Only four of the 30 professional baseball teams are contending for this years World Series.
Last years American League champions, the Kansas City Royals lost to the San Francisco Giants in the 2014 World Series. Currently the Royals lead the Toronto Blue Jays two games to none in the best of seven American League Championship series. The Jays last won a World Series in 1993.
The Major League baseball site (mlb.com) has deemed the Royals as the rampaging Royals. In today's 6-3 win over the Blue Jays at home, they scored their first five runs in the 7th inning, turning a 0-3 deficit into a two-run lead.
In the National league championship series, the Chicago Cubs lost game one in the best of seven series to the New York Mets earlier this evening, 4-2.
The Mets and Cubs is a fantastic and intriguing match-up for baseball guru's. The Cubs and Mets have won two World Series apiece; Cubs; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Cubs; Mets; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Mets
The last time the Mets won it all, the average price per gallon of gasoline was .93 cents, http://www.1980sflashback.com/1986/economy.asphit ; Hit movies included "Top Gun," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and "Platoon." https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=hit%20movies%20in%201986
Hit songs in 1986, the last time the Mets took home the Series trophy included Eddie Murphy's "Party All the Time," Addicted to Love"; Robert Palmer, "Sledgehammer"; Peter Gabriel, "Papa Don't Preach"; Madonna and Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name." http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1986.htm
The Cubs were the first team in pro baseball history to win back to back championships. (1907 / 1908), currently the teams only two Series wins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Cubs
The last time the Cubs were champions, the 1908 Ford Model T, (Tin Lizzy) made it's debut to drivers, http://www.history.com/topics/model-t and popular movies were "A Calamitous Elopement," written and directed by D. W. Griffith, "Excursion to the Moon," a French movie directed by Segundo de Chomón, and the first American film version of William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," directed by J. Stuart Blackton was released.
Who could forget that film director Segundo de Chomón also directed the 1907 movie "Satan At Play," the first year the Cubs won the championship. The Cubs rebounded from a game one loss in the best of five series to the St. Louis Cardinals in their last series, so don't go betting on the Mets just yet.
The post season has proven to be a different beast. This year for example, the Cubs were 7-0 against the Mets in the regular season, but lost tonight. The savagely graceful pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, David Price surrendered five runs in the seventh inning this afternoon to the Royals. Price is 1-2 in the post season thus far with a 7.02 ERA. During the regular season, Price had a 2.45 ERA and was two games shy of winning 20 games while being 13 games over .500. http://m.mlb.com/player/456034/david-price
My current prediction for the World Series match-up is the Cubs against the Royals, giving the Royals a slight edge to win it all.
Sports Illustrated "Special Commemorative Issue, Golden State Warriors Splashdown!"; not really a must own for even the purest of Warriors fans, but it's an easy quick read with some neat basketball facts, so I gave it a three star read.
I learned from reading this issue of SI's commemorative issue, a cool phrase for Stephen Curry's clutch shooting abilities, 'The Curry Flurry.' The Curry Flurry was no joke, especially for the opposing teams. In the first round of last years NBA playoffs the New Orleans Pelicans had a 20 point lead in the final quarter of play and were poised to make it a 2-1 series that third game, but when the Warriors had to, their defense clamped down and Curry hit a nothing but net three pointer with less than three seconds in regulation to send the game into overtime. Once the dust was settled, the Warriors won in overtime by four points to make it a 3-0 series lead.
Reading this magazine also show cased the similarities between last years championship team, and the 1975 Warriors team which also took home the championship title. 'Dishin and Swishin,' is what both the '75 club and last years team often did. In other words, no player was selfish and many times, Warriors players competed among themselves who would get the most assists per game, via the most points, hence, 'Dishin and Swishin.
Shooting guru, Rick Barry was perhaps the first of the Warriors to popularize 'Dishin and Swishin' for the Warriors. Barry is also fourth on the all time NBA free point shooting percentage list at 89.98 percent. During the last practice of last years preseason, Curry made 77 consecutive free throws, finishing 94 for 100.
The Warriors were champions last year for a reason. The team played stellar defense and could win games without their stars performing particularly well. Bench player Andre Iguodala was the teams Most Valuable Player in the championship series win against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Head coach Steve Kerr, whose dad was killed in 1984 while president of the American University of Beirut was just as important as the players on the court.
When the Warriors were down two games to one against the Memphis Grizzlies, Kerr made some starters second stringers and vise versa, and the Warriors whipped off three wins in a row to eliminate the Grizzlies. Facing the Eastern conference champion Cavaliers, the Cavs also took a 2-1 series lead. Kerr, benched star defensive starter Andrew Bogut for the remainder of the series and went with a smaller faster line-up which went 3-0 against King James and company, to win the championship series, four games to two.
I'm hoping for a Cubs World Series win this year and of course my Oak town Warriors to win back to back championships.
