Series-ly, Folks, He’s Seen Worse

It was almost The Little World Series That Wasn’t. The World Series Nobody Wanted.

TV executive Don Ohlmeyer did everything short of recommending they play doubleheaders to get it over with so he could get to “Seinfeld” on prime time.

Why? It’s the same game Babe Ruth used to play. Lou Gehrig. Jackie Robinson. Brooks Robinson. Three strikes, you’re out. Four balls, you’re on.

It hasn’t been a vintage World Series but, then, vintage World Series are few and far between. Some World Series age like fine wine, others turn quickly to vinegar.

There was no World Series at all in 1994. Labor and ownership managed to do what two World Wars couldn’t: Halt the World Series.

There have been other forgettable World Series. Only three towns have had cross-town World Series--unless you count Oakland-San Francisco in 1989. New York had a mess of them. Chicago had one in 1906, and St. Louis had one in 1944.

The St. Louis one was almost played in secret, largely ignored that wartime year because its rosters were full of guys who were too old or too unfit for military service.

I think that’s what’s wrong with this year’s Series too. Not over-age or overweight participants but lineups as anonymous as spies.

You have the parvenu Marlins in one corner and the Clevelands, who didn’t even have the Belle of the ball, Albert, anymore.

Even in the days when a Series was an all-New York affair, the whole country tuned in. That’s because it had Jackie Robinson versus Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays versus Mickey Mantle, Grover Cleveland Alexander against Murderers’ Row, to mention a few of the matchups.

In fact, in those days, if it happened in New York, the media capital of the world, it was the stuff of legends. Al Gionfriddo caught DiMaggio’s “homer,” Willie Mays caught Vic Wertz’s, and they wrote songs. I remember once, Joe Rudi made an incredible catch in an Oakland Series and a New York scribe, Dick Young, remarked laconically, “If he does that in New York, it belongs to the ages. Here, it’s a footnote.”

In other words, in New York, it’s big; in Oakland, it’s just an out.

It’s the dizzying movement of players today that dilutes fan identification. Free agency is a wound in the heart of the root-root-root-for-the-home-team fan. There was a pitcher a few years ago, Jack Morris, who seemed to travel from club to club--Detroit, Minnesota, Toronto--carrying the pennant with him. He had to look on his chest periodically to see where he was.

It’s a problem. I mean, does the Cleveland fan look out on the playing field and see longtime heroes? After all, Matt Williams is a San Francisco Giant, isn’t he? David Justice, an Atlanta Brave? Which itinerant pitcher is starting for us today?

What would have happened to baseball if Ruth had flitted from club to club in his prime?

Cleveland hasn’t exactly had a pantheon of superstars anyway. Bob Feller. Tris Speaker. Otherwise, a bunch of Earl Averills, Hal Troskys, Joe Vosmiks. Good, but not exciting.

What do we have in this year’s World Series? A bunch of nomads in ski masks and icy fingers. Would you believe baseball used to be played in blank uniforms? And still the fans knew who each of the players was. Today’s players not only have numbers, they have names on their backs. And still nobody knows who they are.

They say it has been a lousy World Series. No, it hasn’t. So, they had a wild 14-11 game. Well, in 1936, they had an 18-4 game, Yankees over the Giants. Now, that’s a lousy game. But I’ve got a clue for you: The guy or the gal in the cheap seats doesn’t mind a high-scoring game. In fact, he or she probably loves it.

Parity is a humbug. Sports is not a democracy. We want dynasties. Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt. It breeds admiration. Like to have seen Stan Musial shopped around the game like a hot diamond? Think he would have been Stan the Man if his loyalty had been spread around 10 teams? He’d have been Stan the Invisible Man.

The Marlins are as anonymous as a crowd shot at a football game. But they have the best catcher east of Mike Piazza in Charles Johnson. They have Bobby Bonilla, who was “Bobby Bo” in the New York tabloid headlines when he played there. He’s Bobby What’s His Name in South Florida.

The team is just too new to have any lore, too much a novelty for the poets of the press to cast roles for them. After all, it took a long time for DiMag to become “the Yankee Clipper,” Gehrig “the Iron Horse,” the Cardinals “the Gashouse Gang,” Pete Rose “Charlie Hustle.”

The fault, dear Brutus, lies in our stars, in not having any. Think Ohlmeyer would be wishing for sweeps if he had Willie Mays, an Iron Horse, a Sultan of Swat, Sandy Koufax versus the Mick to offer the viewers?

The fan is over-baseballed, anyway. The playoff system has demeaned and diminished the grand old game. You play 162 games to run out a few ribbon clerks. The 162-game schedule was an attempt to maintain the whole symmetry of the game--every team playing every other the same number of times. Interleague play put that ploy to death. So why not cut the regular season back to, say 140 games? Either that or play the Series on skis in overcoats.

The 1997 Series is hardly “the mistake by the lake” as they used to classify the old Cleveland ballpark. It’s not the least or the runt of the litter. It had to put up with free agency, expansion, wild cards, playoffs, designated hitters, snow, heat, Ohlmeyer, and an owner who said he was losing too much money on these prima donnas.

Besides, I like 14-11 games. “Seinfeld” can wait a week, Don.

1997 WORLD SERIES: SERIES AT A GLANCE

CLEVELAND vs. FLORIDA

Series tied, 3-3

Game 1: Florida 7, Cleveland 4

Game 2: Cleveland 6, Florida 1

Game 3: Florida 14, Cleveland 11

Game 4: Cleveland 10, Florida 3

Game 5: Florida 8, Cleveland 7

Game 6: Cleveland 4, Florida 1

Today: at Florida, 4:30 p.m.

BASEBALL / ROSS NEWHAN: C17