Am I the only one who keeps thinking the Angels look like the 1919 "Black Socks"?? There are two possiblities: A) they are trying to lose the series intentionally with bases on balls and errors (in nearly every game, but particularly those in New York) OR B) they are completely intimidated by the Yankee stadium experience. Either way, I sure wish Boston would have had a shot at the Yanks - would have been a much better series and they wouldn't have played little league defense. And Mike S. gets AL manager of the year (don't get me wrong, he's OK) when Don Wakamatsu so clearly deserved it. Ah well... here's to a Phillies repeat. Cheers, and may Wak, zureznik & Junior pull off some magic in 2010.

"Am I the only one who keeps thinking the Angels look like the 1919 'Black Socks'?"

Probably not, but a lot of sports fans are pretty loony.

ask Dale Scottt about his strike zone....

His strike zone was the same for both teams. Now, according to Gameday, it wasn't a very good strike zone, in that he was giving pitches that were two or three inches off the outside corner. But Damon got strikes called against him like that. Swisher got strikes called against him like that. A-Rod got strikes called against him like that.

You can go look at the Gameday. It wasn't a perfect strike zone, but it was a consistent one.

Trusting the pitchfx system now, are you? :O

"...and may Wak, zureznik (zduriencik), & Junior pull off some magic in 2010."

If Junior can pull off magic from his couch next season, that would actually be really great.

"Trusting the pitchfx system now, are you?"

As I've said, I trust it pretty well from side-to-side, and I trust it in terms of consistency. Last night, the home plate ump consistently called pitches that looked to be a few inches outside strikes. He did it from the first inning to the ninth inning.

The people who are whining about the umps clearly just hate the Yankees. Nobody seemed to care about the two times Nick Swisher got called-out for leaving early on a sac. fly, when neither time did he leave early. Nobody's crying about the play where Johnny Damon was obviously safe at first, and got called out.

The Yankees were just a better team than the Angels, and that's why they won the series. The umpiring was atrocious, but it wasn't like the Angels were the better team and lost simply because they got jobbed by the umps. The Yanks have more talent top-to-bottom, and played better baseball.

I would have agreed with you at one time, but not now. Don't look at his batting average. Look at number of pitches per at bat and on base percentage. Umpires tend to give him the borderline pitch. These are the numbers that really count. Jr's good for one more year and the M's should sign him if he wants to play. Like it or not, he's the one most fans identify with as the "logo" player of this team. Ichiro respects him; the young guys respect him. He could help cement next years' (in all likelihood) young team and at the same time provide some DHing and pinch hitting. I couldn't wait for him to go to Cinci. back in the day because he had turned into a bit of a whiner but he's a fun guy and a boost to this team now. (and BTW, you remind of someone on this board called "enjoybaseball" who used to do OCD things like correct people's spelling and so forth. I actually know how to spell the GM's name since my folks live in Milwaukee and his name was in the Milwaukee Journal all the time, but with a name like that I'll go phonetic every time, you smart a..)