The baseball season has officially been over for slightly more than a week, and I think I’m already starting to have withdrawals. I enjoyed the hell out of the postseason (even wrote an article about it) even though the World Series was kind of like having a hangover after the LCS’s; You know you have to function and take care of business, but it’s hard to focus. To feed my addiction, I figured I would review the 2003 baseball season with my own special flare.

Freakin Florida wins it all

Really, what more can I see about this team that was managed by someone older than the game itself? They got hot at the right time, pulled a resurrection against the Cubs that would make the messiah proud, found themselves down 2-1 against the might Yankees and then went ahead and won 3 in a row. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

I saw this team play against the Dodgers towards the end of May. If you would have told me that they would go on to win the World Series back then, I would have thought you need to be locked at that joint that Michael Myers spent his formative years in. The hitless wonders, AKA the Los Angeles Dodgers, had just spent the weekend sweeping the mighty Marlins. Maybe the old man (Jack McKeon) knew something we didn’t back then, but he sure as hell wasn’t telling anyone either.

Sausage Racing Fun

Was there a bigger non-story in baseball this year? I think it almost got as much press as the "Kobe incident" did when it happened. Maybe Randall had a flashback to some previous at bat and thought the sausage was one of those high fastballs that he just can’t seem to lay off. Is there a pitch that this dude doesn’t try to hit? Somehow he swings at everything (including sausages) and still doesn’t strike out. Is that humanly possible?

The story should have been over when the girl who got hit said that she thought it was pretty funny. Thanks to our media though, it turned into the sausage incident that wouldn’t die. I’m surprised that someone hasn’t turned the incident into some cheesy porn movie. Then again, with a bat and a sausage involved, I don’t think I would partake in that one. Not that there is anything wrong with it of course.

Corky Sosa

Sammy started the season out on the right foot, by belting his 500th homerun. Everything was looking pretty good until he got beaned in the head and cracked his helmet. Shortly after the beaning, he got an ouchie to his big toe. Things weren’t looking good for the mighty Sammy, so he decided to take things into his own hands.

In a big mishap, Sammy “mistakenly” took a corked bat with him up to the plate and hit a dribbler off his bat, making it break and exposing to world to Cork Gate 2003. I don’t believe Sammy’s story that he took the bat by mistake, because I think the dude was scuffling a bit a decided he needed an edge. Regardless of that, I was willing to cut Sammy a break. I’m sure Sammy is happy to know that Shortstick was willing to cut him a break, but given his attitude he shows towards the fans and the joy that he seems to play with, the dude almost deserves us looking past this little discretion. I will remember that magical summer of ’98 much more vividly because of Sammy. I’m going to choose to block out the corking incident and think good thoughts. Besides, he should do the Youngmanridge thing and stay away from cork. Remember kids, the best wine comes in big jugs that have no corks. We really, really like the big jugs part.

Other Stuff that Happened but I didn't want to write a long time about it

I don’t want to spend a long time on these things, so I’ll just go through a quick run down of other cool stuff that happened during the season.

• Rocket gets his 300th win. To follow it up, he pitches well in his last season and while he isn’t the same Rocket of even 2 or 3 years ago, he goes out as a pitcher who still had a pretty good season and could probably pitch a couple of more years, albeit not at the same level. Not many athletes get a chance to go out when there is still a little something left in the tank. I think the only reason for him to come back would be to try and behead Mike Piazza, but it might be a tad bit excessive, even for the Rocket.

• If it wasn’t for the Viagra ads, would anyone know that Rafael Palmeiro was still playing? I’m serious about this. He just goes out every year, hits a bunch of bombs, swallows some of his special little blue “friends”, and before we know it, he has 500 homeruns. I’m having a really, really “hard” time trying to lay off the Viagra jokes. Not that there is anything wrong with Erectile Dysfunction (except for the whole limp noodle thing) and I am sure that lots of dudes have it, but did Palmeiro really need an extra million or so a year to tell everyone in America that he can’t get it up?

• Um, the all-star game wasn’t really a cool thing, mostly cause one of my guys blew the save, but why oh why did an exhibition game determine home field advantage for the World Series? I understand the powers that be (that would be the Bud “Lurch” Selig) wanted to spice up the game, but like any baseball game, sometimes its good and sometimes it sucks. I give Lurch credit for at least getting the players to take it more seriously, I just don’t like the way he went about it. I was going to bitch about it some more, but it’s a moot point with the Marlins winning the series and all.

  PS – The game was actually pretty good this year. I don’t want to sound like sour grapes or anything of the sort.

I could have written way more about the stuff that happened during the baseball season this year, but I just needed a quick little hit to feed the addiction (and the article was getting kind of long anyways). Remember boys and girls, there are only a few months until pitchers and catchers report. Until then, I’ll probably write more articles about baseball to keep feeding the addiction.