a bet i almost didn't win

A week or two ago, I wrote a post about Alex Rodriguez and the fact that his ending his baseball career with fewer than 700 home runs means that I get pizza. That post was here. Now, it's possible that I jumped the gun. A-Rod didn't actually retire. It's possible that he'll play next year and manage another four homers. He has said that he'd like to get to 700.

And this all reminds me of a bet I made more than a quarter century ago. I won that bet, though at one point it looked like it might end in a draw, all because of the San Andreas Fault.

It was the spring of 1989, and I was in my final semester of grad school at the University of Michigan. The school is in Ann Arbor, just a stone's throw from Detroit. For whatever reason, I said something disparaging about the Tigers. My friend, Rod, overheard, and insisted that they had a good team. So good, in fact, that they would win the World Series. As an aside, let me note that the Tigers finished that year in last place with 103 losses. Anyway, Rod was so certain of the Tigers' greatness that he bet me that they would win the series. Ten dollars. Even odds. He didn't even make me pick a team. It was the Tigers against the rest of Major League baseball. To this day I don't know what Rod was thinking.

Anyway, come the fall, I went back to Ann Arbor for a visit. The Tigers were firmly in last place, mathematically eliminated from the playoff picture. No sooner did I enter the commons room where math grad students hung out, then someone (was it Joe?) suggested that Rod should just pay me. Rod demurred. The Tigers being eliminated from the series wasn't enough to ensure my victory. He pointed out that, by the terms of the bet, I didn't win unless someone else won the series. If no one wins, it's a push.

It seemed silly to me, there had been a World Series winner every year since 1905, and there was no reason for 1989 to be different. But Rod had a point, and I accepted the fact that I'd have to wait another month and a half to get my money.

And that was the year of the earthquake. As the Giants and A's prepared for Game 3, an earthquake struck San Francisco. The series was postponed, and there was talk about canceling. In that event, I wouldn't have won the bet.