It Could Be a Great World Series, If You Like Rivers

Television must be thrilled to death with the matchup for the 1985 World Series, the all-Missouri prime-time special.

This will probably sell a lot of beer in Joplin.

Maybe ABC can show it on tape-delay.

On paper, this Missouri Waltz looks like a gavotte. Way down in Missouri, where they hear this melody, are featured the St. Louis Cardinals team, which, someone once said, consists of seven leadoff batters and Jack Clark. The Kansas City Royals consist of George Brett.

Looks like a pillow fight from this seat. Eight miles of pop-ups. Three hours of throws over to first base a night. One team tries to gum you to death, the other waits till you’re asleep and steals your watch.

Ugh!

This is not recommended for mature audiences.

The proposition put forth here is that the Kansas City Royals are the best team in the American League. Believe that and I’ll sell you a vegetable peeler.

That league, in case you haven’t been paying attention, is the one that has the Baltimore Orioles, the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers.

If the Kansas City Royals are the best team in that league, Bulgaria is a superpower.

The gimmick is, they broke the game into divisions about 16 years ago and, as the American League has evolved, one division plays hardball and the other has a tournament that might best be described as American Assn. ball.

ABC has a right to feel double-crossed. Do you know how many times in the last 11 years before this one that the Western Division has won the playoff and gotten into the World Series? One.

The network, which gets the Series on an alternating basis with NBC, must have wanted to drool when it considered the possibilities earlier this fall. In this league, they could have had the Yankees--Dave Winfield, Don Mattingly, Don Baylor, Rickey Henderson, Billy Martin. Over in the other league, they could have had the Mets--Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, George Foster, Darryl Strawberry, Keith Hernandez. They would have had a made-for-television spectacular, a miniseries that would have been the greatest thing since Roots. The battle for New York.

Failing that, they could have had Baltimore with Eddie Murray, Cal Ripken, Fred Lynn and Rick Dempsey in a crouch, or the Detroit Tigers with Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Lance Parrish, Jack Morris and Darrell Evans. Even the Boston Red Sox had more marquee value with Jim Rice, Dwight Evans and Wade Boggs than the Royals, who have Brett.

Of course, the Royals do have Buddy Biancalana. And it’s a good enough team. Reminds me of Atlanta.

This will be the first all-Missouri World Series in 41 years and only the second in history, which is thoughtful of them. That one in ’44 was not one for the books, either.

Fortunately, no one was paying attention that wartime year. The real world series was going on in Europe. The one in St. Louis had 10 errors committed by one team, the Browns, and 92 strikeouts committed by both teams, 49 by the Browns.

It was a mismatch. The Cardinals had Stan Musial, Marty Marion and Harry Brecheen. The Browns had Sig Jakucki.

Still, the World Series is the World Series. You only get one a year and you have to make do.

You always hope for a World Series where Babe Ruth calls his shot, or Grover Alexander strikes out Tony Lazzeri with both the bases and himself loaded.

You like Willie Mays catching Vic Wertz’s 450-foot shot to center field with his back to home plate, or Al Gionfriddo hauling down Joe DiMaggio’s home-run bid at the bullpen, 420 feet from home. You want Pepper Martin and Dizzy Dean. You want Murderers’ Row, not Fleet Street.

The prevailing opinion is, if you don’t do it in, for or against New York in a World Series, you’re wasting your time. Great catches that inspire oil paintings when done in the Polo Grounds or Yankee Stadium go unnoticed in Oakland--or Missouri.

Still, this is the home of the James Gang, the Gas House Gang and the Pendergast Machine. Maybe Willie McGee will steal everything but the Truman Library. Maybe it won’t be George Brett against the world.

Maybe Mark Twain, who came from Hannibal, Mo., would know how to handle it. Maybe it’ll turn into the Adventures of Huckleberry Balboni.

It’s the only World Series we’re going to have anyway. This year. For once, it’s up to the state of Missouri to put up. This time, it’s the rest of the country saying, “Show me.”