No Love For The West In Baseball

An East vs West rivalry isn’t only a connection to the 1990s Hip-Hop era anymore.

Baseball is in the thick of the battle between the two sides.

The Texas Rangers currently lead the New York Yankees with a 3-2 series lead and a return home for the final two games. The San Francisco Giants took two of three at home and head back to Philadelphia with a 3-2 lead over the Phillies.

The Rangers and Giants were supposed to be minor pests for the juggernaut Yankees and Phillies; everyone picked both teams from the West to be easily stomped and flattened by the East like Gombas from the Super Mario Bros. video games. The real challenge was not in the Championship Series, but the World Series with New York and Philadelphia facing off like the Clash of the Titans.

Now, after being labeled as the 2010 “runner up” before the series even started, it is the so-called incomplete teams of the Rangers and Giants who are standing tall. With the ALCS and NLCS heading into the home stretch, the underdogs of both leagues appear to be just a single W away from advancing to the World Series.

Despite being on top now, the attention and credit being given to both teams remains the same from the start of the playoffs. The attention the Yankees and Phillies are receiving is nothing new to the teams from the East, most of the country are quite unfamiliar with the likes of Michael Young, Aubrey Huff, Ian Kinsler and Matt Cain.

Why is it that the country is so oblivious to players and teams from the West?

Networks, like ESPN, have programs that focus little upon the teams out West. Not only that, but media outlets and analysts describe these teams as if they are inferior or insignificant compared to those in the East.

At the start of the series, many experts picked the Phillies over the Giants, which is understandable in comparison to overall talent. According to the Yahoo! Sports website on predictions for the series, their four experts picked the Phillies to win with split decisions on the series going five or six games long. Three of those same four experts also believed the Yankees would defeat the Rangers.

The Yahoo! Analysts were not the only ones who believed the series belonged to the East. All ten of the ESPN experts asked to make predictions on the NLCS unanimously agreed that the Phillies would be the winner with only three asserting it would go seven games. On the other side for the ALCS, of the eight experts who were asked to pick winners, six assumed the Yankees would win with only two believing the series going the distance.

Despite the little belief most of the media had with the teams from the West, the current situation of both series are not producing any changes.

Following the game four win for the Giants, ESPN Analyst John Kruk continued to give them no love on the television show Baseball Tonight by explaining that the Phillies are losing the series rather than San Francisco winning it.

Although the Phillies are not living up to the expectations bestowed upon them since the start of the season, the Giants are going above and beyond their ability to win games with no credit given to them.

After getting the game winning run in game four, Aubrey Huff explains to the media how the whole nation is finally seeing what his team can do now that their games are showing coast-to-coast on FOX.

“It seems like all the baseball talk is all East Coast,” Huff says according to an AP article posted by Yahoo! Sports. “Everybody watching tonight saw exactly how we’ve played all year.”

The little exposure and attention that baseball teams out West are currently receiving is not a new phenomenon. The idea of an East Coast bias for sports through the media has been a hot topic for a number of years.

San Diego Padres Closer Heath Bell discussed his feelings about ESPN focusing upon teams in the East rather than the franchises out West.

"I saw John Kruk on 'Baseball Tonight,' and he said, 'They're playing real well, but I don't believe in them.’” Bell states according to the MLB Fanhouse website. “And I saw ESPN's promo for tonight's game. They mention the Mets are opening Citi Field, they mentioned the starting time, but nowhere did they mention the Padres.”

Although the West is never given their kudos or attention by most of the media covering baseball, the Rangers and Giants are making the case that changes for equal coverage needs to occur. Both teams deserve credit for their accomplishments regardless of the outcome and for making it obvious that the teams nearest to the Pacific Ocean are no longer pushovers.

The great play of San Francisco and Texas brings up the question the West has been asking for years from the baseball analysts and media: where is the love?