World Series is Underway. For Whom Am I Rooting?

Still Not sure.

My #1 choice - Red Sox win - faded sometime in July. On the very first night of the playoffs, the AL Wild Card, my #2 choice - #AnybodybuttheYankees (I didn't even invent that hashtag) went away. Thanks Astros. My next choice was the Cubs proving Back to the Future II to be partially correct. But no. So here we are and it's the Mets and Royals.

Still a little annoyed.

1986 still bugs me a bit, but really it was more the Red Sox losing that series than the Mets winning it. My daughter Caitlin lives in Manhattan, and she assures me that anyone in NYC wearing a Mets cap is by definition not a Yankee fan. So that's a point in their favor.

They've also got Daniel Murphy.

Murphy isn't Kelley, but it's in the same ballpark, so to speak. And he might set a playoff home run record. They have four excellent young starters. They have Yoenis Cespedes mostly doing a great job in center field. As Bob Lobel used to say, why can't we get players like that? More on that coming up.

Inside the Park.

Has that ever happened before? The leadoff guy for the home team gets an inside-the-park home run? Alcides Escobar hit one off Matt Harvey and motored all the way around. It actually happened once before...Game 2 of the 1903 World Series between Boston and Pittsburg (no h at the end of the name back then). Left fielder Pasty Dougherty (perfect Boston name) lead off with an inside-the-park home run off Sam Lever at the Huntington Avenue Baseball Grounds, where the Red Sox played from 1901-1911 prior to moving to Fenway Park in 1912.

But Yoenis cost the Mets the game.

That first inning inside-the-park home run should have been caught by Yoenis. He sort of went for it, but didn't use his glove. The ball bounced off his leg and rolled away. If he'd caught it then that the 9th inning homer by Alex Gordon would have brought KC to within a run, but wouldn't have tied the game. Instead of 14 innings it would have ended as a 4-3 Mets win in the 9th.

So what about Kansas City?

It's sort of noplace. Everyone is midwest nice. Almost as nice as in St. Louis, but that's hard to match. Kansas City isn't even in Kansas. Kauffman Stadium isn't even in Kansas City. It's in Independence, MO, which is Harry S Truman's hometown. The nearby highway is the Harry S. Truman Expressway, which right there in his hometown spells his name incorrectly. The S doesn't stand for anything, so there should be no period. In the Army they'd put (IO) after the S, meaning Initial Only. Whatever. But I've heard that they have some crazy little women there.

Tonight, I guess tonight I'm with KC.

Game One should always go to the hometown team.