Baseball!

I was only able to watch Monday night's one-game playoff between Colorado and San Diego out of the corner of my eye and with the sound off. Ah, well. It's not like I missed much, right?

I was torn about which team I wanted to win...or rather, which team I wanted to lose. There's the Padres, who always seem to make the playoffs in baseball's worst division, the NL West, only to get swept in the first round. Did I really want to see that again? Then there's the Rockies, who haven't made it to any sort of playoff dance since the 1990's. I like to see new teams in the playoffs from time to time, but not the Rockies. First off, I think their uniforms are the worst in baseball (always my first tiebreaker for deciding which team to cheer for), but mostly, a USA Today story from last season exposed the driving policy of the Rockies. That being seeking out men of faith to stock both their on and off field positions.

Now, it's one thing to mix religion and politics, but religion and sports? Sport is its own religion. If there was a god, his prime directive wouldn't be to increase your slugging percentage.

Of course, the Rockies won an absolute thriller over the Padres, 9-8 in 13 innings on a controversial play at home plate (divine intervention, obviously.) So now that leaves the Rockies playing the Phillies in the first round of the NL playoffs, along with the Cubs against the Diamondbacks. In the AL, it's the Yankees against the Indians, Red Sox vs the Angels.

No one need cheer for anyone else in these playoffs - it's the Cubs or nothing. The Phillies always lose (they became the first major league sports team in history to lose 10,000 games earlier this season), and they're never lovable when doing it. The Diamondbacks already won it recently, robbing the Yankees of any post-9/11 euphoria by stabbing that city in the heart again in 2001. The Angels won it all in 2002, the Red Sox in 2004, everybody hates the Yankees, and the Indians won the Series in 1989 (yes, I know it was in Major League, with Charlie Sheen as their star pitcher), so they're out, too.

It's been since 1908 since the Cubs won the series, and they're just about the coolest sports franchise around. I am predicting the Cubs to win over the Indians in the World Series! And may it snow in November if I am wrong.