Events overtook my coverage of the World Series, and now I'm too distracted by other issues to say much about it. But I am very happy for the Los Angeles Dodgers. They were one of the great loves of my childhood, and even now I believe that they have the best uniforms in all of sports. I've watched the Dodgers my whole life, and this is by far the best team I've ever seen them have. In fact, if they'd had Mookie Betts the whole time, I think there's a good chance they would have won not only this World Series, but the last three as well.
As for the Rays, I thought the complaints about their manager and his decision to change pitchers in Game Six was a bit silly. Imagine that you knew a guy who told you he had a "system" to win at blackjack. So you go to Vegas, and the guy starts off with 10 dollars, and pursues his system. Soon he's got $100,000, and they invite him to a special table where folks are playing for $1 million. He survives until the only people left are him and a guy widely recognized as the best player in the world. They go back and forth, and eventually he loses -- but they let him keep the $100,000, and give him another $50,000 as a consolation prize. Are you really going to say that his system didn't work? For the Tampa Bay Rays -- a team with no budget and no fans -- to win the American League pennant is incredible. To take just one example, the Orioles haven't won the American League pennant since 1983. The Blue Jays haven't done it since 1993. The Twins haven't done it since 1991. These are real franchises with lots of fans. The Rays won the pennant, and rode that system all the way. They didn't lose because the system failed -- they lost because their players aren't as good as the Dodgers. No one blamed Butler's system when it lost to Duke in the 2010 final -- they gave Butler credit for going that far. We should take the same approach here.
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