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Sporting News, The, Nov 3, 1997 by Steve Marantz

Every World Series has a personality all its own. The 1997 edition had a split personality. It was a bit like the manager of the winning team--irritable, mawkishly sentimental, provincial. Half of this Series belonged to Jim Leyland and fellow working stiffs contemptuous of bright lights and big cities.

The other half belonged to Latin America--to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Miami's Little Havana neighborhood and barrios everywhere. Sure, Cleveland rocks, but south Florida merengues. While Seinfeld-numbed America yawned, Latinos wildly embraced a Series dominated by their own, and that climaxed, finally, with a Game 7, bases-loaded, 11th-inning single by Edgar Renteria, a Colombian native.

This was not a Series for tinsel suits--NBC's West Coast Entertainment president Don Ohlmeyer wanted "four and out" because of insufficient ratings. Pity he had to endure seven.

Nor was it a Series for children, connoisseurs of pitching, or thin-blooded beachcombers. The standard criticisms are that the best teams were not participating; games started too late and lasted too long, precluding children from the audience; too many pitchers lacked command, control or the willingness to challenge hitters, and baseball is not meant to be played in light snow with a wind chill of 15 degrees. Some are valid; one or two actually may get addressed once realignment is settled.

Simply, it was a Series for people who appreciate baseball's infinite and incomprehensible forms. The game is a chameleon; artistic and dramatic perfection can't be scripted or orchestrated. Teams with best records haven't necessarily reached the Series since 1969, when a semifinal round began. Cold weather is part of the game; it grew up and thrives in Midwestern industrial cities such as Cleveland, kids overtaking frozen fields as winter edges to spring. Pitching is just pitching, more art and magic than science. Good pitchers, such as Kevin Brown, can go bad in the Series, while mediocre ones, such as Chad Ogea, can leave a mark. Nerves and pressure coupled with unfamiliar and/or inconsistent strike zones make pitching in the World Series a crapshoot.

In the end, Games 6 and 7 were gems, answering the game's critics in the best possible way--with crisp well-played drama.

However, nothing can rationalize baseball's dim insistence on starting games so late that children in the Eastern and Central times zones cannot stay up for the last out on school nights. Why can't the Lords grasp that the next generation of potential fans needs to be respected? Sure, the game can and should be speeded up, but this problem is exaggerated. Games 1, 2, 4 and 6 were played in 3 hours, 19 minutes or less, a reasonable amount of time. Game 3 (won by the Marlins, 14 11) was 4:12 because of sloppy fielding and pitching and an 11-run ninth inning. Game 5 (Marlins, 8-7) lasted 3:39 because of Livan Hernandez's eight walks and the Indians' five pitching changes. Baseball's pace becomes more deliberate in a World Series because of increased strategizing and gamesmanship. Tinkering with pace requires a delicate touch. A simpler solution is to play a couple of afternoon games while starting night games no later than 7 p.m. in the East, even if it means discounting the cost to television, even if it means everybody--players included--settles for less money. Afternoon games would be deliciously retro, evoking, in the words of Bob Costas, "the long shadows and draped bunting of an earlier era."

Before Game 2 at Pro Player Stadium, Pop vocalist Gloria Estefan, a Cuban American, sang the national anthem. Gradually, thousands of voices joined in, then thousands more, until nearly 67,000 voices were raised to Old Glory. Never before have fans en masse accompanied the featured singer, according to longtime observers. Marlins officials attributed it to the makeup of the crowd--an estimated 30 percent Hispanic.

"Latin fans are more passionate," Indians second baseman Tony Fernandez, a Dominican, says.

A sign in the stands before Game 6 read: "Los ninos en Cuba ya no dicen seremos como el Che, dicen seremos como Livan." Translation: The children in Cuba don't say we'll be like Che any more, they say well be like Livan.

Hernandez was one of several Hispanic players who dominated the Series. The list includes Moises Alou, Sandy Alomar, Omar Vizquel and Renteria.

For that reason, and others, the Series was an epic success in Latin America and among stateside Latin Americans, a historic event on the scale of Fernando Valenzuela's emergence in 1981. Even as Ohlmeyer and millions of others clicked to vapid sitcoms, an estimated 40 million Latin Americans listened on the 365-station Latin Broadcasting Company radio network, up from 25 million 10 years ago and 10 million 20 years ago. Television went to 205 countries. Latin American television ratings were not available entering the week, but anecdotal evidence suggests a record audience. Even before the Series ended, the Venezuelan rights-holder was renegotiating a deal four times larger than the one expiring.