Championship Series

This has to be the easiest to watch and most pleasant set of championship series in some time. Most right-thinking people without explicit rooting ties to the other two teams will be rooting for a Milwaukee-Detroit World Series, though who could really complain about the Cardinals, a team with a great history and great fan base without being entitled about it. Moreover, how great is it that all the East Coast big spenders with their insanely entitled fan bases (and the Cubs with their incredibly stupid fan base) are all out of it. I do feel bad for Philadelphia a bit. If Halladay is the greatest pitcher of our generation, Chris Carpenter is probably the most underrated and he threw an utter masterpiece. But somehow there are major problems with the team that will require people being fired or something. I’m looking forward to hearing Phillies fans complain that had resigned Jayson Werth for an obscene amount of money to go along with the Howard albatross contract they somehow would have won, despite the fact the kind of production you get from Werth in an average year can be had for about 5 million.

I will also provide reasons to root for the Rangers. This is the team progressives are least likely to root for, between its location and its connections to George W. Bush. I understand this. But as a 3 year resident of Texas, I went to several Rangers games and developed a kind of affinity for them, despite being in the same division as Seattle. I am very happy for hard-core Rangers fans. Unless they are winning like now, the Rangers are completely ignored in the Dallas market. A couple of years, I was driving up to Dallas in May and the subject on sports radio was not the Rangers or even the Mavericks, but whether Jerry Jones should have fired Tom Landry 20 years ago. The Cowboys not only completely dominate Dallas, but Jones revels in shitting on the Rangers. When Arlington was chosen for the new stadium, Jerry had to agree to respect the Rangers traditional ballpark next door. As soon as the contract was signed, he ignored that stipulation and built the Death Star.

This is a long-suffering fan base who has rooted for an endless number of atrocious teams. Plus, the Rangers have the 3rd longest World Series drought, going back to their days as the second version of the Senators. Founded in 1961, the franchise has yet to win a series. Only the Cubs and Indians have longer droughts.