World Series – Holy Cow! Rangers at Cardinals in Game 7 Tonight

The World Series – holy cow. Frank Doyle on the continuing magic of baseball as the world awaits Game 7 between Texas and St Louis.

Baseball. Every year we see signs of its decline. The NFL takes on the World Series and wins. Soccer is more popular among American kids. There are too many overseas players in the Major Leagues. Ball players have steroids with their Sugar Puffs for breakfast. Yada yada yada.

And then a World Series like this one breaks out and everybody is reminded of what makes baseball such an incredible game in the first place. It’s like James Earl Jones says in Field of Dreams: “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

And we saw that again last night. People who haven’t watched the game for years found themselves drawn in, enthralled by every pitch, gripped tighter and tighter by the unfolding narrative. It wasn’t a well played game but that’s not the point. That’s not even close to the point.

No game has as many grace notes as baseball. No game provides so rich a drama, or where the margin between success and failure so is exquisitely drawn as the game where you have to hit a round ball with a round bat.

Every grace note the game has was sounded last night and in the games that have gone before in this magical World Series, building to the crescendo of David Freese’s walk-off homer in the 11th that saved the Cardinals and set us up for a Game 7 that is the very definition of Appointment TV.

The pitching duel tonight features the Rangers’ Matt Harrison against the Cardinals’ veteran Chris Carpenter. Carpenter wouldn’t even be able to pitch if he hadn’t got an extra day’s rest because of the rain delay that postponed Game 6 – that’s how closely the karmic wheels are turning in this Fall Epic.

The Cardinals are a -140 MLB betting home favorite and there’s live betting all the way right here with Sports Interaction. And to whet the appetite while we’re waiting, here’s that famous scene referred to above from Field of Dreams. Tell us again about base ball, James Earl.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ1dZhh0_RQ[/youtube]

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