Of Closeness and Cigars

The celebrated line separating close from cigar has come into high-definition focus as the league championship series wind down.

For Boston the chance to take a puff or two seemed completely out of reach a mere three days ago. Down 3 – 0 to the Yankees, the Red Sox have already defied gravity by evening the series. No team has ever come back from a 3 – 0 deficit, but if the Sox win tonight in game seven one might be tempted to say the curse has been lifted and the cigars will readied even though this is just the league championship. Boston’s already-insufferable fans will be impossible to live with if they pull off this feat.

There are always two sides to ignominy, of course, and the Yankees are staring one of them straight in the eye. Forget the stogies, a loss in game seven wouldn’t qualify as close, especially not in George Steinbrenner’s mind. New York must be less concerned now with making it to the Series than with saving face.

The NLCS has two games remaining, but our legendary line will be uppermost in the contestants’ minds this afternoon nonetheless. Houston leads the series 3 – 2 with game six scheduled for St. Louis. If the Astros win, it will mark their first appearance ever in a World Series and cap off a remarkable year during which they came back from the dead twice, once in the regular season and again in these playoffs. If they lose, there is literally tomorrow. As has been the case since the first round of this year’s playoffs, the Astros pitching rotation and match-ups remain the chief topic of conversation. Manager Phil Garner must make it to the World Series or face the prospect of answering questions about his decisions long into next year at the very least.

If the Cardinals win everyone will say they were supposed to. If they lose, their wonderful season of 105 wins, second most in franchise history, will have been largely for naught and few if any people will recall how they coasted into this post-season. A loss in either game six or seven will also mark yet another frustrating year for manager Tony LaRussa, an almost perennial visitor to the close/cigar line. I must admit I don’t find the prospect of his losing all that disturbing given the air of arrogance he projects.