The eventual pennant winner came from 3-1 down, scoring over 30 in games 5,6 and 7, while holding the opposition to single digits. They had won 96 games in the regular season, were perennial playoff occupants, had won the Series recently, and had much of their team intact.
In the other league, the pennant winner had breezed through its playoffs, aided by a controversial call against a division rival in the LCS. Few of the games were blowouts, but the series as a whole weren't close. It was a team whose stars were largely home-grown, who had a young, dominating closer. a rookie shortstop who seemed destined for greatness, and a first baseman who had been waitng for postseason glory for a while.
In Game 1, the team on a roll, whose bats were hot, crushing its opponents, cruised to a 12-1 win. They won Game 2, also. Then, the other team, whose manager had proclaimed, "They've got us right where we want 'em," swept the next four to win its first World Series.
Well, its first World Series in 18 years. It was 1996, and the Jeffrey Mayer-aided New York Leyritzes came back to stun the Braves. The Braves had themselves come back from 3-1 down, shredding the Cardinals 14-0, 3-1, and 15-0.
So, are the 2007 Rockies the 1996 Yankees? Well, in 1996, the Yankees weren't the Yankees yet, either. It wasn't a team loaded with All-Stars and Hall of Famers, though there were a few.
As long as the 2007 Red Sox look like the 1996 Braves, there's a chance.
Comments
pardon the nitpick but the Yankees were in the 1981 World Series.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1981ws.shtml
Still it's a nice antidote for Thomas Boswell's column today that was uncharacteristically sloppy.
Posted by: soccer dad | October 25, 2007 12:24 PM