ROX and SOX on FOX

We were rooting for the Indians, but we have to admit that we were glad to see them lose. No, it wasn't the sight of Theo Epstein aflush and joyous. It wasn't the grisly Papelbon creepily summoning Varitek to the mound. It wasn't the thought that the Red Sox are lovable losers who deserve to win it all, either. Because they aren't, and they don't.

An Indians fan friend of ours, fresh with the bitterness of the evening, quipped, "What's the difference between Red Sox fans and Yankees fans? Yankees fans know that everyone hates them." No, these Red Sox already have their championship; they can no longer play that part. This year they played the part of the Evil Empire, crushing the pathetic little Rebellion.

We tried to console him by telling him that there are only shiny, happy things to come from the Indians' organization. That there is not one bad contract on the entire roster. That the farm system is stocked, the major league talent is all young and cheap, and the front office management is the absolute best in the game.

Nobody ever heard of Neil Huntington before he left the Indians and signed on with the Pirates to be their GM (and now he's uprooting the entire system, changing everything). Chris Antonetti, the Indians' Assistant GM, could have almost any open front office position in baseball.

What the Indians are doing in Cleveland is creating a sustainable base of talent that will put them in a position to win their division every single year for the foreseeable future. We're not glad they lost, but we're pretty confident that they'll be back, soon and often.

No, we're glad because we know, between Boston and Colorado, that all right-thinking neutral fans will be rooting for the Rockies. Between Cleveland and Denver, Cleveland would have been the smaller market. And those Rockies aren't that compelling, anyway. What a total bore-fest that would have been.

Now, all of a sudden, we feel some pride about our home in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, and we want some fucking Red Sox blood, now.

We haven't read the series preview posts yet, but we already know what we'll see: This is more like an exhibition than a professional contest. OK, no one will sound that dorky. Red Sox in 5. Red Sox in 4. They'll say that the Red Sox are superior in every aspect of the game, that the Rockies are about as good as say, the Twins, that the series is a joke and all that. And they'll be right.

Except the joke's on the Sox.

Did your forget that the Rockies have won 21 out of their last 22 games?

Rockies in 4.