Opinion

The Fall Classic is upon us.  The usual suspects are missing from this one though and in their place are a pair of young, upstart teams: the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers.

The talent is fantastic on both sides and this promises to be a great World Series filled with drama.  There's a lot on the line. The Rangers are looking for its first championship in franchise history, while the Giants are looking to end a five-year drought of their own.

Who said the Yankees change how they operate now that George Steinbrenner died?

Sure the manager and the general manager gets to stay despite falling short of winning a championship, but it doesn't mean any other people are safe.

Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland found out the hard way today. He was fired for personal reasons. Count this fan for not buying this baloney.

Despite winning a World Series last fall, Yankees GM Brian Cashman kept busy over the winter.

He acquired Curtis Granderson in a three-team deal that sent top outfield prospect Austin Jackson to Detroit along with lefty reliever Phil Coke, as well as starter Ian Kennedy to Arizona.

Now that the New York Yankees' dreams of a World Series repeat have ended, they enter the most uncertain postseason in recent memory. When they got on the bus at their hotel in Arlington, Texas, it wasn't taking them to Game 7. It was taking them home to face questions not about why they lost, but what they're going to do now.

If you followed the Yankees in the latter half of the 20th century, you know why the team earned the title “The Bronx Zoo.”

From fights between Billy Martin and Reggie Jackson, to routine managerial firings, to passenger seat managing from George Steinbrenner, the Yankees were an absolute mess.

As 2010 comes to a close for the New York Yankees, we are beginning to see a new mess emerge.

The last time this writer rooted for an American League team to beat the New York Yankees in the ALCS so the San Francisco Giants didn't have to face them was in 2002 when the Anaheim Angels surprised the Yankees and then shocked a heavily favored San Francisco Giants club in seven games of the World Series.

The world is going to end in 2012.

The world ending in 2012 is the only reason I can think of, that the Texas Rangers are in the World Series, while the Cowboys are 1-4, the Texas Longhorns are out of the Top 25, and TCU and Baylor are in the top 25.

The Rangers came into this season with three playoff appearances, and only having won one playoff game out of ten. This year, however, the Rangers changed all that. In the ALDS, the Rangers won games one and two, doubling their previous amount of postseason wins.

When the Texas Rangers acquired catcher Bengie Molina from the San Francisco Giants on July 1st, no one knew these two teams would be meeting in the World Series.

If they did, maybe Molina wouldn't be wearing Rangers red, white and blue.

This is a position that the Texas Rangers are all too familiar with. It's a position they've been in through their first two postseason series, and they'll play the role one more time.

What is that role, you ask? It's being the underdog.

When the Rangers made it to the postseason, no one expected them to get past the Tampa Bay Rays let alone be the American League Champions. They weren't supposed to beat the Rays, and they sure weren't given a snowball's chance in hell against the defending champion New York Yankees.

After 162 regular season games and two rounds of playoffs, there are only two teams left standing: the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers.

With these two unlikely league champions set to square off in Game 1 of the 2010 World Series on Wednesday night, there are certainly plenty of disappointed fans in New York and Philadelphia.