World Series 2019 MVP Stephen Strasburg

First, unlike some sportswriters, I will not 'ham it up" by writing on and on about how prescient my previous post was.


Will just be succinct and state: Wow, what a season and playoff season that was! Here's a big drink from that dark beer shown in the previous post.


Yes, a huge toast to Strasburg and the entire team, including, in alphabetical order, Kendrick, Rendon, Sanchez, Scherzer and Soto.


(Actually, I will run a little longer than planned. First, they need to bring replay into strikes and balls called at home; some of the calls this post-season were atrocious. Also, baseball has to be the most nerve-wracking sport there is for fans -- at the park or at home.)




FINALLY, CLINT COURTNEY AND MANY OTHERS ARE SMILING. FOR MANY, INCLUDING THIS WRITER AND ARTIST, A CHILDHOOD DREAM REALIZED.


GO STRASBURG. GO NATIONALS.








(AS ALWAYS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEANETTE)





Stephen Strasburg might have pitched his most important and best

baseball game as a Major Leaguer in his great performance Friday that helped keep the Nats alive in the 2019 MLB season, says this old sportswriter Paul Heidelberg. (Once a sportswriter, always a sportswriter?)  Scherzer was also charging strong.


Strasburg had moves on his fastball like...will not attempt the analogy...Holy merde. Didn't realize until watching rebroadcast on MLB network today he was carrying a perfect game as far as he did.


He had bags under his eyes like he was worrying like hell about finally coming through late in the season; and with that beard, he looked like Honest Abe on the mound. As a sportswriter you learn to look at athletes as if you were sizing up a side of beef hanging in a meat locker. I always did that, including while covering world championship prizefights on Miami Beach back in the day.


Watching Strasburg in his last outing, I thought, Man, this guy has huge thighs and legs -- that must have something to do with how he hurls the ball, as well as his height -- there's the Honest Abe comparison again. So, I am posting a photo of one of the best beers in the world, taken in Leipzig, Germany, to toast Strasburg's wunderbar performance: ein prosit, salud and cheers.


After all, the Real Oktoberfest runs until tomorrow, Oct 6. in Munich (at The Miami Herald we used to say there is no tomorrow at The Herald, it was always the date, as in Oct. 6). And I will also post a photo of a pretty fraulein bicycling near a famous landmark in Berlin.


Finally, I hope the L.A. Times article theorizing this may be Strasburg's last season in Washington is not correct. Some of the best times I ever had with my late father were sitting in the seats in the old Griffith Stadium -- mere feet away from my favorite player Mickey Mantle, standing on first base after a walk.


My father would have loved to see how Strasburg pitched to help keep Washington alive in the playoffs. It was a truly remarkable performance.

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writing and photographs (c) Copyright Paul Heidelberg