Bittersweet

Well, congratulations I guess, to the St. Louis Cardinals. Despite the fact that I hate them all, the Cards are an extremely well-run franchise, and have been the class of the NL Central for the past five years; and they are the only team that can even pretend to challenge the Yankees for most World Series trophies. Pujols, Eckstein, and Carpenter are all great players that I have enjoyed watching, and they certainly deserved to win based on their performance in this postseason, along with Molina, Rolen, and the entire Cardinals bullpen, and I congratulate them. And I will see you all in Hell.

Because it should have been the Mets there in the Series. I know it’s a bullshit excuse to cry about injuries, but the Mets lost 40% of the starting rotation within days of starting the playoffs. How far do you think the Cards would have gotten if they’d lost both Carpenter and Suppan right before Game 1 of the NLDS? If either Pedro or El Duque was able to pitch in the NLCS, there’s no way the Cardinals even take the series to seven games, much less win. Of course, over a seven game series, you would expect the Cards to win about a third of the time. That’s the problem with baseball – the better team very frequently does not win.*

The silver lining to the Cardinals WS victory, of course, is that maybe people will shut up about the NL being a Quadruple-A league. Take that, AL fans! The DH is for pussies! By the way, I am aware that claiming the Mets are a better team than the Cardinals, despite losing in the small-sample-size-caveat playoffs; while also claiming that the World Series proves the NL is just as good as the AL, is deeply illogical. But I can cherry-pick my arguments if I want to.

* What makes this loss so especially galling, even more than those in ’99 or 2000, is the fact that the Mets were so much better than the Cardinals. Losing to a strong equal is painful, but getting whipped by a .500 team sucks. It’s like getting beaten up by a midget.