Continued from part one.
With half of 2006 gone, it wasn't just the major American sports that followed this trend of dominance denied, though — it was the major international events, as well. 2006 was a year that hosted the World Baseball Classic and the World Championships of Basketball, both events in which the Americans were expected to excel with their all-star lineups out of the world's most renowned leagues. It didn't happen.
The American team at the World Baseball classic looked as surprisingly anemic on offense as the Yankees in the postseason the year before, and were eliminated in the second round of pool play. While the South Koreans swept through both pool play rounds and were the only team to go 6-0 to start the Classic. Cuba and the Dominican Republic both made predictably strong showings, as well.
But it was the Japanese team, a team that had floundered, but just gotten by in both pool rounds with a 3-3 overall record, that stunned the Koreans in the semis and then the Cubans in the championship game. It was this sequence that led to the recognition of Daisuke Matsuzaka as tournament MVP and most coveted pitcher in America in the subsequent 2006 offseason.
In the basketball world championships, the USA had taken deft measures to make sure their previous embarrassments would not be repeated as a team was carefully assembled with role-players and puzzle pieces in mind rather than the usual all-star lineup (out of everyone willing to play internationally anyway). The thinking was that America had been losing these tournaments due to nothing more than laziness and carelessness and the talent was still head and shoulders above the world.
This seemed to be true as the United States dominated their group, going 5-0 with a combined margin of victory of 115 points. In the round of 16, they beat Australia by 40 and Germany by 20, but on September 1st, the surprising Greeks caught fire from beyond the three-point arc and played smartly inside the paint, exposing a surprisingly porous interior defense that led to numerous lay-ups. The Americans tried to play catch-up and could not. The Greeks had completely blind-sided the U.S. in the semifinal game by the final score of 101-95.
Many of you may not have bothered to watch much international basketball after that, so it may come as some surprise to know that the winner of this tournament was none other than Spain, even after losing forward Pau Gasol to injury in the semifinals. They defeated Greece 70-47 in the championship and had dominated every game they played but one, a 75-74 semifinal win over Argentina. The best basketball country in the world in 2006 was Spain. Who knew?
Then there was the World Cup, one international event the United States was not expected to dominate or win, and it didn't even live up to expectations of being respectable. The perennial powers of Brazil appeared to be the favorites behind the legendary Ronaldo and rising star Ronaldinho. Host Germany also figured to be a favorite with their considerable home turf advantage. Yet in the round of eight, Brazil fell stunningly to a well-prepared and inspired French team in a 1-0 victory for France in which they clearly outplayed and even out-maneuvered the supremely-talented Brazilians. Italy emerged from the other bracket, despite the major turmoil of a match-fixing scandal and the subsequent attempted suicide attempt of sporting director Gianluca Pessotto in the background.
In the Italy/France final, all eyes were squarely on French star Zinedine Zidane for his last match. Unfortunately, Zidane's eyes (and forehead) ended up even more squarely on Italian defender Marco Materazzi's chest in a tie game in extra time, providing quite an abrupt and distasteful goodbye to the beautiful game for legend Zidane. This, along with poor substituting out of Thierry Henry and Francik Riberie, led to Italy outgunning the depleted French in the penalty kick shootout with Fabio Grosso booting home the clinching goal.
In the midst of despair, scandal, and attempted suicide, Italy became yet another unlikely champion in 2006, while Brazil, another juggernaut, fell by the wayside. Yet while still a traditional power, Italy certainly did not have the coveted sentimental favorite or underdog status, either.
But producing perhaps the most unlikely and downright mediocre champion of 2006 was Major League Baseball. The St. Louis Cardinals were hardly your usual feel-good story. In fact, many felt, as they collapsed game after game under the pressure of trying to clinch their division and eliminate the Houston Astros, that the Cardinals had no place in postseason and would die out early due to their late-season slump and turmoil. As the regular season ended, the Cardinals only clinched after the Astros lost their final regular season game in Atlanta. St. Louis had lost that day, as well, but backed into the postseason in grand, U-Haul fashion.
It was the two New York teams that were the strongest favorites in baseball's postseason, with the Yankees and Mets matching each other's league-high win total at 97. However, the Yankees were once again ambushed in the division series by an unlikely team without much offense. The Detroit Tigers' pitching arms and bats came alive once the series came to the Motor city, and the Bombers never stood a chance, losing in four games.
While the Cardinals toiled to a four-game victory in an ugly-stepsister type series against San Diego, they would draw the Mets in the NLCS, who were fresh off a sweep of the Dodgers. The Cardinals proved to be up to the task in a surprisingly evenly-matched series that came down to the final inning of a dramatic Game 7 at Shea Stadium. After Endy Chavez had brought down the house with his brilliant home run-stealing catch in left field, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina silenced it with his go-ahead ninth-inning home run to nearly the very same spot in left. The Mets threatened to come back, but Adam Wainwright struck out Carlos Beltran looking with two men on base to end the series.
The World Series between St. Louis and Detroit, the two teams that had played the most poorly in September, indeed became a showcase of mediocrity. In essence, it may have been the year's crowning glory of this strange phenomenon. It was a series marred by Detroit's throwing errors from the pitching position, as they had at least one in each game. It was a series where the Tigers lost their edge after winning seven straight postseason games, and yet the Cardinals didn't look that much better.
Cardinals star Albert Pujols, as many might have hoped for and expected, did not have a "pantheon moment" where he determined the outcome of any of the games in the late innings. While the Cardinals prevailed in five games, the 2006 World Series played out as an event that neither of its two participants seemed to want to win. When the diamond dust cleared, the 83-78 Cardinals emerged as the worst team ever to win the World Series.
As the year moved on into the final months, the NFL came into focus with the professional ranks having one of its most tumultuous and unpredictable seasons yet. Parity and mediocrity seemed to rule every weekend with seemingly no team immune, especially in the NFC, where an 8-8 Giants team rounded out the playoff picture and the chronically-flawed Bears, the team with the terrible quarterback and the vaunted-but-depleted defense, is the top seed. Peyton Manning's Colts struggled after starting 9-0 and the San Diego Chargers, a team with zero Super Bowl rings in its history and little recent playoff experience, has the top seed in the NFL's top conference. It is the Chargers who are the closest the league has to any kind of heavy favorite to win the Lombardi trophy.
To speculate on how or why or what caused this trend in so many different sports over a calendar year would be lost, misguided, and quite a reach. All I will say is that with 2006 at a close, we can now say it was not a good year for Goliath.
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