The game was so bizarre this year (and the Giants out of it so early) that for the first time in a decade I hardly paid any attention. One look at the standings shows just how weird it got.

I'm calling it Tampa Bay over the Cubs in seven. Cubs will win three before dribbling away games in the most bizarre and bumblefingered ways possible.

(For years I've been looking for a semi-sf short story called something like "Last Game of the Season," written in the 70s or early 80s. It's set at the seventh game of a world series with the background of a world where WWIII is on the verge of breaking out. Either the Cubs or the Red Sox are one run from winning the Series [maybe it's even a Cubs-RSox game]. Their power hitter drives one long, and high... and every eye follows it... and thus is looking right at the first bomb when it goes off.)

Before the Sox finally won, my wife and I used to joke about such a game. She was of the opinion that it would suck earth into a black hole. I thought the stadium would merely collapse and kill both teams.