A Series of conflicts

 I am sorry, Dusty Baker. I just can't do it.

I want to root for you, because you deserve this, and also because if you do it (or rather, your team does it) it will be a terrific story about a terrific manager and a terrific human being. So of course I want to root for Dusty. 

But I can't. I just ... can't. 

I can't root for his Houston Astros -- who presumably are not cheating this time, but who knows? That's the stain that comes with cheating and getting caught: Everyone presumes from that point on you're still cheating. So if you're an Astros fan, you can take reaching the World Series again as some sort of validation you can do it clean, but the rest of country is never going to buy it. They're always going to reply, "Yeah, maybe."

Plus, except for the GM and the manager getting shown the road, the Asterisk-Os largey eluded capture. No players were harmed in the making of this deception, and some of them are still the anchors for this team.

So it still feels like they got away with it. And that's why I can't root for Dusty, much as I would love to.

Besides, his opposite number probably deserves this more than he does.

That would be Brian Snitker, who just turned 66 and who has spent most of his adult life riding buses between Nowheresville and That Other Place. In the dictionary beside "baseball lifer," you'll find his picture; since going to work in the Braves organization 41 years ago, he's managed eight clubs in the Atlanta farm system, everyone from the Anderson Braves and Durham Bulls to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, with whom he won two Carolina League titles.

For awhile he was the third-base coach for the big club, and then it was back to the minors, where he managed the Triple A Gwinnett Braves for two seasons. Finally, after 36 years with the organization, he made it to the big chair, becoming the Atlanta Braves manager on May 17, 2016.

Now he's going to be managing in the World Series, after 41 years. And so, even though I despise all those white people waving foam tomahawks and all that other Tomahawk Chop crap -- like Native Americans of that region haven't suffer indignities enough, now they have to watch Jethro Joe Clampett play pretend Indian? -- I gotta cast my lot with the Braves.

Because Dusty Baker or not, no one's paid more dues than Brian Snitker. No one.