May 16, 2008
HELL, N.Y. - Nobody saw this coming. Did you? Did anyone named Steinbrenner, George or Hank or Hal? Did anyone named Wilpon, Fred or Jeff? This is supposed to be a weekend of baseball celebration in New York City, a gathering of the baseball tribes.
It isn't supposed to be like this. Not on the first Subway Series weekend.
And yet here we are. Here all of us are, all of us who care about New York baseball, who embrace it, who live it, who rejoice in it, who circle these two weekends every year and look forward to them for what they're supposed to be:
Our best against your best.
Only, what happens when nobody's best?
Tino OK With Rant by Hank | Yank Bats Fizzle Again; Mets On Deck
Boos for Willie's Amazin' Mess | Sherman: Randolph in Jeopardy
What happens when the Subway Series arrives and one team is only a game north of .500 and the other is two games south? What happens when the teams are a combined 40-41 across fully one-quarter of the baseball games they will play this year?
Suddenly, the Subway Series will be filled with Subway Queries, dueling referenda on who these teams are, where they're going, what they're capable of really achieving this year.
"No matter what," Billy Wagner said yesterday, "there's really nothing to match a Subway Series - the atmosphere, the fans, the hoopla, the hype. There's nothing else like it."
