Three nights in April

Last week's single game up in frigid Boston didn't really feel like it counted. Three games this week in The Stadium in The Bronx should be the real deal. Randy Johnson, is of course right when he says he doesn't pitch against the opposing pitcher, but to the opposing hitters. Nevertheless, as both teams used yesterday's off day to pass over their fifth starters, here's the engaging matchups we'll see in The Series.

Johnson vs. Beckett -- neither pitching particularly well in recent starts (both also were the winning pitchers in beating the Yankees in the final game, respectively, of the 2001 and 2003 World Serious).
Mussina vs. Schilling -- both seem to be resurgent after fairly miserable 2005s
Chacon vs. Wakefield -- great changeup vs. maddening knuckle ball, with both tossing the occassional mid-eighties "fastball" just to keep the hitters guessing.

Whee.

Meanwhile, harkening back to a simpler time, before blood rivalries like the latter day Sox and Yankees...

Jim Delsing, an outstanding defensive outfielder who played 10 seasons in the American League but was remembered mostly for his role in baseball's most famous stunt, died Thursday at his home in Chesterfield, Mo. He was 80.

The cause was complications of cancer, said his wife, Roseanne.

On Aug. 19, 1951, the last-place St. Louis Browns were playing the Detroit Tigers in the second game of a doubleheader at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Bill Veeck, the Browns' owner, was about to seal his reputation as a master showman, and Delsing was about to become the answer to a baseball trivia question.

Hoping for headlines other than "Browns Lose Again," Veeck had secretly given a major league contract to the 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel, who had been working in show business. Veeck instructed the Browns' manager, Zach Taylor, to send Gaedel to the plate in the first inning as a pinch-hitter for Frank Saucier, who had started in center field.

With Tigers catcher Bob Swift on his knees, pitcher Bob Cain threw four straight balls, walking Gaedel, who was wearing uniform No. 1/8 and holding a miniature bat. Gaedel went down to first base, and Taylor summoned Delsing, the Browns' regular center fielder, to run for him.

"His strike zone was only a couple inches high," Delsing told Murray Chass of The New York Times on the 50th anniversary of the stunt. "I trot over there, he gets off the bag, pats me on the derriere, says good luck and walks back to the dugout."

In his memoir "Veeck as in Wreck," written with Ed Linn, Veeck said, "If the thing had been done right, Delsing, running for Gaedel, would have scored and we would have won the game, 1-0."

But Delsing went only as far as third base and the Browns lost, 6-2.