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MLB TONIGHT – Alternate 1929 World Series Edition
Panel: Bob Costas, Mike Francesa, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, Colin Cowherd
COSTAS
“Well… gentlemen… I’ve covered a lot of baseball. I’ve seen a lot of baseball. I’ve narrated Ken Burns documentaries about baseball. But I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a World Series game quite like this. The Atlanta Braves win Game 1… 26–3. Twenty-six to three. If this were a spring-training split-squad game being played on a backfield, you’d call it early to protect arms. But this is the World Series. Alex Fernandez hits four home runs, reaches base seven times, scores six runs — each one a new entry in the record book. The Tigers? They’re going to need the equivalent of a long weekend on Lake Michigan to recover from this one.”
FRANCESA
“BOB. BOB. LET ME STOP YA RIGHT THERE. This was an embarrassment. An absolute disgrace. I mean — Boyce? Dietrich? Santana? Every reliever Detroit brought in, they came in like they were throwing BATTING PRACTICE. I saw high-school teams give up fewer hard-hit balls than this. Atlanta had 27 hits. They hit MORE home runs than Detroit had RUNS! Fernandez? Tremendous. The kid put on one of the great single-game performances you’ll ever see. But Detroit — you can’t show up like that in a World Series. You just can’t.”
MAD DOG
“MIKE, MIKE, MIKE — LISTEN!! It’s GAME ONE! You could lose by 23 OR you could lose by one — it still counts as ONE LOSS!! But this was HISTORIC! FERNANDEZ — FOUR HOME RUNS!! ZIMMERSCHIED — A GRAND SLAM AND ANOTHER HOMER!! MIRELES — A COUPLE OF SHOTS! McKNIGHT — FIVE HITS!! They’re bludgeoning the ball like they’re the ’27 Yankees facing a beer-league team! And the first inning — OH MY GOODNESS — 12 RUNS IN THE FIRST!! Detroit’s pitching looked like they took the team bus to the WRONG PARK!”
COWHERD
“You know what this is? This is classic momentum mismatch. Detroit comes in winning 98 games, feeling good, defending champions… and Atlanta walks in saying, ‘We’ve got better athletes.’ That lineup is full of twitchy, explosive guys. It’s like watching track stars play baseball. B. Nunez — explosive. Fernandez — elite bat speed. Zimmerschied — sneaky power from a premium position. You get that many dynamic athletes in a postseason environment with the crowd juiced? It snowballs. Detroit’s staff looked slow, rigid, outdated — and Atlanta looked like the future of baseball.”
COSTAS
“What amazes me is how many of these were no-doubters. Wind blowing out or not, those weren’t cheap. Fernandez hit balls that would have cleared the Polo Grounds — and that’s saying something. And let’s give credit to Sandoval as well: with all this chaos around him, he calmly throws seven innings, strikes out seven, walks none, and just lets his offense set off fireworks behind him.”
FRANCESA
“And by the way — the Tigers did run the bases well. Carbigos stole a base. Macario stole a base. That’s about the ONLY thing they did well. Cisneros, nice day. But boy oh boy — you cannot have your 8–9 hitters go 0-for-7 with three strikeouts when the other team is bombing home runs onto highways.”
MAD DOG
“And let’s not forget Zimmerschied! The guy had SIX RBIs! SIX!! That’s a SERIES for some players!! And Joseph — a triple, a homer, three more runs! Every single Brave in the lineup had at least TWO HITS except Pena — who STILL had a homer and drove in two! You could’ve put the Atlanta batboys in there and they probably would’ve driven a run in!”
COWHERD
“This is psychological now. Detroit’s going to show up tomorrow wondering if the game is going to get away from them early. Atlanta’s showing up saying, ‘We might score double digits again.’ And that’s dangerous. Game 2 is now about survival for the Tigers’ pitching staff. You cannot let this become a story about Atlanta simply having more dynamic talent.”
COSTAS (closing)
“In every memorable World Series, there’s a game people talk about for decades. In this 1929 edition, Game 1 might already be that game. One team ascendant, one team shell-shocked, and a performance for the ages by Alex Fernandez — a name that, after tonight, has entered postseason lore.”
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