A Cloudy Crystal Ball

While cleaning the dog hair out of the back seat of my car, I found four baseball media guides jammed under the seat. Perhaps you'd have to be a sportswriter, mortified by a decade of ridiculously improbable baseball postseasons, to guess my delight. Indiana Jones wouldn't have been happier if he'd discovered a treasure map at the bottom of a mineshaft full of Nazi skeletons.

My playoff picks!

There are many theories on how to hit the knuckleball. Unfortunately, none of them work. The same goes for picking postseason baseball, especially recently. In recent days my compulsive cockamamie research netted four likely first-round winners: the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Phillies. All are rich powerhouses. All had their league's best run differentials. All except Boston have home-field advantages in the first round. After a summer of mostly dead pennant races, these clubs had star power, too.

Would any of them be among my four mystery media guides? There, under the seat, were the Angels, Rockies, Tigers and Cardinals -- exactly the four teams I was ready to pick to lose, had the Tigers gotten past the Twins on Tuesday night.

What are the odds on this? For all I knew, there could have been a Nats or Orioles guide under there. I know an omen when I see one. So, on your behalf, I threw the four guides up in the air to determine who'd be in the World Series. The Cards and Angels landed face up with Albert Pujols and John Lackey smiling at me.

Like democracy, my system is the worst, except for all the rest.

If you want to see sensible people looking dazed and confused, sit in baseball pressrooms for the next month. Almost all of us are obsessives. Yet our analytical, statistical and even psychological tools are all geared toward understanding a 162-game season or how to build a winning franchise over several years. But each October, we must pretend we know how to pick four five-game division series, a total crapshoot, followed by seven-game series.

Here is all you have to know about the modern baseball postseason: In this century, a dozen teams have won 100 games in the regular season, six-month proof of true excellence. None of them has won the World Series. Only two have even reached the Series. But seven of them -- the majority -- were knocked out in the very first round.

The 116-win Mariners in '01, who outscored their foes by an almost insane 300 runs and were the most dominant team of my lifetime, won only one October round. The next year, the Braves, Yanks and A's all won more than 100 games apiece. Who knocked them out in the first round? Russ Ortiz, Jarrod Washburn and Brad Radke, that's who. They started six games; their teams won all six. That's how three decent nondescript pitchers, having a good week in October, can almost single-handedly erase a whole year's work.

It may not be fair, but it's sure exciting. The flip side, of course, is that extremely humble teams can do great things. Starting in 2000, we have seen three wild-card teams win the Series and an amazing eight wild cards reach the Classic in nine years. That's right: two 100-win teams in the Series, but eight wild cards.

All in all, the 21st-century 100-win teams have a losing record in postseason series (7-12) while the wild cards have a winning mark (23-15). So, want to revise your "Yankees-win-easy" pick?

Why bother to win all season, just to burden yourself with expectations, when you might be better off just playing fast and loose when it matters most? Since June 4, the Yankees have been the hottest team in baseball: 72-37. But look who's only a half-game worse: the Rockies, 72-38. And they won't get roasted if they lose.