A Bunch of Turkeys... And a Fat Old One

The Atlanta Braves, once again the division winners, once again knocked out in the first round of the playoffs. Talk about turkeys. Once again, to the Houston Astros. Once again, Joey Devine serves up a gopher ball. The fat bastard Roger "Anal Rocket" Clemens (now thats a turkey; literally) won the game, pitching 3 scoreless innings in relief of Dan Wheeler (naturally). The infamous broken bat thrower of Mike Piazza and bean ball thrower to the head to Mike Piazza pitched his first relief appearance since his rookie year in 1984 with the Boston Red Sox. Seems that the Astros made it further than the Padres who had a worse record, the Braves (now we all know that don't we?), the Red Sox with 95 wins, and possibly the Skankees of the Bronx. Chris Burke, probably the last consideration for a walk-off home run in the Astros' most important game of the year, did it. Mets fans remember this man also. Chris Burke hit a home run against Pedro Martinez on June 7 of this year, to break up a no-hit bid by Pedro, and the juggernaut hit his first career homer against him. As I am happy the Astros beat the Braves, I don't like them much either. It seemed that when the Mets lost the next 2 to the Astros in that very series, they just awoke from the doldrums to once again take out the Bravos in the 2005 NLDS. And remember when the Mets played the Oakland Athletics on June 14, the A's were doing horrible. They were 25-37 before the game, and wouldn't you know it, after that series, they just turned it on, finishing with an 88-74 record.

We look back on the lone World Series the Braves won during the 14 division titles in a row. Only 144 games were played that year, and in the World Series, the Braves (90-54) faced off against the Indians (100-44). In the final game of the series, the Braves won 1-0, on the back of Tom Glavine's greatest performance of his career. 8 innings, 1 hit, and the World Series MVP.

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I'm not sure which playoff game I was watching, but the only active player to play the most games without a playoff appearance, is of course someone on the Mets. And that man is the only other 10-5 player on the Mets (well after the World Series... close enough)... and that is Stephen Christopher Trachsel of Oxnard, CA, one of the most reliable Mets starters of years past, but on some pretty bad teams. Sorry Steve... if you stick around this year, I think that streak will end in about a year.