Well, what you have to understand is, in terms of what the importance of a four game series is, if you do not take 3 of 4 or sweep, you do not win that series. You either lose the series by not winning a game, or you win one game, or you have what's called a split, when both teams take two games. Now, the statistics of that based on importance and how that relates to their schedule is still being factored out by my four daughters--actually, only two are working on that while the other two are in other laboratories, working on progressive science in other areas. But the fact that people don't understand is, a split series doesn't have the notion of winning or losing. It is a stalemate, such as in Chess. Now take your players, and take the game of baseball in terms of Chess--but keep in mind that Chess is not played in 9 innings. It is a timed game. However, it is a game of patience. Think of your basic players, like pawns. They look unimportant at first because you have the most of them, so you may think of them as your first baseman, or your left fielder or right fielder or your long handed relief pitcher. But, sometimes they can come into play a bigger role, such as a knight or rook can--which I would consider to be your center fielder, third baseman, and short stop. Your king and queen, that is your second baseman, your starting pitcher. And somewhere, depending on the situation, is your catcher.
When dealing with your knight, making that special move on baseball such as a double play or even triple play--well, you may call that Castling but that would actually be inaccurate of a comparison. It may be more equivalent to an en passant.
Now you look at the split series, and you can look at a Chess board, and you have a few scenarios: say you start with the Latvian Gambit--but you make too many moves like in the Matulovic versus Minev stalemate example, and suddenly your aggressive style is stymied. In the case of the Cubs and Cardinals, it's hard exactly to tell which player you could symbolize them as, but the end result was the same.
In terms of how much this series means can only depend on how much they can muster up wins from here on out. If St. Louis wins more games, and does not have as many stalemated series such as the Cubs might, they will win this division. It certainly wasn't a question in the days of The Machine. We never stalemated. There was no Harrwitz and Williams. We had Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. We had a team of knights and rooks, and two kings. Me and Pete Rose. We might have had a queen but I never really asked questions like that. Hall of Fame players don't need that kind of information. We just see the board, and we know the pieces to move when we need to.
We only know checkmate.
_________________ Second is better than first when speaking in terms of basemen, and more specifically, me.
|