Opinion

As if the winter could get any colder.

The Mets will enter the offseason and free agency period with their two biggest rivals, the Yankees and the Phillies, sitting atop the baseball universe. The Phillies clinched their second straight National League pennant on Wednesday, defeating the Dodgers in the NLCS in five games. The Yankees were able to clinch their first American League pennant since 2003 last night, defeating the Angels 5-2 to take the series in six games.

Meanwhile, all the Mets can do is watch.

They haven’t won 26 titles in 40 appearances for nothing, or haven’t spent an outrageous $423.5 million for the series MVP C.C. Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett. Even the house Derek Jeter built was invested, confident of reliving glorious celebrations and pennant runs.

Last year alone the dauntless co-chairmen Hank and Hal Steinbrenner, spent $1.5 billion in creations of the immense Yankee Stadium when times were fragile, and battered in economic downturns.

I liken my feeling prior to first pitch of Game Six last night to how Lindsay Lohan must feel on the eve of a mandatory probation hearing.

Unjustly annoyed. Kind of dazed. Quite nervous. Thinking about what can be ingested to take the edge off things.

I was annoyed because I knew the series should already be over. I was dazed because all those maddening off days had turned my apartment into the Overlook Hotel. (All off days and no play make Dan a dull boy.) I was nervous because of 2004. I was thinking about drinking gluttonous amounts of vodka.

Who cares the Yankees are going to the World Series!

They are supposed to go to the World Series.

They signed the best two starting pitchers in the off-season, and they signed the best hitter to what was already the highest paid team.

Alex Rodriguez and C.C. Sabathia combined made more than the whole team of the Pirates, Padres and Marlins.

With the news coming out over the weekend that the Detroit Tigers do not intend on bringing back slugger, Aubrey Huff , next season; the Mets now have another potential candidate to play first base next season.

Mark David McGwire. He of 583 home runs, 1,414 runs batted in and 1 painfully unwatchable testimony before Congress is coming back to the Cardinals?

The Cardinals off-season just became roughly 34,000 times more interesting.

Proving the theory that there is no off-season in baseball, the Arizona Fall, Venezuelan Winter, Mexican Winter, and Dominican Winter Leagues are already up and running, even before the World Series ends.

The Arizona Fall League, Major League Baseball's official off-season league, is structured in such a way that teams send all their players to one team. This is not the case with the other leagues, which have no formal affiliation with the American game.

It's that time of year again for baseball fans to sit back and reflect on the year their favorite teams had, unless, of course, your favorite club is still alive in the playoffs.

For the rest of us, however, this time of year is the definition of hindsight being 20/20, as many of us look back at what went wrong for our teams.

As Royals fans, we have very little to talk about right now. 

Hell, most of us checked out sometime in June when it had become more than clear that the fast start was a mirage and that the air of respectability we thought was going to accompany the Royals resurgence had been knocked from our lungs. 

Yesterday, I was debating with some people about who should be starting game 6: Sabathia or Pettitte. My thinking was, since CC is on regular rest, you have to pitch him. You can't worry about who will be available for the World Series until you actually get there.

Their argument was, if it goes to a Game 7, you want CC pitching, and if it doesn't, you have him for Game 1 of the World Series. I definitely could see this line of reasoning, I just preferred to see the Yanks close it out tonight.