9/27 -

Ouch.

The Sox got swept in the Baby Boss Crib; allowing the Pinstripes to clinch the division all up in their faces. You may not think this series matters. You and Tito. Well, both of you are wrong. This set may mean more than we will know until late in October.

The Boys of B needed to take one in the Bronx just to show they could. And they didn’t. Baseball is more than Bill James and the third number after the decimal. It turns on instinct as much as it does on percentages. The glory of Moneyball was/is that it reconfigured the understanding of the relationship between guts and stats. Theo rode that reconfiguration like a miner’s mule all the way to WS gold, and it was good.

BUT.

Gut didn’t disappear amidst the spreadsheet trickery. Baseball remains a sport built on, and beloved for, it’s superstitions and quirks. It is a game where confidence will always play into the equation, where the imperceptible is manifest daily. And in the post this goes triple. Ask Billy Beane. Read Moneyball. Kneeling before this year’s Abstract might get you to the post, but once you are there no geek with a 3G connection in his pocket will do you any good.

The Sox got swept by the Yanks in the Bronx, they lost the season series after an eight game head start, and they’ll carry that extra weight like an underfed jockey into the ALCS, should they make it that far.

Isn’t a 40-70 million payroll advantage every year enough of a handicap?

We’re just sayin’

Yours in baseball.

Dante & Todd Bisson

Categories: 2009 Season