World Series: St. Louis Cardinals Get All Mixed Up

St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa pulls relief pitcher Marc Rzepczynski after he gave up a two RBI double to Texas Rangers' Mike Napoli in the eighth inning of Game 5 of the World Series

Mike Segar / Reuters

(ARLINGTON, Texas) – Hey, St. Louis, if your team loses the World Series this year, blame a bad phone connection.

World Series goats are usually human. Back in 1985, for example, umpire Don Denkinger blew a call at first base that allowed the Kansas City Royals to stay alive against the Cardinals in Game 6; the Royals won it all in seven. The following year, Bill Buckner let a ball slip through his legs against the New York Mets, and Boston Red Sox fans cursed him for years (though all would eventually be forgiven).

But we may soon be adding fuzzy fiber optics to this infamous list. (Insert joke about your least favorite phone company here: Does Rangers Ballpark use AT&T?)

On Monday Night, the St. Louis Cardinals lost to the Texas Rangers, 4-2, in Game 5 of the World Series. The Rangers now have a 3-2 lead in the Series; with a win Wednesday night in St. Louis, Texas will clinch its first title. More than the actual phone, a bullpen coach hard of hearing, or Texas crowd noise that drowned a call from St. Louis manager Tony La Russa to the pen, might have played key roles in a miscommunication that directly impacted the outcome of Game 5. Or maybe La Russa, who also made a separate ninth inning decision that cost the Cardinals, needs to speak more clearly into the receiver.

No matter who – or what – should bear the blame for the mishap, it was absurd. And going into Game 6, a game St. Louis must win, the Cardinals are all mixed-up. And what makes what you're about to read doubly confusing is that, until now, La Russa's expert use and reliance on the bullpen is the reason the Cards have excelled in this post season.

The whole thing sounds like a follow up to Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first?" routine. In the bottom of the eighth inning, with the score tied 2-2, La Russa called the bullpen to request that both left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski, and righty Jason Motte, warm up. St. Louis bullpen coach Derek Lilliquist heard La Russa ask for Rzepczynski, but not Motte.

After noticing that Motte wasn't throwing, La Russa called the bullpen back a second time, repeating his request that Motte get loose. However, by the time Texas catcher Mike Napoli, a right-hander whom La Russa wanted Motte to face, came up to the plate with the bases loaded, La Russa figured Motte wasn't ready. So La Russa kept lefty Rzepczynski, who had entered the game earlier, on the mound, mucking up La Russa's righty-righty strategy. Sure enough, Napoli hit a bases-loaded double off Rzepczynski that scored the deciding runs. It's turning into quite the Fall Classic for Nap0li as he becomes only the second player to have four multi-RBI games in a single World Series, joining a certain Mickey Mantle of the 1960 New York Yankees.

(MORE: Why The Rangers Should Beat The Cardinals)

But from the sublime to the ridiculous as things then got comical. After Rzepczynski struck out Mitch Moreland for the second out, La Russa went to the mound again, thinking Motte was finally ready. He signaled for Motte, but the pitcher who arrived from the bullpen looked strangely like Lance Lynn, another Cardinals reliever. Lynn wasn't even supposed to pitch on Monday.  “I saw the big fella come in, and I said, 'Why are you here?'" Turns out that when La Russa asked Lilliquist to warm up Motte for a second time, Lilliquist heard La Russa say “Lynn” instead of “Motte,” even though the names don't really sound alike.

La Russa ordered Lynn to intentionally walk Texas' Ian Kinsler, affording Motte some time to finally warm up. When La Russa removed Lynn for Motte after Lynn walked Kinsler, America thought La Russa was losing his mind. Why, especially in a close game, bring in a pitcher to just intentionally walk one batter, completely wasting him for the rest of the game?

Only afterwards did we discover that conversations between La Russa and Lilliquist, talking like two first graders in a broken game of telephone, produced St. Louis' bizarre bullpen strategy. “It must be loud,” La Russa says of the crowd noise in the bullpen. “I give the fans credit . . . Maybe we need to come up with some ear mikes or something.” How about texting? La Russa offered another potential solution. “Smoke signals from the dugout,” he says.

In the visiting locker room, NewsFeed asked Lynn if the bullpen was unusually loud. “I didn't hear anything,” Lynn said.  Wait, La Russa just said that the crowd noise caused the miscommunication. And now you're saying you “didn't hear anything,” that it was quiet? Lynn stares back blankly. Remind us: Who's on first?

“The bullpen phone is kind of tucked back in there,” Lynn says.  “Everything is kind of huddled over. It's hard to know. It's hard to hear. We can't even hear the phone ring out there. It's not very loud or anything like that.”

Wait, now you're saying it's hard to hear, but it's not very loud.  “Phone wise,” Lynn replies. Ah, the phone isn't very loud. Got it, I think. Now I want to bash my head against your locker. The Cardinals are very confusing.

The second mishap actually didn't hurt the Cardinals, since Motte – remember him? – wound up striking out the Texas shortstop Elvis Andrus for the third out, keeping the score at 4-2. Still, no Cards fan can be comfy with this circus.

Plus, in the top of the ninth, La Russa really cost the Cardinals; here, he only had himself to blame. Texas reliever Neftali Feliz hit Allen Craig with a pitch to start the inning. With Albert Pujols at the plate, La Russa ordered Craig to steal on a 3-2 pitch, even though the upside of that move – Craig scoring on a Pujols extra-base hit – is meaningless, since it's Pujols who represents the tying run.

Sure, Craig's jump-start could have prevented a double play. But given the nastiness of Feliz's pitches, a Pujols strikeout was a real risk. Pujols whiffed, Napoli threw Craig out by eight feet, and Cardinals fans clutched their hair. The double play destroyed the rally: two batters later, Texas won it.

(PHOTOS: The Golden Age of Baseball)

As if this game wasn't muddled enough for St. Louis, yet another goof hurt the Cardinals. In the top of the 7th, with one out and the game still tied, Craig also tried to steal second with Pujols at the plate. This move made even less sense. Even if Craig stole the base, he'd just be taking the bat out of Pujols' hands; the Rangers would have walked Pujols intentionally.

Instead, Napoli nailed Craig at second, and just like in the ninth inning, the play wasn't even close. Did La Russa order Craig to steal? “It was just a mix-up,” La Russa says. Mix-ups, like summer heat, are a St. Louis specialty. He wouldn't elaborate on this one. “On our team, nobody gets thrown under the bus,” says La Russa. (Except, apparently, for the bullpen coach who botched the phone call).

Craig said it was supposed to be a hit-and-run play. “I got the sign, and I ran,” says Craig. “Simple as that.” Yet, Pujols didn't swing at the pitch. Did he miss the sign? Did third-base coach Jose Oquendo misread La Russa's intentions? Did five people give different sets of directions? Did a game of rock-paper-scissors determine that decision?

With the Cardinals, all absurdity is possible. And if St. Louis doesn't cut the confusion, the Rangers will be riding back to Texas with a title.

LIST: Memorable Moments in the World Series

Sean Gregory is a staff writer at TIME. Find him on Twitter at @seanmgregory. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Tile and Error: Cheating Scandal Rocks World Scrabble Championship

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It was an allegation of letter-ary proportions.

Proving that no one can escape a cheating scandal, a contestant in the World Scrabble Championship was accused of hiding a tile after it went missing.

A Thai player claimed that Ed Martin of England hid a letter "G" during their match.  The opponent wanted Martin to be taken to a restroom to be strip searched, but authorities refused to honor the request.

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Martin ended up winning the match, and no evidence was presented to support the Thai player's allegation.

That win was not enough to secure him the top prize, though. Nigel Richards, a New Zealander, took the overall title and £12,700 ($20,051.44) in winnings at the Warsaw championship after scoring 95 points with the word "omnified."

Richards also claimed the title in 2007. This year, he beat 116 competitors from 44 countries to be named champion.

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Why the World May Be Running Out of Clean Water

A parched lake in Texas illustrates the effects of a record-breaking drought that hit the state and much of the American Southwest this year

Albert Cesare / The Odessa American / AP

Earlier this month, officials in the South Pacific island nation of Tuvalu had to confront a pretty dire problem: they were running out of water. Due to a severe and lasting drought, water reserves in this country of 11,000 people had dwindled to just a few days' worth. Climate change plays a role here: as sea levels rose, Tuvalu's groundwater became increasingly saline and undrinkable, leaving the island dependent on rainwater. But now a La Niña–influenced drought has severely curtailed rainfall, leaving Tuvalu dry as a bone. "This situation is bad," Pusinelli Laafai, Tuvalu's permanent secretary of home affairs, told the Associated Press earlier this month. "It's really bad."

So far Tuvalu has been bailed out by its neighbors Australia and New Zealand, which have donated rehydration packets and desalination equipment. But the archipelago's water woes are just beginning — and it's far from the only part of the world facing a big dry. Other island nations like the Maldives and Kiribati will see their groundwater spoil as sea levels rise. Texas, along with much of the American Southwest, is in the grip of a truly record-breaking drought — even after days of storms in the past month, Houston's total 2011 rainfall is still short of its yearly average by a whopping 2 ft., or 60 cm. Australia has experienced severely dry weather for so long, it's not even clear whether the country is in a state of drought, or more worryingly, a new and permanent dry climate that could forever alter life Down Under. "Climate-change impacts on water resources continue to appear in the form of growing influence on the severity and intensity of extreme events," says Peter Gleick, one of the foremost water experts in the U.S. and head of the Pacific Institute, an NGO based in Oakland, Calif., that focuses on global water issues. "Australia's recent extraordinary extreme drought should be an eye-opener for the rest of us." (See photos of the world's water crisis.)

Volume 7 of the Pacific Institute's regular report on global water usage, The World's Water, comes out today, just in time to address the squeeze of droughts, the increasingly apparent impact of climate change and the threats facing our relatively scarce supplies of freshwater. The sweeping report is a reminder that clean water is vital to life — as Gleick points out, more than 2 million people die each year from preventable water-related diseases — and that on the whole, we're not doing a very good job of husbanding that resource. There's even a risk here that parts of the U.S., especially the arid West, may have passed "peak water" — the point at which it becomes essentially impossible to increase supply.

Potential water shortages are one more reason to try to reduce carbon emissions and blunt the worst impacts of climate change — a warmer world is likely to further dry out already arid regions, even as extreme rainfall intensifies in already wet areas. But however severe the effects of climate change become, we're going to need to use water much more efficiently than we do now: the world's population is expected to pass the 7 billion mark by the end of this month, and more people will need more water. "New thinking about solutions and sustainable water planning and management, better data, case studies and efforts to raise awareness, are all needed," Gleick writes in The World's Water.(Read about radioactive water in Japan.)

Smarter water policy might mean rethinking other fields of resource use. Take, for example, natural gas drilling. Hydraulic fracturing has vastly increased American supplies of natural gas, which is good for gas companies and, because natural gas generally has a greener footprint, potentially good for the environment as well. But fracking requires a significant amount of water — up to 5 million gal. (19 million L) per well. That might not be a major problem in a relatively wet state like Pennsylvania, but in bone-dry states like Texas, water-intensive fracking has sparked a backlash. There's also the uncertain risk of water contamination from fracking and drilling, and the problem of water waste. "The rapid expansion of the use of hydraulic fracturing to increase natural gas production has serious potential consequences for local water resources," says Gleick. It's important that "more effort be put into both understanding the real risks and protecting water resources before pushing for accelerated programs of natural gas production."

What we need most of all is a rethink of how we deal with water and a recognition of just how valuable it is — especially in a warming world. That means focusing on modulating demand as much as increasing supply. Through most of the 20th century, governments dealt with water problems through massive construction projects designed to expand and regulate supply — think the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas or the Three Gorges Dam in China.

But the era of those big projects may be ending, largely because we've begun to recognize the environmental problems that come with major dams, including the loss of aquatic wildlife and the displacement of local populations. Last month Burma's military government — not ordinarily responsive to public opinion — canceled a planned $3.6 billion Chinese-backed hydroelectric dam that would have displaced thousands of villagers. Just as we've recognized that energy efficiency is often the fastest and cheapest way to address carbon emissions, there's much that can be done to curb water waste. We need to "adopt 21st century strategies of new forms of sustainable water supply, rethink water demand and efficiency of use, and [embrace] smart use of pricing and economics," says Gleick. The alternative could mean ending up like poor Tuvalu — high and dry.

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Apple Unveils iPhone 4S; World Phone With Faster A5 Chip, Siri, 8-MP Camera, Faster Download Speeds, HD Video Recording

Apple Unveils iPhone 4S; World Phone With Faster A5 Chip, Siri, 8-MP Camera, Faster Download Speeds, HD Video Recording

After months of rumors and speculations, Apple unveiled their hotly anticipated fifth generation iPhone called iPhone 4S at the Let's Talk iPhone event earlier today.

As the name suggests, iPhone 4S is not a redesigned iPhone as many of us had hoped, it looks like iPhone 4 but comes with a number of new features and improvements.

Here's a list of new features and improvements:

A5 processor: iPhone 4S will be powered by Apple's A5 processor that currently powers iPad 2. Apple claims it delivers up to 2 times faster performance and up to 7 times faster graphics compared to iPhone 4's A4 chip.

8-Megapixel Camera: iPhone 4S gets an all-new 8 megapixel camera and a custom lens with a larger f/2.4 aperture. The camera also comes with an improved backside illumination sensor, auto white balance, advanced color accuracy, face detection, and reduced motion blur.

HD Video recording: You will be able to shoot 1080p HD video using iPhone 4S. It also comes with image stabalization technology to avoid shaky videos.

World Phone: iPhone 4S is a dual mode or world phone, which means it will work on both GSM and CDMA network, which is a boon for CDMA iPhone users as they'll be able to roam GSM networks. Apple claims that iPhone 4S is the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to transmit and receive, so call quality is better.

Faster Network Speeds: Apple has doubled the maximum HSDPA data speeds to 14.4 Mbps in iPhone 4S.

Improved Battery Life: iPhone 4S comes with improved battery life even though it comes with a faster processor.

Talk time: Up to 8 hours on 3G (from 7 hours in case of iPhone 4), up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM)Standby time: Up to 200 hoursInternet use: Up to 6 hours on 3G, up to 9 hours on Wi-FiVideo playback: Up to 10 hoursAudio playback: Up to 40 hoursSiri: Siri's is Apple's new personal assistant feature that is exclusively available on iPhone 4S. Using Siri, you can use voice commands to compose and dictate emails, schedule meetings, place phone calls, it can also find answers for you from the web through sources like Wikipedia, Yelp and WolframAlpha. It also can use location based services wherever required. You can send a text, ask for a reminder, ask for the weather or even the closest ATM using voice commands. Apple has covered a few more examples:

Siri understands context allowing you to speak naturally when you ask it questions, for example, if you ask “Will I need an umbrella this weekend?” it understands you are looking for a weather forecast. Siri is also smart about using the personal information you allow it to access, for example, if you tell Siri “Remind me to call Mom when I get home” it can find “Mom” in your address book, or ask Siri “What’s the traffic like around here?” and it can figure out where “here” is based on your current location. Siri helps you make calls, send text messages or email, schedule meetings and reminders, make notes, search the Internet, find local businesses, get directions and more. You can also get answers, find facts and even perform complex calculations just by asking.

Checkout the video of how it works:

It is clearly the killer feature of Apple's new iPhone. We still need to try it out, but it could be as revolutionary as iPhone's multi-touch interface.

Here are some other features that are also available in iPhone 4:

The gorgeous Retina display.It will come preinstalled with iOS 5, which brings over 200 new features and improvements.FaceTime - Apple's video recording feature.AirPlay and AirPrint support.Pricing:

iPhone 4S will be available for $199 for the 16GB model, $299 for the 32GB model, $399 for the 64GB model.

Availability:

iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Japan and Australia on October 7th and will be launching on October 14th and in 22 more countries Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithunia, Luxemberg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland on October 28th and 70 countries by the end of the year.

Though we can see that many of you are disappointed that Apple didn't launch a redesigned iPhone 5 with a larger screen, we think the specs bump and Siri makes it a great incremental upgrade.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

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