In Their Eyes, It Was Truly Swing and a Miss by Plaschke

Bill Plaschke [Oct. 25], what World Series were you watching? I went to the Series in Cleveland. I knew the Indians and Marlins, and you are no true baseball fan.

For the real sports fans who live in Southern California, where the pro teams perennially quit at the end of the season, it was very refreshing to watch two teams who never quit.

The worst World Series? No way! The worst attitude by a sportswriter? Maybe.

MICHAEL A. GLUECK

Newport Beach

*

Bill, don’t you feel rather foolish, judging a World Series before its conclusion? Thankfully, your self-absorbed diatribe did not cause me to tune it out and I was rewarded by watching one of the most exciting and heartfelt Series ever played.

Hope you enjoyed your hockey game.

BOB KENNEDY

Covina

*

You’re way off base, Plaschke. This was not the worst World Series and the poor ratings had little to do with the teams playing. Fans like to follow teams. With players skipping from club to club, the team concept in baseball is all but dead. Besides, who can feel any allegiance to a sport where the players’ only allegiance is to the dollar?

ROSS NINBERG

Costa Mesa

H*

The media are supposed to report the news, not make it. You don’t enjoy this World Series, go to a Kings game with Mike Piazza. You know where he would rather be. I would much rather watch Darren Daulton (yes, Darren Daulton) lead his team in one of the most exciting World Series in years than watch David Schwimmer and his prime-time whining.

This World Series rules, it’s the media that stink.

MIKE THOMPSON

Oxnard

*

The Florida Marlins have won the World Series, but we have forever lost baseball as we have known and loved it.

Baseball no longer stands alone, true to any tradition. It is now just like football, basketball and hockey, where a second-place team can become a champion.

I can only imagine some day in the future, when Edgar Renteria’s grandson asks Grampa how he got to the World Series and Edgar will say, “Well, it all started when we came in second . . . “

JOEL SANOFF

Sherman Oaks

*

I don’t quite understand why your baseball writers seem to be more concerned about younger fans elsewhere in the country than about our local ones. The starting times of the World Series games were optimally suited for West Coast kids. Games could be seen without having to skip home from fifth grade, missing classes. If our local writers won’t stick up for us, who will?

WILLIAM PETKUS

Los Alamitos

*

Typical exchange:

Uecker: “So I told Gibson, keep the fish, but leave me the fishhooks. Ha ha ha.”

Costas: “Bob, that was truly a pointless anecdote. Let’s hear that one again with our repetitive and boring word-sequence feature. We’ll do that right after I read these six or seven promotional announcements. Joe, what did you think of Bob’s anecdote?”

Morgan: “Well, you know, Bob and I were both in the major leagues, and we both faced the same pitchers, except I’m in the Hall of Fame, and he’s not, so on that basis, I’d have to say, without hearing the replay, that it was a pointless anecdote. Looks like Renteria just ended the Series with a base hit.”

Costas: “We’ll take a look at that hit, in slo-mo, right after this message from our sponsor, Sominex.”

KEN McINTYRE

Torrance

*

I didn’t tune in to any part of the World Series until the bottom of the ninth in Game 7. It looks like I didn’t miss a thing.

MICHAEL WALSH

Tustin

*

OK, we watched the games. We heard the comments. We read the columns. And now that it’s over, I must say that I for one enjoyed it. I saw Johnny Vander Meer’s first no-hitter in 1938. I saw my first televised World Series in 1950, when Gillette commercials were line drawings and you could watch the field right through them. I saw ballgames at the L.A. Coliseum. I know nothing is perfect, but I’m not ready to bury major league baseball. At the expense of what? Another phony horror show? Another silly sitcom?

As for this season, let’s congratulate some guys who played their hearts out and gave us a wild and woolly World Series.

BARRY COHON

Los Angeles

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The huddled masses have learned to run, hit and catch. Only in America would our national pastime become a medium for brotherhood. After the World Series, the inscription on the Statue of Liberty would better read “Play ball!”

Eloquence is not limited to poetry, it was heard in the broken English of the Marlins’ postgame interviews. Diversity is the drawstring that pulled them together and the ensuing unity created champions.

By their efforts, the Marlins translated for many Americans a better understanding of integration by cooperation. They played hardball to do so, but [in the] United States or Estados Unidos, in the bottom of the 11th with the bases loaded, the only language necessary was heard in the crack of Renteria’s bat.

MARY ALICE ALTORFER

Carpinteria

*

All respect I had for Jim Leyland was lost after his vulgar display at the end of Game 7. He pranced around the field like he had just knocked in the winning run. It took about five questions from Jim Gray before Leyland mentioned the players.

GREG HANSON

Long Beach