By Michael LeCompte

This year’s World Series between the Kansas City Royals and San Francisco Giants has presented an intriguing matchup and has exhibited baseball philosophy that hearkens back to a bygone era of the game.

Both teams rely on pitching and defense to win. The Royals hit 95 home runs in the regular season, fewest in the entire league. Both team play a national league style and have proved the old baseball adage of “get ’em on, move ’em over, and bring ’em in” true.

The World Series has been  a refreshing ground ball up the  middle at a time when balls continue to fly out of major league ball parks. The Royals and Giants have proved that they can put up big numbers employing small ball techniques, as World Series scores of 7-1, 7-2, 11-4, 5-0, and 10-0 have shown.

Guys are getting on base, runners are being advanced, players are sacrificing, others are coming through with clutch base hits. Both teams have displayed dazzling defense and the Giants starting pitching has been excellent.

Both teams have to be sharp at the plate, on the mound, and in the field. Neither team can expect any form of sloppy defense to be bailed out by some one smashing a three run homer at some point in the game and the result has been better baseball.

The Royals and Giants are the perfect teams to square off in the World Series. They both play baseball the way it should be played, or at least the way it used to be played when the game was simpler and somehow more pure.

Whether the Royals or Giants are ultimately victorious, pitching, defense, and small ball are going to win this World Series.