Determining The Outcome
By Mike J.
Ever get the feeling that instead of actually playing a baseball game, Dusty Baker could walk out to home plate, meet with the opposing manager and the umpire, and flip a coin to determine a win or loss for the day? He'd go back and forth between wins and losses regularly with some streaks of 7 or 8 mixed in there every once in a while. Sometimes they'd end up right around .500, sometimes way above or way below.
The chances are pretty much equal that you'll have a great season as easily as a bad season, and just as likely you'll end up mediocre. In a sense, baseball works like this anyway: a couple of injuries and you're down and out or everything breaks your way and you have a great season. While the Cubs were plagued by injuries early in the season and it's useless to speculate if they would have had the same season with a healthy roster, it still seems like they're just flipping a coin to see if they show up for a game every single day.
Last night came up heads, apparently, as the Cubs won 10-1 behind Jerome Williams and a Burnitz grand slam. What's so maddening about this and the entire season is that last night's result will most likely have no effect on tomorrow afternoon's game. I could mention that Mark Prior is opposite Jorge Sosa, but do their splits or last 3 starts really matter? I'd like to think so, but previous experience is telling me no.
Maybe I'll
flip a coin instead.
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