Enemy Perspective

You ready your hand over the mouse. You stare at the clock. You hover the cursor over the button. Your strategy is all set. Your system, foolproof.

And you wait for that clock to show you 10:00.

At 9:59, you start to question those two diet cokes. Your hand is jittery. What if it slips and you don’t hit the button? It could be disastrous. Catastrophic.

And then it happens. 10:00! You click the instant those digital numbers appear. You do it so fast the window is open before you’ve taken a breath. Best Available. You don’t even read the price when the seats come up, in fact, you don’t even look at the seats. You just click through. You cut and paste your credit card information that you pre-typed before you logged on. And then you click “purchase.” You move on to the other games, but you are already giddy with excitement.

It’s done. You have them. You have tickets to an unprecedented event. You have tickets that will guarantee you a piece of history, a story you can tell your grandchildren some day.

You have World Series tickets.

Now you just need your team to get there.

That’s right people. Yours truly is the proud owner of two tickets to the 2007 World Series, Game 2. Because I was a Yankees Season Ticket Holder—despite the fact that I live in Boston—I had the right to purchase World Series tickets through the Yankees.

Here’s the rub: the tickets are only valid if the Yankees make it that far. And that’s why I will be rooting for the Yankees to make it there harder than ever before. I have a stake in it now, a real one, one that goes beyond the fact that they’re my team and I want to them to make it every year. I have tickets to history, and I damn well want to see it.

Some of you have probably been to a World Series game given that the Sox were there recently, so you can probably share in my excitement. I’ve been to a lot of playoff games too, but this is the World Series we’re talking about.

I have only one problem with my tickets. I don’t believe I’ll get to use them, and it kills me to say it.

I know in past years you’ve probably thought me a homer, picking the Yankees as I do every year. Well, you’d be right. And obviously my predictions have been inaccurate, which is a nice way of saying that I shit the sheets. This year, I have too much at stake. I have to see that Home Game 2 at Yankee Stadium, which would be Game 2 of the 2007 World Series. I have to see it, and that’s why I’m not going to jinx it.

I’ve been in denial about something for years. I’m a gambling virus. Money line kryptonite. Parlay poison. When I’m picking or gambling on sports, my choices can change the outcome of a game.

I got cleaned out in Vegas by the 2005 NCAA tournament. I’ve never won a picks pool. My online gambling account should probably have direct deposit, I’ve had to refill it so often.

But it was the Cleveland Browns that convinced me. The Cleveland Fucking Browns put up 51 points on the Bengals and knocked me out of my Survival Pool. They pushed me past the denial stage into acceptance. I suck at gambling. There, I said it.

And that’s why I can’t pick the Yankees.

Lucky for me, there are a lot of reasons not to pick them, so I can justify this anti-homer reverse psychology. Primarily, the Yankees have too many pitching holes. In the playoffs, it’s all about pitching. Particularly starting pitching. And when you look at how the schedules shook out, there is a lot of good starting pitching out there—and very little of it on the Yankees.

And I’ll get into that right now as I introduce my 2007 MLB playoff picks! Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

ALDS Matchups

New York vs. Cleveland

If Major League Baseball were a prison, Joe Torre would be Mike Scioscia’s bitch. The Angels own the Yankees. More on the Angels later, but I’m absolutely, positively convinced the Yankees can not beat the Angels in the playoffs. So Cleveland is welcome relief. At least the Yankees have a chance.

Wang has been very good in the second half. Andy Pettitte had an even better one, going 10-3. But Andy got smacked around in his last start, and Wang just isn’t a dominating force. He doesn’t strike enough guys out, and a contact pitcher is more apt to have a bad game because the ball is in play more. The Yank’s lineup is its usual outstanding self, but in the playoffs, you’re not going to face the Tampa Bay starting rotation.

And that’s the problem with this matchup. The Yankees will face the best one-two punch in the majors this year, C.C. Sabathia and Fausto Carmona. Two 19-game winners. By the way, either of these guys should win the Cy Young over Beckett. More innings, more quality starts, better ERAs. Sabathia has more Ks and fewer walks than Beckett too.

There are two reasons I was excited for this matchup:

1. The Yankees are 6-0 against Cleveland this year.
2. The Indians are not the Angels.

The problem: the Yankees didn’t face Sabathia this year. In fact, they haven’t faced him in five years. I’m not quite sure how that manages to happen. But when you throw Sabathia and Carmona back-to-back, potentially in four of the five games in an ALDS, you’re going to win it. I’m sorry. It goes five, but the Indians win it.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of the United States of America vs. Boston

Rome on HBO. Unprotected sex. The Yankees string of nine consecutive AL East titles. All good things must end. The Red Sox won their first AL East title since I was a pimply-faced mullet-wearing high schooler, and I realize that it had to happen sooner or later. While I think the Sox didn’t win the division so much as the Yankees lost it, I still have to hand it to the Sox. A win’s a win, and a division title is a division title. Congratulations.

But in the playoffs, when it comes to offense, there is one rule and one rule only:

Get them on, get them over, get them in.

That’s how you win in October. It’s small ball. You can’t mash in the playoffs, the pitching is too good. You need to do the little things well. Bunts, sac flies, stealing bases. And no one does that better than Mike Scioscia and his Angels. The Yankees are built to win in a 162-game season and division titles. (Oops.) The Angels are built for the playoffs.

But if there is a team that can counter the Angels, it’s the Red Sox. They’re very similar to the Angels: a few base stealers (Crisp, Lugo); a few heavy bats in the middle (Papi, Manny); and a ton of guys who can do the little things required to advance runners.

I want to say the Sox have better starting pitching, but the numbers don’t back me up. Kelvim Escobar and John Lackey are both in the top 10 in ERA, with Lackey winning the title this year at a stunning 3.01. After Beckett, the Sox have Dice-K with the 28^th best ERA. And given Matsuzaker’s penchant for blowing up, do you trust him? I don’t. I’m also not sure if we’ll see Curt Schilling or Curt Shelling.

When you factor in Mike Scioscia, who is the best game manager in baseball, this matchup becomes clear to me. The only hope is that the Angels are too banged up, and Lackey’s 1-5 career record at Fenway continues. You could also say the Angels limped into the playoffs. After what the Cardinals did last year, clearly momentum has nothing to do with this.

Gotta call the Angels in this one. I didn’t want to do that, but they’re made for this.

So that gives us:

Anaheim vs. Cleveland

You realize that my picking this probably means another Sox/Yankees ALCS. I’m hoping for that, as I also have tickets to Game 4 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. But the matchups just favor these teams. This would be a hell of a series, if not as dramatic as Sox/Yanks. I’m running out of space already so I’ll just cut to it: The Angels just scare the hell out of me in the playoffs, even if they’re banged up worse than that Big Bang show, which was the worst TV premiere I’ve ever seen.

I’m taking Anaheim.

As for the National League: while I am writing this, I’m also counseling my friend Josh via email, a Mets fan, who is probably googling the nearest bridge. I guess I can say I knew a collapse was going to happen, but I just picked the wrong division.

While I talk Josh down, here’s my 2007 Josh Gold Suicide Watch Abridged National League Playoff Preview Because No One In Boston Gives a Damn About the National League and I Don’t Blame Them: If the Rockies get in after today’s playoff game, I think they win the NL, and Anaheim wins it all in the least-watched World Series ever. I am not sure why—the Rockies’ pitching is not that great—but I just like this team.

If it’s the Padres, it goes like this: Arizona over Chicago; Philly over San Diego. Philly over Arizona. And Philly beats Anaheim behind a Jimmy Rollins MVP performance.

That sums it up people. Your 2007 World Champs, the Philadelphia Phillies. Just kill baseball now.

And let’s hope I am completely wrong. I have a World Series ticket for a dying, beautiful Stadium in the Bronx in October. And I damn sure want to use it.