{"id":971,"date":"2008-10-23T01:25:49","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T00:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=971"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:35:00","slug":"counting-down-the-minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=971","title":{"rendered":"Counting down the minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s 01.25 in the morning here in the U.K. and Game One of the 2008 World Series is about to begin.&nbsp; Jonny and Josh have their tuxedoes on, the lineups have been announced and the Backstreet Boys have warbled their way through the Star Spangled Banner.<\/p>\n<p>Jonny&#8217;s score out of 10 for their effort was a 6 (&#8220;it was at least in tune&#8221;), while Josh (who claimed not to want to &#8220;kick a has-been band when they&#8217;re down&#8221;) gave them 5.5.&nbsp; I would go for 5 (Dave Lengel&#8217;s shirt gets a 2).<\/p>\n<p>The early hour can&#8217;t diminish the excitement; the energy of the Rays crowd is vibrating across the Atlantic and it won&#8217;t be long before Jimmy Rollins is blinded by several thousand flashbulbs &#8211; as if Scott Kazmir&#8217;s fastball isn&#8217;t tough enough to hit already.&nbsp; The cowbells are clanging and I&#8217;m sure there are a few Phillies white towels twirling in the air somewhere (not to be confused with white flags, that&#8217;s for sure).<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the underdogs against the underdogs.&nbsp; Scott Kazmir against Cole Hamels.&nbsp; Carlos Pena against Ryan Howard.&nbsp; Evan Longoria against Chase Utley.&nbsp; David Price (possibly?) against Brad Lidge.&nbsp; Joe Maddon against Charlie Manuel.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the &#8216;never had a winning season before&#8217; Rays against the &#8216;one World Series in 125 years&#8217; Phillies.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the highlight of the baseball calendar and it promises to be a fantastic way to top off what&#8217;s been yet another great MLB season.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s 01.25 in the morning here in the U.K. and Game One of the 2008 World Series is about to begin.&nbsp; Jonny and Josh have their tuxedoes on, the lineups have been announced and the Backstreet Boys have warbled their way through the Star Spangled Banner. Jonny&#8217;s score out of 10 for their effort was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553,65],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2","tag-world-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7312,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/7312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}