Opening thoughts on the 2006 World Series

I guess the last week of the season means nothing. Seriously, does it? The New York Mets and the New York Yankees – the two teams I assumed would meet in the World Series – have both been eliminated in the playoffs.

And teams that seemingly fell apart at the end of the season beat them both.

For the Tigers, it was a huge skid – they lost the AL Central title to a Twins team that ripped off something like 45-3 towards the end of the season (Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but still) to a red hot Twins team. A team that was on such a roll they lost to the A’s in four games. Right. The Tigers have been, well, rather powerful. They embarrassed the Yankees in the opening round and soundly defeated the A’s in ALCS. They deserve to be in the World Series – there’s no doubt about that – but still, this is the same team that blew a huge lead in the AL Central at the end of the season.

The other team – the St. Louis Cardinals – pulled the same stunt, on a much larger scale. They dropped something like 12 games in a row before the playoffs, almost losing their spot to the Houston Astros. And they had a worse record then the two teams they beat – the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets – to boot. Granted, they limped through the playoffs – they only won game seven on the ninth – but still. We now have the World Series for 2006 all set.

And both teams skidded into the playoffs.

I’m not even going to go into what the last week of the season means. Some guy at Baseball Prospectus can do that – he’s about a million times more qualified, actually – and hell, it’s an article I’d read. Right now… Well, I’m going to try and let the idea sink in…

The two teams that I least thought would make it – including one that I didn’t even think would make the playoffs in September – are in the World Series.

Jeez, what’ll happen next? Will the Texan’s whip out a string of victories and win the Super Bowl? Will the Columbus Blue Jackets win a Stanley Cup? Will the Knicks win the Finals? Hopefully not - I'd like to keep my sanity, if I could, please.