It was another week of, as Johnny Carson used to say, weird, wild stuff. Among the happenings were Tom Brady ending a tough week with his billionth final-minute drive for a win, and the latest analytics-driven decision to cost a team the World Series.
Flash back to the ninth inning of Game 7 in the 1962 World Series. After a two-out double down the right field line that sent Matty Alou to third, Willie Mays was the winning run on second with the Yanks leading 1-0. If it were 2022, it would be, as Arnold would say, hasta la vista baby for starter Ralph Terry. Ditto for Jack Morris when he told Twins manager Tom Kelly to get back in the dugout in far more colorful language than that after he gave up a single and double to start the eighth inning while leading 1-0 in Game 7 of the 1991 series vs. Atlanta. He got the next three hitters and went for a complete game win in the 10th as the Twins won a second title in five years under Kelly.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson had that same decision on Saturday in Houston. He went with those in the stat geek suite and yanked Zack Wheeler in the sixth with two aboard after giving up just three hits, for Jose Alvarado, to get a lefty-lefty match-up with Willie McCovey look-alike Yordan Alvarez. Instead of hitting the rope that second baseman Bobby Richardson caught to end the ’62 Series, Alvarez hit a homer to center to give the Astros a 3-1 lead they would never surrender to take the Series in six.
Other than to revel in the second Series-costing failure in three years by the stat geeks, my point isn’t to hammer Thomson, especially since Alvarado had struck out all three Houston batters in the only inning he had pitched in the Series. It’s to say sometimes the right decision doesn’t work out and analytics are just a tool in the decision-making process. All the numbers they trumpet are what happened in the past and have nothing to do with the moment at hand, which is under an entirely unique set of circumstances.
World Series 101:Terry figures in an even more historic World Series moment than winning Game 7 in 1962. What was it?
Dusty Baker getting mobbed in the dugout by his players after Houston closed out the Phillies to win his first World Series as a manager after 25 years in the dugout has got to be a nominee for most heartwarming moment of the year.
UCLA and USC in the Big 10, yeah, that makes perfect sense. How many weeks do the, ahh, student-athletes get off from school when they do the Rutgers and Maryland swing in the Big 10 schedule? All of which Bill Walton sounded off on last week.
The Now I’ve Seen Everything Award goes to news that sportsbooks have put odds on who will be Gisele Bundchen’s first boyfriend after her divorce from TB-12. The favorite is ex-SNLer Pete Davidson. Nonsense like that probably made leading struggling Tampa Bay on a game-winning 60-yard final-minute drive over the Rams on Sunday a little sweeter for Tom.
There must be more to the Ime Udoka story, because I can’t see Red letting a guy who did such a great job as a rookie coach go to a division rival for no compensation. That says they just wanted to get rid of him for other misconduct or personality issues. I’d have tried to get Nic Claxton, who’s the athletic kind of big they need behind Al Horford and Rob Williams, and if it took expanding the deal beyond Udoka I’d do that.
World Series 101 Answer: When Bill Mazeroski hit the only Game 7 walk-off homer in 1960 to win a World Series it was Ralph Terry who threw the pitch Maz hit out of Forbes Field, making Ralph Houk’s decision to stick with Terry all the more revealing about the difference in thinking between then and the micro-management of today.
Finally, for the record: I haven’t liked Herschel Walker since he got run down from behind by a kicker (Adam Vinatieri) with nothing but the goal line in front of him on a kick return vs. the Patriots in 1996.
Email Dave Long at dlong@hippopress.com.