The Post-Season

Major League Baseball in the USA is heading towards the World Series, currently four teams are battling it out in the League Championship Series (LCS) to determine who will move on to the Fall Classic.* This is my first post-season where I am following almost exclusively via news reports and blogs. I would be able to watch or listen to the games, except for the time difference and that our Internet connection is not fast enough (or reliable enough) to follow.**

* I started writing this piece just as the LCS started, so at the time there were four teams. I put this piece aside until this morning and the news reports that the Texas Rangers have defeated the Yankees. This is the first time Texas is going to the World Series. Congratulations

* Of course, that my favorite team, the New York Mets, have been mired in a few year slump and are not in the post-season gives me less motivation to seek out and watch. I am pulling for both Texas and the Giants so as to spare another New York-Philly World Series, which is the worst possible of all possibilities.

I do miss baseball very much (even with the Mets being out of things) and because of this I went ahead and purchased the Ken Burns PBS series Baseball through iTunes. It is nice because it does include the latest episode as well. I recall seeing parts of the series when it first aired in 1994, at that time I was living in Honolulu, Hawaii and I felt lucky if I could see an episode here or there. I have never really watched the whole thing. I generally like the series and I think baseball history is a great topic.*

* I like the series even though I am aware that folks have pointed out numerous errors with it. I can live with the mistakes generally, well I am happy to overlook them. I've noticed a few of them, but what I have picked up on doesn't really diminish things.

Watching some of the early episodes makes me wish it were possible to go back and watch some of the old players in their prime playing the game. It would be fantastic to see Cobb, Ruth, Mathewson, Robinson, Mays, Arron all in their prime. I am happy that so much of the recent history of the game has been preserved, it is possible to go back and watch many games played in the last 40-50 years.*

* It would be nice if I could to do this on my computer over a fast network here in Kenya. The fast network being the big problem.

So even though I cannot watch much of the playoffs, I am managing to get my fill of baseball. It will tied me over until next season, who knows by then we may actually have enough bandwidth for me to watch the games live and online.