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Rising to the occasion.(My Turn)
As the World Series unfolds over the next few days, we're guaranteed two things: Some unexpected player will burst out with a memorable performance, and the constant pressure will make one or two players fail miserably.
Most players will tell you--and I agree--that there is greater pressure playing in the League Championship Series than in the World Series. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense at first glance, but it does if you take a closer look.
You play a 162-game regular season and then an emotional best-of-5 series to reach the LCS. You know if you lose, you've come so close to the Series yet missed, and that makes the failure even more bitter. Even if you lose the Series, at least you can say you've been there. A lot of great players never get a single at-bat in a World Series game, and it can make their careers feel incomplete.
By the time you do get to the Series, you have played close to 175 games. That number gets horribly distorted when you think about everything that happened over that time being defined by the next four to seven games. When you take the field for the opening game, the finality of the coming games dawns on you in a very powerful way. Bottled-up emotion begins to seep out, and some players use that to far exceed what they achieved in the regular season. Some players let it get in the way. A good Series can erase a bad year, and a bad Series can erase a great year. In a heartbeat.
We'll see some player emerge in a way we never imagined. We saw glimpses of that early in the N.L. playoffs from Alex Gonzalez, with his unexpected burst of home runs. I think about a player such as Brian Doyle, who was thrust into the starting lineup for the Yankees late in 1978 because Willie Randolph was hurt. Here's a guy who had 52 at-bats in 39 regular-season games but mesmerized us with great plays in the field and a .438 batting average as the Yankees beat the Dodgers.
On the other end of those expectations was Barry Bonds. After years of disappointing playoff performances, he finally got on the World Series stage last year and demonstrated unequivocally why he is one of the greatest players in the game's history.
I look forward to seeing what the great pitchers in this Series can do. You won't be surprised to know that I measure all Series pitching ...
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