So the Major League Baseball season is over. I was angry and confused when the Mets bowed out, but now I'm just feeling generally sad. It's over. The Cardinals! The Cardinals? That's who won it all???

Just thought about the famous........."Playoffs? PLAYoffs! We'll be lucky to win another game." (-Who said it?)

and also........."Practice... Practice. We talkin bout PRACtice!"( -Who said it?)

Answers below. You may not be a sports fan if you don't know at least one of them by the way.

Back to the Cardinals. The same team that came within a game of completing the worst regular season collapse down the stretch in history. Maybe the Astros were the 2nd best team in the league this year. Who knows. If you're looking to make sense of the marathon that ended tonight and began whenever the hell it began so many months ago then good luck. You just can't look at the big picture. It's more about what's happened in the past couple weeks, the Playoffs, the 2nd Season. I think sometimes it more the subtle, almost daily shifts and changes that end up deciding the course of history.

I think Jim Edmonds said it best when Chris Myers asked him how they just shocked the world. He explained how they were just a bunch of surprising young guys, a few guys brought in from other teams, and a few core guys who all pulled together and got hot at the right time. I'm paraphrasing of course.

This team did just enough. Everyone did just enough. David Eckstein won the World Series MVP. DAVID ECKSTEIN!!! Are you kidding me? Little David Eckstein? Jeff Weaver was dominant and basically unhittable at times during the entire post-season. JEFF WEAVER!!! What the hell? Pujols did nothing with the bat but played like Will Clark down there at first base. Where the heck did Adam Wainwright come from? I'm so confused. Sorry, I don't deal well with unexpectedness.

And let me just say it... HOW THE #### DID THE YANKEES LOSE TO THIS TIGER TEAM??? They should be ashamed of themselves. How did Vietnam happen? Why can't we ever see these things coming? Why can't we quantify the intangible elements that so often end up being the deciding factors in so many of the outcomes of human battle? At the very least we should always mention the notion that the will to win (or whatever you wan't to call it) could easily compensate for the disadvantage a competitor may have on paper. It should always be mentioned, and then it should be discussed. Any good prognosticator should include it in their handicapping process, and then try to estimate which side has the edge in this category, and then know that it's just not a quantifiable thing. It only reveals itself after the fact. After the dust has settled. After the final bomb has been launched. Then we can look back and say to ourselves, "why didn't I see that coming?" "That makes perfect sense now that I think about it." NO! No, you could not have seen that coming, and therein lies the beauty of the live event. And the beauty of the event called life. The spectacular unpredictability of the human experience!

Maybe I've gone too far.

I'll tell ya, that Sean Casey is a professional hitter. That guy can rake it. The rest of those Cats were either too young to succeed in the position they found themselves, simply overrated and under-motivated (Magglio), or simply too deflated (Pudge). Remember when Pudge hit HRs, and looked like his nickname made some sense? He hit 13 long balls this year, and is basically a poor man's Jason Kendall now. He's a punching Judy. But we'll give the credit to the Cardinals pitching staff I guess... whatever, fine. I don't know. The Tigers offense was actually inconsistent all season long. Their pitching was incredible though. They should be around for a while.

BUT WHY COULDN'T THE METS OFFENSE RISE TO THE OCCASION AND SIMPLY OVERPOWER THESE FLAWED AND INCONSISTENT TEAMS? Why didn't I get to see the Mets go up against the Tigers. We'll just never know. Could have seen Maine again. Perez again. El Duque back in the World Series and Glavine toss his final game as a Met on the biggest stage (Yeah I said it... he's gonna bolt for Atlanta this off-season, you watch). What fun this would have been for all of us Met fans, AND Fox might have actually gotten some ratings out of it too.

I almost feel the way I've felt both times Bush got elected President. What is happening in the Universe? I feel like everything is upside down and flipped around. Who's in control? Why can't things just happen the way they're supposed to? God I hate unpredictability and logic-defying outcomes. I want things to make sense! Why are we in Iraq? How did the Cardinals win the World Series? As much as I hate the Yankees I almost would have rather seen them win it. Actually no, I take that back, but at least it would have allowed me to understand and make sense of this crazy world! The rich always seem to get richer. They beat up on the poor. We are all at the mercy of an Evil Empire (in our own backyard even). Money actually DOES buy happiness (and World Series Rings). MLB revenue sharing is a joke, essentially nothing more than an Ad campaign to keep the poor people from turning off their TV sets. I don't care if we've had like 8 different World Series Champs in a row now. It has nothing to do with revenue sharing. These are the things I'm used to. What I believe in. The way of the world..............

OR MAYBE THINGS ARE CHANGING! Maybe I need to stop looking back and start looking forward. I just realized that the Democrats are coming.... the Democrats are coming!

Does anybody see how I got there? I probably should have explained it a little better but I am tired of typing and nobody is reading anyway so.... ya know, what's my motivation?

That was, quite simply, the worst played World Series in the history of the league.

Did anyone see that Nets Knicks pre-season game tonight? Marcus Williams is gonna be GOOOOOOD!!!!!!!! Sorry, I'm going to have to try to get into the NBA now, and more specifically..... my NJ Nets! I can't be expected to live on Sundays alone, and if a puck dropped in the forest and everyone was around to see it.... would anyone really care? No. No they wouldn't.

Answers - Great press conference moments compliments of Jim Mora after a horrible loss as coach of the Colts and Allen Iverson just being himself  as he responds to being repeatedly late for practices earlier in his career.

I can practice irresponsible journalism in this spot, right? I mean, I am not a credible sports journalist (Hell, I'm not even a sports journalist)!

Kenny Rogers is clearly on something. This much I know. He is emoting something akin to an Ecstasy trip. I have a theory. You can call it a conspiracy theory but I trust my instincts when it comes to a situation where something is amiss, and this Rogers situation has all the signs.

I won't even address the pine tar he had on his pitching hand in the first inning. I'm not sure we've heard the last of this, and LaRussa and Selig probably spoke before Fox went to your local news.

Look at his pupils. Listen to his voice in the post-game. Watch him in the dugout during the game. This guy is not behaving normally. All this curious behavior (and even more curious pitching performance) combined with his already shaky reputation equals something apparently yet to be exposed.

My theory is that Kenny Rogers once, a long time ago, had the drug ecstasy in his system during one of his regular season starts, either due to circumstance or as part of experiment. I believe he pitched lights out that night (or day). I think at some point he tried to duplicate that experiment in order to validate his findings. I think he did. I think this oddity became well established over the course of his long career (apparently after his stint with the Mets much to my dismay). You can't take this stuff too often though, so he used it sparingly. He's now using it to shock the league in the twilight of his career.

I guess I will touch on the pine tar on his hand after all (this is obviously much less debatable)....

This blatant and ballsy decision to use a "foreign substance" in a game of this magnitude shocked the umpires so much that they were not able to deal with it with equal bravado. They did not have the confidence to make a bold decision. They were probably afraid to do something as severe as ejecting a starting pitcher in the first inning of a World Series Game. To quote Carmella Soprano, "sometimes more is lost from indecision than wrong decision." The umpire basically made no decision, simply allowing Rogers to merely wash his hands between innings and continue in the game. Rogers had the balls to employ a mid - July pitcher's trick in an October game on the biggest stage and I believe this actually shocked the officiating crew into inaction.

Kenny says it was a "clump of dirt" on his hand, and Major League Baseball is now scrambling to cover this up and cover their collective ####. Steve Palermo (MLB Umpire Supervisor) has been sent up to the plate, in an impromptu press conference, to deal with this situation before the media heads into the of####ay with all this speculative blood in the water. This is pathetic. This guy has obviously been asked to run interference here in MLB's feeble attempt to cover up the tracks, with the media hot on the trail of this story.

So just to summarize what we're being told here....

Kenny noticed a clump of dirt on his hand after the first inning and he wiped it off. Steve Palermo just told us that the umpire was actually the one who told Rogers to wipe off his hand (maybe Palermo should have sat down with Rogers before this press conference so they could get their stories straight). What kind of dirt looks like sticky gummy iodine #### goo anyway? Kenny should now be cursing the advent of HDTV more than Gregg Popovich does? You are gripping a ball 15 or so times attempting to throw pitches with pinpoint accuracy and you don't notice that half of the hand you are throwing with is covered with a "clump of dirt???" The only way you don't notice, and then promptly remove, a foreign substance on your throwing hand is if that "substance" is not a hindrance at all but rather a vital component of what you're trying to accomplish on the mound. 23 scoreless post-season innings all thanks to pine tar, ecstacy, greenies, HGH, steroids, etc... This just wreaks of scandal.

And this just in to ESPN... Shawn Merriman of the San Diego Chargers has been notified that he will be suspended 4 games for violating the league's steroid policy. PERFECT... right on the heels of a still unfolding scandal in professional sports we have an already unfolded and ready for use scandal, albeit a boring one. Same old story. But wait... in addition the the steroids in his system they also found some marshmallow fluff spread on his game jersey. I love that stuff... with some chunky peanut butter on some white bread. YUMMM!

Anyway, I gotta stop now, but I just wanted to say....

Why would the umpire tell Kenny to go wash his hands? Shouldn't he have said, "don't you dare wash your hands until we are able to determine what exactly this substance is."

Does anybody know what all those place kickers were on today in the NFL? Some BIG kicks by some little guys.  Can we please look into this, because I lost a lot of money on these kicks, and I would like some closure on something more than just my off-shore account.

I'm way too tired to write all the stuff I want to write about my NY Mets right now, but if I did write something it would probably be about
 

the significance of this win over the Cardinals tonight

Carlos Beltran for NL MVP

The many ways this team can beat you, never more apparent than in the game tonight

The depth of this team, if one Carlos doesn't get ya the other one will, and then there's Wright, Reyes, LoDuca, Valentin.... a healthy Floyd, Shawn Green... the list goes on and on, contributors abound

The Cardinals are a mess. Belliard hasn't worked out and Preston Wilson is just a pure desperation move. They are old, injured, and can't pitch a lick. They are a non-factor, but will win the NL Central regardless.

Glavine is fine, Pedro is resting, Trachsel is solid, El Duque is battle-tested and still capable, as evidenced by his performance the other night. You can still trust this guy to take the ball in a big playoff game. ####.. John Maine still hasn't been hit by anyone NOT named Albert in like 5 outings!

Dodgers - Bring on all that Right-Handed Pitching! Ya can't pitch around 5or 6 quality lefty bats, but if ya want to try go right ahead. Mr Wright and Mr LoDuca will hurt ya too.

Cards are a joke. Wildcard winner will be a supremely flawed baseball team.

Still only 4 teams qualify for post-season play... right?

The Astros officially bowed out of the race tonight. The lost a heart-breaker last night, and after a 14-0 drubbing tonight we can now very safely say they are DONE.

The Braves have too much ground to make up as well, and more importantly too many teams ahead of them so they'll be out as well.

I still can't come up with a realistic scenario where the Mets aren't your 2006 NL Champs.

Can you ??? I really want to hear a compelling, rational, well thought-out argument.