October 15, 2002

The Daily Prospectus

A Fan's Guide to the Series

by Derek Zumsteg

Fans, you may be confused by the topsy-turvy world of this year's playoffs. You may be looking at the paper and thinking "I guess the Yankees have another off day... that's what, a week of them in a row? At least they're well-rested.

Never fear. To better serve our readers and enhance shareholder value, we've compiled a list of who you should be cheering for, and why:

Fan of	Cheer for	Why
Astros	Giants	Loved seeing LaRussa get ass handed to him after seeing him twenty times during season.
Athletics	Angels	Cross-bay rivals must be stopped.
Blue Jays	Angels	If the team that beats the Yankees wins Series, Steinbrenner goes insane.
Braves	Giants	Only NL team not to have knocked Braves out of playoffs in last ten years.
Brewers	Angels	By knocking off Twins, prevented further Selig-related embarassment in Metrodome.
Cardinals	Angels	Ill feelings after Barry Bonds' clutch performances.
Cubs	Giants	Annoying work ethic-centered Angels set bad example.
Devil Rays	Angels	No franchise is without hope if the Angels can get to the World Series.
Diamondbacks	Giants	Old timers remember New York Gothams fondly.
Dodgers	Angels	Not permitted to cheer for Giants.
Expos	Whoever	There aren't any fans in Montreal anyway. Even Jonah lives on the West Coast and goes to Angels games.
Indians	Giants	If Barry can be this good this old, maybe Thome will have career year when Tribe's good again.
Mariners	Giants	@#$@#% Rally Monkey kept Mariners out of playoffs.
Marlins	Death	Franchise still in Loria hands.
Mets	Angels	Beat the Yankees!
Orioles	Angels	Syd Thrift loves monkeys.
Padres	Angels	Had to see Bonds beat up on taped-together-rotation all year long.
Phillies	Giants	Jeff Kent reminds them of Mickey Morandini, in a weird way, sort of.
Pirates	Giants	Kent-Bonds relationship reminds them of "We Are Family" teams.
Rangers	Angels	You try and go .500 in the AL West.
Red Sox	Angels	The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Knocking the Yankees out early makes you my best friend.
Reds	Giants	Gives hope it's not too late for Griffey to become Best Player Ever.
Rockies	Giants	Winning Super Bowl forces teams to lose starting lineup due to salary cap... right?
Royals	Angels	Maybe Muser was right all along with military analogies designed to get maximum effort from players.
Tigers	Angels	Trammell plans to bring similar scrappy play to talentless collection of scrubs.
Twins	Angels	Must root for nearly identical, hard-nosed-playing, uniform-dirtying guys.
White Sox	Angels	Moderately talented squad with few huge contracts gives hope to fans of Reisdorf-owned, ill-managed club.
Yankees	Giants	Angels win, entire NY braintrust replaced with members of Steinbrenner's home tribe.

Hoping this helps you through these chaotic times,

Derek