October 18, 2004 [LINK]
HOLY COW!
UPDATE: David Ortiz just drove in the winning run for the second night in a row, keeping the Red Sox's impossible dream alive. This year's "Boston marathon" has been simply unbelievable! And the Astros' 2B Jeff Kent of all people gets to be the hero for the folks in Houston. (Oh, that home field advantage.) So it's back to New York and St. Louis; could this year's postseason top last year's???
I still can hardly believe what I saw transpire after midnight up at Fenway Park. My hunch that Boston would refuse to quit, in spite of having dropped the first three games to the Yankees, was proven correct. Who cares that no team has ever come back from a 0-3 deficit in a postseason series? Anything is possible! Those scrappy wild card teams have certainly added lots of spark to the postseason, and we should give credit where credit is due for that innovation: Thanks, Mr. Selig! Nevertheless, I still think the highest-percentage team in each league should get a bigger advantage than at present, with only three games in the first round, and all at home. That's a little different from what I had suggested before; after rethinking the matter, I decided that a 3 home game / 2 away game series format would put too much pressure on the team with the home field advantage.
Interestingly, both games yesterday were decided by a home run to the right field bullpen. It was also coincidental that "Houston" and "Boston" rhyme, and both are in states that are home to a presidential candidate. What's more, both stadiums bear strong similarities in layout, with a short left field with a high wall and grandstands that are squeezed in along the foul line. (That's not really a coincidence, however, since it reflects the conscious imitation of Fenway Park by the designers of MinuteMaid Park.) The two games in Boston lasted well over nine hours altogether. The 19-8 blowout by the Yankees on Saturday set a number of records, too many to mention here. The Astros have proven themselves worthy competitors to the Cardinals. Carlos Beltran and Albert Pujols are just amazing.
I've received a lot of news tips and corrections on baseball stadium news over the last several days, and I'm sorry that I can't always respond right away. Steven Poppe laid out a list of stadium diagrams in need of revision and/or updating, including some of the "neutral" venues such as the TokyoDome. T.J. Zmina (whose photos are on the PNC Park page) told me that the scrolling stadium menus overlap with each other; I hope that's fixed now. Marc Gilbert tells me that the dugouts at Dodger Stadium will be moved forward next year, as part of the recent grandstand renovations there. I ran across some great photos of it and many other stadiums at walteromalley.com. As always, I greatly appreciate fan feedback, and I keep track of such input on my "to do" list, near the top of which is revising the grievously outdated Baseball in D.C. page.