the world series

Pretty much the standard complaint against the World Series runs something like this: “It’s not really the World Series, is it? They’re just American teams, man.” Well, maybe, but the players are far from all American. Though I’m reasonably sure most major league franchises are as equally diverse, there still seems something particularly New Yawk about the Mets’ international patchwork.

They’ve got corn-fed submariners named Chad from Jackson, Mississippi and power-hitting scumbags named Paul, from Brooklyn. But they’ve also got players from the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Venezuela. And until the General Manager (also Dominican) traded him for sucking, even a dude from Japan named Kaz who bugged his eyes out at unpredictable moments. (And though he doesn’t technically count as part of the international contingent, I was also quite pleased when they acquired a good Jewish boy named Shawn in the post-All Star Break force-marshalling.)

Baseball is a game of statistics. They exist so one might reasonably compare one player to any other, to find out which one is the Best. The Major League happens to be the league of record. Should the proper business interests establish a franchise in, say, the Dominican Republic, it would likely just become the same melting pot as any other organization. If one’s got an interest in baseball, the United States is where he goes. It’s not globalization, y’understand, it’s baseball. What the hell do you expect? So, the World Series it is.
All of which is to say: LET’S GO METS.