SI.com's "Things We Miss in Baseball."

Good one.

Any ump with an old-school chest protector.

 

Speaking of cups, here's one thing I do actually miss ... hard plastic souvenir cups with the team logo, player/stadium photos and/or schedule actually printed on them. You know, cups you could actually keep a few years and that would stand up to repeated runs through the dishwasher.

For years, those were my souvenir of choice, rather than a game program, a t-shirt, a pennant or whatever (for one thing, they were cheap and actually served a practical purpose after you came home from the game). My cabinet was full of MLB, NFL and college football stadium cups that I'd had for 10 years (I've still got two 32-ounce Enron Field cups from 2000).

Now, for the same price ($5-7 depending on the venue), you get a flimsier plastic cup with a self-adhesive wraparound that starts to peel off and/or fade the first time it's washed. You're lucky to get a year or two out of them before they split or otherwise disintegrate.

I know it's a cost thing, but I thought I'd bitch about it all the same.

 

I used to do the same. I went through college with drink cups kept from stadium purchases. Michigan State used to have huge 44oz plastic cups. Still have a couple of them -- probably 15 years old now -- and they've barely chipped/faded after quite a few trips through the dishwasher.

 

World Series Games 7's as thrilling as 1991.

 

I have a bunch of them under my bar, still use them once in a while. Got a load from various Buffalo Bills excursions, a bunch from Jays games including a few commemorating the World Series years and Pat Hentgen's Cy Young. Have one on my desk that hold pens, paper clips etc. from the 1987 Orange Bowl between Oklahoma and Arkansas.

 

Dutch Rennert

Game 7 in 1991 is the greatest World Series game in my lifetime and the greatest Game 7 ever.

 

In your lifetime? Could be. Ever? Not a chance.

 

Oh yeah, that one involved the Yankees. That has to be the best one.

It had the most dramatic ending but 1991 was the better game.

Nine-inning double shut-out. Winning pitcher goes 10 innings. Every single play in magnified in a pitching duel like that.

 

If you don't understand the context of the 1960 Series, what the Yankees meant then, what MLB meant then, what it meant for a team that won its games 10-0, 16-3 and 12-0 to lose the Series, I just can't help you.

And we haven't even touched on the idea that the Series ended with a home run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7.

 

People think there's no competitive balance now ... from 1949 through the early 1960s, the Yankees were the *only* AL team to win the Series, and they won it most years during that time. Rare was the year that the Yanks didn't represent the AL in the Series during that run.

Add to it that a light-hitting middle infielder hit the series-ending homerun, and that it was a back-and-forth slugfest the entire day, it's hard to not put that as the greatest Game 7 ever, and one of the biggest Series upsets ever.

Although 1991 would be 1A.

 

1991 was the best World Series ever. Not the best Game 7 ever.