A preview of the 2005 MLB playoffs. One of the themes for this year’s MLB playoffs is “The Longest Running Reality Series.” Since it’s that time of year for Playoff Previews, I thought I’d take it a step further with mine. Just imagine all eight teams are on a family special of The Amazing Race, based in the U.S. only, and starting on the West Coast and the first one to get to Washington D.C. wins the World Series:
The family from Atlanta is composed of the mother and father (Andruw and Chipper Jones, you decide which is the woman) lead the team. They also have a grandfather (Julio Franco) and the children (everyone else). They start out strong with youth stepping up, but soon grandpa breaks a hip and slows everyone down, while mom and dad get frustrated when the kids become scared of a “Rocket” when they reach Houston.
The Angels family is a definite favorite to make it to the Capital first. The leaders, Bartolo Colon and Vladimir Guerrero, lead their team past their first obstacles with little trouble, although one of the cousins, Orlando Cabrera, keeps stopping to come up with a different handshake with everyone he meets. Things get interesting once Chone Figgins runs away with lightning speed and Francisco Rodriguez got a taste of his own medicine, striking out with a girl in a bar.
The Cardinals decide to go South first, do a little surfing in San Diego and move on quickly. Albert decides to pick up the pace and starts to speed, but the elders in the family save him from making a hit and run. After a while they get stung by `three Bees’ (Biggio, Bagwell and Berkman for all those that don’t follow baseball), and have trouble continuing on much long after.
The White Sox started out by making the mistake of visiting their relatives on the North side of Chicago on the golf range, and some bad luck gets rubbed off on them. While still in their home town they start getting pulled over by some cops, but manager Ozzie Guillen, thinking nothing can stop them, decides to try and get rid of them by driving through a mall, and his family starts to revolt after he gives them the choke sign after every mistake they make.
The Padres Family is the most happy to be on the show, and couldn’t believe they made it on in the first place. The big brother Dave Roberts carries the team by stealing everything in sight, but a bunch of birds come out of nowhere to ‘bombard’ their car, making it stall out soon after the journey begins.
The team from New York is the most dysfunctional family on the show. They can’t agree on anything, but their Father buys a jet to try getting them to D.C. as fast as they can, but it stalls out soon after take-off. They can’t seem to get going soon after, but Brother Gary puts everyone on his shoulders and carries them as far as he can go, while the new editions to the family try to get them as far as they can until cousin Alex convinces them to give in to the dark side of the force.
The Astros made the show with help from a little Brotherly Love, and are picked
to win the show by most of the experts. Grandfather Clemens shoots his team to the moon to try and land in D.C., while his kids have no trouble “bombing” any obstacle they face. Unfortunately the rocket lands somewhere in the North East and they get lost after a long journey.
The team from Boston gets out to a fast start when their Big Papi takes the wheel
and demolishes anything that gets in his way. Unfortunately things get interesting
when his cousin Manny wants to drive, and when the family wakes up from a nap
they find themselves at a hot dog stand in the middle of nowhere. “Manny being Manny,” they say, and they continue on their journey. Who will make it to the Nation’s Capital first? Watch and find out, because we have a lot of show left in one of the most exciting seasons to date.
2 replies on “Playoffs ’05: The Race for the Championship”
The playoffs aren’t a reality series There were also a lot of times you only mentioned the first names of players. Now I, being a huge baseball fan, know who you are talking about but you need to think of younger people or people who may not be as familiar with names as you might be. You need to write the piece so everyone can understand it. Also, you had more information for one team then another. If you are going to rip on a team or tell everyone how good they are you need to support every team the same way with the same amount of USEFUL information.
i like it it’s a different take on the playoffs.