Potential 2011 World Series Pairings

Now that the eight teams are set for this year's Major League Baseball playoffs, I look at them and envision what the best World Series match-ups might be.

The most-anticipated finals are either rematches of previous Series or have a special geographical twist to them. Not that either of these implies a great series. And often a great World Series will happen between two teams with little to connect them to each other. As an example of the former, the 2000 "Subway Series" between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets promised much but delivered little, with the Yankees sweeping the Mets in only four games. But 1982's contest between the American League's Milwaukee Brewers and the National League's St. Louis Cardinals produced an exciting, see-saw series that went down to the final game.

This year Milwaukee is once again in the playoffs as is St. Louis. But the two teams won't be facing each other in the World Series since the Brewers have jumped over to the National League, actually in the same division as the Cardinals. For Milwaukee I see no match-up with the American League entrants (NY Yankees, Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, or Texas Rangers) that would pique my interest. The same goes for Texas up against any of the National League teams (including the Philadelphia Phillies, St.Louis Cardinals, and the Arizona Diamondbacks). I suppose, though, that a Texas-Arizona series might be deemed as the "Southwestern States Series"...

I see only four interesting scenarios for World Series match-ups this year:

1) New York Yankees vs. Philadelphia Phillies: A rematch of 2009 that the Yanks took sees a much stronger Phillies team with an almost invincible pitching rotation. This is the best pairing to me since these are clearly the two best teams in baseball over the span of the regular season this year.

2) Tampa Bay Rays vs. Philadelphia Phillies:
Another rematch, this time of 2008, when then-upstart Tampa Bay couldn't pull off the miracle finish they had envisioned against the Phillies. This year would be even more of a miracle if they won this Series.

3) New York Yankees vs. Arizona Diamondbacks:
Right after the 9/11 attacks on Manhattan in 2001, the Yankees played out (and ultimately lost) one of the greatest World Series ever against Arizona, a seven-game classic full of close, cliffhanging games. Now ten years later, this is another interesting possibility.

4) Detroit Tigers vs. St. Louis Cardinals:
In 1968, a year that saw pitching so dominate baseball that they lowered the pitcher's mound the next year to give hitters a better chance, Detroit game back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the Cardinals four games to three. This was also the last season without divisions and playoffs.

Of course, we might end up with an unanticipated Series like Texas vs. Milwaukee, too. And that one could turn into something memorable for the future. Although New York and Philly are the tops in baseball, anybody can win a short playoff series. So who knows who will make it to the end...

P.S. I suppose you could also go back to the early 1960's series between the Yankees and the Cardinals...but seeing that I didn't follow the World Series until the 1965 series between the LA Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins (I had just turned nine), I'm not counting them.