I don't care who you root for. If your manager gives a pep talk to a 21 yr old, with 2 months of MLB time, in the bottom of the 10th, w/bases loaded, and asks him if he's "ready", you better have goosebumps when he delivers.
That Larry Bird passage from Jayson Williams’ memoir (2000)
I remember the first time I played against Larry Bird. It was one of his last years, and Charles Barkley was already a star, but Larry was just killing Charlie. Then Armen took him, and he was killing Armen. I looked up from the Sixers’ bench and I said, “How the h*** is he doing this, that skinny-a**ed white boy?” I said to Jim Lynam, “Put me in the game, Coach.”
He said, “You think you can handle him?”
I said, “Yeah, I can handle him.”
He put me in the game and the first thing Larry does is get the ball, look at me, and say, “Hey, rookie,” while he shoots a three-pointer in my face.
“D***,” I say, “he ain’t gonna shoot the next one.”
The next time he gets the ball, he fakes and I jump about three feet off the ground and he dribbles around me and hits a layup. Then the next time I play it straight up, and he raises up and hits another jumper. He scores like 14 points in six minutes. He messed my mind up so much, I didn’t want to play basketball anymore. I just wanted to beat him up. I’d never been killed in a spurt that quickly.
So I’m back on the bench again and Charles Barkley is getting his a** ate up again. Jim Lynam looks down the bench at me and I just start staring up into the crowd. I have no eye contact with Jim. I do not want to go back in there and play Larry Bird again.
The playoff picture in the AL is a classic example of why MLB should re-seed in the playoffs round to round. As it stands now:
Tampa Bay would play the winner of the Red Sox-Yankees wildcard series. Those are the three best teams in the AL.
On the other side of the bracket, the White Sox would play the winner of the Guardians-Astros series, with one of those teams advancing to the ALCS.
Tom Seaver won three Cy Young Awards and took a franchise that lost 100 games in five of its first six seasons to a title in 1969. They called him The Franchise for a reason.