New York's arrogant mayor, Rudy Giuliani, claimed this year's World Series will "give New York an opportunity to be even more arrogant." Since the mayor is a Yankee fan perhaps this provides fans in the provinces a reason to root for the Mets.

Since it is a political season maybe there is a way to decide what team to root for along ideological lines. Traditionally the Yankees have been identified with the white-collar types and the Mets with the blue-collars. However, the fact is that both teams have to be identified solidly with conservative Republicans (despite Hillary Clinton's presumed affection for the Yankees.) The Bronx Bombers are owned by George Steinbrenner (he's the soul that was born on third base but insists he hit a triple.) Steinbrenner was a notorious Nixon supporter. Joan Payson who was close to the Bush family originally owned the Mets. (George W's great uncle was a partner with Payson in the purchase of the team.)

If you like to root for the underdog then root for the Mets. The two teams have met 18 times and the Yankees have won 11 times (6-3 at Yankee Stadium; 5-4 at Shea.) The Yankees have also won 10 of the 14 so-called "Subway Series."

Officially the Cosmic Baseball Association is rooting for the New York Mets. We routinely support underdogs. But also, since we have always maintained that the Boston Red Sox are the most poetic and tragic team in Major League Baseball history we could not in good faith ever support a Yankee team. Nevertheless, we predict the Yankees will win in six.

Incidentally: The combined payroll of the Yankees and Mets (US$190 million) could purchase nearly 127 million New York City subway tokens. That's a lot of rides on the Number 4, 7 and D trains.

 

The following players have been deactivated and will not appear on the Season 2001 team rosters:

"I was looking at the ball, the ball went foul and I'm running toward first base and, all of a sudden, basically I don't know what happened," said Yankee catcher Jorge Posada.

"I don't know what happened. There was a foul ball, I went back to shortstop and, all of a sudden, everyone was on the field," said Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter.

"I really didn't see what happened..., " said Yankee firstbaseman Tino Martinez.

How is it that the Yankee catcher, firstbaseman and shortstop don't know what happened? And how silly is Clemens' explanation? Well, under the circumstances, these comments are understandable. Posada, Jeter and Martinez are just protecting a teammate. Clemens is just being stupid. It's not the first time for him. They call him the "Rocket" not the "Scientist."

Clemens simply lost his cool in the heat of the moment. No harm was actually done. But the reactions and counter-reactions would make you think Clemens had actually hit Mike Piazza. Actually, back in July he did. He beaned Piazza on the head with one of his wicked fastballs. Clemens has always been an uncool pitcher, that's part of his effectiveness.

"I can't imagine he would throw at him," said New York mayor and devout Yankee partisan Rudy Giuliani. Politics aside, one might expect a mayor of New York to have more creative capacity then this comment suggests.

At least Clemens has put to rest the notion that wimpy American League pitchers, protected by the absurd designated hitter rule, don't know what to do with a bat.

The weirdest comment of all came from Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner's office. He said, "It was an unusual incident. That's why I think we're approaching it with a certain amount of circumspence." It was a bizarre incident but what in the world does "circumspence" mean? Does anybody know?

Click Here for a cosmic baseball player who was a rocket scientist: ROBERT GODDARD

This particular cosmic game took over four hours to play because of all the delays instigated by the quibbling and analyzing of the participants. The Gas Bags prevailed primarily because they overwhelmed the Blow Hards offensively. One wag in the stands suggested that part of the explanation for the glut of home runs had to do with all the rhetorical wind in the stadium. Maybe, but this wind seemed only to push the Gas Bag balls out of the park. The Blow Hards didn't seem to benefit.

Not surprisingly only a few dozen masochists were left in the stands by the time of the seventh inning stretch. Most fans had already left because they were bored by the punditry.

The JCBA, published periodically by the CBA, contains essays, poems and other articles of interest to our members and friends.

JCBA 19 includes work by Dennis Cardwell, Tony Trigilio, Lani Canfield Fisher and poetry by David Dixon Margolis. Anna Marie Kersade has annotated Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Baseball Canto". There are stories and prose by Joe Pelanconi and David Smith. The issue also includes an index of baseball movies since 1898 and a chronological index of World Series seventh games with related non-baseball historical events.

There were several factors that helped influence the creation of CBA. The terrible Major League Baseball strike of 1981 resulted in a screwed-up shortened and split season. Greed and avarice leaked from players and owners alike. Richard Nixon once commented that "America isn't America without baseball." And Bill Clinton once remarked during a later baseball labor-management dispute that the problem was basically, "a few hundred folks trying to figure out how to divide nearly $2 billion dollars." Another factor was the number of artists, writers, musicians and others who coalesced on the West Coast at that moment. These creative types shared a mystical love of the pure game of baseball.

Without much real baseball during that strike-out summer we resorted to simulated baseball using instruments such as the Strat-O-Matic baseball board game. Strat-O-Matic was played with dice and baseball player cards. The player cards were statistical databases of a real-life Major Leaguer's performance during a past season. Each season's player cards were supplemented with three "no name" cards, two for pitchers and one for a batter. Ersatz "managers" could "write in" a player's name. It was these "no name" cards that helped inspire the creation of the original cosmic baseball teams.

The creation of the first cosmic baseball team, the Paradise Pisces, began on October 9; the team was completely built in four days and on October 13 the first cosmic baseball game was played. The Pisces lost to the 1980 Philadelphia Phillies.

Link to CBA Chronology

But for a rocky third inning on the mound Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Dick Cheney pitched a decent game and might have won had he not thrown that fastball down the middle to Democratic consultant Paul Begala on a 3-2 count. Begala tagged the ball for a grandslam home run. In the sixth inning the Democrats' Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Joe Lieberman (Conn.) gave up a two-run home run to National Rifle Association chairman and Republican spokesman Charlton Heston. But the Republicans only managed one more hit during the rest of the game when staunch Republican Oliver North hit a single off the rightfield wall in the top of the ninth. North was left stranded.

Despite the fact that many of the players are heavy hitters with substantial influence in their respective parties there really wasn't much bat swinging in the game and even less contact with the ball. Whether or not one can rely on the results of this cosmic game to determine the reality election results is a decision each citizen must make on their own.

  


Click for Game Report

Boxing champion Muhammad Ali had two home runs in the game including a 2-run eighth inning blast that put the Woodsox ahead. Ali had a .381 series average with three home runs and 5 runs batted in earning him the series' Most Cosmic Player Award.

The Woodsox will face the Overleague pennant winning Paradise Pisces in the Cosmic Universal Series (CUS). The CUS is a best-of-seven contest that begins on Thanksgiving Day (November 23.)

The Subleague Series is a best of five games contest and the winner goes on to meet the Paradise Pisces in the Cosmic Universal Series.

Click for Rosters