Prediction: Yankees and Phillies

Nice to have a little break between series and reflect on how fragile the outcome of games and series can be. If it had not been for a couple of glaring mistakes, the Twins would have put a lot of pressure on the Yankees to win a Game 4 at the Metrodome. Who would have thought that it would be Brad Lidge to get big saves along with 'Mo and not Papelbon, Street and Nathan.

I still see the Yankees and Phillies in the World Series. In addition to all the talent the Yankees have with their expensive free agents and the solid veterans that have been there before, this Yankees team appears to have some good chemistry and camaraderie and character that the other teams in this decade haven't had. The Phillies have it too. My friend, Charlie Manuel, the Phillies manager told me a few years ago that this was as good a group of players as he's ever been around in terms of liking each other and doing the little things that you need to do to win.

If the Yankees and Phillies matchup comes to fruition, the challenge for the Yankees will be handling the Phillies' left-handed pitching: Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and now, Jamie Moyer could be an additional factor. He has frustrated Yankee hitters in the past. We haven't seen Pedro yet and he could be a factor as well.

The advantage I think the Yankees have is that they don't need to step up or play above their ability to win it all. Just avoid glaring mistakes like foolish baserunning or costly errors and they'll be hard to beat. The Phillies and especially the Dodgers and Angels will have to play mistake-free and pitch like they've never pitched before to beat them. They're so deep in their lineup, in the bullpen and in top quality starters.

Predictions -- like saying a particular team will win in a certain number of games -- always cause me to ask, "When you say a team will win in six games, how do you determine which two they'll lose?" I never could figure that out. But I do think the Phillies and Yankees have the best chance to win the Championship series and the Yankees the best chance to win it all.

Here's something that will never change and annoys me every October: I wish for a lot of reasons that night games would start at 7:00 p.m., West Coast games at 1:00 p.m., and that they would mix in a couple of day games in the East for the "real" baseball fans, not the ones that just pay attention to postseason games. If only the Major league "suits" in past years had the backbone to make a stand similar to the one that Augusta National makes for televising the Masters and making it a real "must see" TV event. When fans during my travels say to me, "You should be the Commissioner" -- even though I'm far from qualified to be -- that is one area I would have loved to have had some input. To let TV executives who neither know nor care about the "best interest of the game" and focus solely on appealling to the average fan run it is unforgivable to those of us that really do care. I hate having to get my morning paper or boot up my computer to see who won last night's game.

Let's just hope we have some exciting series in good weather with a lot of heroes and no glaring blunders by players or umpires.