Copycatting

As the Mets wrapped up Game 2 of the NLDS, I found it was hard to hate them anymore. Back in the 1980's, it was easy to hate the Mets because they played the Cubs 18 times per year and they were from New York.

Today, they don't play the Cubs that often every year and they have a bunch of players that the Cubs should have had. In fact, the Mets have built this team the exact way a team with the financial resources like the Cubs should. Tom Glavine. Carlos Beltran. Cliff Floyd. Carlos Delgado. Billy Wagner.

More than a few Ivy Chat Wish List-ers in that crowd.

This team I was watching, there was every reason that it should have been the Cubs.

Then, the phone rang. It was The Conduit to The Inside Source who Used To Live Next Door To Al. He said something rather smart.

"Cubs fans need the Mets to win and the Cardinals to lose," he said. Not because we hate the Mets less than the Cards. Rather, because, if the Cards win with their back-door entry into the playoffs (is there any other way when Jim Edmonds is involved) and their lower payroll than the Mets, the Cubs will think that the Cardinals are the model to emulate.

I'm afraid that's exactly correct.

We need a Yankees-Mets World Series. Or, a Mets-A's World Series. The Cubs need to be shown that the two models of statistical analysis and heavy payroll both work.

If it's the Cards and the Tigers or Twins, the Cubs will believe that they can win by just barely getting better than the Cards for 2007. And do it on the cheap.

And that's got disaster written all over it.