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