Well, that didn't take long did it? And let's give thanks for that. Oh, it wasn't bad enough that the Tigers made mincemeat of my prediction (and those of thousands of other losers), but that was really some miserable baseball we stayed up near midnight this week to see. The best game came on Wednesday.

What? Rained out? That's my point.

The Cardinals were OK. They defied the predictors who had them pegged as the latest version of the Atlanta Braves--success in the regular season followed by Playoff or World Series failure. Two years ago they were swept by the Red Sox. The Red Sox! And so here they were with a great opportunity to again test the loyalty of their loyal fans and what did they do? They played better than the Tigers four games out of five.

Let's not take anything away from the Cardinals. We congratulate them and they have a lot of players who have played long and honorably and winning a World Series for them is a good thing. Chris Carpenter, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, David Eckstein and the mystifyingly grumpy Albert Pujols are World Series champions and good for them.

But they did it all against this Tigers' team that seemed frightened by the stage they were on. Too bad they didn't realize that not that many people were watching the almost unwatchable coverage on Fox.

It's over. It's sad to think we won't see any baseball that counts until April. But it's not sad that we won't have to watch Tiger pitchers heaving wild throws to base after base after base. Bye, bye baseball. Hot stove starts now.