Dr. Strangeglove: There But For the Grace of God

I’ve been harping on how playoff baseball can hinge on luck, happenstance, and fractions of an inch for months now. It’s been roughly utility-neutral to us as Phillies fans in recent years (I hate to go all Jeremy Bentham on you guys, but that was the best way to put it), because while the Phillies, in 2011, lost in the first round of the playoffs despite probably being the best team with the easiest road to the World Series, the same could be said of the 2008 Cubs. And if the Cubs weren’t the best team, the Rays were most likely next in line, then the Red Sox, and then the Phillies. Having the Cubs lose in the first round and the Phillies win the World Series is really no more of a karmic ball-tap than having the Phillies lose in the first round and the Cardinals win the World Series this year.Except I can’t stand Tony La Russa and his smug self-importance and tedious overmanaging. Or the rest of the pressed-and-ironed St. Louis Cardinals, essentially Lance Berkman and a bunch of g...