World Series fun

I'm having a little trouble accepting the fact that the baseball season is over.

I never would have imagined the San Francisco Giants would be crowned World Series Champions. But their pitching was so dominant the Rangers’ fate was sealed after Game 1. It was sudden.

And Edgar Renteria. World Series hero. Again. ... Beyond this dramatic home run, this was the stat that really got me when it was mentioned after the game last night: He joins Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio and Yogi Berra as the only players with two World Series-winning hits.

And whaddaya know -- I turned on the TV tonight and discovered the ESPN Classic was airing Game 7 of the 1997 World Series between Renteria’s Florida Marlins and the Cleveland Indians.

I’m watching it now. And I’m as captivated as I was when I watched it in my college dorm room on that Sunday night in October 1997.

I’ll never forget furiously e-mailing my dad after every dramatic turn of that game, and then having him ask me the next morning, after he'd logged onto the computer and seen all of the e-mails, if I was feeling lonely the night before with no one to talk baseball. See, the simple phone call was already losing ground in those days, and Skype, Facebook or Twitter were still 10 years away.

And I'll never forget burying my head in my hands when Renteria hit his first game-winner to score Craig Counsell -- because I had been rooting desperately for the Indians.

Game 7 of the '97 series is arguably my favorite world series game of my lifetime. In one of my favorite world series of my lifetime -- 2001 and 2002 being two others. Featuring one of my favorite teams of my lifetime, the 1997 Cleveland Indians.

Sheesh, both teams in that world series were stacked. And it blows my mind to watch the game now, to see guys like Jim Thome, Matt Williams, Craig Counsell, Moises Alou and Jim Leyland. And to think about how I’ve enjoyed tracking their careers.

Final note: The NBC broadcast, led by Bob Costas, just showed the longest world series title droughts -- as of 1997, mind you. The list, starting with the longest, looked like this: Cubs, White Sox, Red Sox, Indians, Giants. ... Very interesting. The White Sox, Red Sox and Giants have since won, and the Indians, at the least, made the World Series in '97. The Cubs ... yeah, still waiting.

Speaking of interesting, how 'bout those Minnesota Vikings? The Brett Favre/Randy Moss/Brad Childress drama just keeps getting better and better. That the Vikings released Randy Moss within a month of acquring him is laughable, and it's only going to get worse until Childress finds the guts to bench Favre, who clearly isn't helping the team with his broken down body.

That's my rant and I'm sticking to it.