With no afternoon games today, I was going to wait and have today's Division Series preview post in the middle of the afternoon, a couple of hours before the Yankees and Twins take the field in New York at 5 pm CDT.
But then I saw (thanks to Jessica for posting it in last night's game thread) this astonishingly bad piece of "journalism" from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Bernie Miklasz, and I thought I'd get it posted right on the front page for you to see this morning. That's right, friends, it wasn't really Matt Holliday dropping a potentially game-ending fly ball in Dodger Stadium yesterday. No, it was all the Cubs' fault:
This October, the Dodgers have a chance to sweep the Cardinals, who have inexplicably turned into the Cubs, right before your disbelieving eyes. And that was unpredictable.
Do not adjust your HD TV sets at home, and do not throw any hard objects at those television screens: These aren't really the Cubs; they only look like it. They are the Cardinals, striking out and dropping balls and loitering on the bases and blowing saves and going all Leon Durham '84 on us in an epic meltdown.
Click here to see my reaction to this tripe. This is a man who has been paid (presumably) big money to write about sports for the biggest newspaper in St. Louis for 20 years, since 1989. And this is the best he can come up with when his team pulls an epic choke job? Take a swipe at the Cubs? No wonder newspapers and "traditional" journalists are vanishing from the face of the Earth so quickly.
I guess about the best thing you can say about something like that is that he was pandering to his audience. As for me, all I'll say to Cardinals fans is: "Welcome to the club. Now you know how it feels. Enjoy going home after Saturday's game."
Also, though the Angels beat the Red Sox 5-0 last night, the first postseason shutout in Angels history, I wonder how Angels fans feel having the play-by-play man on TBS for that series be the principal play-by-play guy for their opponent. Don Orsillo did his best to be neutral last night -- and he's probably the best of the four PBP guys doing the Division Series -- but he's the main PBP man on NESN for the Red Sox during the season. How did they make that selection?
The NL has the day off today; links for both AL series tonight after the jump.
Twins at Yankees, 5 pm CDT. TV: TBS. Announcers: Chip Caray and Ron Darling
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Twins site Twinkie Town and Yankees site Pinstripe Alley.
Red Sox at Angels, 8:30 pm CDT. TV: TBS. Announcers: Don Orsillo and Buck Martinez
Baseball-reference.com game preview
Please visit our SB Nation Red Sox site Over The Monster and Angels site Halos Heaven.
Yesterday's thread didn't get too long, so once again I'm not going to post overflow threads today; if this one gets too long or slow by the second game, someone please post an overflow in the FanShot section.
Discuss amongst yourselves.