Ah gawd, it's the Sawx and Cawds in the fackin' World Series! That's right, Boston and St. Louis are squaring off for the baseball championship of planet Earth. As Eddie Izzard once pointed out, "It's impressive in a world event for America to win so many years."
Snark aside, a Red Sox/Cardinals series is fitting. They're arguably the best franchises in baseball when the Yankees struggle, and their fans are among the most knowledgeable and passionate anywhere. Boston and St. Louis have won two titles apiece in the past decade, and they had the best regular-season records in their respective leagues this year, the first time since 1999 the World Series has featured such a match-up.
The Cardinals are a machine. They lost the face of their franchise, Albert Pujols, to free agency after the 2011 season and didn't skip a beat. Chris Carpenter, one of their best starting pitchers and postseason performers, was efficiently replaced. Even though Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa and his terrific longtime pitching coach, Dave Duncan, left the club at roughly the same time as Pujols and Carpenter, it hasn't made the slightest difference.
The Sox are...well, they're bearded, undoubtedly as part of some cheesy team-building exercise. I'm sorry, the Sox had an outstanding year after the disastrous Bobby Valentine experiment, and I think they'll win the series, but it's hard to see much beyond their stupid hairy chins. Mike Napoli is trying to channel Dostoyevsky, maybe? Rutherford B. Hayes? Jubal Early?
If you're planning to watch the games, three words of advice: Tune in late. The Red Sox have extremely patient hitters and tend to play long games even by baseball's glacial standards. Game 1 of Boston's league championship series against Detroit was a 1-0 classic except for its preposterous running time of 3 hours, 56 minutes.
Sox in six.
