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This World Series was not a gorgeous spectacle; just a spectacle. There will be no spicy prose from baseball historians or George Will novels waxing iambic about the greatness of this particular series. When one team is so outmatched on every level, committing errors like they spent the night before each game smoking blunts with Snoop Dogg, and the only thing that saves them from being swept is a star pitcher coated in pine tar, then you know this was not a contest. This was a ridiculous rout.
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Just how exactly the Tigers got to a World Series is one of the true mysteries of the world. Somewhere George Steinbrenner is firing somebody.
The city of St. Louis and the Cardinals organization do not care that this was likely the sloppiest baseball championship in history. Nor should they care. The best baseball city in America has another World Series title. As they party in the streets here for the next few days, they will not think about how the Tigers played the role of fumbling, bumbling patsy. They won't think at all. They will just enjoy.
In St. Louis, they celebrate. Outside of St. Louis, many will view this series differently. The Cardinals acted like champs and the Tigers performed like chumps, producing a World Series that will go down as one of the all-time ugly error-fests, not just in baseball, but in all of sports history.
St. Louis did not solely win it. The Tigers lost it. They were intimidated and frightened once the favorite tag was glued to their backs and the series became hotly contested.
The Cardinals were not perfect, making their fair share of errors, with Chris Duncan playing like he has never seen an outfield before.
Yet the errors St. Louis made were nothing compared to what Detroit did. The Tigers slipped and fumbled, they tripped and bobbled. They looked completely ill-prepared for this grand stage. They looked like eighth-graders trying to play a man's game.
The reason why this World Series can be called perhaps the worst ever is when you have five pitching errors and an unprecedented level of sloppiness, it signals a team lost in the moment and unprepared. When seven of the 22 St. Louis runs were unearned, the most by a World Series team since the 1950s, you are seeing a team that is clearly shaken.
Tigers manager Jim Leyland joked during an in-game interview with Fox announcers that on the plane ride back to Detroit he might have his pitchers take fielding practice. He was probably only half-kidding.
The pitchers were not alone in their mistakes. Brandon Inge got caught in a rundown after making a serious base-running mistake. The Tigers also scored only 11 runs in five World Series games.
Leyland is a charming curmudgeon and was splendid in this postseason, but when he tried to flip the switch, any switch, he got blank stares and filthy errors.
Leyland committed the largest blunder of all by not starting Kenny "Is That Pine Tar On Your Hand Or Are You Just Happy to See Me" Rogers in Game 5. Rogers had been the most consistent pitcher on the Detroit staff this postseason and the Tigers needed that steady presence, not to mention his trusty glove. Rogers is a four-time Gold Glove winner.
This was a team full of nerves and Rogers could have calmed them.
It is inconceivable that Leyland would save Rogers for a Game 6 when there was serious danger a Game 6 would never come. Thus it turns out Rogers, who had his regular rest, was wasted.
Leyland will be second-guessed about not starting Rogers for some time.
This is also what dominance looks like. Long after the game, Cardinals fans, by the thousands, were still at the stadium. Some held Tiger dolls hung in effigy. Weaver, soaked in champagne, made a slow semi-circle trot around the stadium, high-fiving fans.
Outside, horns blared in the streets and maybe, just maybe, a few more beverages were being consumed.
It was far from pretty or well played, but it is now their title.
The Cardinals will take it.
