Sports > October 8, 2003

By Mike Scott

Senior Reporter

The leaves are just starting to turn, the air is beginning to chill and freshmen are staggering around like a midget after a bar fight with Charles Barkley thanks to their first round of tests on the Reynolda campus. That’s right, fall is officially here and that means it’s time to once again utter the three greatest words in the English language: it’s playoff time.

Every year, it astounds me how much more exciting baseball becomes in the postseason. Generally, I find watching regular season baseball games on TV to be a more effective sedative than a frat party rohypnol cocktail, but I could watch a 15-inning playoff game from start to finish, even if pizza wasn’t involved (which it always should be). And this postseason has been no different — each of the four divisional series was enthralling in one fashion or another. I don’t know why playoff baseball is always so enthralling, but I know that it is. And there are many reasons why.

Both the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox have had long, well-documented World Series droughts. But both have the look like candidates to fill the role of Team of Destiny.

The Cubbies ousted the Atlanta Braves in five games, and with Mark Prior and Kerry Wood in the mix, they have a potential to beat anyone in a seven-game series. Even in losing Tuesday night, they had the feel of a team that was blessed, as star Sammy Sosa tied the game with a two-out, ninth-inning home run before the Marlins eventually won in 11 innings. With Wood, Prior, Sosa and the potential of a new kind of Wrigley luck, Chicago fans, and half the rest of the country, are thinking, hoping or praying that this is finally the year.

While the Cubs seem like they may have kissed destiny, the Red Sox seem like they’ve taken her back to their room after the prom. After falling behind the Oakland A’s 2-0 in their best of five divisional series, the BoSox somehow managed to come back, winning the last three games, the first win coming on a Trot Nixon game-winning homer in the 11th inning, the next to coming in one-run victories so close that they had Boston fans sweating like Saddam Hussein at an NRA meeting.

As an award for their dramatic perseverance, the Sox now draw the New York Yankees, baseball’s Bill Gates (they’re undeniably a very good team, but how can you possibly root for someone with that much money?) in the ALCS. This has the makings of a Disney-esque storyline for the Sox.

Of course, it also has the makings of a particularly disturbing Stephen King novel. If this is the year the Red Sox are finally able to overcome decades of bad karma, going through the Yankees to do it would really make it a fairy tale story. If the Red Sox have spent the better part of a century falling flat on their face in the school cafeteria, the Yankees have been the ones tripping them and then walking off with the prettiest girl in school, laughing all the way.

Even if they went on to lose the World Series, beating their hated rivals to get there might satisfy many Sox fans. On the other hand, losing once again to the Pinstriped Antichrist might send those same fans looking for swords to fall on, especially after the way the Red Sox survived the series against the A’s. Either way, having these two teams meet with a trip to the World Series on the line has me as excited as I’ve been since the last time McDonald’s brought back the McRib sandwich.

Of course, maybe even more exciting is the thought of a Cubs-Red Sox World Series match-up — one of the curses would have to end.

The one thing, other than the Yankees, currently blocking such a match-up is the Florida Marlins, a team whose playoff run has been even more unlikely than that of Boston or Chicago. The Marlins are led by a manager who was born during the Great Depression and a catcher that no one else wanted. But they have the league’s best record over the past four months and the look of a team that does not care about what’s supposed to happen.

All in all, there are more than enough elements to make the rest of these playoffs just as exciting as the first round.

Will Prior and Wood be this year’s Schilling and Johnson?

Will the Red Sox finally overcome the Yankees and the Great Bambino, causing George Steinbrenner to fire every single Yankee employee, including the scoreboard operator and grounds crew?

Will Jack McKeon miss pregame batting practice to catch the early bird special at K&W?

Tune in and find out. And don’t forget the pizza.