5. 2001 St. Louis Cardinals:
You can call me a homer on this one if you like. Go ahead. I can take it. Still, I think this team belongs here, and nothing you can say is going to convince me otherwise.
2001 should go down in history as the year of the wild card. In the American League, you had the Oakland Athletics winning over a hundred games and still finishing runner up, and in the NL you had the Cardinals, who finished tied with the Houston Astros for the division lead and ended up with the wild card by dint of the season series between the teams. The Cards still hand their “Co-Champions” banner up every summer, though, irritating the Astros to no end.
In a way, the 2001 post-season was really a tragedy. You had two superior teams in the AL both folding when confronted with the big, bad Yankees, and the two best teams in the National League just happened to play in the Division Series.
And what a series it was. In my ever so humble opinion, the 2001 NLDS is probably the greatest Division Series ever played. It was the eventual champion Diamondbacks, led by their twin aces Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, going up against the Matt Morris and Daryl Kile led Cardinals. Never before, or since, has five games felt so truly epic. Cecil DeMille would have had a tough time coming up with a better baseball script than the one the Cards and DBacks wrote that October, as some of the truly great pitching performances in postseason history were turned in on both sides.
An emerging young rookie by the name of Albert Pujols also just happened to lead the Cardinal offense that year. Just a bonus, really, considering how it all turned out.
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Repoz
Posted: September 16, 2008 at 05:10 PM |
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I would have taken the '02 Giants instead.
I agree with Joe C that the 2002 Giants should have made this list, if for no reason other than the barely even believable dominance of Barry B. His postseason numbers - especially in the World Series - and the fact that he single handedly made people question whether we should change the age old intentional walk rules, aren't things that I expect to see again any time soon.
I thought I did. But then I looked it up and Rick Ankiel actually got broken in 2000.
I didn't either. This is like one of those obscure Bill Simmons Celtics playoff remembrances: "I was reminded of Game ____ of the ________ playoffs when ________ went for ___ points to beat the ______."
I'm always like "Yeah, who can forget Game 5 of the '92 Eastern Conference quarterfinals" (or whatever).
Nope, Ankiel self destructed against the Mets that year. I don't know, I kind of agree with the 2001 Cards pick, I know they didn't finish where a different team did, but they did have a great series against a team that had Johnson-Schilling at the top of their game. It was a bit of a homer pick to put it in position, but they were better than the 02 Giants team for example.
Someone should make a top ten list of these. Here's an obvious contender for number one:
http://www.sindone.org/en/scient/telo/sin_gen.htm
Is this one?
http://www.shroud.com/guscin.htm
Sadly, I shall be long gone before the Sock of Schilling really gets its true place of honour.
Sort of like how the only thing I would change about the Angels amazing run in 2002 would be beating the A's in the ALCS instead of the Twins. The A's and Angels had such a great rivalry that year that it just didn't seem right for it to end without them going up head to head.
Most of them. It was a fluke pennant from a perennially crappy franchise. It'll be remembered like the '44 Browns the way the Rockies are going.
There was never any such thing, so no they didn't.
Monica's dress?
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