My Kingdom for a Watchable World Series

Though I feel it is incredibly redundant and pedantic to have to say so, here it is: I really, really love baseball. I love the regular season and the love the playoffs. I love what the World Series represents, the culmination of seven months' hard work in one transcendent moment that puts you in the company of a century's worth of the elite in your profession. They're not letting over a third of the league's clubs get the same opportunity to vie for a championship. Success is earned and the accolades are discriminating--more or less.

So why, for the past 5 seasons, has the World Series kind of...ahem...sucked? Boston's four-game sweep of Colorado continues a string of Fall Classics that have been less than stellar from a competitive standpoint. If you haven't been a fan of one of the two league champions in recent years, there's been little to sustain your interest after mid-October.

2006 brought us arguably the biggest championship fluke of all time, St. Louis still managing to garner their requisite media fawning and somehow avoiding the ridiculous "Team .500" scorn heaped upon the Padres only a year earlier (this despite the 2006 Cards winning only ONE more game than the 2005 Pads; goddammit I hate the Cardinals more than any non-Cubs fan in the world).

2005 and 2004 were interesting in their parallel "teams named after the color of their stockings finally win a championship again" storylines, but the actual games left much to be desired. Both Sox completed decisive four-game sweeps over vastly inferior teams, and the world was subjected to the opining of intellectual titans like Johnny Damon and Ozzie Guillen for years thereafter.

2003 also left a weird taste in everyone's mouth, even though the baseball was decent, for a couple reasons. First, the Teal Bastards had won their second World Series in ten years of existence. Second, they did it at Yankee Stadium, which had all the natural warmth and vitality of a mausoleum after the final out simply because the AL had won the All-Star Game that year, the first year that WS home-field advantage was up for grabs (it would have been the NL's turn on the discarded and equally stupid rotation system). Thirdly, these being the Teal Bastards, everybody knew that this team would be dismantled almost immediately and wouldn't be relevant for another six years; not to mention they still had terrible attendance that year. Kind of puts a damper on any excitement.

So what we have from 2004 to 2007 is four consecutive World Series that lasted for less than six games, which could have very well been four consecutive sweeps if not for a little "dirt" on the palm and gamesmanship in the mind of Kenny Rogers in '06. The first and last time this occurred in Series history was from 1913 to 1916, and only one of those years (1914) saw a sweep. I'm not saying that the Series hasn't had some great moments in recent years, or that the system is incapable of producing an worthy champion (unless you are the '06 Cardinals). I'm saying that from the perspective of the unemotionally invested baseball fan, the competition in the World Series is far from world-class. And I can think of a few reasons why:

Expansion: It honestly does dilute the talent pool. There are enough major league-caliber players out there to stock eight potential championship rosters--they just wind up on twenty-five different teams. This really affects "role players" the most, the ones with specialized skills. Case in point: good leadoff men were already scarce, but it's hard to imagine a pre-1993 World Series roster platooning the equivalents of Willy Tavaras and Kaz Matsui in the top spot.

The Specialization of the Bullpen: A comeback is perhaps the most exhilarating thing to see in pro sports. So how come it seems impossible to do in the World Series, both the in short and long term? The continuing delineation of bullpen roles and the increasing amount of downtime in the playoffs is a likely culprit. Teams can take their 5 or 6 best relief arms, perhaps bolstering it with a extra starter (thus bumping off their most ineffective remaining reliever); if they've got a decent closer, set-up man, and situational lefty (a la the '07 Red Sox), you've just made it a six-inning game.

The Red Sox-Yankees Cold War: Even Bill Simmons agrees that the acceleration of the fiscal game of chicken between Boston and New York is approaching ludicrous speed. In a way, both MLB and the media have created a self-fulfilling prophecy by hyping this feud so much that a Series without either is looked at as a failure before the first pitch. I really feel for Blue Jays fans here. They're like the normal fifth roommate in an apartment with two hopeless stoners and two passive-aggressive Rhodes scholars.

As I see it, the last time we had a World Series with all the key elements of fantastic sports drama was 2002. The Angels-Giants series had it all: two teams with a good (but not overwhelming) amount of historical baggage, rising and established stars, comebacks, bullpen meltdowns, Barry Bonds back when we hated him just for being a jerk, two articulate managers that weren't buffoons or cartoon characters or just completely insufferable, unlikely heroes, no pinstripes or shamrocks or red-hued birds in sight, and a full seven games for cryin' out loud!

The regular season has always mattered to me. The league playoffs--especially the ALCS--have been downright breathtaking in recent years. And, in 2002, I finally fell in love with the World Series again, a feeling I hadn't experienced since briefly before Mitch Williams pitched a star-crossed fastball to Joe Carter in 1993. I'm just wondering when the World Series is going to love me back.