October 2, 2005 [LINK]
Season ends on sour note
If you're a Nationals fan, you're mad about getting swept by the Phillies (at home, no less!) and finishing the season with a dead even .500 record -- in last place.
If you're a Phillies fan, you're mad that winning the last four games of the season wasn't good enough to qualify for the wild card spot.
If you're a Yankees fan, you're mad that Boston took two out of three games at Fenway, putting the Yanks behind Anaheim in the rankings, thereby losing home-field advantage.
If you're a Red Sox fan, you're mad that finishing the season with the same win-loss record as the Yankees did not entitle your team to a chance to claim the AL East title. (Perhaps the head-to-head record should not by itself be the tie-breaking criterion, but merely decide which team gets home field advantage in a one-game playoff.)
But let's look at the bright side, folks: At least baseball is back in Our Nation's Capital!!!
Let the battle begin!
It seems like every October for the past three years has been more dramatic, more unpredictable, and more amazing than the previous year. Can the baseball championship series this year possibly top what happened last last year??? There is a new separate Postseason scoreboard page, including this year's teams and all the ones for the three previous years. Each year's baseball archives page still has the respective postseason scoreboard at the bottom.
UPDATE: Farewell to Busch (II)
Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, and Mark McGwire* were among the former St. Louis Cardinals players who came to bid adieu to what many people believe to be the most attractive of all the doughnut/cookie cutter-era stadiums, Busch Stadium (the second of three venues to bear that name). Deceased former Cardinal players such as Curt Flood, Roger Maris, Darryl Kile were also honored, as was long-time Cards' announcer Jack Buck. The oval palace will see at least a few more games played in it before it is finally torn down next month. See MLB.com.