People from St. Louis love to argue that the national media
seems to be biased against the Cardinals.
And I do believe there is a little validity to that. It’s not just St. Louis, but teams from smaller
cities. I get it. National media loves big cities. They are more fun, more exciting. They usually have the high-profile, big name
players. The other reason they love
teams from big cities is the storylines.
Let’s be honest. Media is all
about the storylines. And going into the
2014 MLB playoffs, there were plenty of intriguing storyline possibilities.
The one most of the national media seemed to be rooting for
was an all LA World Series: the LA Dodges vs. the LA Angels. The “Freeway Series”. Those teams had the major market, the major
payrolls and the star players. It was the
dream matchup. However, those teams were
both knocked out in the first round, combing for one win. Another World Series matchup national media was
rooting for was Washington vs. Baltimore.
Like the LA teams, this would have been a matchup of teams with a very
close proximity. The “Beltway Series”. However,
with Washington being dispatched in the first round, this matchup too became an
impossibility this postseason.
Yet there does in fact remain two interesting World Series
matchup possibilities and both of them involve the St. Louis Cardinals. The ALCS matchup this year is the Kansas City
Royals vs. the Baltimore Orioles. The
first possible resulting matchup would be Cardinals/Royals. The storyline for this is fairly
obvious. The I-70 Series. Matchup of the
two Missouri teams. While not as
glamorous as a matchup of LA, it is still intriguing. This would also be a rematch of the 1985
World Series, which is well-known for the controversial Don Denkinger call at
first base. The media could (and would)
milk this for all it’s worth.
The other potential matchup would be Cardinals/Orioles. The storyline here may not be as obvious. If you
know a little baseball history, though, you know that the before the Orioles
played in Baltimore, they were originally from St. Louis, known as the St.
Louis Browns. As well as both teams originally
being from St. Louis, they also met in the 1944 World Series. I could see the media spinning this into an interesting
story as well.
This is not to say there would be no good stories if the San
Francisco Giants make the World Series.
Most likely the media would point out the fact that the Giants have been
on an every-other-year World Series trend, winning it in 2010 and 2012, and
this being 2014. My point is that
national media loves a good storyline, and while they may not be the storylines
they originally wanted, St. Louis being in the World Series provides the two
best potential storylines left.
