YOUR CONFLICTED WORLD SERIES: CURSE THE ASTROS, ROOT FOR DUSTY?
No longer cheating, we presume, Houston would one-up the Dodgers — and further infuriate a bilked L.A. — with another title over the Braves, an upstart loaded with charming stories
This time, back at the scene of the crime, a rogue camera won’t be in center field. A hacker won’t be stealing signs flashed by the catcher to the pitcher. In the dugout tunnel at Minute Maid Park, a co-conspirator won’t be banging a trash can to alert hitters which pitch is coming. In this World Series, the Houston Astros will not be cheating.
So, how fascinating to see them playing for another championship anyway, four years after embezzling the big trophy in one of baseball’s most wretched scandals. What the Astros have established this season, in what is so disgraceful if not tragic about their subterfuge, is that they never had to scheme to win but were possessed to finagle nonetheless. They allowed their natural greatness to be hijacked by ruthlessness and entitlement, and in that context, how appropriate that Fox analyst Alex Rodriguez — who didn’t need steroids but sure as hell kept using them — congratulated Dusty Baker after the American League pennant clincher and said, “Four more, baby.’’
With 72-year-old Baker as a faith healer and spin doctor, positioned to finally win his first Series after 24 seasons as a manager, the Astros are a complicated study in torn allegiances. No one outside Harris County wants to see them win, especially when the Atlanta Braves are loaded with charming stories. Yet who isn’t rooting for Johnnie B. Baker, too? Grit your teeth and spray the wicked odors, America, as you do.
“Our motivation,’’ said team leader and prime villain Carlos Correa, “is to show the world how great we really are. This is an unreal feeling being back in the World Series after everything we’ve been through. It’s special. We stuck together.’’
“It’s nice to see everyone happy,” said Astros owner Jim Crane, who should have been forced to vacate the title but kept it. “I mean, shoot, we haven’t had many happy times around here in a while.’’
Praise for Baker’s performance cannot be overstated. Not only is it a triumph of leadership mastery, it’s a lesson for public-relations firms and damage-control specialists everywhere. He willingly entered a moral hellhole, ignored the stench and reminded the players of their considerable skill level. Just as he has his own career clouds, he has tried to understand theirs. “Like I tell these (players), you don’t have anything to prove,” Baker said. “The only entities you have to satisfy are God, family and yourself. The other people can see you later.
“I’ve heard mostly criticism: ‘You didn’t do this, or you’re not good at that. You don’t know how to use your bullpen, or you don’t like young players.’ I heard a whole bunch of stuff. Most of it not complimentary, you know what I mean? As an African American, most of the time they don’t really say you are of a certain intelligence. That’s not something that we usually get, and so I’ve been hearing a lot of this stuff most of my life.”
His work aside, the Astros never will be forgiven. They always will be booed and scorned, even if Correa, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Yuli Gurriel are the only scoundrels remaining on the roster. But it should be underlined that the Astros are here again, presumably clean and honest as Major League Baseball scrutinizes their every step and breath, while the team directly victimized by the 2017 scammery, the Los Angeles Dodgers, didn’t qualify for a Series deliciously set up for revenge. The Astros aren’t crooked these days, but they did meet their challenges impressively this year and navigated issues better than Team Hollywood did — $270 million payroll and all. You didn’t need a decoder to decipher the message Dave Roberts, the manager of a million suspect pitching decisions, was trying to deliver after the Dodgers were outplayed and eliminated by the shiny, happy Braves. He was trying to hang the loss on Trevor Bauer, the $102 million pitching ace who was supposed to win 20 games but instead might get 20 years amid ongoing sexual assault investigations. He also could have mentioned Max Scherzer’s dead arm, Clayton Kershaw’s injury and Max Muncy’s injury, but considering the Braves had to make over their entire outfield three times and didn’t have elite pitcher Mike Soroka, the payroll kings had no room to complain — though Roberts tried.
“I think for my message to our guys, it was a tremendous season. It was a heck of a year. Going through a lot of different things that we went through that no one talked about, no one needed to talk about, and didn't let it affect our performance,’’ he said. “And that’s something I was proud of. To be two wins away from going to the World Series, for me, I want those guys to be proud of that. To say it was a lost seaon or a wasted season, you’ve never been in a major-league clubhouse and understand the sacrifices people make. It’s still not lost on any of us that we didn’t accomplish our goal.’’
Walker Buehler tried, too, after surrendering the home run that ended a championship reign. “I’m not one to make excuses for anything — truly I don’t — but we should have won the series,” he said. “That’s our belief. But we have some really big guys in our lineup and really big guys in our rotation that can’t play or are hurt. That’s a real thing.”
Truth is, just as the Astros and Braves dealt with signiificant roster setbacks all season, the Dodgers were sabotaged by their trademark overthinking. Not just from Roberts, mind you, in his latest lost October — but from a front office obsessed with its own brainpower and a Wall Street modus operandi. Oh, and an erratic offense that never matched the level of its starpower. Thus, there no longer can be talk from Dodger Stadium that the Astros robbed a Series. Given the abundant in-house resources, the Dodgers should own multiple titles by now. But they’ve won only once, last autumn in a full-blown pandemic season, and that might be the last one for a while. An underachieving run could fade a bit as Guggenheim Baseball ownership, which might be tired of frenzied spending with limited returns, considers the possible exodus of Scherzer, Kershaw, Bauer, Corey Seager, Chris Taylor and Kenley Jansen.
“The six years I've been here, it's been a core group of guys that could be turned over this winter,’’ Roberts said. “I’m not looking forward to it. I wish we could have won another one with this group."
Nationwide, no doubt Dodgers Fatigue has set in. They’ve had their chances and squandered them. True, they were dealt a tough logistical blow in winning 106 regular-season games and still finishing behind San Francisco in the division race, requiring a wild-card-game victory and five more games against the Giants in the division series. This while the Braves, who won 88 games, had an easier road without a wild-card game and a four-game triumph over Milwaukee. But no one feels sorry for Dodger Blue when the owners and baseball boss Andrew Friedman are the ones who signed Bauer … and when Roberts is the one who fried Scherzer’s arm by having him close out Game 5 against the Giants, then continuing a dangerous pattern by using starter Julio Urias in a similar situation against the Braves. The bumbling continued when the skipper didn’t pull Buehler until it was one pitch too late, rather than entrust fresher bullpen arms. Those are the moves that killed the Dodgers.
And now, after rejecting his Saturday night start in Atlanta due to arm muscle distress, Scherzer now is telling friends that he’s open to other suitors for his next three-year deal. He seems to sense what’s coming in Chavez Ravine. Why did the famed bulldog, who grunts and curses when managers try to remove him from games, not hedge his bets and start Game 6 anyway? “I don’t lie,’’ he said. “Guys when they’re lying, take on too much, and they blow out. That’s the ultimate risk here. … My arm has been locked up for the last couple of days.” He’s no fool. At 37, another $200 million could await him. Why blow it by jeopardizing his future in a series that was unwinnable?
Besides, we’re having too much fun watching Brian Snitker, Eddie Rosario and Tyler Matzek in Braves uniforms. Who, who and who? Snitker, 66, is the antithesis of the trendy 21st-century manager, an old-school lifer who spent so much time in the lower minor leagues that he started thinking Cracker Barrel was a gourmet meal. While teams seek new-age Gabe Kapler types, or even run back Astros-scandal retreads such as Alex Cora and A.J. Hinch, Snitker is the guy who stepped out of the ’70s and into 2021. He watched the celebration in numbness.
“I just kind of sat in my chair and them guys swamped me," said Snitker, who has been with Atlanta organization since 1977. “I was just hoping I could hold it together because a lot comes at you. After all the years and everything you go through and now to be able to experience this, it's really something really cool."
Rosario, not Scherzer or Trea Turner, turned out to be the biggest trade-deadline acquisition. In the Atlanta front office, Alex Anthopoulos saw something that otherwise drew yawns through the sport. Suddenly, Rosario is Mr. October, crushing Buehler for the three-run homer that put the Braves in their first Series since 1999. Named MVP of the NLCS, he paid tribute to Henry Aaron with a .560 batting average, 1.040 slugging percentage, three homers and nine RBIs. Why is he dominating pitchers in Georgia when he was underwhelming in Minnesota and Cleveland? “The weather,” he said. “The first two months is 40 degrees all the time in Cleveland. When it’s hot, I feel better.”
He isn’t finished, either. “It's truly a great moment, not just in my career, but in my life as well, but I want more," Rosario said. “I want to win the World Series."
And Matzek? Who doesn’t adore a former No. 1 draft pick who suffered anxiety attacks, lost command of his fastball, literally forgot how to pitch, left the game for years, wandered around the bush leagues and thought he was headed to life as a licensed electrician? Three years ago, with the Texas AirHogs of the American Association, he lived in a borrowed RV. In a five-year period ending in 2020, he was released by Colorado, the Chicago White Sox, Seattle and Arizona and sat out the entire 2017 season.
Saturday night, as the Dodgers briefly rallied, the burly, lefty reliever delivered one of the dominant clutch shutdowns in postseason history. The old AirHog, the original Ricky (Wild Thing) Vaughn, couldn’t have been more spectacular and accurate in blowing away three straight batters in the seventh inning — lastly, Mookie Betts, the $365 million man. In two innings, he retired all six batters on 17 pitchers — 15 for strikes.
Where was he planning on celebrating? “The Waffle House is my spot,’’ said Matzek, no longer needing the RV.
America will be rooting hard as Tyler The Obliterator stares down the Astros. For Dusty Baker, it’s just one more obstacle. “You keep on knocking on the door, man. If you don’t keep knocking on the door, you don’t have a chance,” he said. “The way I look at it — Thomas Edison. He tried a thousand times — you know what I mean? — before he discovered the lightbulb and electricity. … If it’s going to happen, (it’s because) the Lord wants me to have it. If it doesn’t, it’s still been good. You know how I really feel inside: I need it, and I got to have it.”
Loathe the Astros, if you must. But if they win another World Series, without an asterisk or a single banging drum, you’ll have to admit this much, even in Los Angeles: They will own two championships, one more than the Dodgers, who then will become physically ill.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he has gravitated by osmosis to film projects.