2009 World Series

The 2009 World Series have just started on Wednesday with the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies facing off against the New York Yankees. A lot of the sports columnists, sports talk hosts, etc. said that when the baseball playoffs began that the Yankees and the Los Angeles will both end up in the World Series because Joe Torre would face the team where he won four World Series titles with during his tenure there. Oops, it did not end up that way because the Phils took the Dodgers out in 5 games ( and I like Joe and the Dodgers, too.)

Who is the overall favorite to win it all?

Despite the fact that the Phillies won the title last year, the oddsmakers picked the Yankees to defeat them in the series. New York, a club that have won 26 World Series titles, has a collection of all-stars and high priced but yet very effective free agents, were able to have the best overall record in the 2009 Major League Baseball. The Phillies, a franchise who won-loss record is definitely something not to write home about (especially within the first 100 year history of the club) has been a major playoff contender for the last few years. However, during the regular season, it seemed that the critics have been sleeping on the champs and taking about the other team in the National League. In the end, look who ended up in the World Series, that's right: Philadelphia. The starters for game 1 were CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee. Right now in Ohio, a lot of Cleveland Indians fans are pretty much upset about this matchup because both Sabathia and Lee were in the Indians pitching rotation as recently as July 2008, right before CC was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers( who ended up going to the playoffs on the strength of his pitching performances) and Lee (along with Ben Francisco) was traded to Philly last July (Lee became another important piece to the Phillies run to the playoffs.) The Indians had both starting pitchers and couldn't keep at least one of them for their own rotation and now they are in the World Series together.

My choice to take the title

If I was a betting man, I would choose the Philadelphia Philles to beat the New York Yakees in seven games. It is going the distance, by I see the Phillies taking the 2009 crown. Granted I like the Yankees ( and that says a lot because living in Ohio you are supposed to hate the Yankees) but Philadelphia has shown in this year's playoffs that when the chips are down, they can find a way to rally together as a team and win the important games down the stretch.