The 2009 World Series. New York Yankees vs. Philadelphia Phillies

There is a lot of prestige, legend, lore and dramatic music on FOX surrounding the Fall Classic every year. There are also super long pre-game and inter-game festivities.

None of the last five World Series has gone beyond a fifth game. I need that to change. The best part about post-season baseball is a Game 7. I get nervous at home, in my chair. Even when I have no rooting interest, I still fidget and shift around like my life is on the line.

I can’t imagine what it must be like for the players. Sitting in the locker room before the game, stretching, taking BP, throwing, going over scouting reports, getting ready, I can see how having been there before would really help. That’s good news for the defending champ Philadelphia Phillies. But many of the New York Yankees have been there, too. Not among them is Alex Rodriguez, who has never been in the World Series, neither has Mark Teixeira or CC Sabathia.

The Yankee Locker Room – Before Game 1

Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte sit near their lockers with cups of coffee, reading the morning newspaper, and discussing their families, garden gnomes, and lawn maintenance.

Johnny Damon and Eric Hinske compare the World Series rings they won with the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 2007, respectively.

Derek Jeter sits in the locker room, in a rocking chair, polishing his World Series rings. A-Rod, Teixeira, and CC sit on the floor, cross-legged, around his chair, having a snack.

A-Rod wears an oversized New York Yankees 1999 World Champions jacket. CC clutches his baseball glove in his right arm, like a child with a teddy bear, and holds six baseballs in his massive left hand. Teixeira sucks on a water bottle and rocks in place, a bat propped up in the bend of his elbow.
A-Rod, Teixeira, and CC ask Jeter questions about what it was like to win the World Series four times nearly a decade ago.

Teixeira: How do you hit in the clutch?

Jeter: Just relax, see the ball, and try to hit a line drive. It helps if you use Gillette Products and wear Nike.

A-Rod: How do I get people to like me?

Jeter: Dive into the stands for a ball and bloody your face. Or intercept a bad relay throw, flip it to Jorge and hope that Jeremy Giambi doesn’t slide.

CC: When we’re celebrating, should we do a choreographed handshake or just do big hugs?

Jeter: You have to be natural about it. You don’t want “Anything is possible!” and Two-handed up-top Wayne’s World high fives aren’t going to do it either. Also, Papelbon dancing should get you beat up.

CC: Hey Captain, if I hit somebody with 98 miles per hour of my awesomeness and he charges the mound, will you have my back?

Jeter: No, your fight is your own. I don’t have any fights.

A-Rod: When we had Kyle Farnsworth, I would just try to get behind him.

AJ Burnett walks over to Rivera, Posada, and Pettitte to show them the ring he won when he pitched 23 innings for the 2003 Florida Marlins, who beat the Yankees without him in the World Series.

Posada: You won that when you didn’t play and your team beat us. Why are you showing it to us?

Burnett: ‘Cause I have one just like you guys!

Posada: You can have Molina.

Then Posada stands up and punches Burnett. He sees Damon and Hinske with their Red Sox rings and he starts marching over to them, obviously angry. Before he can get there, however, Damon and Hinske take off – or Hinske tries to, but he is stuck on the bench. Posada chases Damon but his catcher knees can’t quite get him there. Damon tries to throw a baseball at Posada, but it only makes it half way to him. Damon leaves and Posada returns to his coffee and newspaper.

The three seated around Jeter’s rocking chair are all startled when Nick Swisher bursts in the locker room, cranks up some heavy metal and starts towel snapping people.

Rivera leans over to Pettitte and whispers.

Rivera: I can’t believe this is the guy Joe Buck thinks has changed the culture of our locker room.

Meanwhile, in the Phillies locker room everyone is loose. Almost.

Shane Victorino is throwing darts at a Russell Martin poster.

Ryan Howard is enjoying a meal with Jared.

Raul Ibanez is on his 1,273rd push up.

Jimmy Rollins is going over some game tape with Scott Van Pelt.

Chase Utley and Jayson Werth are throwing playing cards into a batting helmet.

Brad Lidge tucked himself into his locker to take a nap. He had another nightmare about Albert Pujols
and couldn’t sleep the night before.

Pedro Feliz is fielding more questions from Pedro Gomez about the seven seasons he spent playing with Barry Bonds in San Francisco.

Matt Stairs is working on a new power play for the John Bapst Memorial High Crusaders, eh.

Pedro Martinez is on the phone with his daddy in the other locker room.

Cole Hamels is hanging out with his wife. Oreos, anyone?

Carlos Ruiz, in full catcher’s gear, is watching Cole Hamels hang out with his wife.

Cliff Lee wakes Lidge up to challenge Utley and Werth in throwing cards into a batting helmet.
Utley hands Lidge a stack of Albert Pujols baseball cards to use. Lidge sees them and goes into a catatonic state. He’s listed as day-to-day.

Lee beats Utley and Werth by himself and then goes out and pitches a brilliant game in which there was no evidence that he broke a sweat or had his heartbeat rise above 70 beats per minute. Kid has alligator blood.

I want to thank Chase Utley for bringing the Pat Riley look back last night. Let’s get Chase a suit, a tie, John Starks and let’s go lose to the Bulls!

The item of the week is this 2009 World Series Dueling Rosters Tee by Majestic. It commemorates.

Big weekend in sports coming up. NLCS, ALCS, NFL, College Football, BCS implications, Rivalries, Cross-town Rival High School Games (somewhere probably), tailgating, etc. Lot of action. Lot. Of. Action.

The NLCS kicked off last night with a Philadelphia Phillies 8-6 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers out-hit the Phillies 14-8, but left 10 men on base, compared to Philly’s 5. Andre Either and Matt Kemp combined to go 5-10 but only managed to score once between them.

Clayton Kershaw, 21, took the loss and Cole Hamels got the win, though he didn’t pitch much better than his counterpart. James Loney and Manny Ramirez each homered off him before he was pulled after five and a third.

Carlos Ruiz and Raul Ibanez each homered for Philly and Ryan Howard drove in two runs. Brad Lidge came in to get the save, but not before walking one and giving up a hit.

Russell Martin and Shane Victorino jawed back and forth all game long. It is always fun when the series gets heated in the first inning of Game 1.

Game 2 this afternoon will see Pedro Martinez face off against Vincente Padilla in a 100% unpredictable match-up. Chase Utley and Jayson Werth will each be trying for their first hit of the NLCS.

Things I didn’t know before either today or last night:

Chan Ho Park can still throw 96.

The only guy in the Phillies starting line-up under the age of 30 is Victorino (except Ryan Howard, who will be 30 on November 19th). The Flyin’ Hawaiian will turn 29 in November.

If you throw the ball into the dugout on a double play try and can’t get out of the inning, Manny Ramirez will hit a home run and make you feel bad about it.

Jim Thome does a fist-pump-whoop combo when Manny homers.

Randy Wolf should wear his cleats at all-times because he just might pinch run. That’s how slow Jim Thome is. Do you think Thome even brings a baseball glove to the game?

Game 1 of the ALCS is tonight. I’m saying Angels in 7 over the New York Yankees. John Lackey versus CC Sabathia. Do you remember Sabathia down the stretch last year for the Milwaulee Brewers? Silly.

Torii Hunter, Vlad Guerrero, Kendry Morales, and Bobby Abreu will bring some power into Yankee Stadium’s launching pad that may be tempered by some not ideal weather. Derek Jeter is used to it, Mr. November has been in cold weather playoff games enough in his career. Mark Teixeira a big strong dude, but it just seems to me that he is not going to be a big fan of cold weather. I have a feeling about this.

The biggest question concerning the weather though is will Alex Rodriguez’s lady friend be sitting in the front row if it is cold, rainy, and windy? This is a commitment testing event for their relationship. The many cuts to her cheering probably make Chris Robinson (her ex-husband) Jealous Again.

Did you know Kate Hudson’s dad, Kurt Russell, was a pretty good minor league baseball player before blowing apart his shoulder and returning to his acting career?

So that’s baseball. It’s also a huge weekend in the NFL.

Spotlight on New Orleans where the undefeated Saints play the undefeated New York Giants. It bothers me when radio and TV people say it’s going to be Drew Brees versus Eli Manning. It’s not. Brees and Manning will never be on the field at the same time until they do a man hug at the end of the game.

It is going to be Drew Brees, Reggie Bush, Marques Colston, and the rest of the New Orleans offense against Osi Umenyiora, Justin Tuck and the rest of the Giants defense.

And then it will be Manning, Steve Smith, Brandon Jacobs and the rest of the Giant offense against Darren Sharper, Charles Grant, Jonathan Casillas (yes, Casillas, I’m a homer, a little love to the Wisconsin Badgers) and the rest of the Saints defense.

The Vikings put their undefeated record on the line when they host the recently fined Ray Lewis and the Baltimore Ravens. Joe Flacco is a guy I like quite a bit, and a guy I like to call Joey Delaware but I will not wince when Jared Allen cattle ropes him. If Cedric Benson can rush for 100+ yards on Baltimore then Adrian Peterson can rush for that plus a bunch more. Hopefully for Minnesota Brett Favre will be doing his post-handoff jump throw fake thing a lot while Peterson is breaking tackles.

The Chicago Bears go to Atlanta to play the Falcons. Matt Ryan, Roddy White, and Michael Turner set the San Francisco 49er defense on fire last week. The Bears will want to see Jay Cutler find Devin Hester for some TD’s early so they can just run, run, run with Matt Forte.

The Pittsburgh Steelers host the Cleveland Browns in what should be a close game for at least the first five minutes.

Speaking of the Steelers, check out the ESPN commercial with Snoop Dogg in the Reebok Ascent 2009 Sideline Drift Full Zip Fleece Hooded Jacket. Start looking for these and other Drift items on all NFL sidelines.

In the college game this weekend USC travels to South Bend to play Notre Dame. Jimmy Clausen and Matt Barkley are another QB vs QB favorite match-up for the guys in the studios. So is Sam Bradford vs Colt McCoy when the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns go at in the Red River Rivalry. Those two teams love each other.

Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide play the Ol’ Ball Coach and the South Carolina Gamecocks. My favorite college football player this season is Tide RB Mark Ingram.

Boise State already narrowly survived Tulsa and Cincinnati took care of South Florida to keep the hopes of BCS haters alive that someone outside of the Big Ten, Pac-10, SEC, Big 12, or ACC will make a run at the Championship Game.

Tim Tebow is probably receiving accolades somewhere, too.

It is a big weekend for sports. October is a terrible month for marriages and TV remote control control. This is my first October as a married guy. I think it will be important to set a precedent for future years that the MLB playoffs and the NFL and big college football games will be watched. So when I lose this battle, somebody please be prepared to link me to some highlights and provide detailed and accurate recaps.