I grew up without baseball so I just cannot conjure the emotions that people have for the sport. I have the Nationals now and let’s just say they are under construction so I have a good little while before they are competitive. I just married into a Yankee family which is fine. I have nothing against the Yankees and I think what that organization accomplished is tremendous. Next to the Montreal Canadiens in the NHL, the Yankees collection championships are quite impressive. I believe the Yankees have more Championships but no one will ever convince me that winning a baseball championship is remotely close to the challenge of winning a Stanley Cup in the toughest of all sports. That said as I listened to and watched the game last night I got the feeling that everyone including the mainstream media expects the Yankees to win. That is certainly not a bad thing but obviously someone forgot to mention this to the World Champion Phillies.

The playing of the Star Wars, Imperial march theme while introducing the Yankees players was a nice little touch. Perhaps someone should remind them that the empire eventually got whipped by Ewoks and a band of renegades. I listened to all of these baseball talking heads say in not so many words that Philly had little to no chance. That’s funny because I’ve always believed that in order to be the Champ you gotta beat the champ. There is absolutely nothing fluke about the Phillies. They can hit, they can play defense and as the Yankees found out last night they can pitch. Apparently they can do all of this on the road which does not bode well for the Challengers. Now the advantage shifts to the Phillies who stole one on the road. This certainly does not mean the Yankees can’t rebound and win but all of a sudden this is not as inevitable as many thought it would be. As a baseball outsider it will be funny to listen to the prognosticators stumble over themselves as they now have to give the World Champion Phillies credit. I guess some can resist the power of the darkside quite well.