The Sherman Avenue Block Party Completely Biased Baseball Playoff Preview: NLDS, Cubs vs Diamondbacks

I find it generally ridiculous when sports announcers and pundits try to use destiny or fate or other supernatural elements as reasons why teams win or lose. It is the mark of someone without anything better to say, without the ability to do any real analysis of what went on, and without the ability to admit that chance plays a bigger role in sports than most will acknowledge.

Consider the Chicago Cubs.

If they win their series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, pundits will say that they are the team of destiny, that they and their fans are finally due to get their rewards.

If they lose their series against Arizona, pundits will say things about the curse of Bartman and some billy goat.

So either way, it would have little to do with the baseball being played, and instead to do with magical forces that we cannot see or measure or truly understand.

That’s bunk.

Whatever will happen in this series will happen because of actual human agency, the free will of each player to do whatever it is they will do, in combination with the large role that chance tends to play, since the difference between success and failure in baseball has to do with fractions of an inch (in the angle of a swing, rotation of a pitch, wind speed, and many other variables.)

Considering only these factors, and the fact that I live in Chicago and have seen many, many Cubs games this year, and the fact that I can’t say for sure if I’ve seen three innings of the Diamondbacks this year, I can say with confidence that the Cubs will win this series.

The Cubs have the most solid and balanced team of any left in the National League. Their starting pitching is very strong at the top with Carlos Zambrano, and extremely solid after that with Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Rich Hill, and Sean Marshall. The bullpen has standout Carlos Marmol and Bob Howry, along with solid veterans Scott Eyre and Ryan Dempster. The top three guys in the lineup (not in the batting order) Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, and Aramis Ramirez, are as good as any top three in the National League. To use the word solid again, the rest of the lineup is full of solid veterans like Cliff Floyd, Jaques Jones, Jason Kendall, and Mark DeRosa.

The point is, the Cubs are poised to do very well in these playoffs. There are no glaring weaknesses on the roster, and some very big bright spots. Not to mention a manager, Lou Pinella, who has been there before and knows what it takes to win in the postseason.

The only weakness of the team, really, is that they do not play consistently. When everyone is on at the same time – when Zambrano is pitching his best, when the top three are all hitting well – they look basically unbeatable, as they did for large parts of September. When they aren’t playing well, they rarely seem to have enough to pull out a game.

The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, are a confusing team. Their pitching is very good, but not ridiculously dominant. This isn’t like when they had Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. This isn’t the 2005 White Sox. They also have no offense worth speaking of – no one on their regular roster hit over .300, no one on the team had over 85 RBI, only one guy on the team had over 25 HR (I defy you to name him. Give up? His name is Chris Young. If you knew that, I defy you to describe what he looks like, or even to tell me if he’s black or white.)

And yet they had the best record in the National League. Which to me speaks to how bad the National League was this year more than to how good a team the Diamondbacks are.

So the Cubs will win because they are the better team, because they have the ability to win with either their pitching or their hitting, or both, depending on the day.

The Cubs will win because teams like the Diamondbacks that no one ever sees or cares about don’t all of a sudden become awesome in the postseason.

The Cubs will win because they have a better home field advantage, since Chicago fans are going to be insane, while fans in Phoenix will be at least a third Chicago fans anyway.

The Cubs will win because Chicago is vastly superior to Phoenix in just about every way.

The Cubs will win despite talk of superstition and karma and curses and goats and some poor guy who just wanted to catch a foul ball.

Because I say all that is bunk.

And I am often right.

First base. Second base. Third base. Home

"Around the bases we will roam" is said by my favorite team, the Bad News Bears circa 1976, but I've got another lyric or two up my sleeve...

"I said 'Well Daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles?
Way that Bobby Brown is just amping like Michael.
It't all expected. Things are for the looking..."

I'm positive all my fellow partiers could finish the line, but they might "Shake, shake it" right past my point.

I'm getting sick and tired of hearing how one league is so much better than another. How the American League is worlds better than the National League, how the NFC is the junior varsity compared to thier AFC counterparts and how the best team in the Eastern Conference would barely reach the NBA playoffs out West.

I think my first paragraph details my opinion. Everything goes in cycles and the history of time doesn't start and stop with one single season. In fact, if you deal with the only thing that matters, meaning the last team standing, things are more even than they look.

I'll start with my least favorite topic - The NBA. Yes, the Western Conference is dominant and has all the super stars. LeBron, D. Wade, Agent Zero, Shaq and the...

Oh, yeah. All those superstars filling up TV commercials play in the East, and none in Michael Wilbon's 'Cradle of Basketball', i.e. Boston, New York or Philadelphia. No, the West has Kobe, KG (one conference final), T-Mac and Yao (need I say more?) and the most boring champs in the past 20 years, your San Antonio Spurzzzzz...

Sorry, almost fell asleep thinking about Bruce Bowen step on someone else's foot while Mr. Eva Longoria races to the paint, only to dish to the walking sleeping pill or The Big Fundamental and yes, I've left out the Suns because they Suns play when the sun is about to come up on the East, so few to less see the excitment that is Boris Diaw to Raja Bell...

But I've left one tangent for another. Over the past four years, despite the West having dominant records in the regular season, the two conferences have split the NBA Finals (Heat and Pistons). Yes, the West had a run with the Lakers and Spurs before that, but the East owned the 90s.

The Dream shake, Big Shot Bob and Clyde Dancin' Drexler won two, but the rest were by the East with the original Bad Boys before Martin Lawrence, Will Smith and Sean Combs taking two and you know who with the rest. The 70s and 80s were actually split even, 5-5, for each conference and by then, you're back far enough for the Celtic Dynasty. Guess where they play?

Speaking of Eastern dominance, how about the NFL? Yes, the AFC has won 8 of the last 10 Super Bowls, (Quick, who's won the two titles from the NFC?) But before that, it wasn't even close. From Joey Football's second ring with the 49ers in 1985 to Pain Killer Brett's only title win over Statue Drew and the Pats in 1997, the NFC always took home the title. It's during this period that one division takes home SEVEN.

Maybe I was just too young at the time or there wasn't a 24-hour sports network with a need to battle a 24-hour NFL Network, but I don't remember hearing ex-jocks say how pathetic the AFC was. In fact, I'm willing to bet that people picked the Broncos at least twice, thought Marino would win a ring or two and let's not even get started about the Bills...

Just like the NFC East was dominant and now is under the weather, the rumor is the NL sucks like a 12-year old from a non-discript Pacific Rim island. Last year, the interleague record was 154-98 in favor of the AL, who had the Tigers steal headlines all year, only to watch the Twins steal the division. It was a great year for AL Baseball, with another Eastern crown for the Yanks and in the end...THE CARDINALS WON THE WORLD SERIES.

In fact, the leagues have split the past six WS titles since the Diamondbacks squeezed the best from Curt Shilling and Big Unit. The 90s were dominanted by AL teams when it came to the series, but Seattle, Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta and Houston were all good teams for good amounts of time during that decade. There was never talk of imbalance, just the quiet blind-eye to the size of Brady Anderson's home run total and McGwire's neck veins...

So what does all of this mean? It means just like James 'Thunder' Early said,

"The game of hits goes around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around..."