Major League Baseball Playoffs (ramblings)

When your team finishes 72-90, the Major League Playoffs can feel more like a reminder of how bad your team is than a display of the game's best teams going against each other. One can grow jealous, frustrated, and indifferent, watching teams that stayed healthier, developed their farm systems better, and managed their money better than the team one dedicated a whole summer to supporting. One can begin to feel like the kid who missed the first word in the spelling bee and now has to watch the rest of it.

If one's own team is not in the playoffs, then one has to find other plot lines to follow; other cars to bark at and chase down the street. Here are the shiny objects that have me barking this fall:

AL Divisional Rounds
ANGELS vs. RED SOX

People keep telling me the Yankees missed the playoffs, but I swear I saw Dice K slated to pitch on Friday. Wait, what? He pitches for Boston, not New York? Those are different franchises? I thought the Rays beat the New Boston Yank Sox for the division title? Seriously, the histories of New York and Boston are so intertwined they should be contracted into one franchise. Also, that would open up a lot more games on ESPN and FOX's TV schedules.

The Angels, on the other hand, have always been a favorite of mine. I didn't like the Rally Monkey, but I love Angels in the Outfield, a film starring the most underrated actor of his generation, Tony Danza, and Adrian Brody, in a performance that trumps his Oscar-winning one in The Pianist.  Matthew McConaughey has never been this good again either.  In fact, if not for this film, I doubt the Angels even exist.  Plus, they feature Vladimir Guerrero, the Tony Danza of baseball.  Seriously, Who's the Boss should never have been green-lighted, but Tony's charisma made it happen.  Guerrero should not be a career .323 hitter, considering the pitches he chases, but somehow he does it, just like Danza somehow kept the house clean with an effortless, "Heeey!!!" 


I'm pulling for the Angels because this is their chance to show why they deserve more attention from the baseball world; it's their chance to show the baseball world "who's the boss." (insert cheesy Tony Danza grin here)

RAYS VS. WHITE SOX

A tin man would root for the Rays. Afterall, they are the underdog, and they have heart, according to Lil Wayne, who describes their blood pumping organ as amazingly unexplainable. He also adds a wow, a great, and a list of his top 15 favorite teams in every sport, all like 85 of them. I would agree with Lil' Wayne, except he has ESPN tattooed on his right arm. I still question his dedication to his picks, until he gets ESPN2 tattooed on his left arm. Let's just say I'm skeptical and pulling for the White Sox because I went to Tampa this summer, and it's filled with Yankees and Red Sox fans. The city cares more about spring training than it does its own team.

The White Sox, on the other hand, have a group of true fans, who are treated like 3/5 of a human being in their own city. Carl Sandburg once described Chicago as "the city of the broad shoulders," and the black and white uniforms of the White Sox look like they were designed for the working class. This team hits home runs like they've been lifting crates in the rail yard. The Rays may have heart, but this team has sweat, spit, and muscle. This team can't afford to have heart because their own city broke it a long time ago. The fact that there are still White Sox fans today is a testament to a minority group's perseverance in midst of an enthusiastic majority, like punk vs. disco.

Yes, the White Sox's main competition is not the team they face on the field, but the team across town they fight for headlines with. The White Sox and the Cubs is like the truth versus the fiction. In real life, players bet on games, cheat, and lose their careers. In fairy tales, gypsies cast spells because they love their goats, like Shrek loves donkey. I, for one, never understood how the gypsy and the goat got to Wrigley in the first place. Does the L pass through Transylvania?

I'm pulling for the White Sox. I'm pulling for the real life madness that is Ozzie Guillen. I'm pulling for the real life pain that is the unravelling of Ken Griffey's greatness. I'm pulling for Jim Thome. I'm pulling for the story that isn't a fairy tale because midnight comes everyday of our lives.

Who didn't imitate this swing as a kid?


NL Divisional Rounds
CUBS VS. DODGERS

Okay, I went hard on the Cubs in that bit about the White Sox, but I've never understood how the popularity of these two teams became so one-sided. Both teams have had good and bad years. Both teams have had bad luck. Both teams have had charismatic and talented players, who usually did not deliver in the clutch. 2005 was an exception, so I don't get the disparity.

Is it that the White Sox's uniforms make them look like Darth Vader, while the Cubs and their stadium make America think of chewing gum? Is it Harry Cary's voice that caused this? Is it the inability to forgive a franchise for sins committed in 1919? What was it? What is it? Does anyone know? I'd like an answer.

Anyway, I'm pulling for the Cubs to beat the Dodgers. I can't pull for a team that's from L.A. I just can't.

PHILLIES VS. BREWERS

The Phillies will win this series. The Brewers lost their chance at postseason success when Ben Sheets got hurt, but I'm pulling for the Brewers because the '93 Phillies still give me nightmares, and I wake up in a cold tobacco sweat.

________

ALCS
ANGELS VS. WHITE SOX

This series comes down to one conflict. What's been more important to America: Tony Danza or trains? It's a tough call, but "Who's the Boss?" is rarely, if ever, seen in syndication these days. I saw a train last weekend, and it was moving. Trains win, which means I'll be pulling for Jermaine Dye, Griffey, Thome, and others to keep lifting crates in the rail yard.


NLCS
CUBS VS. BREWERS

This series I hope happens. Milwaukee is like the little brother to Chicago. I don't even think Chicago worries about its little brother ever even being a serious threat on the field, and I'm not sure they should; but Chicago should worry about losing its Charlie Brown factor. Charlie Brown is always lovable. Charlie Brown never wins, and that makes us like him even more because he still plays the game no matter what. The one time he was winning, the game got rained out. The Cubs losing keeps Charlie Brown alive in Chicago. I'd hate to see Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano take Charlie Brown out in the middle of the night and tie him to the rails of the L, to get run over by a train powering its way back from Transylvania full of gypsies and goats.

Keep Charlie Brown alive!

Keep throwing the high straight ball, Cubs. We love it. Some things are more important than trophies.

My second reason for hoping the Brewers make the Series is linked to Marty McFly. McFly travelled back in time to the 1950's. I would like to travel back to the 1970's. Milwaukee is trapped in the 1970's. Brewers fans still tailgate to Led Zeppelin, using tapes, not CDs. If they win, then I think somehow that will result in all of us being transported back to the 1970's, to a time when mascots were still allowed to slide into a barrel full of beer, people lived off of sausages and cheese, and mustaches did not signify a career in pornography.  It sounds magical.  It sounds like a fairy tale, until one remembers they had lines for gas in the '70s, political corruption, and disco. Then the fairy tale becomes all too real and uncomfortably familiar, like kissing your mother, or Sarah Palin running for Vice President, or ringtones being passed off as pop songs, or... standing in line for gas. Hey, Marty, we're stuck in a time warp.



WORLD SERIES

WHITE SOX VS. BREWERS

The working class vs. time travel, that's the World Series I want.  I feel like I'm already watching it in the Presidential race.  Baseball is more poetic than politics.  Give me poetry over debates. Give me something that truly wipes the slate clean because, Atlanta, next year is our year to take on the Bourgeoisie.