It's not the 2004 Yankees-Red Sox



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NEW YORK – Moments after Giancarlo Stanton launched a baseball in the Bronx night on Wednesday, the world knew, up to the decimal, all the important figures that contributed to the creation of this majestic home run. The slide suspended by Blake Treinen was rolling at 89.7 mph. The speed at which she left Stanton's bat was 117.4 mph. Its take-off angle was 33 degrees and the distance it had traveled before yielding to gravity was 443 feet.

<p class = "web-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "Baseball in 2018 is a rigid set of facts delivered, interpreted, distilled, refined and applied in the hope that the next set will produce a result that is easier to succeed.This is a multivariate mathematical problem posing as a game. the homo sapien in baseball in 2004 Homo erectus. "data-reactid =" 17 "> Baseball in 2018 is a rigid set of facts delivered, interpreted, distilled, refined and applied in the hope that the next set will produce an easier result. multivariable masking like a game. That is, in other words, the homo sapien in baseball in 2004 Homo erectus.

The comparison of these two years is not a coincidence. It was the days of mysticism and aura, the moment it was cool to be a group of idiots. A decade and a half of baseball could just as easily be an eternity. For as the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox prepare to face the playoffs of the American League after the Wildes' 7-2 win over the Oakland A's, the 2018 version of the game – from the world – is diametrically opposed. to the series that produced the biggest return in the history of sport.

It's been 14 years since the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox competed in the playoffs. (Getty Images)

There is a journalistic trope that when a story comes back to a given year, it checks all the names that did not exist at the time. It's a fun way to say, hey, technology was so lame back then. Doing this with baseball is reminiscent of something quite different: when the Red Sox came back from a cruel deficit in three games to steal the best of the AL championship series, baseball was actually at one point undergoing arguably the most radical organic change in the game's life.

To remember the 2004 ALCS is to remember when a batter was judged at bat and a pitcher at victory. It was before the Red Sox or the Chicago Cubs conquered their World Series droughts that had been amusingly dubbed curses, because the variance and bad luck and other real explanations were for the nerds . It was almost innocent, the way conventional wisdom shaped strategy and non-removable narratives spurred conversation.

Consider the stolen base of Dave Roberts. You remember it because, according to history, even so far, he won the Red Sox World Series. This, of course, is absurd. Roberts' stolen base gave Boston the opportunity to defeat Mariano Rivera, which allowed them to win the fifth game and force a sixth game, resulting in an eruption for the seventh game, allowing them to try their luck at the World Series. must win four more games to make Roberts' stolen base more of an afterthought.

They did it. That's the furthest thing in history, even if, from a mathematical point of view, all he did was put the chances of the Red Sox to win the 4.3 % to 5.8%. The challenge with modern baseball is often the reconciliation of numbers and the facts behind them with lying eyes and inherent prejudices. We want every story to have a seminal moment, a start worthy of such a spectacular end.

And understand: ALCS 2004, from start to finish, was spectacular. It was the series that each series aspires to be. Two excellent teams punishing themselves against each other, first with the Yankees, the bullies, putting themselves in shooting position, then the Red Sox, perpetual loser, fighting each other. There were good players, good fan bases and a good story – the base of the manual on which it is easiest to build classic series.

What was not the case was the gadgets that today make the vision of baseball so immersive. The closest thing to social media – whose omnipresence can be more apparent during sporting events, when everyone can talk to everyone about everything related, even tangentially, to the game – was the message board. Stanton's home race numbers – the speed of exit and the launch angle of the Statcast system, based on cameras and radar – were the responsibility of physicists and not casual baseball enthusiasts. The sport always tried, hilariously in hindsight, to dirty a book published 16 months earlier.

It was called "Moneyball" and introduced the Oakland A using data-driven processes to get a marginal benefit that their payroll simply did not provide. Fourteen years later, the A's were the ones who were trying to spoil the Yankees' revenge and the Red Sox were really perfect – a continuation of the principles they have long defended, no matter how responsive they are.

Look what they did Wednesday. The A had somehow won 97 games with a stick of pitchers held by a tape. Without a trustworthy supporter, they decided that a parade of relief pitchers would be their best chance to snap a series of seven consecutive defeats in victory. Playoff Games. When Aaron Judge hit the ninth height of the night in the Yankee Stadium's left field stands, there was no evidence that a match was a failed concept. It was once, an event, a sample too small to conclude anything.

Using the pen as a binky is only part of the game's strategy, such as dropping out or taking alcohol shots before the World Series matches. The same goes for trying to stack the strikethrough During the ALCS of 2004, the Red Sox hit 53 times 271 times. The Yankees? Only 51 out of 277 among bats. If this series lasts five matches – and maybe even if it is not – the numbers of the 2004 attack will be exceeded with a reasonable margin, even if the current Red Sox team has one of the most low rate of exception.

The 2018 Yankees have beaten more than any other team in history – and the average speed is 90.1 mph in 2004 and 92.8 mph today.

These Red Sox have won 108 games. These Yankees have won 100%. Perhaps there will be less discussion of the supernatural elements of the series and more about what we know, what we have learned, what these 14 years have taught. At the same time, when the Yankees reliever Dellin Betances said, "I think everyone in baseball wants that," he's right, even if those who hate the Yankees and the Red Sox could protest against the opposite.

Because the truth is, with much of the narrative element defeated by a sports fandom, a Yankees-Red Sox game can still move. New York beat Boston at the 1999 ALCS en route to a championship. Four years later, Aaron Boone hit a legendary home run. A season later, it was the turn of the Red Sox. He is back and Boone, the current manager of the Yankees, said his team "can not wait. I think they are ready and take the opportunity to compete against the best of the game this year. And of course, we know them very well. We know how good they are. I mean, we know we have to do our best if we want to have a chance to beat them. "

They will walk Friday at Fenway Park, ready to face Chris Sale, to face this match where they spent countless hours studying. The ALCS of 2004 will be mentioned about eleven billion times, that's great, but it's not the case today. Baseball, for all its elements that will never go away, is a brand new game. The Yankees and the Red Sox baptize it as they know how to do it.

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