Well, the baseball playoffs are upon us, and none too soon. We need a diversion from politics. We once might have counted on the NFL for this, but in the age of Kaepernick and Trump....Well, enough said. And college football has its charms—surely everyone not from Louisiana enjoyed Troy's terrific upset of LSU Saturday—but it's boring watching Alabama and Clemson make their way to another championship game. And anyway, college football only diverts us every Saturday. What about the rest of the week? That's where the baseball playoffs come in. Lots of interesting teams this year, with some really terrific pitching matchups, and pitcher vs. hitter matchups, coming up. And, as always seems especially the case with baseball, genuine uncertainty about the results. And the sequence of the one-game wildcard playoffs, then the five-game divisional series, then the seven-game championship and World Series, is a good way to build suspense without going on forever. I asked you for your picks a couple of weeks ago, and offered mine: Cleveland over Arizona in 6. Cleveland was the most popular pick to win both the American League (almost two-thirds of you went with Jim Swift's and Rachael Larimore's Indians) and the World Series (about a third of you wish they'd finish the job this year). Houston was the back-up American League pick, followed by Boston and New York. No one picked the Twins. In the National League, the Nationals were the No. 2 pick, followed by the Cubs, and a brave few who agreed with me on the Diamondbacks. No one picked Colorado. So, of course, given the way things have been going, we'll end up with a Twins-Rockies World Series! * * * ADVERTISEMENT
* * * By the way, I offered my Twitter followers a chance to make their selections. They basically accorded with yours—except the Cubs had a narrow lead over the Dodgers and the Nationals as the National League pick. So if the Cubs win the NL, Twitter will be vindicated; if it's the Dodgers, TWS newsletter readers will reign. Who says a lot doesn't ride on the playoff outcomes? Meanwhile, the question is whether any of us can match the skill at prophecy of last year's winner, who back in April of 2016 (we held the competition at the beginning of the season then, instead of the end) picked the Cubs over the Indians in seven games. That's pretty impressive. I haven't checked who Janis Evans of Chagrin Falls, Ohio picked this year, but I'm going to have Jim pull the entries and I'll call my bookie. What was most impressive about Janis's prediction was that she picked her favorite team—the Indians—to go farther than almost anyone expected—and then to fall just short. Such a combination of bold prophecy and tragic realism is impressive and rare--but it seems somehow particularly appropriate for our times. * * * Onward. Bill Kristol * * * | 
