DAVE: I wanted to get your picks for the LCSs. In what you may consider a surprise move, I'm taking Los Angeles and Los Angeles. The Dodgers and the Angels. If that's the World Series, I wonder what time the games would start to accommodate us East Coasters.

JIM: Well, the major media outlets have already made it perfectly clear to major league baseball that they want to see Yankees-Dodgers. And I'm a big fan of conspiracy theories. What TV wants is what TV seems to always get. And they think that Yankees-Dodgers will make them the most money...

Of course, money has nothing to do with it. What I've seen them say is that they need to have the Yankees versus the Dodgers in order to "get back to the purity of the game" (I'm pretty sure that's an exact quote from somewhere too). There was no explanation though about what makes the Phillies and the Angels (and I assume the other 25 mlb teams) "impure".

DAVE: Well, I can't speak for the other 25 teams, but the Pirates are most definitely "impure."

JIM: You're sulking again. Just enjoy some good playoff baseball. You had to like those last two Phillies games where they scored the go-ahead runs with 2 outs in the ninth and then had to bring in Lidge for the suspenseful save both nights!

DAVE: I'm not sulking. Just stating the facts. I have been enjoying playoff baseball. However, the first-round sweeps were boring, and this long layoff is just not good for anything. Just another way that TV has fucked up baseball.

JIM: Agreed.

Then again, baseball might as well be fucked up. Everything else is.

DAVE: Now who's sulking?

JIM: You picked up on that, huh?