The Columnist Manifesto

Part 2 of 2: The Wrong Story

One of the delights of post-season baseball is the way the each series seems to take on elements of a narrative. Each series has a story in itself and is part of the longer unfolding story of that season. Vin Scully, one of the greatest baseball broadcasters ever, was perhaps the most adept at finding and bringing out the story in a series -- even in a single game. Bob Costas, in his more studied, corporate way, developed that skill fairly well too.

Usually, the broadcasters plant the seeds for several story lines and then wait and see what develops. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver have embarrassed themselves -- and demonstrated what I call Exhibit A in my charge that they are showing their pro-Cardinals rooting interest -- by jumping prematurely on the wrong story.

The Cardinals bullpen had shut down the Padres in the Divisional Series, and by the end of game 2 of the Mets-Cardinals NLCS, Buck and McCarver had unveiled their choice for "the story" of this series: "The Ironic Bullpen Switcheroo."

In this story, the Mets bullpen, best in baseball for the entire season, finally breaks down from overwork, while the Cardinals bullpen shines. We are told how genius manager Tony LaRussa, like the Wizard of Oz, created a bullpen out of nothing by magically transforming some old uniforms stuffed with straw into living relief pitchers.

McCarver and, especially, Buck have been all over this story, gleefully highlighting it with stats about how the Mets bullpen was blowing itself out by making twice as many pitches as the Cardinals, who as of the end of Game 3 had still "not given up a single earned run."

But the actual facts suggested the story was exaggerated. In Game 1, a 2-0 contest with the only runs coming on Carlos Beltran's home run off the Cardinals' starter Jeff Weaver, neither bullpen gave up any runs. Same in game 3, where Darren Oliver came out of the Mets pen to throw 6 shutout innings after Mets starter and wimp extraordinaire, Steve Trachsel, melted down.

The entire case for this great story line was the failure of the Mets bullpen to hold the lead in Game 2. Ugly, to be sure, but a trend?

Anyway, then came Game 4, in which Buck and McCarver ended up with so much egg on their faces that they will not need to eat breakfast until after the World Series. Genius manager Tony LaRussa went to his unhittable bullpen in the 5th inning, with the game tied 2-2. After three innings of work, the Mets put up 10 more runs.

So what's that Cardinals' bullpen earned run average now? (Answer: 7.50, up a tick from 0.00.)

You gotta wait for the story to unfold. My two leading contenders are (1) "how the Mets won the pennant with one Major League-caliber starting pitcher" and (2) why is Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan content to live out his professional coaching life in Tony LaRussa's shadow? Speaking of Homers, I see Duncan as a sort of "Smithers" to LaRussa's "Mr. Burns."

But I'm not committing to either of these story lines yet. Still a lot of baseball left to be played.