League Championship Series

ST. LOUIS -- Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox might have tipped off the emotions his slumbering team took into Game 5 of the National League Championship Series last night at Busch Stadium. It came Sunday night, when the Braves teetered on the brink of elimination after losing to the St. Louis Cardinals to fall behind, three games to one."It's not deflating," Cox said after the defending World Series champions blew a three-run lead with two out in the seventh inning and lost on a home run by Brian Jordan in the eighth.

CHICAGO - -Hall of Famers don't ride buses. They don't carry their own bags and they don't look forward to post-game meals from restaurants like Shoney's and Arby's. They don't do those things often, anyway. But Ryne Sandberg has. He has managed in the Cubs' farm system for three years, including a trip to the championship series of the Double-A Southern League this season, and has positioned himself to become the first Hall of Fame player in more than 30 years to get a chance to manage in the major leagues.

Note: Cardinals players listed first First base Will Clark vs. Todd Zeile: Stand by for the battle of the supposedly washed-up former Orioles. Converted third baseman Zeile replaced departed free agent John Olerud at first for the Mets and has been a steady presence in the offensive lineup, though he struggled to a 1-for-14 performance in the Division Series. Veteran Clark rejuvenated a flagging career with a huge second-half performance after being acquired from the Orioles. He's on a roll, but could be slowed by the Mets' tough left-handers.

The Philadelphia Phillies are playing for the National League pennant even though in the opening playoff series, they really didn't do what they're supposed to do best - hit. They dispatched the Milwaukee Brewers in four games, scoring just under four runs a game, more than a full run below their season average. And their two most dangerous hitters, Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, went a combined 4-for-26 with three RBIs. So, for starters, is it likely that Howard and Utley will stay this quiet?

CHICAGO -- Gene Lamont would rather not risk Frank Thomas' health by playing him at first base, but the White Sox manager might not have a choice.Dan Pasqua is hitless in two games and has not played well defensively as a replacement for Thomas, who has been restricted to use as AL notebooka designated hitter. The White Sox's ineffective offense (they've left 23 runners on base) needs a boost.If Thomas can play first base in Game 3 tomorrow, either Bo Jackson or George Bell would go into the lineup as the DH. "I'll see how he [Thomas]

As we learned in the first round, the Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer the team that appeared destined to miss the playoffs in August and scraped in with an 84-78 record. They're a versatile outfit with dangerous bats up and down the lineup and a stingy starter in every rotation slot. Their matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies is no easy call, but I'll take the team that's hitting and pitching better than at any point this season. Not only do the Dodgers boast a nuclear-hot Manny Ramirez in the three hole, they have their chief table-setter, Rafael Furcal, back at the top of the lineup.

TORONTO -- Roberto Alomar was hitless in the first two games of the American League Championship Series, but he didn't think that deserved to be big news."

NEW YORK - Forgive Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella if he experienced some disturbing flashbacks Wednesday. Understand if his hand shakes tonight when reaching for the bullpen phone, or if there's a temptation to keep starter Aaron Sele on the mound until he begs to come off. Piniella's comfort zone was invaded on Wednesday by two former Orioles relievers, Arthur Rhodes and Jose Mesa, who lost a lead, and a game, to the New York Yankees and evened...

ATLANTA -- The St. Louis Cardinals need to beat the Atlanta Braves once in the next two nights to earn their first trip to the World Series since 1987, which is exactly what they did here last week in splitting the first two games of the National League Championship Series.The Cardinals also need to beat either four-time Cy Young winner Greg Maddux or 1995 World Series MVP Tom Glavine, something St. Louis did in successive games last week to help it build a three games-to-one lead in this best-of-seven series.

ST. LOUIS -- Team meetings in the middle of the summer usually don't amount to much, forgotten in the blur of games that follow. But when you call a team meeting before what could be your team's last game of the season, and your team is the defending world champion, that carries a little more significance.Or does it?Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox called a meeting before last night's 14-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium, and his team finally played up to the level -- and above -- most expected from it going into this best-of-seven National League Championship Series.

As we learned in the first round, the Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer the team that appeared destined to miss the playoffs in August and scraped in with an 84-78 record. They're a versatile outfit with dangerous bats up and down the lineup and a stingy starter in every rotation slot. Their matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies is no easy call, but I'll take the team that's hitting and pitching better than at any point this season. Not only do the Dodgers boast a nuclear-hot Manny Ramirez in the three hole, they have their chief table-setter, Rafael Furcal, back at the top of the lineup.

You'll probably hear some derivative of the word at least 50 times during the 2008 National League Championship Series: contrast. It's Philadelphia and its blue-collar fatalism pitted against Los Angeles and its impassioned and impersonal glitz. It's baseball's most revered manager, Joe Torre, against its most maligned, Charlie Manuel. It's a bunch of big-name bombers versus a lineup with less power than the Federal Reserve Board. It's a team no one expected versus one always expected to choke.

Manny Ramirez has been nearly unstoppable since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers on Aug. 1. Tim McCarver, who will call the National League Championship Series on Fox television, is among those who have noticed. "It's extraordinary - the dichotomy between what he was in Boston and what he is in Los Angeles," McCarver said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. "I mean, talk about wearing out your welcome in a town, and it was a long welcome with the Red Sox. But some of the things he did were simply despicable, despicable - like not playing, refusing to play.

The one-line bio on Wikipedia reads as such: "Terry Lee Landrum is a former professional baseball player who played in the major leagues primarily as an outfielder from 1980-1988." Another line should be added: He never had to buy a drink or dinner in Baltimore after Oct. 8, 1983. Or maybe this: No Baltimore sports fan over the age of 30 can hear the name "Tito Landrum" without smiling. Tonight the Orioles are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their 1983 world championship team - their last drink of title-sweet champagne.

DENVER-- --This should come as great news to everyone who has bristled at the way the Boston Red Sox and their fans seem to take over Camden Yards whenever they come to town. It isn't just us. The Red Sox were their normal overbearing postseason selves last night, and it took only three innings for the road warriors of Red Sox Nation to break into a very audible "Let's go Red Sox" chant during the first-ever World Series game at Coors Field. No, they didn't out-shout the towel-waving home crowd, but they were able to make themselves heard over the stunned silence when the Red Sox jumped all over Rockies starter Josh Fogg for six runs in the third inning.

Boston -- Having the World Series in Boston has allowed Major League Baseball to put its interview on hold with the most recent player accused of using human growth hormone. Bob DuPuy, MLB's chief operating officer, said last night that because the Indians didn't win the American League Championship Series, Cleveland pitcher Paul Byrd doesn't need to be interviewed until after the World Series. Byrd said last week that he took hGH via prescription for a pituitary gland problem and was supposed to meet with MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred to tell his side of the story before the World Series.

ST. LOUIS -- Brian Jordan finally got to enjoy the spotlight yesterday, the one he found here late Sunday night when his eighth-inning home run lifted the St. Louis Cardinals to a dramatic 4-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.But more of the questions were about the condition of Jordan's 2-year-old son, Bryson, than about his second game-winning home run in this year's playoffs. Jordan had left Busch Stadium quickly after the game when he learned that his son had fainted in a poorly ventilated room filled with other players' children.

CHICAGO -- It didn't get a lot of attention, but there was a baseball game here yesterday. And the 3-1 defeat the Toronto Blue Jays pinned on the White Sox was the third loss of the day for the sports fans of Chicago.On a day when Michael Jordan confirmed his retirement from the Bulls and the Cubs announced the firing of manager Jim Lefebvre, the White Sox virtually played themselves out of the American League Championship Series. Hardly anybody noticed -- which was the best thing that happened to the White Sox in the last two days.

News item: Enigmatic Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez made headlines recently when he said that if Boston failed to come back and defeat the Cleveland Indians in the American League Championship Series, "It's not the end of the world." My take: That was just flat-out wrong. Everybody knows that after the Red Sox lose a postseason series, there is always a remote mathematical possibility that the sun will expand into a red giant and engulf the solar system. Manny obviously wasn't paying attention during astronomy class.

The Boston Red Sox are supposed to be playing in October, and no one should be surprised that the Cleveland Indians also made it to the American League Championship Series. Both are 96-game winners. Both looked impressive in the postseason's first round. Both aren't just happy to be there. Then there's the National League Championship Series, which begins tonight and pits two of the league's most recent expansion teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. Sports fans nationwide aren't exactly frothing over that one. It's not getting a lot of attention in Arizona, either - the first two games in Phoenix weren't sold out as of yesterday afternoon.