Posted by David Wade on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 1:32 pm

The 2009 World Series will feature the best team from each league, a scenario often derailed every year by early-round-short-series upsets.  Philadelphia will try to defend their championship against New York, a franchise making its 40^th trip to the Series.  Here are some things to look for other than the garden variety analysis featured elsewhere on this site or on Baseball Prospectus, both places where actual insight and good writing can often be found. 

One main storyline will be the supposed new-found clutchibility of Alex Rodriguez.  After spending a long career in conspicuous absence from a championship series, Rodriguez is benefiting from his post-season numbers starting to more closely match those of his career.  Add in the fact that he plays for the best team in baseball and suddenly he’s turned some sort of clichéd corner and become a ‘great post-season player’.  Announcers will be quick to try and come up with several reasons for this other than the fact that he’s a really good hitter and given enough plate appearances over time his numbers were bound to be really good.  If he keeps hitting it’ll make for good drama and plenty for the boys in the booth to talk about.  Plus, we’ll be blessed with lots of screen time for Kate Hudson.  If he struggles, then they can say that it’s now the biggest stage that he can’t handle.  Luckily we’d still get lots of screen time for Kate Hudson.

Somewhat similar to the theme above, we’ll likely hear a great deal about the Yankees’ team chemistry.  They’ve had several walk-off victories this year and often celebrate with shaving-cream pies to the face of hero of the night.  This will be used by announcers to explain their terrific regular season- a bunch of guys bonding together for a common goal, etc.  This obscures the fact that last off-season the team brought in the three best free agents in baseball.  Something that really made them the best team in the league- but hey, that’s not as romantic.  My own exhaustive research shows that in non-playoff years everyone hates each other.  In playoff years everyone loves each other.  So, I’m not sold that shaving cream causes the playoff appearances, but that’ll be what we hear.

We will also get at least one “Jeter Moment” in which the Yankee shortstop will make a nice backup on an overthrow, hustle into the stands, or get a hit to right field with a man on first.  We probably won’t hear about the numerous grounders we’ve seen bouncing off Jeter’s body and his lack of range so far in the playoffs.  He’s a great player, but I’ll bet every penny I’ve earned in my writing career that we get an instant where Jeter’s baseball acumen is overblown and lauded beyond nausea-inducing levels.

On the Phillies’ side, we all will wait to see if Chase Utley throws a ball into the stands on a double play attempt.  This potential gaff would dominate the coverage on Baseball Tonight and provide another opening for John Kruk to talk about Sax and Knoblauch and maybe even clutchitude’s evil opposite- choking.  Utley’s the best second baseman in baseball, but if you make a couple of errors in the post-season that doesn’t matter.  Unless you’re the guy I just talked about in the preceding paragraph.

The Phillies scheduled Pedro Martinez to pitch in game two.  Don Zimmer is gone from the Yankee bench, so if Pedro goes head-hunting this year he may have to fight someone closer to his age.  Which ironically means the Yankees would have to bring back Don Zimmer to fight him. 

Wait-

Well, Pedro will probably not throw at anyone so it may not matter.  But he could provide some serious drama if he pitches well, and he almost has to for the Phillies to win another championship. 

This should be an entertaining series.  I feel the Yankees are the favorites because their offense is fantastic.  Philadelphia represents the best the N.L. had to offer this year and the matchup(s) between Sabathia and Lee could be classic.  We’ve already had several memorable moments from the 2009 post-season (as well as a bonus day if you count Detroit-Minnesota).  Hopefully these two teams will keep it going.