Hello folks and welcome to our coverage of the 117th World Series!
It’s the one that nobody seems to have wanted, outside of, say, the Houston area, Cobb County Georgia, and maybe Atlanta. There’s an awful lot of haters out there, this we know, and I understand the disappointment. Many of us would have rejoiced at the prospect of LA’s Joe Kelly throwing at and behind Houston batters on baseball’s grandest stage. But alas, Kelly got injured, the Braves sent the Dodgers packing in the NLCS, and LA’s revenge tour is on hold for now.
All is not lost however: let me pitch you on this World Series.
The Braves are some fabulous underdogs here. Back in July, they lost all-world outfielder Ronald Ocuna to a season ending injury, and before that they lost another all-star outfielder, Marcell Ozuna after he was arrested for domestic violence. Knowing that the NL East was mediocre at best, Atlanta’s EVP Alex Anthopoulos didn’t give up on the season, but rather, got to work rebuilding this outfield. He acquired Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson, and NLCS MVP Eddie Rosario, who became the NLCS MVP. He also acquired Jorge Soler at the last second: he’s on the mend from Covid-19 and could figure in this series.
Alex basically hit on all his trades, which is incredibly rare, and the Braves zipped past their rivals from third place and five games back at the deadline to a division title with just 88 wins. Then they wiped out the 106-win Dodgers, which is quite an achievement.
Atlanta also has an old-school manager in Brian Snitker who meandered around the Braves organization for decades before getting his shot, (his son Troy is a hitting coach on the Astros!) and has a lovable all-star first baseman in Freddie Freeman.
That’s probably a 7.5/10 on the likable chart: not bad!
And Houston? Well, the Astros have Dusty Baker, who is 12th on the all-time manager win list, a group where the 11 in front of him all have rings. So we can all root for Dusty to get his rock, right?
So let’s put all that Braves stadium white flight, and Atlanta’s questionable “chop” and the fact that they had an anti-vaxxer sing the national anthem before game six stuff behind us. And maybe let’s just, for now, forget about that little Astros cheating scandal, the way ownership dealt with it, and that little incident of an employee taunting a female journalist by celebrating a player on their roster charged with domestic violence, and get to this World Series, because it actually has great potential to light up the sport.
Agreed? OK. So, having said all of that, please feel free to join our live blog via tweet or email, with predictions, thoughts, feelings, etc. I’m @lengeldavid on twitter and you can email me by clicking here. Get in the blog – I’ll make you famous!
We’ll have a few light appetizers before first pitch, but for now, wherever you are, pop some corn, grab your seltzer of choice and get ready for the Fall Classic, coming at you soon.
Stick with us!
