<p>Hard to dispute that without sounding like a sore loser, but it remains that Dame Fortune smiled on the Cards throughout the season. In the end, the unarned home field adbantage given to a team that did not win its division because of a stupid rule was also compounded by a lucky weather delay that allowed Carpenter to pitch again. The home field advantage also meant that four games needed to play with the NL pitcher/batter rules. Fans of a game with integrity can appreciate how wrong this was. </p>
<p>The best team did not win. The luckiest did.</p>
<p>Yep you’re a whiner. The Cardinals beat the Rangers fair and square. Get over it. I’m surprised you didn’t complain about the Rangers’ pitchers having to actually hit too…</p>
<p>Oh, xiggi, I’m so glad you’re hear to say what I won’t. The only part you left out is that Carpenter is a jerk and that La Russa can surely afford a better hairdresser. :D</p>
<p>Things seem to easier in hindsight. Maybe it was an unrecognized (bad) omen when C.J. Wilson was the losing pitcher and Ron Williams the losing manager in the All Star Game.</p>
<p>Actually, I did address the issue of having four games played with the NL rules. You just missed it. The Cardinals beat the Rangers but the rules used to determine the games were hardly fair. </p>
<p>When he took his hat off during a post game interview, I said “Tony, put your hat back on!!!”</p>
<p>We went to a HS football game Friday night. We saw the end of the game but by then, I was over it. If I was spent after Thursday night, I knew that the Rangers would be.</p>
<p>The local press is certainly not being kind to the Rangers. Isn’t it terrible that a team can play so well and still get bad press? That second place is probably worse than 8th place?</p>
<p>xiggi, those of you who are convinced that American League teams are at a disadvantage when the DH is disallowed should petition MLB to rescind the rule change that created the DH in the first place. It should have been aborted in 1973 before it saw the light of day. Then, all franchises would build their teams to optimize performance according to the same set of rules.</p>
<p>And no, they shouldn’t establish parity by extending the DH rule to the National League. If we can’t get rid of it, at least keep it quarantined. </p>
<p>Of course, that wouldn’t solve the problem of Tony’s hair.</p>
<p>missypie, I was wondering what the Texas press had to say about the Series. I don’t think the St. Louis press would have been too terrible if the Cardinals had lost. The positive side of low expectations, I guess.</p>
<p>xiggi, when they play in an NL ballpark both teams don’t use the DH. When they play in an AL ballpark, both teams use the DH. Where’s it unfair again?</p>
<p>missy, I have been avoiding much press. I didn’t watch any postgame stuff, though yesterday I did watch a clip of Wash. Not only do I want to avoid the overly critical stuff locally but the horrible national coverage. I don’t like the way the Rangers (or any Texas sports team, for that matter – let me rephrase that, almost any non-big-name East Coast team) are treated. The storyline for the Rangers this year seemed to be overachieving clowns – Wash’s dances and ebonics, Holland’s moustache and Harry Carey imitation. If it’s not the Yankees or Red Sox or Phillies, we can’t just cover them as a good baseball team; it has to be a collection of characters.</p>
<p>Initially, I wasn’t bothered by Joe Buck. I get his type. Sometimes, I am his type. But after hearing replays of past Series, I began to get ticked that his “calls” were so blase. Where’s the excitement? And McCarver – I texted ds1 at one point, “Did he die in the booth?” He was silent for literally 7-8 minutes.</p>
<p>Anyway, the whole coverage of the Series is a bitter sidenote for me, the actual games aside. I’m madder about this than I realized.</p>
<p>I’ll leave the talk of the DH stuff to xiggi and hops. I just don’t like that home-field advantage went to a team who won 10 fewer games than the Rangers during the regular season. All-Star winner is a silly way to decide that.</p>
<p>Really, this is all the fault of the Phillies. If they had let the melting down Atlanta team win the final series, Atlanta would have been in the playoffs instead of St. Louis and Philadelphia would have beaten Atlanta and then beaten the Rangers. I’m good at re-writing history! The World Series MVP should go to Fredi Gonzalez…</p>
<p>Oh, my. Some people are just sore losers. If the Rangers had won, they would not complain about the rules. An in many sports, the teams that win were not the ones that won more games during the season, it’s just luck.</p>
<p>If anything, I’d blame the pitcher from the Rangers that walked so many players in the 7th game. Seriously.</p>
<p>Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It’s that way on every sport, and in life.</p>
<p>Not a sore loser at all. We didn’t deserve to win when we couldn’t close out the Series in Game 6. That was pathetic. But that doesn’t mean I have to be happy with the outcome or other aspects of the game. :)</p>
<p>Well, he’ll have extra time for the salon. It’s not just the cut, it’s the color. I’m on the phone with my 79yo mother, and she just said that he looks like George Washington. lol I don’t think she knew GW personally or anything, but now that she said that I totally see it.</p>