Thursday, October 21, 2004

In about the 8th inning of last night's Sox-Yankees tilt, Fox brought up a graphic showing the "Greatest Upsets In Sports History."

The list included the following shockers:

Sonny Liston beats Floyd Patterson in 1962 (personally, I think they shoulda used Douglas beats Tyson, but oh well)
USA Hockey beats the USSR in Lake Placid
1969's "Amazin Mets"
Villanova beats Georgetown in the 1984 NCAAs

..and a couple that I can't recall off the top of my head.

But then they have the audacity to add the Red Sox knocking off the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. This may have been one of the greatest comebacks in sports history (right up there with the Bills knocking off Waren Moon's Oilers back in 1992), but it's hardly an upset.

The Boston Red Sox are NOT underdogs. Yes, the Yankees' total payroll is 182 million, but guess who's in second? Boston, at 125 million. With the exception of home runs, Boston led the AL in every offensive stat during the 2004 regular season. SIDE NOTE: Believe it or not, my beloved Pale Hose tied the Yankees for the long ball lead this past year with 242. Boston ends up 4th. Still, the top 2 HR hitters in thr AL both play for Boston. These same guys (Ramirez and Ortiz) also finished 2nd and 3rd in RBI. Johnny Damon led the league in runs scored. By all accounts, the teams were pretty evenly matched. In fact, even baseball writers not named Gammons were actually picking the Red Sox to win the pennant. So how they did it is indeed very surprising, and shows a ton of heart and guts but the fact they did it should come as no shock at all.

Last night I spent 6 hours trying to figure out how to burn DVDs from downloaded TV shows. I finally did it. Yay!