WITH no football Rainbows to cheer for over the weekend, it was as good a time as any to get caught up with the other spheres in the world of sports. Cards-Padres series
seems like yesterdayMajor league baseball, for one.
It's hard to believe that the regular season is over. Why it seemed as though it was only yesterday that the San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals played at Aloha Stadium. That was back on April 19-20.
There was only one home run in the three-game series -- by Ron Gant of the Cardinals. But, then, they hadn't acquired Mark McGwire yet.
However, we did get to see the eventual National League batting champion swinging away -- the Padres' Tony Gwynn. The future Hall of Famer finished with a .372 average to win his eighth NL batting title. And his fourth in a row.
Speaking of McGwire, it's interesting to note that for all the talk about Ken Griffey Jr. breaking Roger Maris' record of 61 homers, it was the Cardinal slugger who eventually came the closest with 58 big ones. Junior ended with 56.
So Roger's record remains safe for another year.
But with major league pitching to be even more diluted with the addition of two expansion teams next year, both McGwire and Griffey figure to take dead aim at Maris' record again.
THE remarkable thing about Maris' accomplishment was that he homered only once in April. But by the end of August he had 51 homers. McGwire finished with a flourish with 15 in September, but connected for 43 home runs at the end of August, Griffey 44.
Interestingly, Maris' record set in 1961 (just remember, 61 in '61) has lasted longer in the record books that Babe Ruth's 60 in 1927. Ruth's mark stood for 34 years before Maris, asterisk and all, broke it. Maris' record has now survived 36 years.
As for the baseball playoffs, I'm pulling for the New York Yankees to win the American League title and the Florida Marlins to take the National League crown.
Just a bit of perversity on my part. If baseball wants the wild-card, let it have a wild-card World Series. Nothing like having two teams that didn't even win their divisions qualify for the Fall Classic.
Somehow, the owners appear to be encouraging it. In the best-of-5 divisional playoffs, both the wild-card Yankees and Marlins will host the first two games. It's quite an advantage playing the first two at home in such a short series.
If the Marlins don't make it as the NL champions, I'd like nothing better than to see the San Francisco Giants win it all. They're a Team of Dustiny -- Dusty Baker's team. They could be the first worst-to-first team to win the World Series since the 1991 Minnesota Twins.
THE rest of the weekend, I was caught up with the Ryder Cup, commiserating with the American's loss again to the Europeans. But the latter simply putted lights out, especially on Black Saturday when the U.S. team was outscored, 6 to 2. That ultimately proved to be the difference in the Europeans' 14-1/2 to 13-1/2 victory. U.S. captain Tom Kite thought the only reason his team lost was because the Europeans had better knowledge of the Valderrama golf course and the weather conditions. In other words, a home course advantage. It's good to know that playing at home is advantageous not only in football but in golf as well.
Kite also forgot the definitely pro-European gallery, especially the Spaniards.
The biggest difference to me was European captain Seve Ballesteros. American Tom Lehman thought that maybe Ballesteros over-managed. Seve was everywhere, doing everything but hitting the shots for his players. But this was his team and his home country.
Seve made the right pairings for the team matches, so much so, that maybe he should be called Savvy Ballesteros.
