Everyone knows what baseball is. Nearly everyone has swung a bat as a kid on a sand lot and made bases out of anything that was available. Perhaps the porch was third base and that spindle like tree was first. Even Rosewood had a team, they played Anita, another village on the Soo Line. The fun of childhood gets complicated with coaches, uniforms, a book of rules, and teams picked when someone is always picked last.
Not so in what is known as the World Series of Baseball. The game is a high dollar sport where humans are expected to perform as robots and every pitch to be hit and every runner to get on base. It is said the big cities have more money to contract players, therefore have better teams. It may best be compared to Rosewood playing, let's say Thief River Falls. It isn't that they could not win, it is just the odds of having better players is greater. Lesser teams do win, kids playing as a team with a heart do well.
Does that factor into the World Series?
The best of the National League team and the best of the American League team challenged each other to a play off in FOOTBALL in 1902. The Series, as we know it, started in 1903 between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Boston, (now) Red Sox. For the most part, the series was best of seven, although there were years best of nine were played.
As a kid, I always wondered why it was the WORLD SERIES, after all the teams were all from the United States. It wasn't until the Toronto Blue Jays were formed that any other country was represented. Daddy told me the USA presumed they were the best.
Although it has been called the October Classic, here we are into November and the Series continues. This year, it is the Phillies and the Yankees. It is the best of seven.
To date: Yankees 2 games, Phillies 1 game. Every pitch, every spit, and every crack of the bat is televised.
Are you there?
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