Quote:
Originally Posted by David Watts
Toronto and Seattle are settling into a pretty nice post season rivalry in my league. I think they have faced each other 4 straight years now in the ALCS. Shades of 87 in 2002, as Toronto and Detroit needed game 163 to decide the East. I know in 87 the extra game wasn't needed, but that was still the best final weekend of my lifetime. Too bad those Juan Berenguer led Twins had to spoil the party.  |
35 years on, this is still the one that got away for us Blue Jays' fans. The half bottle of lemon juice in a gaping wound, if you will. Sure we have the 2022 weird, deciding game against the Mariners, to chew on, but nothing hurt then, or since, more than that final seven games of 1987. The game against the Mariners was one game that demonstrated the wonder of baseball, that being the fact that you can always come back from a deficit, no matter how large the lead, and the agony of the fact that it can, and will happen to your team, even at the worst possible time.
4 one run losses in a row to you guys. We win one of those, we're in. 7 straight one run games over the final ten games of the season, against you. We got the first 3, you got the next four. 10 of the thirteen games between us that season, were decided by a run. Two others, by two. We won the only blowout of the season series 10-4, to outscore you guys 50-46. Yippee. What an achievement. I can still picture Garth Iorg running up the first base line, having just tapped one (back to the mound I think? Can't bare to look), and the inevitability of the death of a wonderful season, without a shot at going to the dance.
In Quebec, the motto on their license plates reads: "Je me souviens" (I remember). It refers (I think) to any number of battles (sometimes literal, sometimes political, but always seething) between the French, and the English, in this country. For Blue Jays' fans, 1987 is the year that we will never forget, for all the wrong reasons.
Most of us still maintain that that was the best Blue Jays' team in the history of the franchise. We had it all workin'. Until we didn't for one torturous week. The opinion varies on the legality of Madlock's slide, depending on which fanbase you talk to. Tony's elbow hit the bleepin' seam where the turf joined the dirt at 2B, for bleep's bleepin' sake. I'll admit that the decision to put a slab of wood beneath said seam was imbecilic, but still, bleep Madlock! Oh, and bleep that dastardly "Dour Doyle" Alexander, too! What on earth made him believe he was the second coming of Cy Young, down the stretch, after that trade?
I've got no beef with the rest of them. Great team. Admired them from afar. Stumped every year for Trammell to get into the HoF, and still do so for Whitaker. Chet Lemon was a ridiculously good CF. On the edge of the Hall, for me, because of his incredible ability to use every inch of that 440 ft distance to the CF wall, to run balls down, and leave hitters cussin' on their way back to the dugout. Nowadays, hitters tip their helmet to the fielder. He would've received eleventy billion tips now, but back then? Not a chance. Not even one. Just cussin'.
Runs saved are every bit as important as runs scored, possibly even moreso in the postseason. I value defense more than a typical Hall voter might. It's funny, the juxtaposition between, when you're dissecting a ball game with friends, talking about all the little things that it takes to win, and how all of that gets chucked, when it comes time to vote for awards, and the highest individual honour in the game. Bizarre, really.
Your team, and the Big Red Machine had a couple of the greatest up the middle defensive teams I've ever seen. Lance Parrish, and the three mentioned above saved a ton of runs. Bench, Morgan, Concepcion, and Geronimo for the Reds. I was a bit young for the Reds, but OOTP, and other games, and reading, have allowed me to see that. I wonder what the commonality was there? Hmmm.
This trip down memory lane has been brought to you by Excedrin. Nah, make that 151 proof rum...Or...I know...Wood grain alcohol.
