SCOTT JACOBS

Maybe this is what separates the die hard baseball fan from the casual baseball fan.  Maybe if I was a true, blue baseball fan I’d watch the Post-season no matter who was playing.  So maybe this is the time for me to confess that I’ve (gulp) kind of stopped watching this year’s LCS.  Not because it’s not competitive (I wouldn’t really know, I haven’t paid attention), but because I’m just not interested.  And it pains me to say this because I feel like this contradicts everything I believe in, but…

I need my big market teams!

I need the big bad favorite.  The team expected to overwhelm everyone with their payroll and their pitching.  I need the Bronx Bombers.  I need the increasingly annoying Red Sox Nation.  Boston collapsed their way out of the post-season before they could get in.  Philadelphia and New York were bounced out before they could even think about a 2009 World Series rematch.  And just like that, a scintillating Division Series round — which saw no sweeps, and three game fives (all pitchers duels too), led us to this dreary, dark, totally aggravating fact about the sport: by the end no traditional super-powers stood standing, and there was enough feel-good stories to make Disney weep. Translation: you lost my interest Major League Baseball.

Baseball’s playoffs follow almost parallel to the NCAA Tournament.  We love watching the super-powers square off, or the underdog take on Hercules.  But two underdogs a compelling game or series does not make.  I don’t make up the rules, that’s just how it goes.   People love a feel good story, but when everyone is a feel good story, it’s no longer fun.  It’s dry. It feels sort of pointless.  These aren’t the best 4 teams in baseball, I’m convinced of that.  Both top records from the regular season are gone.  You have a team that was middling and mediocre scratching on the door of the World Series. It feels kinda phony.

But this is the last pair of cards the 2011 Post-season has dealt.

St. Louis is a great story, but they’ve been here so often, we’re sort of sick of them.  But their comeback was so amazing that it’s impossible to hate them.  Plus their hometown hero may be on his way out the door — we don’t know — so you almost have to feel nervous for Cardinals fans, who know that without Phat Albert, their title hopes go splat.  Herein lies the problem though.  Their opposition is the Brewers, a team who pretty much knows their great slugger is gone, and is playing a lameduck — albeit fairy-tale post-season run.  The Brewers won their first playoff series since 1982 when they knocked out the pesky Dbacks in 5.  While they may be brash and obnoxious at times, hating on the Brewers is like telling your kid there’s no tooth fairy (when he’s 3!) Let the kid enjoy himself, just like the Brewers have the right to enjoy this ride (they may not get this tour through the playoffs for a while after this).

It’s too much feeling good for my taste.

In the A.L. you have Texas, on the verge of another AL Pennant, but they over-came the loss of Cliff Lee in the off-season, and the fact that they were actually bankrupt just a few years ago.  Hometown owner Nolan Ryan was a legend with the team, and before last year’s magical run they had never won a playoff series! Never, evahh! They do however reside in Texas, but unlike the Cowboys or the Longhorns, there’s not a whole lot of brash in Texas. Seriously, when they win, they celebrate by opening ginger ale for former alcoholic Josh Hamilton. Hard to hate on that.  Meanwhile, the Tigers are banged up in all kinds of key positions, Jim Leyland cries after unknown players have incredible moments, and Detroit fans relish in the fact that they finally have something to cheer about.  The Tigers have become the biggest underdog in this post-season if you ask me, but that’s just among a pool of under-dogs.

It just makes for a post-season that no longer has that buzz that it did when the big-boys were in play.  And you know FOX has to be dreading a potential Rangers-Brewers World Series. If you thought the ratings for Rangers-Giants in ‘10 were bad, just wait for that series — if it happens.

That’s not to say this has been a bad post-season.  Just a forgettable one as far as the LCS is concerned. I don’t even like big market teams, but even I wish they were still here. If for nothing else, then to root against them.

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