This game should have been in Baltimore. That's all that I can think about when I look ahead to the beginning of the World Series tonight. A few different bounces, pitches called differently, fluke plays fluking a different way, and it might have been the Orioles in the World Series. There's little point in dwelling on it now, but no one ever said that fans are rational.
The Royals, I have read, will be the first World Series team that does not have a single player on the roster who played in the 20th century. Raul Ibanez, the Ancient One, was left off the roster. Had the Orioles made it into the World Series, that would have been true of them as well. The oldest player to play for the Orioles this year was in his age 33 season. Even in this, we are mocked. It could have been us.
Now that it comes down to it, one of these teams must win. Will it be the Giants, who, if they win, will have won three of the last five World Series titles? Will it be the Royals, who employ the insufferably smug Jarrod Dyson, who trash talked as if he was the ALCS MVP when the only thing he did is get thrown out twice as a pinch runner? There is no joy for Orioles fans in either outcome.
Rooting against the Royals means rooting for the National League, who would then have claim on four of the last five World Series titles, and fans of all NL teams would probably then act like they play real baseball over there. Rooting against the Giants means, well, you know.
Like it or not, this is the series. One of them must win and one must lose.