Wednesday, October 22, 2008

World Series Anyone?

The first pitch will be thrown soon at Tropicana Field and before the series starts I'm going to share my prediction (thanks to the power of the internet) - Phillies in six.  I had a little concern with this at first because Philly has had a few more days off than the Rays have and after seeing how the Rockies cooled down last year, it can be hard to get going again.

That being said, while the Rays are a great team and they've put up some impressive numbers this year (not just in wins, but at a basic level playing much better defense and getting stronger pitching from their bullpen), it seemed like they were starting to show some cracks against Boston.  I'm not going to lie - watching David Price pitch his way through the vaunted Red Sox hitters was exciting and impressive.  Tampa Bay is a young team with incedible talent, but now their facing another team that has a mixture of youth, talent, experience and hunger.

The difference to me between Philadelphia and Boston is the desire to win.  Winning has become and expectation and a business in Boston recently and the passion doesn't seem to be there like it was when they came back against the Yankees and then won the World Series in 2004.  Philadelphia has not seen a major sports championship since 1983 and while I've never been a fan of any team in that city (Philly fans are mostly the reason for that), I really believe the time is now for their drought to end.

If anyone wants to post their predictions, we can keep a running tally in the comments for this post.
 
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