My first reaction to the list of 100-win teams: The 2004 Cards won 105 games!? My next reaction: who cares?

I've heard lots of theories about why 100-win teams don't win the World Series, but I don't think it makes a damn bit of difference either way. In the playoffs, anyone can get hot, and with the advent of the wild card, there are that many more teams to contend with in the postseason.

I think the Red Sox are in trouble -- they can't afford to go without Lowell, Drew, and especially Beckett, all three of whom were integral to last season's championship. Anything less than 90% from all of them and they're cooked. Also, they've beaten up on the Angels, what, three times in a row now? Just seems like it's the Angels' year.

I like the Cubs to pull it off this year. Call me sentimental, nostalgic, a traditionalist, but I just can't stomach the idea of another expansion team from Florida -- and are we really ignoring the fact that they actually changed their name from The Devil Rays? -- winning it all.

You have the correct info right below it, but it was the '04 Cards, not the '05 Cards, that won the World Series.

As a Cards fan, I can't imagine anything funnier than the Cubs being denied their first World Series championship since 1908 by... the Rays.

As a lifelong Cubs fan, it would be an ultimate kick in the nuts if the Rays win the World Series. That would mean that all of the 90's expansion teams have either won or been in the World Series.

That being said, I expect the Rays to win.

For some strange reason I don't remember the '04 Cardinals winning the world series. They had the best record in baseball, but that's it.

King - the Angels W/L record should only be mentioned along w/their far less impressive run differential and third-order win totals. They were, to most of us at least, not the best team in baseball by any means.

I, for one, am fully and totally in favor of 1-0 playoff games. The single greatest sports moment of my life was probably a 1-0 Braves win over the Indians in the clinching game of the '95 Series. And was also won with a solo homer, in this case by David Justice. And also featured 8 innings of shut-down pitching from the starter, in this case Tom Glavine. Ahh... the good ol' days...

American League:

Angels over Red Sox in three

Rays over White Sox in five

Rays over Angels in six

National League:

Phillies over Brewers in four

Cubs over Dodgers in four

Cubs over Phils in five

World Series:

Rays over Cubs in seven

was the chance to pound the miserable AL West teams up 19 games apiece.

Didn't C.C. Sabathia get his name changed to CC Sabathia? I feel like I read that somewhere this season. Man, people are weird sometimes.

Also: can you just close your eyes for one second and actually imagine postseason play at Tropicana Field?!?! I mean, I'll root for the Rays (when they're not playing the Red Sox or Cubs, that is), but good gravy that stadium sucks!

"If they lose, they're wrung out, is how it works. You too can be an analyst."

Be careful, King! If the Brotherhood of Ink-stained Wretches and Other Assorted Sports Blowhards catches you giving away trade secrets to the great unwashed masses, you'll be banished to covering high school sports in Alaska.

I have my doubts about those 100 Angel wins. 54 of them were against the Rangers, A's and Mariners. Tampa Bay and Boston had much tougher schedules. But we'll see

It would go to a tie in the ninth inning of Game 4 and then the world would end.

On December 28, 2002, when the Cardinals' owners first broke ground on their new cookie-cutter redbrick faux-retro stadium in the parking lot due south of Busch Memorial Stadium, I became a Cubs fan.

I'd always liked the Cubs; like any reasonable and humane Cardinals fan, the day the Cardinals were out of the race, and the Cubs were still in it, you root for the Cubs just because they're the underdog--and it would be SO fun to see them win, FINALLY. The same idea applies about rooting for the Red Sox, although it's a rare thing to find a Cardinals fan who's THAT candid, after 2004.

As a 'new' Cubs fan, I have one observation: In the late innings of a close, important game, Cubs fans lose their senses of perspective--and humor--completely. They handwring. They whine. They are traumatized by the merest whiff of a scent of losing. It's embarrassing.

As a 'new' Cubs fan, I don't have that baggage, thank God. I can relax. I can truly enjoy this season, and if they don't win it all or make it to the World Series, next season, too. Part of that is the mellowing of my 51 years. Part of it is a rational outlook on life that includes Just For Today.

But mostly it's because I love the game, and I love to watch professional ballplayers take the field and do what they do best. This year has been remarkable for the Cubs and their fans.

In 2006, the Cardinals' owners opened their new stadium. As a former Cards fan, and as a person versed enough in the architectural arts to be appalled at what was built in place of the gem that was torn down and discarded like so many other suburban crackerbox domiciles, the last thing I wanted to see was a Cardinals' World Series Championship in the inaugural year of the monstrosity that caused me to turn my back on the goddamned team in the first place.

So, that year, early on, when the Cubs manhandled the Cardinals in series after series, when it seemed like the Cardinals were going nowhere (and they damn near made it to nowhere, barely squeaking into the playoffs with almost the LEAST POSSIBLE NUMBER of wins to make a winning season--83), my friends sitting next to me on the couch or on a barstool would lament the Cardinals, cursing the Cubs for the at-that-moment hegemony over their team.

"Shut up," I told them, growling, over and over, at different times of the year, all the way through the playoffs. "The Cardinals are going to win the World Series this year."

I couldn't lose. Either I got my wish--that the new stadium would NOT be christened with their first Championship since 1982--or I got to be a prophet. It was a tossup as to which I preferred. I certainly don't hate the Cardinals enough to be sad that they won; and how many people do you know who EVER correctly identified the winners of the World Series in any given year--especially when they were 80-1 odds at the beginning of the playoffs? Oh, if ONLY I'd found a bookie that Monday before the first game in October that year...

My friends and family STILL act as if I'd converted to Zoroastrianism, and this is story is going to make an excellent memoir someday. And I can't wait until the Cubs win their next World Series. It will happen, and probably soon, and there will be nothing but joy in all the land.

It will happen because the Red Sox proved there is NO SUCH THING AS A CURSE in baseball. Just long odds, that come back sooner or later.