Another lackluster World Series

Sunday, October 28, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry

If you love baseball, then you appreciate the relentlessness of the Red Sox hitters, the brilliance of Josh Beckett, the passion of Dustin Pedroia and Jonathan Papelbon and Kevin Youkilis. In Game 3, Daisuke Matsuzaka's remarkable athleticism came into play, in the field, and at the plate. You appreciate the fact that the Red Sox have grown to expect to win in the way the Reds expected to win in the '70s, and the Yankees did in the late '90s.

You love the fact that casual fans are getting their first real look at Troy Tulowitzki, a guy who is going to be a star for the next 15 years, and at Matt Holliday. You love the fact that another fan base is getting its first taste of the World Series.

But there's no getting around this: All in all, the World Series stinks. As a competition, it's awful, and generally, this has been the case for the last decade, since the Marlins won the thrilling 1997 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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