Da prediction

 The World Series begins tonight in Houston, and let me be the first to say I hope it snows n Philadelphia next week, because that'd learn MLB about the absurdity of letting the October Classic stray into November.

OK. Senior moment over.

On to the Blob's prediction, which like all the Blob's predictions comes with a warning label: Results May Vary. This is especially true here, because the Blob is going to do what it should never do in these scenarios.

It's going to let its heart wrestle its head to the ground and pin it.

My head, see, would make this an easy call: Astros in five or at most six. They've been to the World Series four times in the last six years. They have a killer bullpen. And they won 19 more games than the Phillies -- which makes this, on paper, the most mismatch-y of mismatches since 1906.

That season, the Cubs, winners of 116 games, played the White Sox, who won 93. The Cubs were a juggernaut; the White Sox couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. Yet the White Sox shocked, if not the world, at least Chicago, by winning the Series in six games because their pitching shut down the Bearcubs.

This is not exactly why I'm picking the Phillies. But I've always been a sucker for historical symmetry, so it's part of it.

The dynamic, after all, is pretty much the same, only reversed. Philadelphia finished third in its division but got to the Series because they overwhelmed the Cardinals, Braves and Padres with their bats. They mashed baseballs into goo, is what they did. Occasionally they got some decent pitching, but mostly they launched more suborbital flights than NASA.

The Astros, by contrast, were simply bloodlessly efficient. They were the best team in the American League and they've played like it; going into tonight they're 7-0 in the playoffs and have resembled, in their ruthless inevitability, the Yankees from their now-ancient dynasty years.

This year's Yankees they swept in four straight. 

So, yeah, logic says they're going to mop the diamond with the Phils. But I'm picking the Phils because they're a bunch of bearded galoots who remind you of Sesame Street's Animal, and for the same reason you picked against the Yankees back in the day.

Because you knew they were going to win, but (bleep) that.

Plus, the Astros might still be cheating. You never know with those guys.

In any event: Phils in seven.