By Harrison Leone
Sports Assignment Editor
Heroes are born in the frosty nights of October. From the morning dew of spring training, six months of baseball boils down to a mere seven games.
Six months of Chris Davis’ coming out party, the Yasiel Puig show in Los Angeles and Max Scherzer’s total domination of the American League. Six months of Clayton Kershaw’s once-in-a-generation season, of turbid Biogenesis scandals and the semi-comedic Alex Rodriguez sideshow. All of that is in the rear view mirror now, to be entered into the record books and churned through the SABRE-metrician’s calculators for further evaluation.
The only games left to play will be split between St. Louis’ Busch Stadium and Boston’s Fenway Park, with the Cardinals and the Red Sox dueling for baseball’s most coveted prize. By Halloween at the latest, all will be decided and the king of the major leagues will be crowned.
It does not often happen that the best two teams of a sport’s regular season survive the gauntlet of playoff competition to reach the championship game, but that is exactly what baseball fans will be treated to in this iteration of the World Series.
Both St. Louis and Boston played their way to a 97-65 record, tied for best in the majors and atop their respective leagues. There are no Cinderella stories or upstart franchises to be found this October; all that remains are two of baseball’s oldest and most successful franchises – the behemoths of each league who are going toe-to-toe in a throwback Fall Classic.
This marks the third time the Red Sox and the Red Birds will meet in the World Series, with St. Louis claiming the title in 1946 and 1967 and the Red Sox completing their improbable 2004 postseason with a four-game sweep.
The teams rank among the sport’s most storied and accomplished, with St. Louis claiming 18 pennants and 11 championships in their 113-year history while the Red Sox have six titles and 10 pennants to their franchise credit since 1900. Both teams have fielded consistently strong teams in recent seasons, with St. Louis winning the World Series in 2006 and 2011 and Boston winning in 2007.
For all their past and recent achievements, the teams are both led by managers who are coaching in their first World Series. Mike Matheny of the Cardinals is in his second year of managerial duties, taking over the position in the St. Louis dugout of surefire future Hall-of-Famer Tony LaRussa. Matheny, who was forced to end his playing career seven years ago as a result of lingering concussion symptoms, has filled LaRussa’s shoes admirably, leading the Cardinals to consecutive playoff appearances and 185 wins over his first two seasons.
Red Sox manager John Farrell spent the past two seasons toiling in Toronto before being brought into Boston to clean up the debacle of the short-lived Bobby Valentine era that saw the Sox lose 93 games for the first time in more than four decades. Matheny and Farrell now get the opportunity to showcase their strategies and keen baseball acumen on the game’s greatest stage.
The series features some of the game’s top talents, both on the mound and at the plate. The Cardinals pitching staff is led by veteran Adam Wainwright, a perennial Cy Young candidate who pitched his way to 19 victories and a sub-3.00 ERA during the regular season.
The youthful arms of the St. Louis rotation stand to be their strongest asset in the Series. The 21-year-old Michael Wacha has been an unexpected phenom in the later stages of the season and recently outpitched the game’s best pitcher (the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw) to clinch the National League Championship Series. He is joined by fellow wunderkind Shelby Miller, who is all of 22 years old and the proud owner of the team’s second-best ERA.
The Red Sox sport more familiar faces on the hill during the Series. Fan favorites and year-long studs Jon Lester and Clay Bucholz, who combined for a 27-9 regular season record, are the workhorses of the Boston staff and need to provide top-tier performances for Beantown in the series.
The Sox ace in the hole, however, is Japanese import Koji Uehara. The 38-year-old closer has been nothing short of unhittable since April, and his dominance of late-game situations effectively makes any ninth-inning lead for the Red Sox a guaranteed victory.
These pitchers need to employ every weapon in their arsenals if they hope to keep the bats quiet in this series. Cardinal Carlos Beltran continues to build on his historic post season resume, slugging three home runs and driving in 14 runs this October. Beltran is protected in the lineup by the game’s best offensive catcher, Yadier Molina, power-hitting outfielder Matt Holliday and the hero of 2011’s World Series, third baseman David Freese.
The Red Sox sport one of the game’s most bearded, brash and brazen lineups. The Boston offense is anchored by two of the most popular players in franchise history, David Ortiz and 2008 MVP Dustin Pedroia. The supporting cast of the Red Sox is as fearsome as any, with Mike Napoli, in his first year at Fenway, and local favorite Jacoby Ellsbury adding power and speed to the team’s offensive dynamic.
For all its potential glory, the Fall Classic, unfortunately, is not always so classic. For every Game 6 Joe Carter walk-off, for every “here comes Knight, and the Mets win it!” for every Don Larsen perfect game, there are the back-to-back four-game sweeps of 2004 and 2005, the 83-win Cardinals sneaking into a championship in 2006 and the ’89 A’s never trailing to their cross-town rivals, the Giants, in their own four-game sweep.
When the World Series is great, it’s spectacular; when the World Series is bad, it borders on the unwatchable. Here’s hoping 2013 provides all the drama, thrills and cheers America’s pastime is capable of as either the Red Sox or the Cardinals complete their ascension the top of the baseball world.
