The Underdogs are Winning
That’s what makes baseball so superior to other sports, the likelihood of an upset, of the upstart team to pull off a miracle. Football you can bet on, and in basketball, home court advantage means everything. But in baseball, any given team can win on any given night. In fact, any team can win a series of games despite a relative lack of experience.
That may explain why baseball players are so superstitious, why pitchers inevitably jump to avoid standing on the foul line when they leave the field.
And the sport of baseball is unfolding true to the form in the current American League and National League Championship Series. The Texas Rangers now lead the Yankees three games to one, and the San Franciso Giants lead the Phillies two games to one.
It’s exciting for the home regions involved, where baseball must be on the lips of every San Franciscan and Texan. Non-baseball fans are being introduced to the sport, and new attendees at the ballparks experience the excitement of October baseball, the building of tension and release that has no parallel in any other sport.
Meanwhile, the somewhat jaded fans in New York and Philadelphia shake their heads in disbelief at the affrontery of the upstarts. But there is little they can do. In baseball, you can’t run out the clock, even if you establish a lead in the first place. However, neither series is over until the final out is recorded.
