[Westheim]

2047 WORLD SERIES
Portland Raccoons (104-58) vs. Dallas Stars (100-62)

The Raccoons and Stars met for a rematch of the 1983 World Series, the first that we ever played in (and lost (cough!)). We had homefield advantage for this one and despite less impressive overall offensive numbers, had the better run differential by 14 runs.

So, there they were, six .300 hitters, with the Landkreuzer Ratte of baseball players, old and new single-season RBI king Tylor Cecil (.331, 38 HR, 148 RBI). Jamie King had been day-to-day at one point in the FLCS, but recovered fully in time for this series, bringing his .312, 22 HR, 98 RBI bat along, although third-best on their team in homers was actually Leo Villacorta (.305, 11 HR, 78 RBI). Mostly they killed their prey by asphyxiation.

Mostly, they also batted left-handed, apart from the .344 switch-hitter Rivas and right-handed Omar Gonzalez and Mario Sedillo (who was at the bottom of the order). For pitchers, they carried four right-handed starters, which dropped the stock of players like Ben Coen or Arturo Carreno (who would have been a potential “third freebie” addition) when it came to our ongoing roster crunch. Left-handed hitting *and* pitching went up in value for the Raccoons, who now wished to even keep Oscar Alcala on the roster, in addition to Hitchcock, and maybe Baker, and the other seven relievers that were our well-known and trusted stock, and oh, by the way, Jackson’s suspension was up and he could be added to – … and now you have 18 pitchers on the roster and nobody that can hold a bat.

Or play first base.

Ugh, first base.

Besides Jesus Maldonado, Evan Van Hoy was the only living player that could cover that spot somewhat reliably. A crazy thought was to dump Van Hoy for Bryce Toohey – who was not cleared to play – put Ruben Gonzalez at first, and close our eyes at every grounder to the right side, which would be man(n)y. Oh yes, can’t go without Manny, can you? He was available to be added from the DL, so was Pellicano. Then again, righty batter…

But Toohey would be out for at least the first two games in Portland, and was not a guarantee to be available for the opener in Dallas after that, either. If Dr. Padilla could guarantee me that Toohey would be available for Game 3, I’d make the switch rab/pidly. But Dr. Padilla would not sign that paper, and so the Raccoons had to go without Toohey (and Gurney, too).

At some point, though, we had try and stop to outsmart ourselves. My think tank, consisting mainly of Honeypaws, Slappy, and Chad in the mascot costume, finally agreed that certain cuts had to be made. The 4-man bench in the CLCS had not been a success, so we needed to trim the pitchers down to a dozen. Add Jackson, trim Alcala and Hitchcock, and keep Baker as the left-handed spare.

That opened a spot for a batter, but we wanted to add two – Manny and Gene Pellicano. We went over this a few times, and I counted it on my claws all day, but between Manny, Baskins, and Mercado we had three left-handed outfielders, and we’d still keep Herrera in the lineup – so what did we need Ken Mills for? Yoink, he goes.

That keeps the rather useless Evan Van Hoy on the roster, but at the rate Jesus Maldonado got plunked at now, a spare first baseman was not the worst of concepts. And as established, neither Toohey nor Gurney were valid options…

The teams had met in the regular season in May, with the Stars taking two of three games. Wheats took a hefty loss in about his worst start of the season, and Merino lost too, despite that lefty tilt to the Stars lineup. Jake Jackson performed best for a single earned run and the only team W in the series when the Coons routed Arthur Pickett in the first two innings.