The inaugural Divisional Championship Series is under way in the ATL
after an exciting Wild Card Playoff game to determine the owner of the
last playoff berth. But that's gone and done, and now we look forward
to see how things will shake out for the League Championships. But
before we go any further, let's take a look to see if injuries will play a
factor in these games, shall we?
The Cincinnati Reds (93-61), the Legends League homefield advantage
team throughout the playoffs, escaped the Injury Bug quite handily. The
Reds owner was leery of getting an important player injured and so
played a lot of subs the last couple of weeks of the season, and it
almost cost the team the homefield advantage, but it all worked out
right in the end. They tied with Pittsburgh for the best overall record
in the Legends League, but they won on tiebreakers so all is right in
Cincinnati. Greg Maddux (11-5, 2.67 with the Reds) is expected to start
the first game against the upstart New York Giants and Red Ruffing
(14-9, 4.78).
The New York Giants (84-71) camehere the long way around, and their
injury report bears some small evidence of that. Winning their last 5
games of the season, 4 against the team they overtook, and then winning
a Wild Card Playoff Game -- the Giants of New York must feel as if they
started the playoffs a week earlier than everybody else. Their Injury List only contains two backup players, catcher
Sherm Lollar (.097, 0, 2) and righty setup man Ewell Blackwell (1-1,
2.63). Both are on the Disabled List until September 29th. That
puts them both out of this round of the playoffs, though
allows for the possibility of rejoining the team in the next round
should the Giants get past the Reds.
Newark (96-58) had some trouble during the season with important
injuries: Sam Crawford (9-8, 2.98) went down for 23 games, Satchel
Paige (9-9, 5.12) was out for 20, Willie Mays (.312, 39, 134) was lost
to the team for 17, and Quincy Trouppe (.271, 14, 55) went missing for
10. Even with these major injuries the Eagles never relinquished first
place all year long, easily maintaining a double-digit lead in games at
all times. Now are healthy and raring to go. They
aim to make the best regular
season won-loss record translate into season's best team in the
post-season as well. The
aforementioned Sam Crawford will get the first game against the
Athletics of Philadelphia.
.Philadelphia.
The Athletics chased the Eagles all year long, forever in second place
with nary a glimpse at first place all season long. Until now. Now the
Athletics are as close to the going past the Eagles as they were 153
games ago -- and never got as close again. On the first day of the
season Pedro Martinez beat Tom Seaver of the White Sox 3-1, while
Newark and Satchel Paige were shutting out Addie Joss and the Spiders,
5-0. The next day the Athletics lost on a no-hitter by Bert Blyleven,
2-0, despite a 10 K complete game effort by Bob Gibson. That was the
slide into second that never ended. Never again were the Athletics that
close . . . until now. The Wild Card Athletics have been practicing all
season for this one series.
Pittsburgh.
Sister city to Philadelphia. Pittsburgh spent most of the year in first
after chasing down the Mets, capturing the headlines of the
Pennsylvanian sports pages. The Pirates are determined to get the
chance to go on a raiding mission into the Union League by being the
representative team for the Legends League in the World Series. The
Injury Bug was pretty much a foreign port of call for the Pirates, only
losing 6 players all season long for more than a day to imjury. Chief
among them was Chino Smith's 21-day stay on the DL back in April. But
perhaps Gabby Hartnett's collison on the bases scared them more even if
it cost only a 12-day DL price tag. Regardless, all the Pirates are now
fully armed and ready for any skirmish without nary a new bruise among
them.
Now
we get serious about that whole injury thing. I'm sure you were
wondering why I was on an injury kick. The San Francisco Seals have
have been singing some major
injury blues
this season, and the post-season is promising to be just as bad. The
Seals lost 19 players to injuries lasting 4 or more days, 8 of them
lasting between 10 and 38 days. Micky Mantle (.317, 30, 69) collided
with Seattle's Johnny Roseboro at home plate on the 4th of September.
That put
The Mick out of the
playoff picture until far into october, or next season. Also spending
time on the Dl with Mantle right now are Heinie Groh (.346, 2, 10),
Barry Larkin (.294, 7, 31) and Kevin Brown (11-5, 3.25). Mantle, Brown
and Larkin will be sorely missed. Can Moises Alou fill in for Mickey
Mantle?
Another team hit by the injury bug is Toronto. Ivan Rodriguez (.218, 6, 39), the brick wall that put
The Bambino out of action earlier in the year on a play at the plate, is himself out on a home plate collision -- this one with Keokuk's
Sliding Billy Hamilton.
The Blue Jays had bad luck with injuries during the season, losing 17
players for 4 days or more, and 13 of them for 10-25 days. But for the
post-season only 2 are still on the DL: Rodriguez and Eppa Rixey
(4-2-2, 5.95). Hank Gowdy (.275, 4, 10) will be filling in for
I-Rod,
and will be backed up by Bob Boone (.238, 0, 1). It could have been
worse: in the last couple of weeks Catfish Hunter (0-7, 6.61), Curt
Simmons (3-0-1, 3.67), Kazuhisu Inao (1-1, 4.13) and Whitey Ford
(10-7-1, 4.10) all came off the Disabled List.
The
Nationals have only one player on the Disabled List and out for the
series, and that's their outfield gloveman Tony Phillips (.217, 4, 26).
However, they are carrying two players who are not quite ready for
prime time because of injuries suffered. Both Frank Thomas (.249, 21,
64) and Fred Clarke (.366, 6, 27) were hurt on the last days of the
season, and both should be ready to play n the second game of this
playoff series. But they will be unavailable for the first game, no
matter what. Fred McGriff (.295, 20, 73) will cover first base for
The Big Hurt, and Clarke's job will go to
King Kong Keller (.229, 9, 43). Having won the last 10 games of the season to get here, the Nationals are not about to let a couple of
black and blues keep them from the ultimate prize!
So that's the scoop, and this is
Scoops signing off until next time.
