Myth: The Cardinals Have No Chance
Well, we know Fox is hoping more than four people read this posting. Ha ha, like Liners, Sliders and Scoops ever gets more than four hits in a MONTH, let alone one day. PUHLEASE!

The Tigers appear set up to win the World Series quite easily, what with the way they won more than 90 regular season games in the superior American League, and beat the Yankees and Athletics badly, and even found out a way to make Kenny Rogers the pitcher seem more talented than Kenny Rogers the singer. And seriously, every single expert ever has picked the Tigers to win this thing.

And that's why I'm weary of this. It's too easy. Did you know that on ESPN.com, EVERY SINGLE expert - and they had a roundtable of like 64 people - picked the Yankees to beat the Tigers during the first round. It was the ONLY series with a unanimous selection, and every single one of those puny poopy pundits predicted poorly. That's why this whole thing smells fishy. This whole, "We all thought the Tigers sucked three weeks ago and now we think that they could beat the '72 Dolphins in a football game and the United States colonial army during the Revolutionary War" is just so ridiculous. God, analysts and experts are so stupid. See, at least I know I'm stupid, and if you don't agree, look at the capital letters I've typed two grafs below this one.

It smells man, and not only that, this Kenny Rogers thing HAS to end soon. The guy - who according to an ESPN Magazine a few years back used to not even care about baseball - now foams at the mouth if his catcher makes a good throw after his eighth warmup toss. Psychiatrists around the country could diagnose his myriad mental conditions from their living rooms, and I'm not even talking about living rooms with that high definition television stuff. I'm talking about even a 9'inch TV/VCR combination platter. Wait, i just saw a highlight of Kenny, and I think I CAN diagnose him. This is fun. By the way, my favorite text message of the postseason came from my cousin Matthew Atwan after Rogers's performance against the Yankees: "When did Kenny Rogers become Sandy F&ckin* Koufax?"

So really, just because it's fun, I'm going to make my prediction now:

THE CARDINALS WILL WIN THIS SERIES IN SEVEN GAMES. ALBERT PUJOLS WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES MVP. HE'S GOING TO HIT AT LEAST FOUR HOMERS DURING THIS SERIES.

Perhaps it would help if I at least offered a few reasons for my prediction other than, "It smells fishy." So I'm going to say that the Tigers are actually going to be negatively affected by the long layoff. They could not lose against the Yankees and the Athletics, and now they've had seven days to read about how manly and barbaric they are. Forget it. They're losing Game one, by the way. Mark that one down. I'm actually going to put a bet on that right after I'm done with this post. The Cardinals are tired, they had to travel, stay up late, they're pitching Anthony Reyes.

It has all the earmarkings of the whole, "We're tired so we're running on just fumes, and we're going to win our next game but the tiredness is going to catch up with us in Game 2," kind of thing. In other words, they'll win like 7-4 or something tonight - oh and the Tigers hitters are going to be terrifically impatient tonight after that long layoff. In Game 2, the Cardinals will probably lose pretty badly to Rogers. Unless of course that happens to be the day Rogers comes back down to purgatory, or wherever he's from. Seriously though, count on Rogers having his first 2006 postseason implosion during Game 6. He's not going to pitch any better than he pitched against the Yankees and the A's. Verlander, by the way, I love. He's awesome. 7-4 tonight sounds like a lot considering it's Verlander on the mound. Change that to 5-2.

But overall, the reason for this crazy Cardinals prediction is, I'm telling you, it just smells fishy. The Cardinals are taking this thing. Oh, and you know what else is fishy? The four teams that were left standing after the American League and National League Division Series' all had a very eery similarity: They had all last won the World Series during the 1980s (Cardinals in '82, Tigers in '84, Mets in '86 and Athletics in '89). Maybe that's not eery. I guess it's just a similiarity. Enjoy the series. I'm hoping to try and do a Bill Simmons-like live diary during one of the games, but I'm not half as funny or talented as him, so it might work out as well as an Israel/Palestine leadership handshake. We'll see.

By the way, just so you know I'm not lying, here's my betting slip: I only put $10 on it, but that's more of a case of lack of money that I'm willing to risk on online gambling amid law changes, not a lack of confidence:

1) BET ID=180967975
Straight Wager 10/21/06 11:02 ET
10.00/17.80 Result: Pending
Cardinals(StLouis) (Reyes)
Tigers(Detroit) (Verlander) 10/21/06 (20:10 ET)
Cardinals(StLouis) +178

Myth: Oliver Perez Is a Big Joke
I know, I know, my predictions are about as accurate as, well, an Oliver Perez pitch. But guess what? Perez is going to pitch the game of his life tonight, and the New York Mets are going to beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

Hear me out. He might not ACTUALLY pitch the game of his life, he might get smashed. But the point is this: There has to be a reason the Mets are pitching Perez over, say, Darren Oliver (who saved their bullpen with an effective six-inning outing last night) or Dave Williams, or anyone else they might have as a 7th or 8th starter. And I know the reason. They know that out of all their options, Perez is the only one capable of shocking the hell out of the entire world with an 8-inning, 10-strikeout, 3-hit performance. And they think that hey, St. Louis is pitching some guy named Reyes, and we'll just outmash the Cards anyway.

So before you make fun of the reasoning behind the "Oliver Perez Experiment," watch it tonight. You'll understand soon enough.

Myth: Every Team Needs An Ace if It Wants to Win

It doesn’t hurt to have a Johan Santana or Carlos Zambrano in the playoffs, but the truth is, it’s not a necessity either. Of the four teams remaining, the only team with an unquestionable “stopper” is St. Louis, with Chris Carpenter.

What people have to realize – and what people should realize when evaluating the New York Mets – is that baseball is played a lot differently than it was when the phrase, “Good pitching always beats good hitting,” was first uttered. People, of course, meant good starting pitching beats good hitting.

First of all, Willie Randolph’s team wins with its offense and its bullpen. He actually figures out a way to get to his bullpen, not stay away from it. It’s a novel concept. Pedro Feliciano, Aaron Heilman, Chad Bradford and Billy Wagner are his top four guys, and he figures that if his starter can get into the fifth inning with the game close, he’ll take his chances during October with those four guys, and the occasional sprinkle of Darren Oliver or dare I say Roberto Hernandez. And that totally works for the Mets. Baseball is ultra-specialized now, and Randolph has adapted. He knows what he’s got, and he plays a certain style. It’s kind of like basketball: If you have Stephon Marbury and Steve Francis and Jamal Crawford and Channing Frye, then dabnabbit you should run up and down the court and try to win 132-128, not play defensive stalemates.

Last year’s White Sox got great starting pitching, but nobody was a no-doubt, No. 1 ace. In 2004, the Red Sox had Curt Schilling, and in 2003 the Marlins had Josh Beckett, who really wasn’t an ace but pitched like one at the end. In 2002, the Angels had no ace, and in 2001, well, the Diamondbacks had Schilling and Randy Johnson, and that basically won them the title, so, like I said, it doesn’t hurt. But understand the point here. Different teams have different strengths, and especially in post-2000 baseball, it’s the hottest team that’s dictating style that wins, not the team with the ace pitcher.

So I suck at baseball playoff predictions, but I’ll try and do my best right here. Although the Tigers reek of last year’s Chicago White Sox, I’m going to select the Oakland Athletics as the American League champions. Jay Payton will be the unsung hero. The Mets should really pulverize the Cardinals, and that will set up a rematch of 1973. The Mets and the A’s will go 7 games, I think, and the Mets are going to win it. But once it gets to Game 7, there’s really no way to know. All I know is this: Tom Glavine will be the World Series MVP. Just a hunch.

But if the A’s win, which is a distinct possibility, the Series MVP will be Nick Swisher.

So in neat format, here’s the LSS (Liners, Sliders and Scoops) prediction on the LCS and the WS:

ALCS
Oakland wins 4 games to 2, series MVP Jay Payton

NLCS
Mets win 4 games to 1, series MVP David Wright

WORLD SERIES
Mets win 4 games to 3, series MVP Tom Glavine

Myth: Liners, Sliders and Scoops Chokes During the Playoffs

This blog does not approve of all these extra rounds of playoffs. Therefore, we come to you on the eve of the American League Championship Series, after the clearing of the dust of the LDS big-screen round.

A quick word on the Yankees, who I saw in person during their only postseason victory and, I must admit, whose demise I never saw coming.

Watching Game 3 from a bar in Chicago, I saw Kenny Rogers pitch the best game he will ever pitch. I don’t care that he once pitched a perfect game, what he did to the Yankees Friday night was pure Picasso. It didn’t hurt that the patient Yankee bats suddenly became as antsy as teenagers in line for fake IDs, and that they continued their impatience in Game 4.

But seriously, Alex Rodriguez has to go. It’s not that he’s a bad player: The guy is seriously one of the most talented all-around players in history. But he just doesn’t have the spleen or the tonsils or the testicular fortitude for New York. And Joe Torre, as great as he is, doesn’t need this crap anymore. He should leave. He should quit, not be fired. Firing a guy who in 11 seasons with the team has made 11 postseasons, won four World Series titles and six pennants would be crazy talk, even for the Boss. But Joe should read the scroll across the Yes Network: Get out while you can.

As far as the rest of the team, it’s time to downsize. They won championships with Mariano Duncans and Joe Girardis and Charlie Hayes’s and Shane Spencers and Luis Sojos and Miguel Cairos for a reason: Teams need interchangeable parts. They need spots that can be tinkered with, without a venti-sized ego bitching and moaning about the splinters in his ass from sitting down once in a while. And a younger rotation wouldn’t hurt, either. It starts with not picking up the option on Mike Mussina’s contract, even though I love the Moose, and also making sure they don’t trade pitching prospect Phil Hughes. Oh, and isn’t it about time they start looking for Mariano Rivera’s replacement, just in case his ERA ever bloats above 2.50 or something.

The truth is, the rest of the country doesn’t care about the Yankees. The rest of the country loves that the Yankees right now make the Titanic look like the Love Boat. I was in South Bend, Indiana Saturday while the Yankees were being eliminated, watching Notre Dame beat Stanford. The loudest cheer did not come on a Brady Quinn-to-Jeff Samardzija touchdown, but rather when the public address announcer said, “Fourth inning. Tigers 4….Yankees 0.”