First, some Marlins fun: while the ESPN "experts" have been wrong about plenty of the playoff outcomes, I sure hope they're right about this (check out their take on the NL Cy Young Winner, if it doesn't pop up automatically for you).
In some ways today is a sad day, because no baseball will be played. But in other ways, it's a really happy day, because we now know who will play in this year's World Series: the White Sox and the Astros. Game One is Saturday night in Chicago.
This isn't the matchup that many people picked. Actually, no one probably picked this matchup. I'd doubt many folks picked this matchup at the start of the playoffs, let alone at the start of the season. Heck, after the horrific start the Astros got off to, no one was picking them at the All-Star break.
I took a moment today to look back at the picks I made before the start of the season (AL here and NL here). Overall, I didn't do too well - at least not with the World Series participants (Marlins vs. Red Sox). I mentioned the Astros as a potential Wild Card contender. But ultimately I was a homer and went with the Marlins to take the Wild Card and the whole thing.
You'll also see that I was very pessimistic about the White Sox. I (painfully) picked them to finish fourth in the AL Central. I was all doom and gloom in March. I hadn't bought into Ozzieball back then. I have now - but not in the Smallball sense, only in the sense of team unity and having fun.
Still, I want the record to state that, although I didn't pick the White Sox to win anything this year (at least not on the Internet), I did put money on them. The White Sox were the only baseball team that I placed a wager on. I'll post evidence of this later, but last year (just as the 2004 World Series started), I placed some money on the White Sox to win the 2005 AL pennant and the 2005 World Series. One of those wagers already came in. The other may come in soon enough.
So what did you predict for the World Series? Now that the teams are set, what do you think is going to happen?