Yanks Get The Gravy

To my amazement, the baseball season ended before the first frost two evenings ago with a World Series that did anything but sum up the diamond events of the past seven months.

The New York Yankees won. They are now the best team in baseball. That much I understand (and thank you, Mr. Jackson, for your three long exclamation points in the last game). What I don't understand was all this talk throughout the Series about the "tremendous pressure on the Yanks."

Pardon me if I've stepped out of the baseline, but if you call playing the Los Angeles Cadavers in a best-of-seven series "pressure" after the Yankees' season-long domestic squabbles and the almost fatal playoffs with the Royals, I think you're buying your drugs from Mac Herron.

The pressure lay squarely on the Dodgers. They waltzed their way through the season, playing less than .500 ball after the all-star break. They then made the Phillies look like soft vendors in a playoff series that lasted only four games. Meanwhile, 3000 milvs to the East, New York was staging a three-team Texas Death Match in the American League East that went to the next-to-last day of the season, only to go on to win its second consecutive toss-up series with Kansas City to earn the right to play the bullying Dodgers.

My point is this: that after the season the Yankees had, in which they won all the Big Games and played close to .700 ball in the last two and a half months, anything that the team did was pure gravy. They won the pennant despite all the verbal rattail-flicking that went on off the field, despite injuries to their pitching staff that clogged them throughout, despite having a $100,000 fungo hitter in Ken Holtzman, despite Bucky Dent's mediocrity, despite George Steinbrenner's obtrusive presence.

And after all that, the New Yankees got into the World Series and seemed to say to themselves, "Well, we did it. Now let's settle down and play some ball." And they did; they stuffed the rah-rahs down Tom Lasorda's throat and, for a change, undisputedly won it all.

For all you high rollers out there getting ready to mortgage the farm on Harvard against Princeton this weekend in football, keep in mind that Captain Steve Kaseta, Charlie Kaye, and Russ Savage, three-fourths of the Crimson defensive line, are doubtful starters for Saturday's tilt at the Stadium.

Speaking of doubtful starters, Harvard quarterback Larry Brown, no where near the first string at the start of the season, was just named Ivy League player of the Week. Brown, who took over for season-sidelined Tim Davenport four weeks ago, has guided the Crimson to two consecutive wins and has already amassed a team-leading 400 yards in total offense during his stay behind center.

A little hungover after my prediction successes of a week ago, I've figured out exactly how the Ivy football standing will look going into the final Saturday of the season. Harvard will win two of its three Ivy contests before the Yale game, most likely losing in an upset to deceptively strong Penn. Brown, enraged after its loss to Harvard in Providence, will whittle the pathetic Woodsmen of Dart-mouth down to their second setback. And Yale, yes those Elis, will win it's next three games very comfortably.

For those of you not taking notes, that sets up yet another showdown in the Yale Bowl on November 13 for the Ivy League championship between Harvard and Yale, who will both be sporting 5-1 records.

And the outcome of that, my friends, is in the hands of the gods.