballot just to make sure no one ever gets 100% of the vote. But no one can make a legitimate a
Andre Dawson - Outfielder
Montreal Expos 1976-1986
Chicago Cubs 1987-1992
Boston Red Sox 1993-1994
Florida Marlins 1995-1996
6th year on the ballot
Past HOF Voting Results
2002: 45.34%
2003: 50.00%
2004: 50.00%
2005: 52.32%
2006: 60.96%
Awards
1977 NL Rookie of the Year
1980 NL Gold Glove - OF
1980 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1981 NL Gold Glove - OF
1981 NL Silver Slugger - OF
1982 NL Gold Glove - OF
1983 NL Gold Glove - OF
1983 NL Silver Slugger -
