My first thought on hearing of his death was how glad I was that he had been able to call the World Series victory for the Phillies just a few short months ago, and to see them get their rings just a few short days ago. However, that thought was immediately followed by this selfish one: how will I be able to go on without his voice making the experience of a Phillies game what it has come to be?  Irreplaceable and inimitable, he leaves a huge hole in the Philadelphia baseball experience.

All I can do is sigh and realize that yes, Phillies’ baseball will go on, indeed it did this very afternoon. But, deep down inside I’m not really sure I want it to! No Harry Kalas making a long ball even more incredible with his “that’s OUTTA HERE!” declaration? No more of his amazing ability to drag out a sentence-for-so-long-that-you-have-no-idea-how-he-even-has-any-breath-left-to-go-on?

But, like everyone else, I’m sure I will continue to tune into TV and radio broadcasts while the Phillies are playing. I just don’t know how long it will be before I can do so without flinching at who I’m not hearing talk to me for hours on end. I now live in the New England area, so hearing his broadcasts has been one of the treats I look forward to on visits home in the summer. That treat, that special piece of my life, was taken abruptly this afternoon when the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies was silenced forever. I remain a Phillies fan, but a fan with a much heavier heart than I had yesterday.

After a long dormant spell of around 11 months, Pete’s Rose is once again heard on Baseball Reflections and it took the second best comeback in baseball playoff history to do it.

I woke up this morning realizing that I don’t have what it takes to be a Red Sox fan. And I have the feeling I’m in very good company, although most people won’t admit it and will claim that they never doubted for a moment. After seeing the Sox get pounded two games in a row at home and observing the lifeless bats for the first 6 innings last night, can you blame me for telling my 8-and 10-year-old daughters that they could watch the Red Sox bat in the bottom of the 7th and then it would be time to head to bed? They can thank Big Papi for getting to stay up past midnight once more!

What a statement to the Rays. It’s as if Boston scripted the best let-down possible: “Okay, let’s let them beat up our starting pitching 4 straight games to the point where they can picture the locker room party and taste the champagne. Let’s get them imagining how it will feel to defeat the defending champions in their beloved Fenway Park. Then, we’ll reel them back to reality pitch by pitch, inning by inning until the momentum has swung slowly but decisively back to the Red Sox dugout.” Could you have written that story (again)? Not me!

So when did the momentum shift, exactly? When Pedroia drove in the first RBI with 2 outs and 2 strikes, eliminating the shut out possibility? Well, maybe a little momentum blinked its eyes and glided out of the Rays dugout over to the home team’s. But, one run? This team had 7 outs left and still needed 6 runs to tie. I guess that’s when Big Papi thought of the pre-printed ALCS champion hats and t-shirts emblazoned with the Rays’ logo. He knew they were there in Fenway lurking somewhere. He realized it was going to be his last at-bat of the season if things didn’t get going. It was truly do-or-die time and finally, finally his bat came to life. He dug in and pulled out yet another clutch impossible-to-believe homerun. The Fenway Faithful went wild.  And the momentum stood up, packed its bags, and marched from the visitor’s dugout across the diamond to stay.

Who knows what will happen on Saturday. Maybe those t-shirts and hats will be matched up with rightful owners. But, they’ll have to wait in their boxes until they’ve been earned, and last night, the Sox’ bats rose up and said “Not at our house”! I was fan enough to stay up and watch their demise. I have to admit, I didn’t expect to see their triumph. But I’ll take it! As a dubious fan I don’t deserve it, but I’ll take it! Thanks again, Boston, for something to jump up and down and scream for. I guess that’s why I love baseball.

1.      Tigers : They might have arguably the best line-up in all of baseball 1-9, but their pitching, in my opinion, is suspect past the first three starters and especially their bullpen! As good as their hitting will/should be in ’08, their pitching might be the great neutralizer. Outside of Verlander, there are some concerns. Can Bonderman last a full season? Will D-Train find his former form and be effective once again? Can Kenny Rogers go one more year into his 40’s? Only time will tell. Look for new 3B Cabrera to be in the running for the AL MVP this year! 

2.      Indians : If it wasn’t for the Renteria and M. Cabrera/Willis deals, the Tribe would have a shot at this division, but the Tigers just have too much fire power! In my opinion, the Tribe has the better pitching staff of the two, they just have to manage the innings better for Sabathia & Carmona due to how tired they looked in the playoffs last year. Their bullpen, aside from their closer, whom I don’t trust in that role, is like night and day compared to the Tiger’s pen! Their line-up only has 2 question marks, but they’re at the corner OF slots which are typically your power spots! 

3.      White Sox : Last year’s poor hitting, in my opinion, was a fluke! To have that many bats with histories that prove my point, are reason to believe that the White Sox have no place to go but up in this weaker Central Division. Plus with the additions of Orlando Cabrera and Nick Swisher, you can see signs of improvement on the offense as precautions.  

4.      Twins : Losing the pitching trio of Santana, Garza & Silva will be sorely missed in 2008, but Liriano, if healthy, will make the transition a little more bearable. Just keep in mind that Liriano probably won’t be as good in ’08 as he is likely to be in 2009 after this type of injury. There was also the loss of Torii Hunter in CF also, but they still have Mauer (C), Morneau (1B), Cuddyer (RF) and Delmond Young (LF)! And a better supporting cast made up of Brendan Harris (2B), Mike Lamb (3B), Closer Joe Nathan and one of the best defensive SS in the game today in Adam Everett. But he can’t hit his weight…scratch that, he only weighs 178lbs so he beats that by 70 points on average, but he’s also in the AL now & that career BA was in the NL, so it might drop to a mere .228 this year as he makes the adjustment (see J.D. Drew in Boston last year). 

5.      Royals : Their strength comes from their top three starters in Gil Meche, Brian Bannister and Zack Greinke and their closer, Joakim Soria, is a talented young pitcher as well. The problem here lies in a thrown together bullpen, then again, most MLB bullpen with a few exceptions, have that thrown together feel to them. If they can just get from those three starters to Soria, then they have a chance to improve! On the offensive, their strength is in C John Buck, LF Mark Teahen & RF Jose Guillen with up and comers 1B/DH Billy Butler, SS Tony Pena, Jr. and 3B Alex Gordon. If those last three can live up to their potential, then the Royals might be more of a threat to the Twins and the Sox, but are a far cry from the Tigers and the Indians.

Here’s a listing of our family’s favorite Baseball movies and the reason why we like them. These reviews are going to be conducted by my family and in-laws this week of Christmas. Here are the results:

• Grandpop (my father-in-law): “The Natural” – A quintessential drama where a down and out team, run by a corrupt owner, that finds itself riding the coat-tails of the unlikeliest of heroes, a rookie in his late 30′s, with an ending for the ages with the stadium being showered in sparks.
• Grandmom (my mother-in-law): “The Rookie” – because it’s based on a true story of a thirty-something high school baseball coach that resumes his run at a professional career after a bet with his high school team after a rare winning season.
• Pete’s Rose (my wife) and Kayla (my sister-in-law): “For the Love of the Game” – Pete’s Rose likes how the game gets drawn-out suspensefully with flashbacks to earlier moments in his career, building up to a crescendo. She also liked it for its lack of violence. Kayla likes it for the main character’s perseverance through the adversities over his long career as seen in the flashbacks and how his wife had stayed with him in the end after all they had been through.
• Jordan (my brother-in-law): “The (original) Bad News Bears” – This wasn’t his favorite, but it is in his top 10 all-time baseball movies. It is a hilarious story of a little league team that can do nothing right on or off the baseball field.
• Meredith (my sister-in-law): “The Final Season” – a wonderful story of the baseball devotion of a high school team and the Iowa town that made it into a dynasty which produced a number of professional players.
• One of my favorite baseball movies has to be “Field of Dreams” – a story where a former hippie and lifetime baseball fan feels compelled to build a baseball field out of his Iowa cornfield, risking financial bankruptcy as well as his reputation.

Feel free to add movies or favorite moments of the ones we picked to this list in the comment section & I’ll add these to my families selections. Please add your city & state information for inclusion with your posted comments.

These movies and others are available over on your right through Amazon –>

From you, the readers of Baseball Reflections:

Bryan (from Vacaville, CA) wrote: I would also have to include Bull Durham. A great movie about the life of minor league players.

Danielle (from outside Las Vegas, NV) wrote: Field of Dreams – I like the message behind the movie. Make your dreams a reality no matter how big or small. Strive to follow those dreams, take chances in life and in the end, you will become a better person!

Major League – I like the humor in this movie. I also like that you are able to get a picture of the different characters within a baseball team: the rebel, the spiritualist, the traditionalist etc. It kind of reminds me of my favorite team, The Boston Red Sox. Everyone is their own person and you can truly see this when watching a game, an interview or whatever.

For the Love of the Game – I like the story behind the story the best. It’s a movie about baseball but there is a love story there as well between a man and a woman. Now, what woman does not like a good love story? It is a movie both men and women can appreciate whether you love baseball or not. Being a woman who loves a good love story and baseball, it’s a win-win situation!!

Patrick (from parts unknown) wrote:

By Mishael Schiller

I haven’t had much to say for a while. Why the long silence? Well, I wanted to put some distance between myself and the World Series before commenting on it.

Now that it’s been a couple of weeks, I have something to say. I’ve been knocking around for the last 12 days feeling like something is missing from my life. It finally dawned on me that keeping up with the baseball playoffs has been the equivalent of a part-time job! No wonder I get to the evenings and can’t figure out what to do with myself. I’ve been heading off to bed as early as 8 or 9pm! The season is over, yet my soul isn’t satisfied! I’ve been spending the last few days trying to decide why that is. . .

In many ways, it was a great season. The down-to-the-wire races in the National League really set the stage for a great playoff show. I was expecting each series to be claw-your-way-to-the-next-level style baseball. Instead, it was sweep, sweep, and more sweep in both the division and league championship series. With the exception of the Boston-Cleveland series, which went 7 games, the other battles remained lop-sided. And then the Rockies, who emerged victorious after their consecutive sweeps in the National League play-offs, were completely bowled over by the Red Sox in the World Series.

I can sum up baseball’s need to deliver a quality post-season with 3 words, quoted from the movie Field of Dreams:

GO THE DISTANCE!

The World Series championship will inevitably be awarded to the team whose pitching staff, offense and defense can endure the 3 extra high pressure series which make up the post-season (this amounts to potentially 19 additional games-nearly 12% of a regular season). We’re talking about a month’s worth of overtime here. Unfortunately, some teams are up to the task and some are not. There have been occasional teams who have won it all without much post-season experience as a whole (Florida Marlins in 2003). But for the most part, playing in the post-season is like parenting. No matter how much you try to plan in advance, there is nothing that can prepare you except for the actual experience. That’s when you find out if you have what it takes. This year, Colorado didn’t. They were running on adrenaline and momentum (huge factors in sports). But, when the adrenaline settled down, there was no picking it back up to face Boston with the playoff experience and confidence the Red Sox have accumulated. The Rockies could consider 2007 their “first child” and hopefully learn from their mistakes this year. Perhaps 2008 will give them their 2^nd child to put into practice what they missed this time around. The same could be said for Arizona and Philadelphia. If these teams can prepare themselves to go the distance, which means potentially 181 games, we will have a World Series that the whole country can enjoy and savor all post season.

That is NOT what we are left with here in the early days of November 2007. It is what needs to be addressed. The fall classic has got to be a matchup of the best of the best. I’m looking for a nail-biting, low scoring feast of all that makes baseball great. I don’t want to be distracted from it to discuss which manager was let go or which player is opting out of his contract. I want to be so entranced by the series that I don’t care about the future of eliminated teams. I want pure, unadulterated baseball that has the stamina to go the distance. World Series sweeps should be rare and special. When they’re common, it’s no good for baseball. The World Series has been swept 5 out of the last 10 years- 3 out of the last 4!!

However, I will allow this: major league baseball as a whole still has work to do and that is a good thing. The World Series and the playoffs would be meaningless if they didn’t give us a taste of the amazing stamina needed to win. The World Series is still the biggest stage of baseball. The playoffs are so critical that every inning has meaning and consequence. The post season is set up so that no one can reach, let alone win, the fall classic on a fluke. There is a high standard set. This aspect is good for baseball. The clout of the World Series title is exactly where it should be: reachable only by the teams with the most stamina when it matters, the teams able to play under the most strain and pressure. I’m looking for October matchups that go the distance. I’m looking for a few good teams. Who will deliver?

Schilling may have just departed Fenway’s mound for the final time in a Red Sox uniform. He is a big reason why Boston’s trip to the 2007 World Series is not under the pressure of a 90 year drought. Schilling’s bloody sock game at Yankee Stadium in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS is the stuff legends are made of. He has been a huge performer for Boston since his arrival in 2004. He will become a free agent at the end of the post season. Was this his last start, or will Boston be handing him the ball in another game 6? If the series gets that far, what a start that would be for Schilling! Another game 6, this time in front of the Fenway Faithful, with the World Series on the line. I live for this- and so does Schilling!

The Red Sox ALCS comeback of 2007 has one down-side. It was done against the Cleveland Indians. It was one thing to spank the Yankees in 2004 in their own house. Most people outside of New York (and some in it) LOVE to see the Yankees lose. There was no remorse in 2004. . .But this is 2007. The defeated team is not the New York Juggernaut, but the Cleveland Indians who are one well-put together and managed team. They were hungry for victory. Beating them doesn’t have that same nasty tang for Boston that beating New York brought. Sure, the Indians lost the ALCS, but let’s look at what they accomplished in the process:

Jake Westbrook: This guy battled last night. He scattered hits and allowed 3 runs over the first 3 innings in a tight, pressure cooker situation at Fenway Park. He was better when he left the game than when he started. He walked only one batter, intentionally. He pitched a great game, all things considering.

Kenny Lofton: His hand will go ring-less yet again. He was on the Yankees when they saw the prize slip through their fingers in 2004. In the past 4 seasons, he has been one win away from a trip to the World Series in 7 different games against Boston and could not pull out that fourth win. It ended up not making a difference in the overall scoring, but he now has 3 months off to think about that “out” call at second base in the 5^th and the “hold up” call as he rounded 3^rd in the 7^th.

Eric Wedge: He did a great job of showing confidence in his players, and they came through for him. Gutierrez came up with 2 hits last night, after being given the start instead of Trot Nixon. He stuck with Westbrook through 6 and Westbrook turned his outing around in a maximum pressure game. Great management throughout the series.

As a team, they played hard, played well, got pretty good pitching from just about everyone, and gave the Red Sox a run for their money.

In one sense, you hate to see these guys lose. But, it’s baseball, and anything can (and does) happen. Congratulations to Boston, but also to Cleveland for a tremendous series and a game 7 that was a nail biter through 7 ½ innings!

The Colorado Rockies are in the World Series?!

The Colorado Rockies? They need to change their name to the Colorado Boulders! How would you like to be the Red Sox or Indians clawing it out in the American League while Todd Helton & Co. have the next 8 days to cool their heels and celebrate? It’s like wearing yourself out battling Orcs, only to turn around to face a huge (and well rested) Cave Troll (see Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings)! At the start of the playoffs-in my opinion-whoever made it to the World Series from the American League would take the series. The ALCS was supposed to be the preview of the WS, determining in advance this year’s winner of the fall classic. But these Rockies have made a statement against that. Look at their winning streak, the contribution across the board, the fierce hunger! Can anything stop them? I’m not giving up on Cleveland or Boston just yet, but there’s something going on in Colorado that can’t be ignored. Look out Goliath! David’s loading his sling again, and he’s got an entire week to choose his weapons!

If you’re a baseball fan, you acknowledge that you’re subjecting yourself to a game of inches. For both Sox and Indians fans, game 3 was just that. Lofton’s HR was no bomb. . . it cleared by inches. Twice, the Red Sox had disciplined at bats and should have walked after they laid off of what was clearly ball 4 (Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp), but both times the pitches were called strikes. . . inches. David Ortiz ran into a ball hit by Manny Ramirez and was out. A base running mistake, but again. . . inches. Hats off to Cleveland’s starter who earned his win, but should have had 2 more walks on his record. The Indians inch closer to a World Series appearance. Can the Red Sox fend them off with Wakefield’s dancing knuckleball?

It doesn’t make any logical sense, when you think about it: 25 men in uniforms hold the hopes of a city, state or region in their hands. A select military group? No. I’m talking about a baseball team. Every year I promise myself that I’m not going to get emotionally involved. During the 162 games of the season, I’m pretty good about it. I tend to hold a mediocre interest in the goings on around the baseball world. But then, the playoffs start and my promise is out the window! Our entire house gets caught up in the fate of the teams around the country. And who is to blame? Not my baseball-stat fanatic husband. Not my teenager. No, out of all of the members in the family, I’m the one plotting ahead to work our lives around each series. I’m the one counting the days, the hours until the next game. What is it about baseball that pulls us, sucks us in? Perhaps it’s that taste of glory, the experience of the never-before-done event, the sharing in the desire to participate in something outside of ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I can’t explain the invisible force that draws me into the playoff frenzy. I just know it’s there and I’ve learned not to fight it. If my favorite team is one of the few still in the hunt, you can just forget about normal family life in October. So, clear the schedule, Honey. It’s playoff time!