Saturday, October 04, 2003

To give the Cubs all the luck (ideally good luck) I can against Atlanta, I've been playing the 1994 NLCS (which never occurred) between the Cubs and Braves on my Super Nintendo MLPBA Baseball. I played the last week or so of September to set the stage. The Cubs lit up Andy Ashby and the Padres 11-0 in their regular season finale and clinched the old NL East (and home field advantage in the LCS) when the then-great Expos lost to the Pirates. Against the Braves, the Cubs were shutout in Game 1 despite registering 10 hits against Greg Maddux; evened it up in Game 2 with a 13 hit explosion, including the go-ahead home run by Steve Buchele, my most productive hitter; then blew a 3-2 fifth inning lead in Game 3, surrendering the game-winning RBI to Damon Berryhill with the bases loaded; and just pulled even by battering Maddux again in Game 4 with a 4-run first inning (including a Dwight Smith triple, a 2-run homer by Buchele, and a solo shot by Sammy Sosa), and then desperately hanging on (with stellar relief work by Dan Plesac, Jose Bautista, and of course, fireballer Randy Myers) for a 4-3 win. (It may sound like the game is easy, but I've struggled mightily to move base runners, especially against Maddux, and to keep old Braves Ron Gant, Fred McGriff, and David Justice inside the fences). Meanwhile, in the ALCS, the White Sox just pulled even with the Yankees, leaving Chicago two best-of-three series away from an All-El World Series.

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