REGIONAL #195:  After a couple of brackets without a decent team among them, this draw pulled two high-profile pennant winners, the record setting ‘98 Yankees and the infamous Bill Buckner Red Sox, and the two old rivals could face off in a semifinal game in the lower half of the bracket.   The upper half included some 90s teams that should have steroid-powered offenses, as well as a later Yankee team that lacked the firepower of the other Bronx entry in the regional.  The favorite to me seemed to be the formidable ‘98 version of the Yanks, but there was the question as to whether the Red Sox might save Roger Clemens for a possible semifinal showdown, which might even the odds.  Still, I guessed an all Yankee final, with the ‘98s spelling the apocalypse for the 2012 version.  The ELO rankings aligned with my prediction, tapping the ‘98 Yanks as the 5th best team of all time, while indicating that the 2012 Yanks may not have won the pennant but were still the best team in baseball that season.

First round action

The 2012 Yankees won 95 games and the AL East, and were ranked by the ELO ratings as the best team in baseball that season despite getting swept by the Tigers in the ALCS.  Looking at the rotation, you could see how they could struggle in a short series as the rotation was good but not great, with CC Sabathia (15-6, 3.38) a solid first round starter.  They had reason to be concerned about their opponents, the 1997 Rockies, who only went 83-79 despite having a remarkable offense with three guys in excess of 40 homers, including NL MVP Larry Walker; however, their pitching staff had too much Coors and Pedro Astacio (12-10, 4.14) wasn’t great but looked like Walter Johnson compared to the rest of the rotation.  The power begins with the weakest hitter in the Rockies lineup, Kirt Manwaring, leading off the 3rd by converting Sabathia’s HR result, and they load the bases in the 5th with a 2-out rally but Sabathia strikes out Andres Galarraga to prevent any damage.  However, a leadoff single by Ellis Burks in the 6th and the Yankees seek to take advantage of their deep bullpen, putting in David Robertson, who records three straight outs–two of them hits on Sabathia.  He holds off the Rockies while in the bottom of the 7th Robinson Cano converts Astacio’s HR split to tie the game; the Rockies survey their bullpen and it’s all gasoline to throw on the fire, so Astacio is left to get out of his own jam and he escapes the 7th without further incident.  The Yanks move to Clay Rapada in the 8th, sensing a possible extra inning game, and he tosses two hitless innings but Astacio also hangs tough and indeed the game is still tied 1-1 after nine.  The Yanks summon Mariano Rivera to begin the 10th, and he is immediately knocked out of the game on an injury while retiring DH Quinton McCracken, so the game is handed to Rafael Soriano, and he walks Walt Weiss and then allows a 450 foot blast to Walker, and the game is now Astacio’s to lose in his last inning of eligibility.   Astacio gets one out, but then allows a tape measure blast to Mark Teixeira and the Yankees pull within one.  Eric Chavez draws a walk, with Eduardo Nunez coming in to pinch run representing the tying run.  ARod then misses a split double, but the single moves Nunez to 3rd and the infield comes in, and Steve Pearce is called upon to pinch hit for Russell Martin.  Pearce hits a grounder and Nunez has to hold at third, with ARod heading to 2nd as the winning run and Ichiro at the plate with two out and the game on the line.  The roll:  1-8, TR 1-6/DO, and Nunez and ARod dash across the plate as Ichiro contributes the walk-off double and the Yanks pull off a gritty come-from-behind 4-3 win as Astacio just can’t get the final out.

In a regional packed with quality teams, this first round game was the only one lacking in high profile squads.  The 1995 Cubs were not a bad team, going 73-71 in a strike shortened season with Sammy Sosa and Mark Grace leading the offense and Jaime Navarro (14-6, 3.28) had his best season.  The 1998 Diamondbacks lost 97 games although being in the peak of the steroid era, most of the team could hit homers and Omar Daal (8-12, 2.88) had a nice card for that season.   The Cubs get a run in the bottom of the 2nd when Sosa scores on a Scott Bullett fielder’s choice.  Meanwhile, the Dbacks are squandering opportunities left and right; they end the inning in the 1st by unsuccessfully sending a 1-16 runner to third, and then in the 3rd they are gunshy of taking the extra base on three straight singles, and they manage to score no runs after loading the bases with no outs.  In the bottom of the inning, Luis Gonzalez singles in a run but 1-17 Rey Sanchez is nailed trying to make it two; however, after Sosa is walked the split die decides to giveth to Mark Parent, who converts a HR 1-5/flyB on Daal’s card for a three run shot and a big Cubs lead.  In the 5th, 1-15+2 Devon White is nailed trying to score to end the inning, and the Dbacks announce that they are filing a protest against the split die with tournament officials.  Arizona leaves the bases loaded once again in the 7th, and a leadoff single by Cubs supersub Todd Haney prompts the Dbacks to summon their closer, Gregg Olson, but he gives up an RBI single to Parent and the Cubs extend their lead.  Navarro loses his chance for a sloppy shutout when White hits a sac fly in the top of the 9th, but he finishes out the game despite allowing 12 hits as the Cubs cruise to the 6-1 win.

The 1998 Yankees won 114 games in the regular season and another 11 in the postseason, including the four required to be World Series champions, and they are often mentioned in lists of the greatest teams of all time.  All nine starters were in double digits in homers, all nine were above .350 in OBP, and the rotation was replete with strong options, with David Wells (18-4, 3.49), 3rd in the Cy Young voting, getting the start.  By comparison, the 76-86 2012 Padres only had two players in the lineup that reached either of those thresholds, and their rotation lacked both quality and quantity, with Clayton Richard (14-14, 3.99) sporting a card that was not as good as his record might suggest.  The Yanks waste no time, with Darryl Strawberry recording a long 3-run homer in the top of the 1st, but then they start to fall into a pattern of inning-ending DPs.  They they lose Derek Jeter to a minor injury in the top of the 8th, and the Yanks are fortunate to have Wells out there taking care of business, as he closes out a 3-hit shutout and the Yankees take the 3-0 win in which they only record five hits of their own–three of them in the first inning. 

For the Zoom game of the week, the Tall Tactician proves himself as a die-hard Phan by volunteering to direct the terrible 1989 Phillies against the pennant-winning but ill-fated 1986 Red Sox, managed by StratFan Rick on behalf of his New Englander wife.   The Red Sox won 95 games and, facing a possible semifinal matchup against one of the best teams of all time, they elect to save Roger Clemens for that game and go with the perfectly capable Bruce Hurst (13-8, 2.99) in the first round.  For the Phillies, who lost 95 games to finish last in the NL East, the obvious selection was Ken Howell (12-12, 3.44), with 39 year old Mike Schmidt rooting the team on from the bench.  The Red Sox immediately set up a pattern that would persist through much of the game, loading the bases in the 1st inning but failing to produce a run, and first blood is drawn by the Phils’ Dwayne Murphy, who put a solo shot over the Green Monster in the top of the 2nd for a 1-0 lead.   Tommy Herr makes it 2-0 in the 3rd by converting an RBI triple, but he’s stranded at third and Howell continues to compensate for bad Philadelphia fielding by pitching his way out of jams, with Boston’s Rich Gedman a particular culprit in leaving runners in scoring position.  However, the Bosox finally break through against Howell in the bottom of the 7th with a couple of RBI hits from Jim Rice and Dwight Evans that tie the game, while in the meantime Philadelphia is losing two thirds of the outfield to injury with Von Hayes going down early in the game and Murphy going down later, leaving the Philly bench sorely depleted.  Boston flirts with a rally in the 9th, but again Howell manages to get out of the jam and the game heads to extra innings with both starters still looking strong; both toss hitless innings in the 10th to close out their eligibility and it’s time for the closers, Calvin Schiraldi for Boston and Roger McDowell for the Phils.  They both contribute two more hitless innings, and as the game heads to the 13th Rick moves to a shaky Steve Crawford, who survives to send things to the bottom of the inning with Philadelphia’s Jeff Parrett now taking over for McDowell.  But Parrett has some trouble finding the strike zone, issuing a couple of walks and a grounder advances the runners to 2nd and 3rd with two out and Wade Boggs at the plate.   TT eyes Boggs .357 average and decides to issue the intentional walk to Wade Boggs to load the bases for cleanup hitter Rice, who knocks one into the gap and the Red Sox walk off with a hard-fought 3-2 win and, as it turned out, a highly anticipated semifinal against their arch-rivals.

The survivors

The #2 seeded 2012 Yankees had to mount a furious extra-inning comeback to reach this semifinal, needing to make use of nearly their entire bullpen in doing so, while the #5 seed 1995 Cubs easily disposed of the weakest team in the bracket with no need for relief.  That meant that the Yanks would need a strong outing from Hiroki Kuroda (16-11, 3.32) while the Cubs felt pretty good about Frank Castillo (11-10, 3.21) despite their underdog status.  It looks like the wind is blowing in at Wrigley, because in the top of the 1st Nick Swisher misses a HR 1-17/DO off Castillo’s card, although he scores (1-11+2) on a 2-out single by Mark Teixiera to give the Yanks the early lead.  Sure enough, Brian McRae then leads off the bottom of the 1st by missing a HR 1-15/DO on Kuroda’s card; the 1-17 McRae is then cut down trying to score on a Luis Gonzalez single and it’s not looking like a day to trust the split die.  In the bottom of the 4th, Mark Parent leads off with a double off Kuroda’s card, and then Shawon Dunston also misses that HR 1-15 split on the pitcher’s card but Parent trots home to tie the game.  The split die kills a Cubs rally in the 6th when AA Sammy Sosa is caught stealing, and a leadoff single by ARod in the 7th sends the Cubs to the pen for Larry Casian and his 1.93 ERA.  However, he allows a walk and a base hit; the Yankees don’t trust the split die and hold 1-12 ARod at third, loading the bases with nobody out and the Cubs bring the infield in to try to preserve the tie.  Jeter pops out, Swisher whiffs, and then Robinson Cano flies out harmlessly and the Cubs escape unscathed.  Not liking the direction the game is taking, the Yanks no longer wish to bank on the split die to escape Kuroda’s gopher ball problems, so they bring in Mariano Rivera, back from an injury that knocked him out of a brief appearance in round one.  The Cubs counter with their supersub Todd Haney, who misses a HR 1-11/DO split; Rey Sanchez then singles and the Cubs hold Haney at 3rd, setting up runners at the corners with nobody out and the infield comes in.  A groundout sends Sanchez to 2nd, and then Luis Gonzalez delivers a clutch single that scores Haney, but of course Sanchez is nailed at the plate, but the Cubs take a one run lead into the 8th.  Rivera retires the side quietly in the bottom of the 8th in which Dunston is knocked out of the tournament with an injury, and the Cubs seek to preserve Casian and insert their dangerous closer Randy Myers to finish things out.  Myers retires Russell Martin but then walks Ichiro, and the Yanks agonize about attempting to steal with the A-stealer Suzuki who has already been caught once this game, but DP machine Jeter is at the plate.  So Ichiro goes, and he’s safe, putting the tying run in scoring position with one out for the Captain, who has a dismal record in this tournament.  Sure enough, he grounds out (with a ++, causing some second-guessing on the steal) and the game rests on the shoulders of Brett Gardner and his .417 OBP.  He rolls on his card, but it’s a strikeout, and the Cubs pull off the 2-1 upset to earn a trip to the semifinals against a pennant-winner of some sort.

It had been almost 40 regionals (#158) since two pennant winners faced off in the tournament, and this time it involved a semifinal between two notorious teams, the powerhouse 1998 Yankees against the ill-fated 1986 Red Sox. Boston had saved Roger Clemens (24-4, 2.49), the Cy Young winner and the league MVP, in anticipation of this matchup, while David Cone (20-7, 3.55) was no slouch either, having finished 4th in the Cy Young votes to an older Clemens, and the Yanks would have Derek Jeter back from his round one injury.  Clemens starts off shaky, issuing two walks off his card (which one has one such result on it) and then Darryl Strawberry knocks a run-scoring single also off Clemens’ card; Paul O’Neill knocks another RBI single off his own card and the Red Sox are fortunate to escape further damage with an inning-ending DP from Tino Martinez.  The Yanks threaten again in the 2nd but Jeter whiffs with runners at the corners to end the inning, and Rich Gedman atones for his performance in the first round with a clutch two-out single that scores Jim Rice in the bottom of the inning to make it a one-run game.  A Wade Boggs fielder’s choice in the 3rd scores Spike Owen from third, but Cone retires Don Baylor with the bases loaded to end the inning with the score tied.  Clemens then settles in to being Clemens, and when Cone allows a leadoff single to Jim Rice in the bottom of the 6th the Yankees waste no time in heading to the bullpen for Graeme Lloyd with his 1.67 ERA.  But it doesn’t matter who was pitching, as Dwight Evans hits his HR 1-15/DO split, but misses it, and the Sox put up the stop sign for Rice and New York brings the infield in with nobody out.  Once again, that doesn’t matter as Don Baylor converts a DO 1/SI** to score both runners and Boston leads 4-2.  Clemens blows through three straight Yanks in the top of the 7th, including supersub PH Shane Spencer, who rolls one of the two results in his two column that isn’t a home run.  With the Yanks due in the top of the 8th, Boston looks nervously on its bench for a defensive replacement at first base, but in fact there aren’t any, and Jeter kills a rally by hitting into a DP, and the game heads to the 9th with the Fenway crowd roaring its approval.  Clemens retires Strawberry on a deep fly, but O’Neill singles to put the tying run at the plate.  Up comes Tino Martinez–whiff; Jorge Posada–whiff, and Fenway erupts as the Bosox eliminate the hated Yankees 4-2 on a Clemens 5-hitter and they head to the bracket final.

In this final between the 1986 Red Sox and the 1995 Cubs, it had been a long time since either franchise had won the Series and one can only imagine the whining emerging from the two fanbases over who was more deserving of the regional title.  The Red Sox would be going with Oil Can Boyd (16-10, 3.78) and their bullpen was rested but shallow; the Cubs had Jim Bullinger (12-8, 4.14) and an injured shortstop that conveniently allowed them to have supersub Todd Haney in the starting lineup.  The Red Sox immediately wonder if they need to change their Oil as Boyd allows six singles in the first two innings, including RBI pokes from Haney and Brian McRae, and the Cubs establish a lead against a Red Sox team that has had trouble scoring runs in previous games.  They show how to do it when Jim Rice leads off the bottom of the 2nd with a blast over the Monster, and then later in the inning a two-out triple by Dave Henderson ties the game.  In the top of the 4th a 2-out double by Mark Grace scores McRae, but 1-12+2 Haney is out at the plate to limit the Cubs lead to one.  A two-run homer by Mark Parent in the top of the 5th and the Oil Can is deemed to be hazardous waste and Calvin Schiraldi comes in to try to salvage the game for Boston but the Cubs rap another three hits against him, including an RBI single from Rey Sanchez, and Chicago now leads 6-2.   Boston threatens in the bottom of the inning but ex-Cub Bill Buckner hits into his second rally-killing DP of the game, and the Cubs make it a rout in the 8th with a long 2-run homer from Grace.  Steve Crawford comes in for Boston in the 9th and the Cubs show him no more mercy than previous Sox pitchers, tallying four hits and two more runs, and although Don Baylor knocks a solo homer in the bottom of the 9th, it’s far too late and the Cubs use 22 hits to record a 10-3 victory and their 9th regional win, joining the ‘96 team to form a mini-dynasty of mediocre Cubs teams that nonetheless had what it took to capture their bracket.

Interesting card of Regional #195:  This group was loaded with potential candidates for this feature.  How about Roger Clemens, who won the Cy Young and the MVP in the same season?   Or maybe a different MVP in Larry Walker?  Then there’s Padres reliever Tom Layne, with only a 5-11 walk marring an otherwise flawless card, or .411 hitting Todd Haney who helped propel his Cubs to the finals.  All were worthy of consideration, but none can live up to one of the most ridiculous Strat offerings in cardstock history.  This Nameless One represents the season of one Shane Spencer, a 26-year old rookie on one of the winningest teams in baseball history, who in 27 games racked up a 1.321 OPS that proved to be nearly double that of any of his remaining six years in the bigs.  He also came through for the Yanks in the postseason, hitting a couple of homers in the ALDS and going 1 for 3 in the Series, but in this tournament he managed to avoid all those homer results and his highly touted team failed to get past the semifinals.  It’s interesting that two of the most infamous cards in the history of Strat, this one and Rudy Pemberton’s, did not have the player names on them.  Throw in one of Barry Bonds’ later cards, and I’m guessing you could assemble a pretty fair Strat team composed entirely of “players not to be named”!