What makes the Fall Classic a classic?
Sacramento, California—What makes major league baseball’s Fall Classic a classic?
If you ask me, it’s all about the drama.
“Hear, hear,” said Mike Genovea, a former president of the Philippine Sportswriters’ Association, now a resident of Daly City in the Bay Area of Northern California, about 80 miles from this capital city.
“I couldn’t agree more,” chimed in ex-Manila sportswriter and editor Val Abelgas, who has settled with his family in Cerritos, a Los Angeles suburb in the southern end of the state.
Genovea and Abelgas would rather follow the basketball rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors.
But the erstwhile sports scribes are with legions of Pinoy sports fans. They have turned their fancy temporarily to the Fall Classic—also known as the 113th World Series—pitting the LA Dodgers and the Houston Astros, currently the hottest ticket in the sports universe.
Their interest is at a fever pitch especially after the second game at Dodgers Stadium last Tuesday.
The home team, a 3-1 Game One come-from-behind victor behind the masterful pitching of ace Clayton Kershaw, lost to the Astros, 7-6.
Three outs from beating the Astros and taking a seemingly insurmountable two-games-to-none lead to Houston Friday (Saturday in Manila), the Dodgers allowed a game homer in the ninth.
Then the almost unhittable LA bullpen gave up two home runs in the 10th and another two run shot in the 11th to hand Houston the dramatic win.
It was the first ever World Series game triumph for the Astros, who last played in the Fall Classic in 2005. The Dodgers, losers of only one game in this year’s playoffs, are in the championship for the first time since defeating the Oakland Athletics for the title in 1988.
“There’s your drama,” Abelgas said.
The next three games are in Houston where the Astros are unbeaten in six playoff games this season.
And the Dodgers? Well, they blew it big time.
Although almost 80 percent of the major media predicted that they would likely win the series, the Dodgers lost a game and the momentum.
Yet Abelgas said he had “watched enough of the major league’s postseason to feel confident that the Dodgers could win their first championship in 29 years.”
Heeding history, Genovea said he, too, is rooting for the Dodgers “not because they are from California” but because they have six world titles to their credit since 1953, while the Astros have yet to win their first World Series.”
Retired Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully provided the goosebumps during the ceremonial first pitch.
Standing at the mound, the legendary Scully called for a catcher and out came 1981 World Series hero, catcher Steve Yeager.
Scully then feigned he had rotator cuff problems and handed the ball to leftie pitcher Fernando Valenzuela star of the Blue crew’s “Fernandomania” in the 1980s, who threw a perfect screwball to Yeager.
