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Long Winter

October 30th, 2005 | Brian

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops….And summer is gone.

– A. Bartlett Giamatti

I remember when Mr. Giamatti passed away. The networks played this poem and it was read by Ernie Harwell. It’s stuck ever since and whenever another season is in the books, I like breaking it out.

It’s funny how even on Sundays, with football, I find myself surfing the stations trying to find something to watch, knowing just a month ago I could hop on over to WGN to catch a Cubs game or knowing that Sunday evenings ESPN would have their game of the week. Baseball’s done, now I just have to cope with it.

Congratulations to the Chicago White Sox for winning their first World Series in 88 years. Jeff K and Dan threw out how much the 2005 White Sox resembled the 1984 Tigers, and I have to agree.

I’ll be doing my post season awards predictions this week, along with a few other odds and ends.

Permalink | Posted in 2005 Tigers

Congratulations to White Sox. After 88 years, finally.

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Posted by andrew on October 30th, 2005 at 11:28 pm

I haven’t been heard much from in these here parts, but I wanted it to be known that I am studying some more the similarities between the 84 Tigers and these 05 White Sox. Article(s) to come.

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Posted by jeff k on October 31st, 2005 at 10:06 am

The 84 Tigers were not only a better team than these White Sox, they were a far better team. The difference between the 84 Tigers and the 05 White Sox is about the same as the difference between the 05 White Sox and the 05 Texas Rangers. The White Sox are an 91-win team with 84-win talent. They were very lucky. Congratulate them all you want, but I implore you to discontinue this comparison.

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Posted by Dan on October 31st, 2005 at 4:59 pm

Good point Dan. If you put most of the White Sox players up head to head, there’s really not a lot of spots where the White Sox would win. I’d be curious about running those two head to head in Diamond Mind. I’d have a feeling the 1984 Tigers would squash them.

But they did have the quick start, and the solid pitching staff.

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Posted by Brian on October 31st, 2005 at 6:53 pm

You’re right on that count. I’m just tired of hearing from White Sox fans here in Detroit that the 2005 Sox are the greatest team ever. Their early season run was in large part due to their record in one-run games. I’d like to see them repeat that. They had great pitching, but a middling, at best, offense. The Tigers of 84 were #1 in the league in run scoring and run preventing. Their pythag. was 99-63, while the 05 Sox pythag. was 91-71. Too bad I was only 8 years old.

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Posted by Dan on October 31st, 2005 at 11:41 pm

Another point, the 1984 Tigers are considered by many to be one of the top teams of decade (probably finishing second in a lot of people’s minds to the 1986 Mets). The 2005 White Sox, on the other hand, probably aren’t considered by many to be the best team in 2005, much less the decade to date.

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Posted by Brian on November 1st, 2005 at 10:12 am

The 2005 White Sox weren’t even the best team in the Central Division.

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Posted by Dan on November 3rd, 2005 at 2:46 pm

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