"Yeah, last year's champion...was...umm...who was last year's champion?"

Seriously, people, who was last year's World Series Winner? Because it sure wasn't the St. Louis Cardinals. Last year, the Cardinals were a different team in a different league than the 2007 Cardinals. But, oh yeah, the 2006 regular season Cardinals were almost just as disappointing. How could a team with an 83-78 record win the AL Central? Oh yeah, because it is the St. Louis Cardinals.

This team went from a 100-62 record in '05 and choking in the playoffs, to barely itching by with squeak of a record over .500 and winning the World Series.

What do I have to say about this? Well, one well-known phrase sums it up: Parallel Baseball Universe (in the NL Central).

What else could be used to describe this undescribable feat? The Houston Astros in '05 were the team that were unbeatable down the stretch, and even more dominant in the playoffs, until they played the White Sox. But see, that is exactly the point that proves my argument true: St. Louis was the team last year that choked down the stretch, and then couldn't be beaten in the playoffs (and that does include the World Series).

So, what will happen this year? The Cardinals will end up getting hot down the stretch, but the Brewers will edge it out in the last, oh, let's say, 10 games. In those ten games there will be a contension for the wild card: between the Astros, Cardinals, and the Cubs.

We can already scratch out the Astros, because, frankly, I hate them. So this brings us to two teams: the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs. This is where it gets complicated: everybody is going to expect the Cardinals to win because they won the World Series last year, and everybody is going to expect the Cubs to choke because they are the Cubs. But that is the beauty of a parallel universe: you can't predict anything. You think one thing and then the next minute you think something else.

In the end, you guessed it, the St. Louis Cardinals will win the wild card. Nobody really knows how but they will win it. But, in hindsight, they actually won't win it. The whole concept of  "they can't win it" will win it for them. The fact that everybody counted them out last year won it for them, and in '05 when they were the favorites, they lost because everybody had counted everybody else out in the NL. So what we end up is an endless cornocopia of confusion.

Because, again, we are living in a Parallel Baseball Universe. In the NL Central.