REGIONAL #179:  This group included a number of teams that I suspected would be decent, but I didn’t see a clear favorite rising above the competition, which for a change was largely made up of 20th century squads.  There was a ‘63 Cardinals team that would win the Series the following season, a Blue Jays team a few years before their mini-dynasty in the early 90s, a mid-70s Pirates team that was better a few years before and after this version, two teams in the Phillies and the Cubs that were couple of seasons past infamous collapses, and a relatively recent Yankees team that I suspected was expected to do more than they did.  It was not too long ago that I witnessed an early 90s Jays team win their regional, so I guessed that the 1990 version entered here would squeak by the Cards in the finals.  The ELO ratings concurred that this was a pretty solid group of teams, with the expansion Senators as the only bad one in the bunch; those ratings tapped the ‘76 Pirates with a slight edge over the Jays to win the regional banner.  

First round action

On the day after he passed, it seemed fitting that Tim McCarver would get a chance to lead his NL runner-up, 93-win 1963 Cardinals in pursuit of a win against the bracket’s top seed, the 1976 Pirates.  The Cards also had an old Stan Musial and a young Bob Gibson, but they would give the starting nod to Curt Simmons (15-9, 2.47) to be McCarver’s battery mate.  The Pirates won 92 games and were runner-up in the NL East, and they were celebrating Strat’s Opening Day on which their season was being re-released in updated form, although true to my tournament these Pirates were the original issue from the 70s.  They tapped John Candelaria (16-7, 3.15) for the start and were counting on Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, and Richie Zisk for some fireworks.  But it’s Al Oliver who provides the spark in the bottom of the 1st with a solo HR for a quick Pirates lead, but the next batter, Parker, goes down to injury and must leave the game although early reports suggest he could return for the regional final should the Pirates survive that long.  The Candyman keeps a shutout going through six innings, but when the Cards lead off the 7th with a single and a walk, the Pirates can’t risk Candelaria’s longball results and summon Kent Tekulve from the pen to try to preserve the shutout.  Tekulve gets one out, but then PH Mike Shannon finds a single on Tekulve’s card and the game is tied–briefly, as Bill Robinson leads off the bottom of the inning with a homer that wraps around the foul pole.  That is only the third hit allowed by Simmons, but he is rattled and then allows three straight hits, including an RBI poke from Rennie Stennett, and the Cards have to bring in veteran Bobby Shantz to end the inning with the Pirates now leading 3-1.  In the 8th, Parker’s replacement Omar Moreno gets on base, steals second on the late McCarver, and races home on a Zisk single to extend the Pittsburgh lead.  With the insurance run, the Pirates decide to preserve Tekulve and bring in Dave Giusti to close things out, and he tosses a flawless 9th and the Pirates head to the semifinals with the 4-1, but without the services of Parker.

In the first game of a Zoom doubleheader, Philly Phan TT took the reigns of the 87-win 1966 Phillies, who boasted Richie Allen (retrospectively Dick on his re-issued Strat Card) as the league OPS leader and 4th in the MVP votes, while sending out Jim Bunning (19-14, 2.41) on the mound.  Although he had no bone in the fight, StratFan Rick agreed to roll the bones for the 2011 Diamondbacks, who won 94 games and the NL West, and got a monster year out of Ian Kennedy (21-4, 2.88) who was 4th place for the Cy Young Award.  Both starters are sharp to begin the game and things remain in a scoreless tie through five innings, but Bill White drives in a run in the top of the 6th to push the Phils into a slender lead.  That lead doesn’t last long, as Arizona’s own 4th place MVP finisher, Justin Upton, singles in a run to tie things in the 7th and with the scoring drought, the official scorer is getting concerned about an extra inning marathon that would overwhelm his 12-inning scorecard.  There is no need to worry, as Allen takes control in the 8th with a tape measure 2-run homer that shatters Kennedy’s confidence, and even slap hitters like Cookie Rojas and defensive replacement Bobby Wine start teeing off on him until Rick calls for JJ Putz to finally end the inning after the Phils take a 5-1 lead.   However, Allen isn’t done, crushing another 2-run homer in the 9th and Bunning puts his political career on hold to toss a 6-hitter and the Phils march to a 7-1 victory and a trip to the semifinals.

The second game of the Zoom doubleheader saw an authentic Canadian, Eaglesfly Roy, manage the 86-win 1990 Blue Jays against an authentic Chicagoan, me, rolling for the 77-84 1973 Cubs; even though I’m a White Sox fan, I figured that I would reverse jinx the Cubs to a win since I usually want them to lose.  Roy looked to have the advantage with Dave Stieb (18-6, 2.93) who finished 5th in the Cy Young sweepstakes, while I countered with Bill Bonham (7-5, 3.02) for the Cubs, a swingman with a pretty nice card himself.  Unfortunately, Bonham’s card didn’t help much in the top of the 1st when George Bell blasted a 2-run homer off his own card for a quick lead, and then Kelly “Hans” Gruber goes Nakatomi for a back-to-back shot and the Jays have a 3-0 lead before Jack Brickhouse can figure out how to turn on the microphone.  The Cubs show some spark in response in the bottom of the 1st as Billy Williams rips a double that scores the fleet Jose Cardenal and after a walk Stieb is looking mortal.  However, Ron Santo then hits into his first of multiple double plays and the rally is killed–and so is the Cubs offense.  Stieb asserts control, as does Bonham, and after 8 scoreless innings the game ends as it began–the Jays win 3-1, Stieb allowing only 5 hits, Bonham allowing only four, but half of those ended up on Waveland Avenue and the Cubs head to the storage drawers while the Jays move on.

The 84-win 2016 Yankees featured guys who were either too old (ARod) or too young (AJudge) to be useful, so they were relying on a formidable card from DH/backup catcher Gary Sanchez and ideally a good start from Masahiro Tanaka (14-4, 3.07) who finished 7th for the Cy Young.  They didn’t seem to have much of a challenge in the 106-loss 1963 Senators, who couldn’t really field, get on base, or hit for power, and their best hope was for a dominating game from swingman Tom Cheney (8-9, 2.71).  The Senators use smallball to take a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 3rd on an Ed Brinkman single, but in the 6th Starlin Castro singles in a run for the Yanks and then scores on a Brian McCann sac fly to put New York in front.  The Senators attempt to counter in the bottom of the inning is derailed when Chuck Hinton is caught stealing for the second time in the game, but when Jim King leads off the 7th with a double off Tanaka’s card, the Yanks move to their deep bullpen and Tommy Layne comes in to try to hold the lead.  He issues a walk but then gets two out, and the Senators trot out 39 year old pinch hitter Minnie Minoso, who shows he deserves his recent HOF induction with a single and King beats the throw home to tie the game.  Chaney gets the job done in the top of the 9th, so with the game on the line the Yanks bring out closer Aroldis Chapman for the bottom of the frame, and he blows through the Senators to send the game to extra innings.  Cheney is perfect in his final inning of eligibility, and Washington fares no better against Chapman in the 10th, so the Senators are forced to go to their closer, Ron Kline, to begin the 11th; he retires three straight, and the Yanks seek to preserve Chapman and summon Dellin Betances to pitch the bottom of the 11th, and he strikes out the side in impressive fashion.  In the 12th, Kline walks McCann and then Chase Headley singles him to 3rd and the Senators bring the infield in with one away; Texeria grounds out for two away, Headley heading to second, and then Aaron (not Judge) Hicks finds a single on Kline’s card, and both runners score to put the Yanks ahead.  Betances mows down the Nats in order to pick up the win and the Yanks head to the semifinals with the 4-2 win in which there were as many innings (12) as there were hits in total.  

The survivors

In an all-Pennsylvania semifinal it was the 1976 Pirates, minus an injured Dave Parker, against the 1966 Phillies and 20-game winner Chris Short (20-10, 3.54), who got some votes for MVP.  Pirates starter Bruce Kison (14-9, 3.08) was also plenty capable, and Pittsburgh was hoping he could go deep in the game after needing to use their bullpen in the first round.  Nobody gets a hit until the top of the 3rd, when the Pirates get three hits out of Short, with an RBI single from Parker’s replacement Omar Moreno and a sac fly from Bill Robinson leading to a 2-0 lead for the Bucs.  The Phils try to strike back in the bottom of the inning, but they hold John Briggs at 3rd on a Tony Gonzalez double not wanting to take the bat out of Dick Allen’s hands, although Allen fans and the Phils remain scoreless.   From there, Short is masterful, allowing only one more hit in the remaining six innings, but he nonetheless comes up Short as Kison is even better, finishing out a 3-hit shutout (two by Gonzalez, none by Allen who whiffs 3 times) and the Pirates sail to the finals where they will be rejoined by Parker in the decisive game.  

Both the 1990 Blue Jays and the 2016 Yankees had trouble mustering much offense in round one, only managing 10 hits between the two of them, but they each were hoping for more success against the number two starters, the Jays David Wells (11-6, 3.14) and the Yanks CC Sabathia (9-12, 3.91).  It stays scoreless until the bottom of the 4th, when Kelly Gruber leads off with a double and John Olerud singles him home to put the Jays on top 1-0.  Wells has the Yanks stymied until the 7th, when he starts to lose control; Tony Fernandez turns a clutch DP to help out, but then Wells allows a single and a walk and the Jays summon Duane Ward from the pen to try to get the final out, even though Wells has only allowed 3 hits.  Ward retires Chase Headley to preserve the slender lead, and then when Tony Fernandez leads off the 8th with a double it’s the Yanks turn to move to the pen, bringing in game one winner Dellin Betances and he succeeds in keeping it a one run game entering the 9th.  Ward records two quick outs, but to preserve his eligibility for the final the Jays must bring in Tom Henke (with a somewhat frightening HR result) to try to get the final out, and he gets Didi Gregorius to hit a lazy fly and the Jays head to the finals winning the 1-0 duel, with only 8 hits managed between the two teams.

For the second straight regional in a row, the finals matched the top two ELO seeds in the bracket, with the #1 seed 1976 Pirates against the #2 seeded 1990 Blue Jays for all the marbles.  Both teams had reached the finals by only allowing a total of one run in the first two rounds, while scoring little themselves, and so it would be up to Pittsburgh swingman Larry Demery (10-7, 3.17) and the Jays’ Todd Stottlemyre (13-17, 4.34) to try to continue the trend.  However, in the top of the 1st Dave Parker celebrates his return from injury with a solo blast off Stottlemyre’s card, and hits keep coming as Al Oliver contributes an RBI single although Bill Robinson (1-14) is cut down at the plate trying to score on a Richie Zisk base hit, so it’s 2-0 after half an inning.  In the 2nd, Parker comes up with two away and Richie Hebner on second, and he rips a base hit but once again the split die don’t cooperate and Hebner (1-14) is nailed at home to keep the Jays in the game.  They take advantage in the bottom of the inning as after two quick outs, Pat Borders bounces a triple past inept LF-4 Zisk, and Junior Felix follows by converting a HR split on Demery’s card and the game is tied.  There’s more bad news for the Pirates in the 3rd when Willie Stargell is knocked out of the game with an injury, and then the Jays pile on in the bottom of the inning as Kelly Gruber rolls Demery’s HR result with two men on; he misses the split but two runs score and the Jays take a 4-2 lead.  In the 6th, the injury bug hits the Jays as C Pat Borders is hurt, and in the 7th Parker’s third hit of the game is followed by an error from Jays 1b-3 McGriff, and Toronto turns to their already taxed bullpen and Duane Ward comes in and shuts down the Pirates.  For the second straight game Ward tosses two perfect innings, and once again the Jays nervously bring in Tom Henke to try to close things out in the 9th.  Henke allows a single to Frank Taveras, but then retires Parker for the 1st time of the game; however, 3b-2 Gruber then boots a grounder for the third Jays error of the game and the go ahead run comes to the plate with two away in the form of Richie Zisk.  It’s a grounder to 2b-3 Manny Lee, and he fields it cleanly, tosses to McGriff and the Jays wrap up the 4-2 win and their 7th regional title, with five of them coming from teams between 1984 and 1993.

Interesting card of Regional #179:  According to my Strat crony N/O, this is the card that forced the game company to incorporate the e-rating as part of fielding in the Advanced game.  As can be seen, Mr. Parker was the recipient of a RF-4 (a -2 arm, though) in his original 1976 card, which was Strat’s worst fielding rating at the time.  This was prior to the existence of the e-rating.  However, in 1977 Parker won the vote for the Gold Glove in RF, which presented the game company with a dilemma, because they traditionally (but not always) would assign a “1” rating to Gold Glovers:  they could either admit they made a mistake in his rating in 1976, or they could persist in their view of Parker as a lousy fielder in contrast to the voting of manager and coaches.  They went for a third option–inventing an “e-rating” that would separate fielding range from the propensity to make errors, and Parker thus became a RF-1 e16 (-5 arm, though!), their best range and their worst outfield e-rating available in the original 1977 cards.   Thus, Parker went from a 4 to a 1 in a single season in Basic, because when they were first introduced the Basic fielding rating was always the same as the ADV “range” rating, although they eventually allowed them to differ.  Since I like the original sets, I didn’t order the newly SADV-ed 1976 cards and I’m curious to know how they rated Parker in it–I’m guessing probably not a “4”.  Many know that Strat card creation (Basic only) is a hobby of mine, and when I run Parker through my algorithms, he is rated as a RF-3 for 1976 and a RF-2 for 1977–both of which I think are more accurate Basic ratings than what the game company originally provided.   I’m never quite sure how Strat arrives at their Basic fielding ratings, although a good rule of thumb is to improve any Yankees by a point or two.