This documentary was shown on PBS recently. It shows several Cuban baseball players trying to make it to the big leagues and the difficulties they encounter. It's similar to Hoop Dreams, the documentary showing high school basketball players. Yuli Gurriel and the Astros are featured towards the end. Excellent documentary, it has won several awards. Spoiler- not everyone has the skills to get the big money.

https://www.pbs.org/pov/films/lastout/

At the end of the last regular season game I thought of two things: Beseball in the fifties when I was growing up and learning about the game, and a scene from The Natural.

My grandparents from Illinois who had moved to Texas in 1926 and were White Sox fans lived within bike riding distance of us near the VA hospital outside Waco. They listened to baseball every time they could and taught me before and while I started playing LL at 8. I also learned by reading the sports page (Jinx Tucker), collecting baseball cards and playing catch many nights with my Dad, a natural athlete and friend of Joel Hunt, the great Aggie back. There were only 8 teams in each league, and I remember that winning the most games in each league carried more prestige than winning the World Series, because the first required stamina and the second getting hot for the short series. It was thought of as an exhibition series then.

The scene in The Natural showed the manager and his assistant coach sitting in the dugout talking about the coming deciding game. The manager is telling him he always cared most about winning the pennant, which stood for the best regular season record and could care less about the World Series.

I wish the leagues would award a regular season pennant to the league team with the best record.

I'm not quite that blase' about the WS, but I certainly lean in that direction. We had a great year, and losing one of the upcoming short series won't change that for me. Go Astros! 11 to go!