Suspect Series Ends With No Suspense

So now that the 2006 World Series has ended, tell the truth - did you even care?

Two teams that collapsed near the end of the season, one who lost their division title that they'd led at one point by a double digit margin and the other who nearly lost their division and an appearance in the postseason with a nose dive that, bar their unlikely entry into the World Series, would have been called one of the biggest chokes of all-time.

That's right, the Tigers against the Cardinals as a World Series produced all that one would suspect for two teams that received deservedly little respect going in; a half-hearted, stumbling but hardly surprising outcome watched by record low television audiences, one poor team beating another poorer team whilst the poorer team came apart at the seams.

That the new World Champion Cardinals won a mere 83 games this regular season is hardly news. Fewest ever by a World Series champion. They won 11 more when it counted and they are the "World" Champions (even though they won't face the WBC Champion Japan) hardly makes them immortal although certainly Tony La Russa deserves mention now in the All-Time pantheon of baseball managers. Oddly enough, La Russa was the winning manager for another anticlimactic World Series, the A's v Giants after the big earthquake in 86.

There was no great earthquake to interrupt the 2006 World Series, just a one-game rain out but if there had been it's likely that few people outside of Detroit and St Louis would have bothered watching the end once it resumed.

Yes, sour grapes for New York fans, one of whom was knocked out by the AL Champ and the other by the NL Champ.

But you have to admit, a bad team beating a worse team is hardly the stuff of immortality.

Time to put the 2006 season, immemorable as it has been, in the back of the closet and hope that 2007 will be more interesting.