Well Jimmy Rollins sure is confident. He has used his time off from baseball wisely as a guest on the not-so-late-anymore show with Jay Leno and made Joe Nameth-like claims, forgetting that this is baseball not football, where one lucky game won’t do the trick. But the pressure of playing the Yankees in the 2009 World Series doesn’t seem to exist for the defending champ. And why should it?

The Phillies are the defending World Series Champions. They put an end to Philly’s “losingest city in the country” streak. Philly returned to glory and it was in large part due to Mr. Rollins—more with his glove than his mouth. These guys have played in the cold and know what it takes to win. They’ve played as a team for almost two years now and have added a former AL Cy Young winner in Cliff Lee.

So isn’t it safe to say that they’ve only gotten better since last season? Well, yes but so has their opponent. We’re not talking about Tampa Bay here in their first World Series appearance; we’re talking about the New York Yankees in their 40^th.

The Phillies have some good players in their line up. Mr. Rollins is good and matches up well with Derek Jeter who will be making his 7^th World Series appearance. For what Mr. Rollins lacks in batting average, leadership, subtlety, on-base-percentage, realistic thought, legendary status, “been here before” attitude and hits, he makes up for in Home Runs and number of Jay Leno guest spots. These two lead off hitters should be fun to watch and can control a lot of their respective team’s offensive flow from the leadoff spot.

Mr. Howard is also very good. And while he plays first base, I’m going to save him the embarrassment of comparing his defensive “attempts” with Mark Teixeira’s skill, which so far surpasses Mr. Howard’s that it seems like they may be playing different sports.

Instead I’ll stick with offensive comparisons; our big man with a bat versus theirs. Mr. Howard has hit a couple of monstrous Home Runs which is pretty good considering they both came in the NLCS, almost as impressive as A-Rod’s 5 Home Runs, three of which came in the ALCS. But Mr. Howard has produced more runs with 14 RBI’s to A-Rod’s measly 12. Their Averages are both impressive but not comparable as Mr. Howard’s is .354 and A-Rod’s is .442. Save your ignorant and bigoted comments Philly phans I know this comparison is ridiculous (because of how freakishly good these two guys are), but it had to happen. In the end each team is a lot better when these guys play their best and each have played BIG roles in their team’s success.

I could go on comparing Mr. Flyin Hawaiian to Melky or Mr. Werth’s ridiculous porno patch goat-tee with Swisher’s elegantly trimmed mo-hawk but it wouldn’t do either side any good. Both teams are stacked…HIGH. Each has their offensive weapon and each have their guys that will come up with a big hit. Each side has role players and hot shots. And each side can scare the other side a little when staring down the line-up card. These are the two best offences in the MLB and they’ll be playing each other tonight and at least three times after that. I’m sure each side will get their offensive moments in the sun.

The area that everyone seems to want to discuss when they talk about this series is pitching, so I’ll follow suit here and do the same. We’ll start with each team’s game one Ace. Both of these guys used to play for the Indians. Both these guys have won AL Cy Young Awards while playing on the Indians as teammates. Both these guys are lefties and both are well over 6-feet tall. These two friends will be facing each other for the first time since the Yankee home opener and both want to win their first World Series. Neither has more post-season experience than the other and neither has any less of an expectation than to win. This is an evenly matched Game 1 but after this match-up it starts to get a little lop-sided.

I will not allow myself to get ahead of…myself and will hold off on talking smack on Pedro Martinez, who is as threatening as a JV softball batting practice pitcher, or Cole Hamels, who gets hit like a one-armed boxer, or Brad Ledge, who makes me giggle when brought up in the same conversation as MO. But no, I won’t go there, I do however reserve the right to poke fun at them later.

For now I’ll just keep trying to get through my workday, which has slowed to almost a complete stop with anticipation of tonight’s Game 1. It is as evenly matched as it can be but I have all the faith in the world the Bronx Bombers, and as Phil Hughes said in this morning’s paper. “I’ll take our guys over anybody.”

Game 1. Win 1. It’s here.