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Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Context Is Everything 

A fairly amazing game last night. Sloppily played, to be certain. Poorly pitched, sure. But to have the D-Backs blow a lead in the top of the 9th, come back with two runs in the bottom of the 9th to tie it, give up a run in the top of the 11th, then have the most "whodat?" of all the many "whodat?" players the D-Backs have put on their roster this year (i.e., Alan Zinter) hit a game-winning, walk-off 2-run homerun? Wow. 9-8 D-Backs over the Brewers in 11 innings.

And nobody outside of the greater Phoenix and Milwaukee metropolitan areas cares. And relatively few inside those areas do.

Let's face it, if one of the teams were in the playoff chase, this would be one of those "fateful" games that fans of the team would be referring to on a regular basis for the rest of the season. As it is, it'll be forgotten by the first pitch this afternoon.

Of course, even if the teams had been in the playoff hunt, the game might still have been overshadowed by yesterday's baseball events...
-- Dodgers score 5 in the bottom of the 9th to beat the Rockies, 5-4. Elmer Dessens pitched great when the game was out of reach and lucked into the win, Steve Finley gets a major RBI, and, most perplexedly, Milton Bradley gets tossed for arguing with the fans. At Dodger Stadium.
-- Red Sox pull within 2 1/2 of the Yankees. Yankees play a double-header against the Twins today.
-- Ichiro just 4 hits shy of Sisler.
-- The Angels have somehow managed to catch up with the A's. Identical records, 5 games to go.
-- The Cubs are doing their best to throw away the wild card, tied with the Giants, 1/2 game ahead of Houston.

Oh, and MLB has decided to move the Expos to D.C.

No wonder my wife said this morning, "You're spending longer than usual reading the Sports section..."

Comments:
In reading 6-4-2 this morning after writing this post, I realize that I may have read the Dodgers article too quickly and did not fully understand the series of events behind the Bradley suspension.

Still, not good.
 
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