The John Higgins baseball playoff preview

As I do all too often, I wrote most of this post a few days ago and then sat on it. If I were write it from scratch today, it would probably read a bit different. But that of course isn't going to happen, so please note that some of these thoughts are slightly dated and perhaps irrelevant. You'll deal with it.

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Watching one of the first games of the Cubs-Diamondbacks NLDS match-up last year, I noticed with absolute bewilderment that the D-backs had given all of their fans white pom-poms to wave around like a bunch of idiots. At a baseball game. Naturally, this enraged me. In fact, it got me so worked up that I decided to write a team-by-team preview for the playoffs.

This year, the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays have made the playoffs for the first time in their very non-illustrious history. This history has been so un-illustrious, in fact, that they'd been hemming and hawing for the last few weeks of the season on who would throw out the first pitch for Game 1 of their ALDS match-up against the White Sox. Finally last week, the Rays announced that John Higgins, their very first employee, would have these honors. This didn't enrage me. But I found it to be ridiculously random; Higgins will forever be the answer to a trivia question in the greater Tampa Bay area. And this intrigues me. In fact, it has intrigued me so much that, yes, it's worked me into enough of a tizzy that I'm going to bust out a team-by-team preview -- or probably more accurately, just a random group of my thoughts on each team -- for this year's playoffs.

So here we go, in some sort of particular order:

Chicago White Sox
Who cares. Really. The only reason I'd ever watch this team is on the chance that someone will hit a home run and I'll get to hear their TV announcer's home run call. Seriously. That alone is worth the price of admission. But as for their prospects in the playoffs? Who really cares? After taking a bit of a hiatus after their World Series victory in 1919, they won three years ago, so they've already cashed in their sympathy support. This year, they've limped in as their own manager berated every player on the team in some sort of a misguided attempt to motivate them. Is there even any kind of a compelling story on the team? With the possible exception of Alexei Ramirez? Who cares.

Milwaukee Brewers
Considering how little I really care about this team, I kinda like them. And you gots to love the CC Sabathia. Although you have to wonder about how he's going to pitch next year after throwing 241 innings last year and 253 innings AND COUNTING this year. He is a man, a man's man, a Steve McQueen's man, but after all those innings, I absolutely would not want my team to be signing him this off-season for however many years and at whatever ridiculous salary he's going to demand. Anyway. Like I said, I kinda like this team. But what other pitchers do they have? No one. So they shouldn't win. And they won't win.

Tampa Bay Rays
I really didn't think this team was going to hold onto the AL East lead throughout the year. Not in May, not in June, not in July, and especially not through the grind of August and September. Where's the experience, the proven grit, the knowledge to know how keep at it for 162 games? But somehow, they did it. And I'm convinced. They're absolutely, positively legitimate, with a solid core of players throughout the roster. No absolute game breakers -- and it's this absence that I think has most people befuddled at their success -- but just a solid core of players from top to bottom. Batting, fielding, starting pitching, bullpen. They could go deep.

Philadelphia Phillies
I'm not going to reread what I wrote about the Phillies in this preview last year, because I'm probably about to write the same thing again. And I'm going to keep on writing it every year until they do what's absolutely necessary: they need to win. They must win. Not for the team. For the city. Hell, with all the angst and anger that seeps out of that city and contaminates everything within a 300 mile radius, they need to win for the freaking nation. Does it need to be the Phillies? No. Could be the Sixers. Or the Eagles. And maybe -- just maybe -- even the Flyers. But someone's got to do it. Because if these teams keep on losing, one of these days, after another early exit from the playoffs, that city is just going to implode. If and when you start to see hints of this, and you live anywhere on the Eastern seaboard, run. Just run.

Los Angeles Angels
Hey, isn't it crazy that both teams from LA and Chicago are in these playoffs? And neither team from New York is? I love that. What I don't love are the Angels. Well, I do love them. But I don't. I love Mike Scioscia, I love Mickey Hatcher, I love how Art Moreno runs the team, I love that they're (kinda sorta not really) in the city that I grew up in. But the team as a collective? I don't love them. It's the basically the same team that we've seen since 2002. And it's become boring. They've worn off on me. Whatever.

Chicago Cubs
I'll be honest. I'd be very happy to see one of four teams in this year's playoffs win the World Series. That's right: four, or half the teams in there. We've already discussed the Phillies. We're about to get to two of the other teams. And then there are the Cubs. For they too need to win. And soon. Not necessarily for their city, but for their fans. Need I say anything about their history? Nah, I think I'll leave that for the five bajillion sportswriters out there. Instead, I'll just wish them well.

Los Angeles Dodgers & Boston Red Sox
This is where it gets fun and complicated and intense and shitty and thrilling and frightening. I'll be the first to admit it: very slowly during the 90s and into this decade,* I became a baseball bigamist. And I love and hate myself for it. The Dodgers were the team of my youth. Mike Scioscia. Steve Sax. Orel Hershiser. Jay Howell. Mickey Hatcher. Alfredo Griffen! Fernando Valenzuela. Kirk Gibson. Ron Perranoski!!! My first vivid baseball memory is when my Dad surprised me one October afternoon in 1988 by showing up early at my after school daycare with tickets to one of the NLCS games between the Dodgers and Mets. It was awesome. A few weeks later there was Kirk Gibson limping and seemingly flicking his wrists, Tommy Lasorda wildly flailing his arms, Vin Scully not believing what he just saw, and a World Series victory. That was it. Dodgers -- and absolute playoff futility since then -- for life.

*I absolutely love that we still don't have a name for this decade. It's strange, if you think about it. Names for all the others come so naturally and obviously, but in this decade, no matter what century it may fall in, we have no name for it. And as far as I can tell no one has made a concerted effort to come up with one and make it stick. So it's just some decade. But once we hit 2010, won't we need a name so that we can refer to it? Or are we just going to call it "last decade"? But then what about in 2020? "Two decades ago"? There has to be a name at some point. My favorite is "the naughties". But I'm thinking that's just a little too punny for most people's tastes.

But then, there were long summers on Martha's Vineyard. Red Sox Nation. Endless Red Sox paraphernalia, Red Sox coverage on the local news, Red Sox talk among the locals. And they grew on me. Not in any one moment or any one summer, but slowly, over the course of the 90s, they grew on me. Enter the summer of 2001. I lived in Boston. And that slow growth bloomed into full fandom; I was sucked in. Who's going to buy the Sox? Are they going to tear down Fenway and build a new one? And what the hell is wrong with Dan Duquette? Enter October 2003. I'm in a packed bar in New York, surrounded by Yankees fans. Grady doesn't pull Pedro. Aaron Boone pulls a Bucky Dent. Enter October 2004. Papi. World Series. Happiness.

I've set myself up for disaster. Because I pray that the Dodgers make the World Series. And I pray the Red Sox make the World Series. Yet I pray above all else that the Dodgers and Red Sox don't meet in the World Series. It's a curse, but it's 100% self-inflicted, I know this. So I go into these playoffs hoping for the best for both teams, as long as it really only pans out for one of them.

In this space last year, I didn't make predictions for the playoffs. Shortly after that post, however, I made some calls to a friend in an email, and actually correctly picked the winner of each of the seven series that are played. Seven for seven. This year? I'd love to make some picks here. But I can't. I just can't. It's gutless, I know. But please rest assured knowing that the closer the Dodgers and Red Sox get to the World Series, I'll be ripping my eyes out every step of the way.