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Ted's head makes his World Series pick

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Updated Oct 27, 2009 1:33 PM ET
     
 
Attention: pantywaists. I've been told that the Ol' Splinter weighing in on the baseball playoffs has offended your delicate sensibilities. Gosh, we sure coulda used you fellas in Korea. Or the Big One. You'da been great, impervious to everything but 88-millimeter artillery or satire of questionable taste. Well, beat it. Because I got thoughts leaking out of my bean and I intend to share them. If there's one good thing about being frozen in suspended animation, it's being able to stay up late enough to see the end of these damned playoff games. Hey, Bud Selig, you're worried about replay slowing down these games? In my day we coulda played a twin bill just in the time Jose Molina spent going out to the mound in Game 2 of the ALCS. And Bud, what's with these umps? I thought I had the most debilitating brain freeze in baseball. Mercy. Not only have they missed close calls. They missed calls that weren't even close. (Hey, Tim McClelland, if a guy is standing off a base with someone pressing a baseball into his chest, he's out.) But I digress. I'm here to tell you who's gonna win the World Series. And it breaks my heart — which is over in another wing of the facility — to say it. Just as they did 10 times during my career, the New York Yankees will win it all. And it ain't because they've got the deeper lineup. Or two big-time lefty starters to go after Ryan Howard and Chase Utley. Or the best closer in baseball history. The Yankees will win it all because they're lucky. And nowadays, with three rounds of playoffs, you gotta have a little luck to win a title. Lord knows Teddy Ballgame never had a speck of luck. (And, trust me, the streak has continued in this godforsaken place. Hell has frozen over, and I live there.) I had the bad luck to play for the most racist organization in baseball. So I never got to play with guys like Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays or Larry Doby. The Red Sox didn't integrate until 1959, three years after Jackie Robinson retired. When we finally got a black player, he hit .233 with one home run in 172 at-bats. Pumpsie Green, we hardly knew ye. But this isn't about my rotten luck (two wars costing me five years in my prime), it's about the good fortune of these damned 2009 Yankees. Oh man, do they have lady luck on their side. (And I'm not just talking about Kate Hudson, who somehow gets to keep making movies after "Fool's Gold," "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Bride Wars.") Some people conceded the World Series to the Yankees when they signed CC Sabathia for $161 million back in early December. Others gave 'em the title two weeks later when they signed Mark Teixeira for $180 million. But I didn't know they'd win the World Series until June 12. That was the night it became clear the Yankees would win their 27th world championship. 27. (Hold on, while I retch in my own ice box.) On that night, with two men on, Alex Rodriguez hit a harmless pop fly to Mets second baseman Luis Castillo for what was sure to be the final out of an 8-7 loss. (Don't get me started on AL and NL teams playing each other during the season. Sure makes the wedding night a lot less special.) So A-Rod throws his bat down and starts jogging to first. Teixeira, to his credit, is running hard from first like A-Rod just hit a gapper. Just then a little sprinkle of pixie dust gets in Luis Castillo's eyes. He drops the popup AND throws to the wrong base, allowing Derek Jeter and Tex to score and the Yankees to win the game. I looked at L. Ron Hubbard dangling in the canister next to me and said, "That team is going to win it all." Apparently the pixie dust that blinded Castillo was just a small scoopful from the '09 Yankees' endless supply. Against the Twins in the first round of the playoffs the pixie dust turned into Angel Dust. (Bet you didn't know that PCP was patented and marketed under the brand Sernyl in 1952. By February of '53, I was flying missions north of the 38th parallel in Korea.) Anyway, the Twins baserunners started hallucinating and both Carlos Gomez (Game 2) and Nick Punto (Game 3) completely freaked out and ran the Twinkies out of innings. Not to be out-hallucinated, umpire Phil Cuzzi called Joe Mauer's clear double foul even though it was fair by a foot. Yeah, the Yanks had something better than pitching and power on their side: They were getting every break. Would their luck run out against the Halos? Hah! Game 1 provided a Luis Castillo flashback as Angels shortstop Erick Aybar, bundled up in his toasty knit ski mask-type apparel, let a routine two-out pop fly land at his feet while the Yankees scored a run. Just for the record, when I was managing I'd have never let one of my players wear a freakin' ski mask during a playoff game. You cold, Aybar? Go sit your ass in the clubhouse. Ski mask? You might as well wear a feather boa while you're at it. If you ain't got enough fire in your belly to keep you warm during a freakin' playoff game, you got no place on my team. And we wonder why football players and George Carlin make fun of us. In Game 2, the Yanks tied it when that weak-ass lefty specialist masquerading as a closer (Brian Fuentes) threw an 0-2 batting-practice fastball to Rodriguez, who flicked it over that joke of a wall in right. Glad to see they maintained the Little League dimensions in right field when they built the new place. For crying out loud, I woulda hit 750 home runs if I'd played half my games there. (But I had the lousy luck to play in a park set up for right-handed power hitters.) Then the Yankees won Game 2 when another ski mask-wearing infielder (Maicer Izturis) made a mental and physical mistake on the same play. All the Yankees did was hit a routine ground ball to second base, then the Angels took it from there. Izturis shoulda flipped to first for the second out of the inning. But nooooo. Izturis, his brain half asleep in his head blanket, tried to force the runner at second. He then compounded his brain cramp by making a lousy throw to second. To understand just how stupid this decision was you have to consider the fact that — even if Izturis had made a good throw to second — the Angels would have let the runner on first take second on the next pitch on "fielder's indifference" (a phrase Dom DiMaggio once told me pretty much summed up the way I played left field). So they'd have still ended up with runners on second and third with two outs anyway. But instead Izturis threw the ball wide, getting nobody. Jerry Hairston, meanwhile, had been on second when the ball was hit and he tried to score. The Angels could have had him at the plate but third baseman Chone Figgins was unable to pick the ball off the ground without dropping it. Good God. Guess that pixie dust makes a ball slippery. So the Halos went home down 0-2. Back in Anaheim, Bobby Abreu did his best Nick Punto impression in Game 3, flopping around in the dirt as he ran himself into an out after a leadoff double. But the Angels managed to win Game 3 despite themselves (even though Figgins, Torii Hunter and Vlad Guerrero all failed to get the ball out of the infield with the winning run on third in the 10th).

The cold truth

ALTTEXT This isn't the first time Ted's head has weighed in for FOXSports.com. Earlier this month he broke down the division series.
In Game 6 the Angels gave an impromptu clinic on how not to field a sacrifice bunt with Howie Kendrick and Scott Kazmir botching any chance the Angels had of extending the series. But, hey, at least they weren't wearing mufflers. So now the Yankees get to spray their pixie dust in the face of the Phillies. And it's not like the Phils have exactly been snake-bit this postseason. Umpire Jerry Meals was probably the Phillies' MVP in the first round. In the NLCS, Dodger relievers George Sherrill (Game 1) and Jonathan Broxton (Game 4) practically laid out a red carpet to the Series for Philly. Broxton's collapse was particularly lucky, hinging as it did on a hit batsman. But the defending champs won't be able to match rabbits' feet with the Lucky Empire. Nope. The Yankees will win it all. In six. Those damn Yankees.

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