Remember a few weeks ago when the Tigers blew their AL Central lead and ended up settling for the Wild Card? Remember a few weeks ago when the Cardinals lost 26 in a row and barely held off the Astros to win the NL Central?Well, people in Detroit and St. Louis probably don't give a hoot-flying fuck about it anymore.
Apparently the new formula for reaching the World Series is sucking it up so fucking bad in the last week of the season that you get a "gut-check," and "turn it around" in the playoffs.
(We're pretty excited about landing two clichés in one action-packed sentence, by the way. And if you don't know what a cliché is, we highlighted them for you in quotes, you silly bastards.)
There should be nothing surprising about a Wild Card team making the World Series, though. We're in full accordance with the thinking that having to earn a post-season berth late equates to October success. The Marlins did it (twice), the Angels (fuck, shit, fuck!) did it, the Red Sox did it and there could be some others who also did it, but we're at work and way too lazy to actually look it up.
Get hot, win the Wild Card, win the World Series. Basic formula. And we've bought into it.
But we aren't really buying into the idea of sucking more than Jenna Jameson, back-dooring (zing!) into the playoffs and then making the Series.
So how to explain the Tigers and Cards? (If you think we're going to say "destiny" here, you couldn't be "further off the mark" -- catch the clichés?! Butt-slaps if you did).
No, not destiny, faithful readers.
Lots and lots of steroid-laced Marlboros. But probably just coincidence. Or luck. Fine, it was probably fate or playoff gods. Or even destiny.
Yeah, that must be it.
Red Sox in '04 were a wild card team as well. You might not be aware of this, but their ALCS win over the Yankees was the greatest comeback in sports history. You'd think with a title like that, ESPN would be able to find a writer to give the Red Sox a little more publicity.
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