When I first started this blog, I toyed with the idea of calling it What's Pastime Is Prologue and comparing a story in the headlines to one from the past. Some folks have done this with Stephen Strasburg and we are now acquainting ourselves with or reaquaintanting ourselves with Karl Spooner.
In Boston last Thursday, the Celtics beat the Lakers in Game Four of the NBA Finals thanks, in large part, to the efforts off the bench by Glen Davis and Nate Robinson. A fat guy and a short guy beat L. A.. It's almost inspirational. I was racking my brain to find a similar situation from the sports pages of the past. The one I thought of was the 1978 World Series, where Bucky Dent* and Brian Doyle led the New York Yankees in hitting when THEY beat L. A.. Dent was a regular, but he was expected to contribute more with the glove than the bat. Doyle was only playing because Willie Randolph went down with an injury at the end of the season. Doyle and Dent. Davis and Robinson. Are there any similarly odd couples that slipped my mind?
*It's much less painful to mention Dent than it was a few years ago.
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William Perry and Walter Payton for the '85 Bears? I know, I'm reaching...
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely not thinking of Payton. Sweetness was an all-time great. I'm thinking more of bench guys contributing in a championship. Like if Jim Sorgi stepped in for Peyton Manning and led the Colts to a Super Bowl victory or even a key drive in the game.
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