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The best moment of the first round of the baseball postseason is predetermined. The series will be White Sox-Red Sox, and the moment will be the first time Manny Ramirez steps into the box with the game on the line against White Sox closer Bobby Jenks.
For sheer cumulative weirdness, nothing will top it. Manny is the most eccentric talent in the game, and Jenks is the best and most unlikely story in the playoffs. Jenks is something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel, a backwater Idaho kid who grew up without electricity and learned to drink as hard as he throws.
And by the way, congratulations to the Yankees for winning the division. It's the worst thing that could have happened to them.
They're mighty hot at Rangers manager Buck Showalter, who pulled his three best players -- Mark Teixeira, Michael Young and Hank Blalock -- in the third inning Sunday to make sure they got standing ovations in the last game of the season.
It was a weak move, especially coming from a guy who considers himself the Keeper of the Code. The Rangers ultimately lost to the Angels, giving L.A. But Slightly South the home-field advantage over the Yanks.
The Yankees won the AL East, but which team got the better deal? The Red Sox play the suspect, happy-to-be-here White Sox while the Yankees travel cross-country to start a series with the aggressive, tested Angels.
The Angels are the reason we're not going to get another Yanks-Red Sox championship series. Bartolo Colon wins Game 1, Frankie Rodriguez closes out three games and the Angels slap and bunt their way to a series victory in four.
This Week's List
• Three pitching subplots to the postseason: (1) Randy Johnson and his continued problems with ball-and-strike calls; (2) Chris Carpenter, will he be the man he was through August or the myth he was in September? and (3) John Smoltz's contention that a big-horse starter is more valuable than a big-horse closer.
• It's a story told best by Willie McGee, but here's a great moment in Busch Stadium history, in three parts: (1) Cardinals get final out of 1982 World Series; (2) George Hendrick, playing right field, turns and leaves through the right-field wall; (3) Hendrick gets into waiting car being driven by his wife and begins his offseason.
• Come on now, the Dennis Erickson years weren't that bad, were they? All those teams that once upon a time passed on Marvin Lewis -- how stupid do they feel now?
• One good thing about the way David Carr stands in the pocket until he gets sacked: When his career's over, they won't have to bother commissioning a statue.
• Just plain good television: Herman Edwards' Monday news conferences.
• This time, he went to the time-honored use-the-kid-as-a-shield defense: Mark McGwire, another poor public performance.
• Talk about a weird offseason: Jimmy Rollins.
• Bad for baseball: An Astros win in the NL Division Series, because it means more odes to Roger Clemens, more Clemens retirement talk and almost no offense.
