Mushnick to Brennaman: No 'overwhelming underdogs' in baseball postseason

"THE BEST way to watch a game these days is to listen to it on the radio - with the sound off.

We're deep into the latest TV epidemic. We're expected to ignore what we see but believe what we're told.

• Sunday, as the Cards were finishing off the Padres, three games to one, Fox's Thom Brennaman declared to his national audience that St. Louis would be "an overwhelming underdog" against the Mets. As he several times stated during Sunday's game, Game 4 was in large part determined by the superior pitching of Chris Carpenter, among the majors' best starters. Brennaman also noted that the Tigers' starting pitching had defeated the Yanks' in four games. And the Mets, he knew, were out two starters, Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez.

Got it? OK, now forget it.

At game's end Brennaman would have us ignore what we know - what we'd seen this night, throughout the previous week and throughout our lives as baseball fans - to think of the Mets as "overwhelming" favorites, as if, again, postseason baseball becomes football and the Mets are 22-point favorites.

There are no overwhelming underdogs in baseball's postseason. But forget what you've seen, perhaps starting with Bill Mazeroski's Series-ending homer against the 1960 Yankees, (revised to a "walk-off homer"), or even Bobby Thomson's "Walk-Off Heard 'Round the World." Instead, believe what you're told."

From column by Phil Mushnick, NY Post 10/13/06

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