[greymule]

Interesting site, though of course they made some terrible mistakes. Does anyone else agree with the site that the Mets-Yankees bore of 2000 was a better series than the one Reggie Jackson owned in 1977? Would anyone else place 1962 above 1955, 1956, and 1957? And they rank 1966—a series so boring even the highlight film puts you to sleep—ahead of 1932 and 1954, two memorable sweeps that featured legendary heroics.

I'd include one criterion that the site in fairness couldn't really use: how much baseball fans—and the American population at large—cared about a particular series. In a variant of the ancient philosophical question, "If a man says something in the forest and his wife's not there to hear, is he still wrong?": Can a WS be great if nobody is watching?

In 1997, Cleveland and Florida played a seven-game series that should have been exciting, except that very few people paid attention to it. The site ranked it #33, but I'd rank it behind 1994. If the same seven games had been played between the Yankees and Dodgers 50 years ago, the series would have been one of the all-time greats.

Some posters may remember the 1950s, when the entire country followed the series games, all played in the afternoon, all but two on weekdays. When Mazeroski hit his home run and Larsen pitched his perfect game, most people were (nominally) at work, following the games on radio. But the fans back then cared about the outcome more than the fans of today. I know. I was there.

When MLB and college football were the only two team sports that had a nationwide following, the World Series had a special significance that is hard for people who didn't experience it to understand.

As far as seventh games go, like Super Bowls, many have been letdowns in terms of excitement (even the one-run games). My choice for #1 would be the wild seventh game in 1960. But I guess it's all in how much you care who wins. In 1991, I fell asleep on the couch after the ninth inning of the seventh game.

Here are four WS trivia questions for anyone who cares to try them:

1. In what WS did the losing team of every game score exactly 2 runs?

2. In which WS game did each starting pitcher walk in a run in the first inning?

3. Which WS game was the shortest by time, and how long was it? (It went the full 9 innings.)

4. Which WS game had the lowest attendance?