Boston Red Sox - 2007 World Champions

At the entrance of Fenway Park they have a series of old ticket booths repurposed as display cases, this is the one dedicated to the last Red Sox World Championship in 2007.

There is the Papelbon Jersey in there, and a fair amount of Josh Beckett - The bat is from Dustin Pedroia.

Congrats to the BoSox - 2013 World Series Champs

2013 WS Game 6: 2013 Topps #527 Carlos Beltran

It has been noted that the St Louis Cardinals are up against a bit of history as they hit the Road to face the Red Sox in Boston for game 6 (and possibly 7) of the 2013 World Series.

Several sports outlets have noted the last team to take games 6 and 7 on the road is the 1979 Pirates. One knows that is a long time ago - #1 because the Pirates were involved and #2 The calendar tells us that it has been 33 years.

There is a bit of an illusion in that 33 years. The Cardinals aren’t really up against a phenomenon that only occurs once every three decades – Not all World Series find the Away team down 3-2 after 5.

2013 Carlos Beltran #527 Carlos Beltran (Green Parallel)

Lets take a look at what Carlos Beltran and the Cardinals are up against. Since the Pirates 1979 comeback v the Orioles there have been six teams that faced the same odds as the Cardinals (down 3-2 needing 2 Road Wins). A closer look at those teams provides the following:

As you can see the team that came the closest to the double road gm comeback was the 1997 Indians. In fact they came within a Save opportunity by Jose Mesa of being World Champs. The other 5 contenders all bowed out in game 6 - with 2 of those 5 being Phillies teams, including the Joe Carter game.

To me it is worth noting if you have 2 evenly matched teams the odds of either one winning back/back games is 1 in 4. The down 3-2 on the road scenario has only happend 6 times. This leads me down the small sample route - it hasn't happened in 33 years simply because it the opportunity doesn't occur that often (except to the Phillies). A probability person may conjecture that the Cardinals Winning the 2013 World Series is expected, it is just evening out the odds (or returning to the mean)

2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 
Adam Wainwright
Orlando Cepeda


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino

Carl Yastrzemski
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
baseball-ref.com 

2013 WS Game 5: 2013 Topps Chrome #43 Adam Wainwright (Orange Parallel)

The 2013 World Series is now down to a best of three. I am not sure that it is a classic, but there sure have been some oddities notably and overturned call and an obstruction ruling,

2013 Topps Chrome #43 Adam Wainwright (Orange Parallel)

In game 5 Adam Wainwright will be hoping for a better start then he had in Game 1. The Cardinals defense didn't help Wainwright, and he was hurt by the overturned call.  Regardless if those issues crop up tonight he will need to find a way out of the jams.    

2013 Topps Chrome Orange 
The last few years Topps Chrome has offered "Value" packs which are basically three 4-card packs with three Orange Parallel cards.  This is one of the orange parallels that I picked up in the single value pack that I picked up a few weeks back.
 
2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 

Orlando Cepeda


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino

Carl Yastrzemski
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
baseball-ref.com 

2013 WS Game 1: 1975 Topps #205 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda

I wanted to find a card that combined the BoSox and Cardinals and was very happy to find this beauty.

1975 Topps #205 1967 MVPs Yastrzemski & Cepeda (image swiped from baseball card database)


The 75T MVPs is one of the most fun subsets in the Topps canon. It marks both the 25th anniversary of Topps and the MVPs of each of those seasons.  In 1967 the MVPs were Yaz and Orlando Cepeda pictured here on the minimalist 67T Design.

Recent MVP discussion appear to come down to discussion of various traditional stats vs the single WAR stat.  Tonight I would like to examine the WAR numbers for these two future HoF players during their 67 MVP seasons - which was the only MVP for each. 

Yaz
Working from Left to Right we start with Yastrzemski.  He won the AL Triple Crown in 1967 and collected an astounding WAR of 12.41.  The 12.41 WAR is the highest single season number for anyone in the history of the game that is not named Babe Ruth. Yes Yaz won the Triple Crown and he had the 4th highest WAR in history, but he didn't get voted MVP unanimously.  Cesar Tovar received a single #1 vote for his 2.44 WAR season - I have no idea.    

Orlando Cepeda
Of course in a year when Carl Yastrzemski puts together one of the greatest seasons in history and doesn't get a unanimous MVP, Orlando Cepeda collected all 20 MVP first place votes in the NL Balloting. Cepeda had a very good year, but not historic. His 6.80 WAR was 5th among vote getters - Ron Santo led the league at 9.77. Cepada led the league in RBI (111) and finished 3rd in OBP (.399)

MLB 1967
Finally it should be noted that in 1967 the Cardinals and Red Sox met in the World Series. Yaz hit 3 Homers and batted .400 in the Series.  Cepeda collected 3 hits total and batted .103.  But baseball is a cruel game Yaz and the Red Sox lost to the Cardinals - Bob Gibson won 3 complete games giving up 3 ER across those starts.   

Other Voices
Night Owl Cards - 2010 posting from the NOC 75 Topps retrospective. Contains some interesting observation on 67T and notes that Orlando Cepeda's MVP season was his first with the Cardinals.   

2013 PostSeason Cardinals
Matt Adams
Lance Lynn
Michael Wacha 


2013 PostSeason Red Sox
Clay Buchholz
David Ortiz
Dustin Pedroia 
Shane Victorino
Jose Iglesias (Now with Tigers)

Sources
Phungo HOF Orlando Cepeda Index
Phungo HOF Carl Yastrzemski Index 
baseball Card Database
baseball-ref.com