Subway Series (continued)

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:36 PM -0500 10/14/00, Mark Odegard wrote:
>Do we need to marvel at these terms? It was called the 'Bay
>Bridge Series" until the Loma Prieta event intervened, and
>ever since as the 'Earthquake Series'. What would we call it
>if the Cubs met Sox in the World Series? Impossible?
>Miraculous?
>
Well, yes, and the St. Louis Cardinals - Kansas City Royals series in
1985 (highest rated on TV of all time, for some reason no one can
fathom) was the I-70 series, and I'm sure there are others I'm
forgetting.  But the concept really does go back to "Subway Series",
whether it was Mullin or not and whether it was '36 or '41.  Just as
we may have all sorts of Frankenfoods around now, but they all trace
back to Prof. Lewis's letter to the editor.  The fact that other
pairs of cities have given rise to geographically or culturally named
World Series doesn't retroactively remove NYC's pride of place.  (The
Cubs and the Sox did meet, incidentally, back in 1906, when the
"Hitless Wonders" of the South Side pricked the gonfalon bubble of
the Cubbies of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, and the St. Louis Cards
beat the St. Louis Browns [who are now the Baltimore Orioles] in the
Series of 1944, which some purists dismiss as one of those diluted
war-years seasons.  As far as I know, neither of these series was
nicknamed after the local transportation system in Chicago or St.
Louis respectively.)

larry