From the Sidelines

Published 12:00 am Monday, October 25, 1999

MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / October 25, 1999

For baseball fans, the Fall Classic came early this year.

That term, usually reserved for the World Series, could be applied to the entire playoffs. For the last three weeks have been baseball at its best.Actually, the drama started with the final days of the season when the Mets, left for dead, arose to sweep their final three games to force a playoff for the National League wild card with Cincinnati. The Mets thencompleted the comeback by defeating the Reds in the one-game play.

Next came the respective divisional series. Boston, without PedroMartinez and Nomar Garciaparra for Game 3, rallying from a 2-0 deficit to eliminate Cleveland, the team with arguably the best lineup in baseball. Itwas the way the Red Sox did it, scoring 34 runs over the last two games.

In the final game, Martinez came in to throw six no-hit innings and Troy O’Leary (Troy O’Leary!) hit two home runs and collected seven runs batted in after the Indians elected to walk Garciaparra and pitch to him.

The National League series did not lack for drama, either. The Mets kepttheir dramatic run alive by upsetting West champion Arizona in four games, capped by Todd Pratt’s (Todd Pratt!) game-winning home run in the final game. And over in the Atlanta-Houston series, there was Walt Weissmaking a diving stop to preserve a Braves’ victory, helping them to a four- game victory.

Then there was the League Championship Series, perhaps the most dramatic LCS’s since 1986. The American League LCS featured the bestlong-running rivalry in the AL, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Howappropriate that these two teams would meet in the final LCS of the century considering that it was the Red Sox’s trade of Babe Ruth to the Yankees that helped shape the baseball world over the last 80 years.

New York added to the Curse of the Bambino (remember the final two games of 1949 and Bucky Dent in 1978, Red Sox fans?), taking the Red Sox in five games.

This time the curse came in the form of two controversial calls in games one and four, both around second base and both involving Yankee second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, a player who always seems to be in the middle of such situations (remember game one of the ALCS against Cleveland in 1998?). Actually, the series came down to the Yankees being able to takeadvantage of Red Sox errors and the Boston failing to do the same.

But nothing could match the NL series between the Braves and the Mets.

Atlanta swept the first three games behind three stellar pitching performances. The Mets avoiding the sweep by scoring two runs in thebottom of the eighth in Game 4 and then taking a 15-inning thriller in Game 5, winning on a grand slam-turned-single by Robin Ventura.

But even that game could not top Game 6. The Braves finally put the Metsaway with a 10-9 11-inning victory with Andruw Jones drawing a bases- loaded walk from Kenny Rogers to bring in East St. John grad GeraldWilliams with the winning run. The Braves had to overcome blown leads on5-0 and 7-3 and two one-run deficits, surviving unlikely heroics by Melvin Mora and Pratt with unlikely heroics of their own by Brian Hunter and Ozzie Guillen.

Now comes a World Series between the Braves and the Yankees for the title of the so-called “Team of the Decade” (who would have thought that in 1990 when the teams had the worst records in the majors?).

The Braves have won the most games over the last 10 years and have made eight straight playoff appearances while the Yankees have captured two World Series.

It figures to be a close game with the teams featuring two of the best pitching rotations in the game. But no matter what happens, the teamswill have quite a time matching what has already been a “Fall Classic.”

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