A Rock And A Hard Place

So tonight is Game 1.  Game 1 of a World Series matchup that has unbiased fans everywhere scratching their heads.  Who do I root for?  Who do I dislike more?  How did this happen?  These are just a few of the confounding questions that have made their way through the heads of baseball fans around the country ever since Mariano Rivera struck out Gary Matthews Jr. on Sunday night to end the ALCS.

It is no secret that baseball is a game fueled by passion; not just for the players, coaches, or the executives involved, but most importantly for the fans.  People go through the ups and downs of their lives; they go to college, they get married, they have kids, they lose loved ones, they leave old jobs and start new ones, but as James Earl Jones but it in The Field of Dreams, "the one constant has been baseball."  This game, and the team that any one of us decides to cheer for becomes and remains a part of our identity; through wins and losses, summers and winters, joys and sorrows; the game is always there, March through October, year in and year out.

And so as a result of that passion, teams like the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees have developed very strong fan bases; fan bases that are sometimes too strong for their own good.  In fact, the arrogance of Yankees fans over the last few decades, and of Phillies fans for the past few years has grown both groups many enemies.  With that being said, many fans find themselves wondering who they'd like to see win this year's championship for the simple fact that there is no underdog.

Usually, fans who have lost their teams in the playoffs or regular season cling to the underdog because underdogs are unpredictable, their exciting, they play like they've got nothing to lose.  Well the 2009 World Series doesn't have an underdog, you've got the defending Champions of the 2008 season defending their title against...well...the defending champions of the last century.  We could've had Joe Torre and the LA Dodgers fighting to return to past glory, or the LA Angels fighting to win one for their lost teammate Nick Adenhart, or the jump-start Rockies trying to imitate their miracle run of 2007.  But no, instead we've got the Phils and the Yanks.

So no matter who wins, the fans of the underdog lose - it's like a real life version of Alien vs. Predator.  Either way, we'll have to listen to Yankees fans brag about 27 rings or Phillies fans brag about back-to-back Championships.  And to add to the arrogance of fans, you can see it in some players as well - Jimmy Rollins has Phillies fans everywhere calling him a prophet because he predicted that the Phillies would win the division in 2007 and would win 100 games in 2008.  With both predictions coming true, Rollins has taken his arrogance to a new level, now predicting that the Phillies will beat the Yankees in five games or, "six if their nice."

The bottom line is that either way we'll have to listen to someone brag, but at least we'll also get to see someone eat their words.  The point is that let's hope that this never happens again; we all love for our team to be the one in the World Series, but if it can't be us, at least let it be an underdog that we'd all love to see pull off a miracle. 

Until that day comes, as much as we hate it, we've all got to sit down tonight, turn on the TV, listen to Joe Buck and Tim McCarver welcome us to the broadcast...and for what its worth, enjoy the game.