Baseball's rubber room.

AuthorBarrett, Wayne M.
PositionSports Scene - Column

"WHOM THE [BASEBALL] GODS would destroy, they first make mad." My personal fixation with how long loyal fans have to wait for a World Series title started when I was eight while watching the 1968 Fall Classic on TV. The announcers mentioned that the Detroit Tigers--who were facing the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals--hadn't won, or even been to, the Series since 1945. "Wow!" I remember thinking, "23 years--that's forever." Little did I suspect....

The following season, when the Miracle Mets shocked the sports world by winning the World Series, it was the quickest--a mere seven seasons--an expansion team had ever ascended to the throne. Back then, the Amazin's were my second-favorite team. Yet, I've hated them ever since, mostly because all my friends relentlessly reminded me that their team was the world champions and mine was not, but also because my sense of justice had been violated. Why should the Mets and their followers get to celebrate the thrill of victory without the requisite and proper penance--no lifetime of suffering; no nagging memories of crushing defeats; no sure-fire wins suddenly turning into unforgettably torturous defeats; no prolonged periods of gut-wrenching emptiness over lost opportunities of could-haves, should-haves, would-haves ...?

I attended my first Word Series in 1983. I wrangled two tickets to Game 5 in Philadelphia, where my sister hoped to see her beloved Baltimore Orioles led by sophomore shortstop Cal Ripken, Jr.--clinch against the Phillies, who only three years earlier had won the first world's championship in the franchise's then-97-year history. After the O's 5-0 triumph, I issued a kindly warning to my younger sibling: Savor this one, because you never know when, or if, you'll ever be back. Nineteen seasons have come and gone since--with no more championship tings to mark the passage of time in Baltimore.

I covered my first World Series in 1986, the loathsome Mets once again toying with my heartstrings, their mind-blowing Game 6 extra-inning victory, and subsequent Game 7 conquest, sending the beleaguered Boston Red Sox to yet another inevitable failure. The Bosox have long served as the national media's poster child for World Series futility, having last won in 1918--led by ace hurler Babe Ruth--before jarring Game 7 setbacks in 1946, '67, and '86, spanning the title-less careers of Hall-of-Famers Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski. Yet, in my estimation at least, it is the city with broad...

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