For most of the postseason, I've rooted against teams. If the Dodgers won the World Series with a team this young and promising...good gravy. That'd be like the Dodgers having their sacrificial goat and eating it too. If I had to watch chinless sub-human A.J. Pierzynski for three playoff series, I'd have to knee my television in the groin. Boooo, one team. Boooooo, another. No time for cheering.

So last night I'm watching the Fox crowd shots of Dodger Stadium, and the Dodger fans were crestfallen. Devastated. There's nothing worse than losing a playoff series. You live and die with a team for 165 games or so, and then it all ends with a couple of bad outings from a good pitcher, some sloppy defense, and an off night from the bullpen. And if you've read this site for a few months, you know that I'm fond of using the phrase, "There but for the grace of geography go I." If my parents were, say, titans of the pornography industry, I would have grown up in Southern California, and I would likely have been a Dodger fan. I'd like to believe otherwise, but if you're born in Mordor, you aren't going to act like a hobbit.

And why do I get to gloat? My team sucked this year. We get a league-average season from a homegrown position player for the first time in several decades, and we're just giddy. Any hope I might have for the future is tempered by fears that our current GM doesn't have the slightest idea how to build a real offense without Barry Bonds.

Park effects? Age-related decline? Psssshaw. Aaron Rowand! Middle-of-the-order hitter! Five years! And so on, and so on, for the rest of the Sabean era. The farm system is a sunny San Francisco day. Sabean's history of acquisitions is fog rolling in from the west. Will I have to put on a parka just to sit on the patio? Maybe, maybe not, but the thought is in my head. Also, Barry Zito is a BMW parked in front of my driveway with an alarm that won't stop. And it's one of those alarms that has, like, seventeen different sounds to cycle through. WHOOOP WHOOP WHOOP....PTTRRROOOO PTTRRROOOO PTTRRRROOOO....BWOOOO BWOOOO BWOOOO....EEEEEERRRRRROW EEEEEEEERRRRRROW...

With all of this in mind, why do I get to be so ghoulish and short-sighted that I take pleasure in other people's misery? Why can't I just take pleasure in the joy of Phillies fans? Why does this misery and pain nourish me so?

I don't know. But last night felt good. I'm a small man. A small, petty man. I had to watch Jose Castillo take 400 at-bats this year. Don't take this away from me, conscience.

*hits rewind on the DVR*

*watches the last out again*

*freezes the screen on a close-up of Manny*

*giggles a little, and does the Running Man*

*maybe a little Cabbage Patch*

*if being unsportsmanlike and ghoulish is wrong, I don't want to be right*