'86 World Series - 2014 World Series. The near parallel.

Now that 2014 World Series is over. I can say that my prediction was wrong. I recently revisited the entire 1986 World Series. I watched every game on youtube in detail and I thought the Royals, though not nearly as good a team as the Mets, would succeed in the series the same way they did over the Red Sox. The pattern of the games was nearly identical until Game 7. The Red Sox took two in Shea Stadium led mostly by Bruce Hurst who completely shut down the Met offense. Roger Clemens wasn't as dominate as Hurst in Game 2 but the Sox won anyway thanks to their timely hitting against Dwight Gooden. This Series started with a split in KC but it will be remembered mostly for Bumgarner's equally dominate performance in the opener to Hurst's.

Both series' shifted to opposing cities in Game 3. The Mets came alive for a couple games to even up their series. The Giants and Royals split the next two games. Game 5, Hurst shut down the Mets again. Bumgarner did the same for the Giants. Both games were also lopsided home wins too. The Red Sox were riding a huge wave of momentum when they went back to Shea. The Giants were doing the same against the Royals.

Both Game 6s were the same in the sense that both were huge momentum builders going in the opposite direction. The Mets, capitalized off of the Red Sox weakest point, their bullpen. The same thing happened to the Giants in the series more often than they care to remember.

Then came game 7 and here is where Bruce Hurst proves to have not been in the same class as Madison Bumgarner. Hurst had a lead and the game was getting late. Hurst was even named prematurely as the MVP of the series but the Mets fought back in the game and eventually put it away against the Boston bullpen.

Maybe Giants manager Bochy saw that and learned from history. Sox manager McNamara was happy to stick with his pen even though they blew the lead on Saturday in game 6, Blew the lead in Game 4 of the ALCS in the 9th and they cemented their own fate in game 7 of the series. Bochy turned to a starter, Bumgarner in relief and the rest is history. McNamara's initial plan was to have Dennis Oil Can Boyd start game 7 and he would have had the Sunday game not been rained out but since it was, he turned to Hurst to start. Had he started Boyd and turned to Hurst in relief at the first sign of trouble (even with short rest), things might have been very different.

But the Giants won and former Yankees, Hensley Meulens, Dave Righetti and Roberto Kelly are part of a dynasty (arguably a dynasty, because they wouldn't have been near the 2014 World Series without the new post season rules)