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This is one crowded crystal ball: when the possibilities are endless, making predictions gets tough

Sporting News, The, Sept 30, 2005 by Joe Buck

The powers that be at the SPORTING NEWS gave me an assignment this month: "Hey, Joe, why don't you write about what you expect for the month of October?"

Surely they cannot be asking me who I think will be battling in the baseball playoffs, can they? I mean, here it is, the third week of September, and the races are wide-open. I cannot even tell you which division leaders are the odds on favorites to get to the dance. If I had to pick, I guess I would predict a rematch of last year's World Series. The Cardinals are the best in the National League, albeit with some serious questions about the health of their veteran hitters. The Red Sox are the most dangerous team in the American League again because of their thunderous lineup, but their pitching is not as good as it was a year ago--especially the rotation.

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The real mess is the wild card, and what a great mess it is. Let's see a show of hands out there by those of you who still think the wild card represents the end of Western civilization. Adding the wild card was the best change the game had made in decades. The format allows division rivals, such as the Red Sox and Yankees, to meet in the LCS. In the past two years, the 14 postseason games between Boston and New York have been the best the sport has to offer.

The wild card is working, and Bud Selig deserves credit for plowing ahead with the idea while purists across the country were wringing their hands believing that their game and their pants had been ruined. The last three teams to win the whole thing got in as wild cards, and nobody cared when they popped the corks in the clubhouse just before Halloween.

So with that being said, is this the first season since 1993 (there was no postseason in '94) that the Yankees will be left off the fun bus? The next two weeks will tell us. Are the Indians going to pull it off and get a team few beyond the Ohio River Valley know into the postseason? How about the A's turnaround? I still think the Marlins are as dangerous a team as any. And the Phillies might be nice newcomers to the action.

I have no idea who will get in, but I do know that I will be glued to my TV and the Internet watching it unfold.

My only prediction for October is that the Cowboys will win back-to-back home games against the Eagles and Giants and, at least for a while, reside at the top of the NFC East. Well, that, and that Jorge Cantu Halloween masks will not be a big hit in George Steinbrenner's neighborhood if the Yankees don't get into the playoffs. If the Yankees are left out, they will have only the Devil Rays to blame.

This is one crowded crystal ball: when the possibilities are endless, making predictions gets tough

Sporting News, The, Sept 30, 2005 by Joe Buck

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