MLB October Preview

The NFL lately has left me forgetting about baseball and the great season that has been going this summer. That along with the fact that the Red Sox are now out of it. But now most of the playoff spots are set around the league. The Twins have taken their division and still have a chance to take the top spot in the American league. The Rangers have had their division wrapped up for a while and will get a big boost with Josh Hamilton re-joining the lineup. The Yankees and Rays are now battling for the division with the loser getting the wild card, both are also leading the AL in wins. In the National League the Phillies stormed back against the banged-up Braves to take the division by a healthy lead. The Reds have taken the central division on a walk-off home run by Jay Bruce earlier this week. Meanwhile out west the Giants seem poised to take the division with a 2.5 game lead on the Padres, and the Padres trail the Braves by 1.5 games in the wild card. I personally would like to see the Giants and Braves finish off the Padres and go to the playoffs.
But right now in the national league it really looks like the Phillies are going to be the team to beat in the playoffs, led by the return from injury of some key players like Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, and Jimmy Rollins. As well as the NL Cy Young candidate Roy Halladay, who is having yet another great year. The MVP should be Joey Votto who amazingly did not make the All-Star team this year despite being near the top of the list in many offensive categories. In the AL Felix Hernandez should win the Cy Young because of his amazing ERA, and Josh Hamilton will probably win MVP despite being injured for the few weeks.
It's all setting up to be another exciting October in baseball. Right now what I see is the Yankees playing the Phillies again in the World Series, and for the second year in a row, capturing the championship over Philadelphia. What I would like to see is the Cinncinati Reds beating the Texas Rangers in the World Series, game 7, walk-off, home run, in extra innings, despite that being the perfect scenario it could still happen. Many things can happen in baseball and as I learned when watching the Tenth Inning, a film by Ken Burns, players can even break records that never seemed possible to break. But while some were broken by players who supposedly used performance-enhancing drugs, it seems to me that everyone at some point and time used them during the steroid era. This means that the best player of the steroid era really was the best player, because everyone was doing it. Steroids also does not necessarily take someone out of the Hall of Fame, Barry Bonds was arguably the best player in the game and a sure Hall of famer before he used steroids. So I hope everyone enjoys the rest of the baseball season and even if you are a big football fan don't forget about America's other game, baseball.
-Max