2 comments Terence Moore Says Magic Wins the World Series; This Isn't a Parody Column

Terence Moore made a Super Bowl prediction a little less than a month ago. He said the Ravens were going to lose the Super Bowl because they don't have magic. See, Terence explains that magic can win the World Series, but there's no magic in the Super Bowl and that is why the Ravens will lose (yet they won) the Super Bowl. It's so absurd to say magic wins the World Series, but even more absurd to base a Super Bowl prediction on magic. Of course Terence is the same guy who gets worked up about unoriginal baseball celebrations and thinks MLB should not expand replay because the umpires have a hard job to do and can't always get close calls correct. I shouldn't be surprised he says the Ravens had "no chance" of winning the Super Bowl because they don't have magic. It seems like a statement an "old school I-hate-numbers-and-progress" type of sportswriter would say.

What a shame the Baltimore Ravens don't play in the American or National League. Otherwise, they would have a splendid chance to win a world championship this weekend.

The Ravens will have to settle for playing in the NFL and winning the Super Bowl anyway.

Instead, the Ravens have no chance.

Instead the Ravens won the Super Bowl. 

The Ravens are a magic team.

They are bountiful when it comes to magic. Ray Lewis used magic deer-antler spray. Joe Flacco magically became an elite quarterback during the months of January and February and Anquan Boldin magically caught every pass that came his way. Unfortunately, the belief of magic helping a team win a Super Bowl is bullshit, and even if it wasn't bullshit, magic is only reserved for World Series teams. Teams in the NFL need not apply for magic, no matter how deceptively they can pull a rabbit out of a hat or put a dollar bill into a previously uncut fruit.

They'll face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday evening at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, and the Ravens will do so without many of their opponent's credentials.

Fortunately, the Super Bowl isn't played by credentials or who has the biggest resume, but is played on the field by two gritty teams fighting it out, being hustling dirt-dogs until one bloody team is proclaimed the scrappiest team of them all...hence the winner of the Super Bowl. So, credentials are as irrelevant as magic.

While magic teams such as the Ravens often capture the World Series, they never take Super Bowls. Never.

Except for this very year when it happened this very year, when the Ravens who would often magically capture the World Series if they were a baseball team, magically captured the Super Bowl this very year.

Well, almost never.

This almost never happens, which is why the title of this article is "Magic Sometimes Wins the Super Bowl" and is not "Magic Wins World Series, not Super Bowls."

Wait, I got that backwards and the title of this article IS "Magic Wins World Series, not Super Bowls?" I didn't expect Terence Moore to submarine his own point this early in the column. Usually he wants until halfway through a column to admit the entire point of the column is wrong.

Prior to Super Bowl III, Joe Namath made his guarantee involving his New York Jets against the Baltimore Colts, and you know the rest. The 1980 Oakland Raiders were projected as mediocre, but they became the first Wild Card team to ever win it all. Then there was five years ago, when the New York Giants used the combination of a miracle throw and catch in the final seconds to shock the New England Patriots.

Those are just three examples out of 46.

So magic does win Super Bowls?

And dammit, I'm already tired of talking about "magic" like it exists in sports. It doesn't. Crazy shit can happen during a sporting event and teams that aren't expected to win a game end up winning that game. I always find it interesting when members of the "old school baseball" club talk about how you have to see a team or player to determine how great that player or team truly was, then start talking about how certain teams win using magic or grit it out all tough-like. It's like they believe you have to see a player or team in order to appropriately judge that player, unless you can justify that's player or team's success using a completely non-quantifiable method like using magic or heart. The only method of quantifying a player's worth these "old school" baseball guys don't like is the method which uses numbers, but they are perfectly fine with chalking up a player or team's success to something that can't be remotely measured.

Still, despite the lack of suspense of most Super Bowls with these yin-and-yang type pairings, television ratings soar for the network broadcasting the game.

Since the year 2000, nine Super Bowls have been decided by one possession. Since the year 2000, five World Series have been had series records of 4-2 or more. In other words, the majority of World Series since 2000 have been decided 4-1 or 4-0. In even more other words, if Terence says the Super lacks drama then he must think the World Series is the biggest sports bore that exists in terms of championship game(s).

The quality of such Super Bowl games? No so much.

Again, since 2000 the Super Bowl has had very close games. The World Series has also had very close individual games, but the series matchup usually favors one team over the other. It's difficult to compare an individual game to a series of games, but the Super Bowl hasn't lacked excitement recently.

In contrast, baseball has a rich history of unpredictability with the World Series, particularly when a magic team is involved.

There is no such thing as a magic team. There is such a thing as a team that gets hot in the postseason and ends up winning the World Series.

The 1914 Boston Braves went from last place on the Fourth of July to sweeping the supposedly invincible Philadelphia Athletics out of the World Series. Thus their eternal nickname: The Miracle Braves.

With nobody expecting anything worth mentioning, Bill Mazeroski stepped to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series. He eventually ripped a home run to send his obscure Pirates past the mighty Yankees.

By the way, these "obscure" Pirates had a season record of 95-59 in 1960 and the "mighty" Yankees had a season record of 97-57 in 1960, but I'm sure those two extra games the Yankees won proved their mightiness over the Pirates. Either that, or Terence Moore is full of shit. I think I lean towards the latter. 

Nine years later, the New York Mets became the Amazin' Mets -- and 1969 world champions -- after seasons of ineptness.

Despite dropping the opening two games of the 1996 World Series to the Atlanta Braves at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees surged to the title during the New York tabloid drama (as in the stuff of magic teams) surrounding Frank Torre's heart surgery.

Later, the 2004 Boston Red Sox exorcised the Curse of the Bambino in a couple of dramatic ways. 

There were also the 2010 San Francisco Giants. Only the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians had gone longer than the Giants without winning a World Series.

Terence names six teams in the 109 year history of the World Series that were "magic" and won the World Series. Terence named three teams in the 46 year history of the Super Bowl that were "magic" and won the Super Bowl. I'm not a math expert, and I realize Terence hates numbers, but this information tells me a larger percentage of Super Bowl teams were magic as compared to World Series teams were magic...assuming we use the examples that Terence himself cites.

There's a lot more, because whereas pixie dust either dies or fades in the NFL, it lives forever in Major League Baseball -- or at least long enough to win a World Series.

Pixie dust is what helps decide the fate of the World Series, that part is true.

On a different note, what kind of asshole hack-writer pens an entire column about pixie dust and magic helping a team win the World Series? This is the kind of article an 11th grade English teacher would take a look at and hand back to the student with a big "F" on it. It's poorly researched, the central theme is not provable nor does it convey information to the reader that the reader can find useful, and it reeks of cutesy bullshit. Why does MLB.com have this on their site? It's a column about freaking magic and how there are teams in MLB who are magic and the NFL doesn't have teams that are magic. This is an idea a 10 year old would scoff at.

Those "magic" Giants won four of their five Word Series games against the loaded Texas Rangers.

So where was the drama in that 4-1 World Series result? The January after the Giants won the World Series 4-1 over the Rangers, the Packers won the Super Bowl by six points over the Steelers after winning three road games to get to the Super Bowl. But no, the World Series has magical teams and the Super Bowl lacks quality. Terence really wants us to believe this.

Modell's death was particularly a blow to Ray Lewis, the future Hall of Fame linebacker who played on the Ravens' first team. So, Lewis could do his squirrel dance before Sunday's opening kickoff while leading his teammates in a cheer of "Win one for Art."

Sure the Ravens owner died, but death just doesn't create magic, people. When the Joe Torre's brother has heart surgery, now that is a situation where a reasonable case can be made for magic being present. Death is so overdone. Everyone dies, but not everyone has heart surgery.

The Lewis-inspired Ravens smashed the Indianapolis Colts during a home playoff game. Then they ignored their underdog status to grab road victories at Denver (despite the great Payton Manning) and at New England (despite the great Tom Brady).

It all smacks of magic.

But it's not magic because Super Bowls are rarely won using magic. The Magic Gods reserve all magic for baseball teams to use during the MLB playoffs and World Series.

Ravens safety Ed Reed is from the New Orleans area, and that's magic enough. That said, since he is in the twilight of a brilliant career, he could make more magic in the Baltimore locker room before the game by telling his teammates that he is joining Lewis in retirement -- and that he wants to end his career by winning it all in his backyard.

Ed Reed "could make more magic?" Terence, you can't just make magic! Magic is something that has to be cultivated and carefully created in the mind of a baseball sportswriter in order to have a column idea during the long, cold winter months. Magic isn't just made by a player, it's a form of bullshit that only the most hack of sportswriters can create and cite in columns.

Reed played for a defense with more aches and pains this season than any other in the NFL, but they found the "magic" to keep going.

This is expert analysis people. Step back and watch Terence work. ESPN is probably looking hard at Terence to be one of their 194 NFL analysts.

The Ravens also changed offensive coordinators in December, which is unusual for a contending team.

With sentences like this, Terence Moore could give Gregg Easterbrook a run for his money in writing a weekly TMQ. So it is unusual for a contending team to change offensive coordinators? But what if they changed coordinators in order to increase their magic?

They're still standing.

Not that it will matter.

They won the Super Bowl.

Not that the belief in magic, writing an entire column about magic or in any stating MLB teams are magic while NFL teams are not is pure bullshit.