The next week is what you live for as a baseball fan. Tonight I will have the honor of seeing me team play in its eighth championship series of my lifetime. It will be the third time the opponent will be the vaunted Angels, who crushed me away from my team's fifth straight World Series appearance in 2002 and then sent them to just their second ALDS exit (they had the first one too) since 1997 in 2005. Those were the days when as a young fan growing up, you EXPECTED New York to be the top team in the game. Some might say 2005 was the year everything fell apart for the pinstripes; they were involved in the Carl Pavano offseason, a year where both New York and Boston participated in an arms race in Free Agency which ultimately served neither team any good. It was the first of three consecutive first round exits before missing the playoffs altogether in 2008.
The Angels have represented a lot of things over the years, and none of them have been happy memories. Sure we have A-Rod's 10 RBI day in April of 2005 or the Posada Walk-off this season. We saw a series win in the Bronx earlier this year and then a series win in LA in September. But nothing compares to beating the Halos in October. And nothing compares to the ALCS.
I feel the same way about the American League Championship Series as I do the NFC Championship game. I think they are almost always the best games of the season in their respective sports. When the Yankees won the ALCS over Boston in 2003 and lost the World Series, I was almost just as content. Now that the Yankees have swept the Twins, I feel like this season was an enormous step in the right direction even if the bats don't show up in this best of seven. Getting to the ALCS is the first sign of accomplishment all season when your team is expected to be in the playoffs every year.
Often times, such as in 2008, 2007, 2004 and 2003, it is the best series of the playoffs. The AL has dominated for years (though not as World Series champions) and the competition is often at its best when the two teams have played multiple times, they are the best built and they are going directly at each other for a trip to the World Series. The Fall Classic and the Superbowl are chalk full of celebrities, glamour and ultimately, when it ends there is no more of each respective sport. The ALCS and the NFC Championship (I use NFC because I'm a Giants' fan), those are the games where you most often see teams at their most desperate and the greatest match-up.
So with that said, these hours leading up to game one are the most stressful for me all season long. Everything runs through my head; all outcomes, all scenarios, all possibilities and hopes. One minute I'll like the Yankees' chances in five, the next I picture everyone on the Angels' staff simply being dominant and the Yankees never getting a chance. One minute I look at how the team has played all season long as a stepping stone towards why they will win this series, the next I consider most of the other years when the Angels used a formula nobody else in the league is consistently capable of, and they have made New York look bad. One minute I'm reading about why the Yankees will win in six, the next there's an article about the Angels winning in five. I'll be convinced in Hollywood fashion the series will go all seven, then I set up for disappointment if one team runs over the other (though much less disappointment if that team is the Yankees).
These are trying times and I probably feel almost as nervous as the players.
Not every year the best team wins.
And not every year do we know the best team until it does
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