Conventional Wisdom takes a hit

Friday, October 27, 2006 | Feedback | Print Entry

To say Conventional Wisdom has had a bad month is like saying that Albert Pujols is a good hitter or that the weather during the World Series hasn't been great or that the Detroit pitchers could be a little better defensively. The Conventional Wisdom has been awful. The Conventional Wisdom has been so bad we might as well call it Conventional Ignorance.

The CW on the Tigers coming out of the regular season was they were done, they were cooked. They had lost 31 of their last 50 games, gotten swept by the Kansas City Royals in the last weekend, staggered to the finish line, blown the AL Central on the last day of the regular season. The CW was that they had no chance to beat the Yankees.

And now the Tigers are playing in the World Series.  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

    Follow Buster on Twitter: @Buster_ESPN

    Ask Buster a question: Buster's Mailbag

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