The Worst Announcing Crew Ever: Usually I can live with some sub-par announcing, but Holy Hell, Joe Buck and TIm McCarver redefine suck.  The simple fact that Fox puts these clowns on the air makes me not want to watch any playoff baseball.  The sad part is that isn’t an exaggeration.  Joe Buck has admitted he doesn’t even like calling baseball, and we all know he doesn’t even deserve a job in the announcing business (seriously, name someone who has been for a ride on their fathers coattails for longer).  He brings zero excitement to the games, and sometimes just declines to call the action on the field instead opting to do God knows what, probably give McCarver a tug job under the desk.  And then Tim McCarver comes through with unprecedented levels of fail with his “color commentary” which is about as insightful as listening to a baby who is just learning how to talk. Fox should take a step back and realize the reason for a decline in World Series rating isn’t just because it was Philadelphia vs. Tampa Bay (two of the most exciting young teams in baseball) but it was because they have more fail in an announcing booth than was previously thought possible.

Bud Selig: This abomination of a commissioner just needs to quit while he’s this far behind.  Who knows why the owners decided to give him an extension, everytime this clown faces a crisis he somehow manages to bungle it beyond what anyone thought was humanly possible.  Scott Eyre hit it on the head when he allegedly said that he wouldn’t trust Selig to supervise one of his shits.  I couldn’t agree more. It’s time for this idiot to disappear forever, and take Buck and McCarver with him.

Everyone knows that Philadelphia has a nice history of sports failures.  The Phillies were the first team in Major League history to pick up 10,000 losses, accomplishing that not so glorious feat last year.  The rest of their professional sports teams while not reaching that level of futility have struggled as well.  The Sixers, Flyers, Eagles and Phillies have managed to put the city of brotherly love through an excruciating title drought for a city which has a professional sports team in all the major leagues.

Now with their entry to the World Series, the Phillies have given the people of Philadelphia hope.  They should also be feeling a sense of dread.  If the Rays beat the Phillies, then they will have a completed an AL East sweep of the Phillies in the World Series.  I’m not sure if this has ever happened before, although I would assume it hasn’t.  It seems to be the type of thing that only a city like Philadelphia would be forced to endure.

In 1915 the Phillies lost to the Boston Red Sox 4-1
In 1950 the Phillies lost to the New York Yankees 4-0
In 1983 the Baltimore Orioles beat the Phillies 4-1
And in 1993 the Tornonto Blue Jays and Joe Carter put that famous smacking on the Phillies 4-2

That means in World Series games the AL East is a combined 16-4 against the Phillies.  If history is to repeat itself then the Phillies appear to be doomed to a 4-1 loss at the hands of the Rays, and the AL East would officially make Philadelphia its collective bitch.

Finally, a breath of fresh air.  How many times hae you oveheard someone say “wahhh its always the Red Sox or the Yankees, too predictable” when talking about baseball?  Well, that theory can eat shit.  The Rays are arguably the best story baseball has had in decades, making a ridiculous season long run culminating with their first World Series berth ever.  Meanwhile in the NL the Phillies are back in the World Series for the first time since, well, since this happened.  The Rays weren’t even a twinkle in MLB’s eye when Mitch Williams gave that bomb up in 1993 to Joe Carter.

As far as how the series will shake out, all attention has to be on the Rays.  “They won’t win 70 games.  Okay they won’t win the division.  Okay they won’t beat the White Sox.  Okay they won’t overcome the Red Sox.”  Don’t give me anything about this team not having the stones to beat the Phillies on the worlds’ biggest stage.  Evan Longoria and BJ Upton have gone beast-mode during the playoffs, carrying the Rays offense with moon shots.  Their pitching has been unbelievable with Big Game James Shields, Scott Kazmir, and ALCS MVP Matt Garza pitching lights out. And let’s not even dive into how epic David Price’s outing was in game 7.  At 23, he’s going to be some kind of filthy in the coming years.

Meanwhile, the Phillies are the team that’s had as little hype as any National League team in this post season.  While ESPN was busy jerking it to the Cubs 97 win season, CC Sabathia starting every third day for a month, and Manny Ramirez owning Los Angeles, the Phillies went to work and handled both the Brewers and Dodgers with relative ease.  Ryan Howard hasn’t started hitting yet, which is a bit frightening.  Pat the Bat Burrell has played well and Chase Utley is back on track.  As far as arms go, Cole Hamels looks downright unhittable.  Brad Lidge has yet to blow a save this season, which is pretty impressive considering his history of blowing saves in big games.

For a prediction, I have to go with the Rays.  I have a few reasons for it, starting with Steve Phillips picking the Phillies to win it all.  The Rays seem like the most rounded team in baseball; a bunch of power, a bunch of speed, and incredible arms.  Guys like Longoria, Upton, and Crawford have been huge throughout the playoffs and it’ll continue in this series.  The Phillies downfall will be their fall off in their rotation after Hamels.  If the Phillies want to win this series, they’ll need a big win from Cole Hamels tonight.  I still think, regardless of Hamels winning, the Phillies will be overmatched in the long run.  This series will be epic, so screw the talk about the ratings sucking, you don’t work for Fox and neither do I.

Scott Boras, super dick agent to Major League Baseball, has come up with an idea that only he thinks is a good one. Lets play a nine game World Series. Under Boras’ proposed plan, there would be the standard seven game series at the two cities and then there would be two extra games at neutral sites.

First impressions of this idea? Horrible. I’m a big believer in not fixing something that’s not broken. Baseball has been running the seven game series since the 1920’s. That’s a long long time. Not only is there nothing wrong with playing seven games but can you imagine if a series went all nine games? I don’t know if I could watch that. And the idea that there is more money to be made off this due to expansion of markets is a load of crap. I understand there are business aspects but let’s be honest here. And how thrilled can you be if you’re the neutral site. Great, the World Series is coming to town and my team isn’t even in it. Time to have our city taken over by rabid foreign fans for a couple days. Yeah, that sounds great.

We know Boras is Major League Baseball’s pimp and it’s gotten to the point where teams won’t select Boras clients in the draft because of signability. To have that much power in one person, one agent, is kind of ridiculous. With that in mind, I don’t need Boras calling shots on what baseball should do. If he wants to change it, maybe he should run for commissioner. He brings in enough dough off lucrative contracts, he could just start his own league.

Scott Boras is to baseball what Drew Rosenhaus is to football. A nuisance that seems to always weasel their way into the media one way or another. Stick to making teams overpay for players and do your own job. Don’t fix what’s not broken.

It’s always a bittersweet thing to reach the end of baseball season. This World Series was one of the least memorable I’ve watched in my lifetime but it was still playoff baseball and that’s tough to beat. This really felt like destiny for the Tigers but when you forget how to field and throw the ball, you’ll get killed. The poise Detroit showed all postseason long evaporated in the World Series. So now we can spend six months or so taking about free agency and any other hot stove news. It should be a very interesting offseason. But luckily, we’re more than six months away from hearing Tim McCarver again. For that, we’re thankful. On that note, I leave you with Brian Griffin’s insult of McCarver’s announcing ability.

Maybe it’s because we had just launched a week or so prior. Maybe it’s because St. Louis almost had the worst collapse in regular season history. Or maybe it’s because we don’t know anything about baseball. Regardless, the St. Louis Cardinals have made us look like idiots all postseason long. Both of us thought they would fall to San Diego in the first round; that their bullpen was too shaky and their pitching staff behind Carpenter too weak. We thought it was Albert Pujols and 8 struggling goons around him. Wrong.

Last night, it was the Cardinals that were getting breaks and looking composed. For all of Detroit’s great play in the last six months, they almost look like they’re not quite ready for the big stage in playoff baseball. Their pitchers have made 4 errors this series, a World Series record. Fernando Rodney’s throw last night was inexplicable. It’s always a dangerous play to have a pitcher throw around or over a hitter but he wasn’t even close. Maybe it’s because his hat was too tilted for him to see.

We said the Tigers’ collapse late in the year would prevent them from challenging the Yankees in the ALDS. We were wrong. We said St. Louis’ inconsistency behind Albert Pujols would be too much against San Diego’s vaunted pitching staff. We said the Cardinals had no bullpen. We were wrong. We said Jeff Weaver sucks. We were wrong. And we said that Detroit’s destiny was to win this championship. But the Cardinals had other ideas and have continued their quest to make us look foolish.

Game five, pending Mother Nature, is tonight. The Cardinals will throw out Jeff Weaver against Justin Verlander. Suddenly, the Padres and Mets might feel a little bit better about themselves because St. Louis is playing like the team with destiny. They’re nine innings away from their first World Series championship since 1982.