NO “GIANT” “ROYAL”TIES IN THE 2014 WORLD SERIES

Unfortunately, the 2014 World Series (or any since 2009) did not include the Yankees; but, my love for baseball still encouraged me to watch a lot of it.  While the end of this past World Series schedule (thankfully) didn’t reach November, I thought November 1st would be an apropos date to write this first post-2014-season blog - since November 1^st was when this season’s other big story, Derek Jeter, earned his “Mr. November” title.  Of course, two blog/articles ago, I wrote about Derek so this one is about the other big and now concluded story, the 2014 World Series.

Congratulations to the San Francisco Giants for defeating the Kansas City Royals in 7 games.  I was certainly grateful that I didn’t have to see George Brett join in a celebration of a Royals championship!  That’s especially true because, after all of these years, even though the Royals defeated the Yankees in the playoffs in 1980, he’s still griping to the media about losing to the Yankees in 1977 & 1978!  He’s also been recently involved with the Royals front office.  Those 2 conditions persuaded me to root for the Giants.  (Hey, I can be just as bitter as George Brett and I undeniably get defensive whenever my Yankees are verbally abused, especially when someone like George Brett is acting as the same baby I saw during his 1983 pine-tar days!)

I thought that the 2014 World Series was very entertaining - minus KC’s Game 6 landslide 10-0 victory.  The series offered many great defensive plays and great pitching, especially from the Giants’ starter, Madison Bumgarner and both teams’ bullpens.  It’s a shame that many baseball fans failed to watch!  Of course, most Mets’ fans never watch much of the playoffs or World Series - they’re actually accustomed to watching other things by mid-September, anyway.  Like the Mets’ fans, I’ve disappointedly heard many Yankees’ fans take out their sore-loser frustrations by choosing to avoid watching any or most of the championship games.

Apparently, based on the TV ratings, almost all of the baseball fans (except KC & SF fans) chose not to watch the games.  In fact, almost no one watched these games, according to the ratings, in comparison to the ratings of alternate sports and primetime television shows.  The only exception was the World Series’ Game 7, which drew decent ratings and gave FOX its highest ratings on a Wednesday night in the last 3 years; however, the ratings for a “Game 7” were still unimpressive compared to past Game 7s.  Collectively, the 2014 World Series scored the lowest ratings of all time for any 7-game World Series!

I guess the baseball world needs the Yankees - whether they love them or hate them!