My thoughts on the baseball playoffs

1. The Yankees almost made my year.

I recently told a friend that Yankees manager Joe Torre was the best manager of the last 20 years. I'm not sure if that's really true, but he's clearly one of the very best in the game. Yes, like the chart on the link shows, he was under .500 at two of his first three jobs. Yes, it's much easier to manage when Mariano Rivera's in the bullpen than when your options don't hold all-time records. And most definitely yes, a monkey could learn the complex system of single-switches required to manage in the American League.

So Torre is human. But he's also a great manager and a great fit for New York. Playing for or coaching the Yankees is often treated as some kind of special situation, and there is pressure there, but I'm not sure it's all that tougher than managing in, say, Boston. That said, Torre's done a tremendous job managing the egos of the game's best-known and most-pampered players, while avoiding disastrous on-field moves that plague almost everyone else. The bottom line is, if the Yankees fired him, 28 teams would call his agent within five minutes. (In a cost-saving move, the Royals would mail him an offer, second-class.)

And I was really hoping the Yankees would fire him and that the Red Sox would immediately pick him up. That'd spice things up. I think that rivalry has flown under the radar for far too long.

2. The ALCS is a matchup everyone should like.

Parity-I'm not sure what that means, what it's supposed to mean, or why people want it so badly. Well, if you had thirty major-league teams, and all of them had an equal shot at the title, wouldn't you expect each team to win it all every thirty years or so? (Not that anyone associates baseball with parity, but bear with me.)

My point? The Tigers won the World Series in 1984-twenty-two years ago. There haven't been thirty teams that whole time, but it's still a little sensationalistic to categorize Tigers fans as long-suffering, since so many teams have waited much longer. But I am happy for Tigers fans, especially after recent seasons. (That is, unless those fans also support their local hockey team...)

The A's, on the other hand, I can wholeheartedly support. Why do we demand such manliness from athletes and settle for such whiny skirtiness from fans and management? An example: I saw an interview with a football player a couple weeks ago-wish I could remember who it was, but all non-Mannings would have said the same thing-and he was injured. Despite that, he vehemently denied that his injury had anything to do with any struggles on the field. I sat there thinking it was just ridiculous-I don't want to hear the guy whine, but how could an injury not affect his play?

The A's are sort of like that anonymous football player. Yes, they play in a relatively small market, or at least they share a good-sized market with the more-popular Giants. And they barely spend any money, and they barely earn any money, and it's obvious that they don't play the same game the Red Sox or Yankees do. But unlike management in some cities I could think of (Denver?), they don't just accept their lot, cry about it, and give up. Instead the A's take whatever washed-up veterans and underrated prospects they can get and go toe-to-toe with the big boys every year.

Of course, establishment baseball men point out the team's struggles in the playoffs-which is fair-but come to the erroneous conclusion that it's simply impossible for the team to compete. I admit that their style, especially in years past, wasn't perfectly suited for a short series, but it wasn't condemning them to a hopeless future, either.

Anyway, I've been a fan of the A's and their Moneyball style since well before the book, and I'm happy to see them advancing in the playoffs, even if they did lose last night.

3. The National League could surprise everyone.

All year, it's been nothing but, "The N.L. sucks, and all the good teams are in the A.L." Now I don't necessarily think the Cardinals or Mets will win it all-the A's are the only team I really care for-but it wouldn't be impossible for either to do so. Partly because they're good teams, and more because anything can happen in a seven-game series.

It just irks me whenever leagues or divisions are compared and people extrapolate these grand conclusions about the individual teams therein. Remember the 2004 Detroit Pistons, from the pathetic Eastern Conference? Can you recall the Texas Longhorns of earlier this year, whose Big XII was clearly the Pac-10's inferior? (Clearly to everyone but me, at least.) My favorite example, of course, is the 1997 Broncos, who hailed from the eternal runner-up AFC. These teams, and many more in similar situations, won it all. I couldn't care less which league is better, but you can, if you want. Just don't fall into this common "logical" trap.