Was Mike Piazza one of the best defensive catchers ever? How does catcher defense age? What effect do managers have on their pitching staffs, and do former catchers really make the best skippers? And how good was Leo Mazzone, really?
“I could imagine it in my dreams, but I never thought I’d do it until now. It helped take the tension down a little bit for us, but games aren’t won in the first or second inning. They’re won in the ninth inning.” –Barry Bonds, Giants outfielder, on homering in his first World Series at-bat
Welcome to the presentation of the first batch of results from the 11th Annual Internet Baseball Awards. Today we present the Manager of the Year winners.
So here we are, in the “underdog” series, in no small part because this series is the one featuring the two American League playoff teams that New Yorkers don’t know about. One team wasn’t supposed to be able to beat the Yankees, and the other wasn’t supposed to beat the team that was supposed to beat the Yankees. Dominant provincialism is so cute, isn’t it?
The scene outside Edison Field Saturday following the Angels’ first playoff series win in its 42 years of existence was unlike any I’d ever seen.
This is a match-up of opposites in many ways, not the least being the teams’ post-season histories. The Yankees have won the World Series 26 times, including four of the past six years. To achieve a similar level of dominance, the Angels would have had to win 10 championships in their 41 years of existence. Instead, they enter the playoffs with the most meager post-season tradition of any Divisional Series participant, with three first-round exits in as many tries.