A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on the best sport games of the 80’s.  One of my favorite games was Hardball, for the Atari computer platform. I could vividly remember a screen which struck me when I was a child and has sprung back up now as an adult.  Here is the infamous screenshot:

All- Stars vs Champs, interesting concept.

Is an all-star team better or a championship team? My thoughts are that Baseball is a team sport and cohesiveness is a really important element to consider.  Perfect example would be the Dominican Republic’s performance in the World Baseball Classic. They were quickly eliminated by the Netherlands because they had great individual players, but they didn’t play well enough together.

While watching the world series this past week, I started to say to myself, are the Yankees the best baseball team in the world? I mean earlier this year, the world crowned the Japanese National Team, the World Baseball Classic Champions. They also won in the inaugural World Baseball Classic in 2005 by defeating the mighty Cubans.

I don’t believe the US team made it out of the 2nd round this time around. Therefore, does that mean the best team in the US has the basis to call themselves the World Series Champions?  Baseball has evolved much from the days of Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb.  It is a global phenomenon now and the tournaments should reflect that.

Granted, the Japanese National Team includes all stars from all of the best players in the Japanese league. Some might suggest, lets have a tournament between the champs of each country’s leagues. This would truly be a World Series and the winner would have the correct title! Or just rename the title “World Series Champion” to “Major League Baseball Champion.”

I say use the soccer World Cup model, that works and its one of the most exciting sporting events to watch! Add national pride to the suspense of baseball and you have yourself a Grand Slam!

In the end Hardball, a game from the 80’s, inspired this debate.  Who’d have known that a game almost 30 years old, still holds up… even for debatable “World Series” Champs!

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Game 1 of the Major League Baseball World Series between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phiilies is wrapped up.  Winner of the first game goes to the Philadelphia Phillies in a 6 – 1 effort backed by a complete game from Cliff Lee and a stellar hitting performance by Chase Utley hitting 2 HR’s.  Even more impressive was the World Series simulation prediction by MLB ‘09 The Show.

Cliff Lee had a very strong performance in Game 1 striking with 10 K’s over 9 innings. The actual score of 6-1 was a tad lower than the prediction but the dominant performance was there by Lee showing the utmost confidence on the mound. In the Yankees losing effort, C.C. Sabathia also had a strong outing giving up 2 solo shots to Chase Utley. So looking ahead to Game 2, Pedro Martinez will make one of his biggest starts of his career in Yankee Stadium. Simulation has the Yanks up top in Games 2 5-4 in 10 innings so let’s see how those predictions go.

Here are some of the final stats…

Final Scores:

* Game 1: Phillies, 12-3
* Game 2: Yankees, 5-4 (10 innings)
* Game 3: Phillies, 6-1
* Game 4: Phillies, 6-3
* Game 5: Yankees, 9-1
* Game 6: Yankees, 6-1
* Game 7: Phillies, 8-2

Key Performers:

* Cliff Lee, pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies – 2-0, 12 K
* Chase Utley, second baseman, Philadelphia Phillies – 11/28, 4 HR, 8 RBI [MVP]
* Ryan Howard, first baseman, Philadelphia Phillies – 7/25, 2 HR
* Jimmy Rollins, shortstop, Philadelphia Phillies – 8/26, 3 SB

* A.J. Burnett, pitcher, NY Yankees – 2-0, 10 K
* Mark Teixeira, first baseman, NY Yankees – 7/23, 5 RBI, 1 HR
* Alex Rodriguez, third baseman, NY Yankees – 9/24, 8 RBI, 2 HR
* Derek Jeter, shortstop, NY Yankees – 8/26, 4 RBI, 1 HR

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