As I sit here in the quiet aftermath of what some are calling one of “The Greatest Games in Baseball History”, I struggle to gather and arrange my thoughts in a sensible manner.  In an ending which looked everything like the prolific template all of us expect October baseball to be, the Cardinals composed a three act, come-from-behind victory to force a Game 7 against the Rangers tonight in St. Louis.

 At first I was skeptical of these grandeur claims. It doesn’t take a genius to know that the institution of Major League Baseball is not where it used to be. A dwindling fan base, unbalanced markets, and performance-enhancing illegal substance abuse have continuously held back the growth and reputation of the League in the 2000’s.  The quick manner in which this game was thrown into the celestial pecking order of “The Greatest Baseball Games Ever”, screams desperation to me. 

 The same way I was skeptical when the pundits called the final day of the regular season this year the “greatest singular day in regular season baseball history…”, when the entirety of America got to pretend the Orioles tasting momentary success by fucking the Red Sox was a momentous and historical occasion. For a sport who’s image and pulse have been drowning in the waves of their conservative traditions, claims such as these are panicked gasps for air that are losing credence as their frequency grows.  Be ready and prepared for the 2012 season’s Opening Day to be “The Greatest Opening Day in the Rich and Magnificent History of Baseball”.

 But like a familiar Phoenix, rising from the ashes of million dollar contracts and the Mitchell report, everything that is sacred, pure, and entertaining about Baseball was on display Thursday evening.  For a moment, the entirety of the 162 game, 7 month season seemed appropriately compressed into a back and forth dialogue of brilliance and resilience by both clubs involved.

 But if Game 6 has already etched itself into the history of the MLB, how will Game 7 follow it? How can Game 7 follow it?  If the last day of this year’s regular season was the greatest in the League’s near 200-year-old history, can I expect similar fireworks in 2012? Can I expect the playoffs following it to be equally as engaging? For many reasons, these sound and feel like claims rooted more in giddy excitement than reason or fact.  When you build up passing moments such as these to mean so much, than the acts that follow bear the burden of playing a game of catch up that they usually never win.

 Football federations and correspondents all over the world seem to avoid these majestic and conclusive claims of “greatness” in relation to singular soccer games, for one glaring reason: this drama is expected.  The Premiership in particular, though lacking a playoff style system, is the best example of a league that has perfected the art of “final day of the season” drama.  In so many ways it is the calculated distribution of points amongst 20 clubs over 380 games that boils down to attaining a tie or win on the final match day, either excruciatingly difficult or serendipitously magnificent.  It is the teams at the bottom of the table that generate the trademark moments for every Premiership season, as the eventual league champion has usually set themselves apart several points from the rest by the last match day. 

Imagine how much sicker it would’ve have been if Baltimore was playing Boston not only to keep the Red Sox out of the playoffs, but also to keep their spot in the AL East. Meaning a loss would make them spend their next season in AAA. Getting laughed at. Making no cash money. Hating life. If the nations’ MLB fans raving about these end of the season fireworks were familiar with the Premiership, than they would probably have orgasmic convulsions on the final day of every EPL season. What a mess!  Using this lens, the institutions of soccer and baseball appear as the antitheses of one another, especially in the context of each games rules, structure, and culture.

 But what is beautiful about the galaxy of sports is finding similarities and perspective between planets that are oblivious to one another’s existence.  Like Steven Hawking listlessly searching the black void of space’s emptiness for signs and occurrences which will help us decipher our own existence, bridging gaps between sports that represent each other’s polar opposites, taps into the primal thread that links every competition together; the space where human nature and technical execution meet in the cross hairs of a structured game. From NASCAR to Croquet, Basketball to Golf, Bowling to Hot Dog Eating, and Soccer to Baseball, each juxtaposition carries a shared, implicit code of homogeneity with its opposite. No matter how hard to see, or unbelievable each connection may be.

 World Football Daily’s Friday show pits itself at the intersection of two sporting planets, and what better person than the Oakland A’s and Major League Baseball’s Billy Beane, to help us navigate our way through the intergalactic highways of sport, and discuss both the spaces that divide, and the threads which link Footy and Baseball to one another?  Beane is within his own sport, considered an anomaly and outlier. His practice of Sabermetrics in the 1990’s redefined the way people approach General Management and the methods for building a roster in Major League Baseball.

 And not surprisingly, Mr. Beane ultimately fulfills his image as a conundrum within the MLB, as he is a die-hard soccer fan and regular listener of and premium subscriber to World Football Daily.  The most glaring difference between the two sporting institutions, as Beane points out, is the pace at which both games are played.  Baseball ‘s rhythm is staccato, having continuous START and STOP breaks in the game play where the probabilities tied into the numerical outcome, or “Success” of the game, change after every break in play.  Soccer conversely is a free flowing sport, where tactics are exchanged at a faster and more rapid pace. Even though the rhythm of the game can at times seem slow, the probabilities are dealt with in quick passing moments, almost blending them together and making these expectations obsolete.

 Sophie and Robert ask the question, despite the differences in the two sports’ rhythms, can the application of  “metrics” in football yield positive and conclusive results, as they did so visibly for Beane and Co. in Oaktown? As Billy so calmly educates and impresses at the same time, he tells them to remember: “Stats and metrics are different.”  There seems to be, more so in soccer than baseball, “X-Factors” found within certain players that don’t materialize into visible stats of positive production, but still constitute that player extremely valuable to each coach or manager’s winning game plan.  In a way, Billy explains, these “X-Factors” are the things Sabremetrics looks to measure and keep track of.

 Great minds such as Mr. Beane’s, helped inch along the slow yet inevitable evolution of baseball, a sport, which very much like soccer, is rooted to its traditions, in at times detrimental ways. Maybe an Oakland A’s type, statistical revolution is all domestic footy here in America needs in order to explode. Or maybe it is Billy Beane buying the San Jose Earthquakes. Just a thought!  The work and interests of galactic sporting explorers and pioneers such as Billy, will continually bridge the interstellar gap that has for so long set baseball and soccer apart.  Perhaps the application of “metrics” in football will only bring these distant planets a couple millimeters closer and more acquainted with one another, as they float on in the comforting black emptiness that is the universe of sports.

 Check out the amazing time we spent with Mr. Billy Bean on today’s show, along with countless other tasty nuances of world football. I am, in honor of the MLB, officially calling this “The Greatest Blog Entry in the History of 2011 Blogs”. Now we’ll see how my next piece sizes up to this one...uh oh....Until next time….

Your friend and teammate,

Luke Van Patten