World Series

Last night saw another big baseball "curse" lifted as the Chicago White Sox won 1-0 in the fourth game to take the world series with a sweep over the offensively poor Houston Astros. This was only my second year paying any kind of attention to baseball, after watching the Red Sox come though in amazing, record breaking style against the Yankees and then the world series last season. Being a little more familiar with the game made it much more interesting to watch and right from game one I was hooked on the drama of it all and the complex tactics of both sides. I was pretty much neutral but had a feeling the Sox were the stronger team and so it proved. The highlight of the four nights had to be Scott Podsednik getting an unlikely home run in the bottom of the ninth in game two - without that the series probably would have gone on longer and I'd be up all night again tonight with game 5. But not to be. The Sox were worthy winners and the Astros were gallant losers - in all it was just a terrific spectacle for sports fans. OK game four was a bit of an anti-climax and not so exciting being primarily a shootout between the pitchers but the preceding three games were all thrilling in one way or another - game 3 perhaps most of all as it became the longest game in world series history at 5 hours and 41 minutes and lasting 14 innings! I have to take my hat off to channel Five, who have covered American sports in Britain for a decade now - their coverage was superb, including the 2 guys in the studio and their very funny banter. Credit to them for staying on air till 7:30am for game 3 and for a memorable experience. Don't know that I'll ever become devoted to a particular team or even follow the regular season too closely next year, but for the world series at least I can say I will never miss it again - If only for the reason that this is a sport that positively encourages facial hair! This is a game with tremendous history and a great deal of soul and I love it! Go Chicago... Kx