The first round of the Major League Baseball playoffs was something of a letdown. Face it, there is more suspense and drama in the typical game of beer baseball than there was in the Divisional playoffs: three clean sweeps and a 3-1 series in which the biggest storyline had to do with whether or not the Yankees and their blowhard owner will make the monumental mistake of firing a man who has taken the team to 12 straight playoff appearances. (Sure, it would be nice for George Steinbrenner to get some hardware for the $200 million he spends every season, but in the last six years, the MLB playoffs have turned into a giant crapshoot. It's hard to fault Joe Torre too much.)
Except for the first of the month, when the Rockies-Padres epic went 13 innings, October has hardly had the riveting, edge-of-your seat action Dane Cook promised in all those commercials.
To the unaffiliated fan, "Actober" has been kind of lame, which is ironically fitting for anyone unfortunate enough to have seen any of Cook's classic performances.
In the spirit of "Actober," let’s spice the playoff picture up a little bit by taking a look at the four League Championship teams and their corollaries from the sports silver screen.
Colorado Rockies as the California Angels ("Angels in the Outfield")
No one expected the deadbeat Angels to make a glorious second-half of the season comeback. Wallowing near the bottom of the division, it took a miracle (several, actually) for the Halos to win the American League West.
The Rockies took a similar path. While there were, to the best of my knowledge, no crazed Rockies fans giving Clint Hurdle the George Knox treatment and screaming for him to "Go back to Cincinnati," the Rockies were in fourth place in the National League West for much of the season before a miraculous late-season 13-1 run vaulted them into a playoff for the Wild Card.
As anyone who saw that crazy game could see, the Rockies needed some divine intervention to win. What other explanation could there be for a three-run comeback against the all-time saves leader and Matt Holliday being ruled safe at home when Padres’ catcher Michael Barrett clearly had the plate blocked.
My guess would be that that game’s home plate umpire, Tim McClelland, was not ruling Holliday safe as much as he was extending his arms out in order to flap them like J.P. and Roger did whenever they saw an angel.
Or not.
Arizona Diamondbacks as the Hickory Huskers ("Hoosiers")
Somehow, someway, the Diamondbacks managed to win more games than any other team in the National League.
If you look at the statistics alone, it would be hard to imagine Arizona being a team that would win 90 games and sweep the first round of the playoffs.
The Diamondbacks roster is not laden with huge superstar talents or big egos. Instead, Arizona plays with an all-for-one mentality.
As for offense, the D-Backs are about as close to a "five pass before a shot" attack there is in baseball. Arizona had the second-worst team batting average in baseball and scored 20 fewer runs than it allowed during the regular season.
But what carried both the Diamondbacks and the Huskers to big victories was a gritty, hard-nosed style of play. If D-Backs outfielder and hustler-extraordinaire Eric Byrnes had lived in rural Indiana during the mid-1950s, you can bet he would have bought into Norman Dale’s tough style of play. He probably would have even given the Huskers a second go-to option behind Jimmy Chitwood.
The Cleveland Indians as the Cleveland Indians (Major League)
Eric Wedge’s Indians squad may not be quite the same ragtag group that Lou Brown managed, but they do have the same opportunity: bring the championship-starved city of Cleveland its first World Series title since 1948.
Both squads have/had a hard-throwing young gun on the pitching staff — for the film incarnation of the Tribe, it was Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn; for the 2007 version, it’s Fausto Carmona. Carmona struggled in the closer role for the Indians last season; Vaughn struggled at times as well.
All that’s different between the two Indians is a lack of Bob Uecker’s play-by-play and a manager intent on making the team as bad as possible. That, and the fact the real Indians actually play in Cleveland, as opposed to movie Indians, which played in pseudo-home parks in Milwaukee and Baltimore.
Still, you can see Travis Hafner and Pedro Cerrano trading home runs blow-for-blow.
Boston Red Sox as Team USA (D2)
Sure, the whole Red Sox craze has gone on a little (lot) too long. I can’t count on all my digits how many people, Red Sox "fans," have come out of the woodwork after the team’s improbable comeback during the 2004 playoffs. So comparing them to team USA is not to claim they are America’s Team. Instead, the similarities between the two teams are so striking that they are hard to ignore.
Both teams overcame troubled pasts (Team USA while the Ducks and, before that, District 5; the Red Sox with that whole curse thing) to rise to national prominence. To win the Minnesota State Pee-Wee Championship, the Ducks had to go through their arch-nemesis: Jack Reilly and the hated Hawks. The Red Sox had to overcome Steinbrenner and the Yankees. Uncanny.
On the field, the Red Sox rely on its own pair of Bash Brothers: Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz. While the jury is still out on whether they would be able to hang with Dean Portman and Fulton Reed in a brawl, what is known is Papi and Manny can hit a ball as hard as a Reed slapshot.
The knucklepuck/ball is also a vital part of both teams’ games. Tim Wakefield’s dancing ball leaves hitters looking foolish in the same way Russ Tyler’s knucklepuck leaves goaltenders swatting at air. (Now if only Wakefield would secretly head out to centerfield and throw out a runner at home while Wedge stands on the top dugout step yelling in a thick Midwestern accent, "The centerfielder!!!")
There you have it. While it is tough to pick against any of the teams remaining in the playoffs, I’m going with the Ducks, I mean, Red Sox to win the World Series. Even without Julie "The Cat" Gaffney.
Ben is a junior majoring in journalism and political science. Is D2 the best movie ever made? Quite possibly. Share your thoughts on the MLB playoffs or great teams from sports movies at [email protected]