World Series

Normally, I'm excited about the start of the World Series. It's normally my favorite week and a half of the year. But I'm not getting as pumped up about it as I normally do. This is probably because it's starting so late - today is October 28 (obviously); when the Twins won the World Series in 1991, game 7 was on October 27. So something's goofy with the schedule. I mostly blame Fox, with a little of blame spread to Major League Baseball for good measure.

This should be a fun series. Normally, I'd say the Yankees look like a team of destiny this year, as they were obviously the best team and don't really have a major weakness. Plus, they have the Yankee Mystique working for them. After all, this is their 40th time in the World Series, while the Phillies have played in only 20 World Series games, despite having been around since 1883.

But the Phillies don't care, because they won the thing last year. They are the one team that would be able to play loose and not be intimidated by the Yankee Mystique, because most of these guys did it last year. That, and the Phillies are a rare National League team that can hit with the Yankees.


In a kind of related story, how must Cleveland fans feel right now? The two game 1 pitchers tonight, C.C. Sabathia and Cliff Lee, were playing for Cleveland in 2007. Imagine being in Cleveland on October 18, 2007, right before the Indians were about to take the field in game 5 of the ALCS. They had a 3-1 lead in the series, their best pitcher (Sabathia) starting the game, and the game was at home. They had everything they wanted. Imagine, then, that you turned to an Indian fan at that point and said that not only would the Indians not win the series, they wouldn't even have the lead the rest of the series; that their promising team would completely tumble to the point that they barely beat out Kansas City to avoid last place two years later; and that two of their pitchers from that team would start game 1 of the 2009 World Series for two different teams. That fan would have either punched you in the face or started crying. And since it's Cleveland, possibly both.

And he probably would have believed you.