William Rhoden had a sports op-ed in today's NYTimes that was the distilled essence of why I hate the Yankees. (I'd link to it but the NYTimes link generator seems to be broken tonight). Basically he's bloviating about how beisbol needs to have a Dodgers v. Yankees World Series. Because that will provide closure on the steroids era. Or something something. What-fucking-ever. Clearly, one thing we will NEVER have closure on is sports guys gassing on about how beisbol needs to be redeemed from or come to terms with or transcend or have a picnic lunch with the steroids issue. I'd hoped that the rapturous reception that Manny Ramirez received when he came back to the Dodgers earlier this year would have driven a stake thru all that. If there was ever a clearer and more concise illustration of that fact that, look, fans don't really much care if you're juicing, they care if you're winning... well, I'm not sure what else you want. But, no, there's a never-ending industry in blowhard holier-than-thou self-righteousness. And it's amazing how often the answer to all life's (or baseball's) problems seems to be for the Yankees to win. I understand why that's true if you live in NYC. If you live in LA (or Chicago or Pittsburgh), maybe not so much. Of course, the Rhodens (or Lupicas or Kornheisers or... well, you get the idea) of the world seem to miss the fact that they're writing from a position of parochial self-interest. It's always objectively True that the Yankees need to win. Like there's some kind of frickity-frackin' platonic ideal of baseball that's not being achieved if you have Phillies v. Rays in the World Series. So of course I'm holding out for Rockies v. Angels, just cos it's the matchup that will most pissoff the East Coast bias of the major sports media types.