Is Brewers-Royals the best possible World Series combination?

By Grant Brisbee, senior baseball writer, SB Nation

I’m a Giants fan. I would be happy with the following World Series matchups: Giants/Yankees, Giants/Red Sox/, Giants/A’s, Giants/Indians, Giants/Astros, Giants/Angels, Giants/Twins ... by my count, there are 15 different matchups of varying likelihood with which I would be wholly satisfied.

But I think I would trade them all in for a guarantee of a Royals/Brewers World Series.

It’s mid-June, and the collapses haven’t happened, the horrid 8-18 Augusts that we can all blame on deadline activity or inactivity, so we’re free to dream. And right now, the two hottest teams in baseball are the Brewers and Royals, two long-suffering franchises with a limited history of postseason success.

More than that, though, they’re fresh. They’re new. They’re teams we haven’t seen in the dog pile, any dog pile, for a long, long time. We just exited something of a Golden Era in Brewers baseball, and it included two playoff appearances and a division title. They have long way until they reach not-them-again status. They even have a built-in villain for the casual fan. The Ryan Braun articles would be tedious, but the invective directed toward him would be compelling.

The Rangers have three different middle infielders who weren’t born the last time the Royals made the playoffs. There have been four more unassisted triple plays since 1990 than over-.500 Royals teams. Yet Kansas City is still a baseball-starved city, a place where the Royals have always received attention, even in the dark years. Inside every Royals fan is an overturned car that’s been dormant for 25 years, just waiting for the right moment.

Forget the underdog factor and the relatively paltry postseason successes, though. Focus on the players. Focus on Yordano Ventura, whose right arm was dipped in the River Styx, the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in baseball, whose second-best pitch is wipeout poetry that breaks 30 feet. Picture him pitching against Carlos Gomez, the five-tool talent everyone seems to forget about until he yells. Salvador Perez, perhaps the best young two-way catcher in baseball, gunning people down. Braun, a player with as much talent as any player in baseball, up with the bases loaded in Kauffman Stadium, as he’s showered with boos.

Norichika Aoki? Norichika Aoki is a treasure.

Variety isn’t everything in baseball, but it counts for a lot when it comes to the World Series. The Royals and Brewers are the current “it” teams, and they’re playing magnificently. If I could ask the baseball gods for one thing, it would be a matchup of these two young, exciting teams. Come on, baseball gods. Give us what we want.

By Fungo the Unforgiving, baseball god

No.

We’ve reviewed your pleas for the Royals and Brewers, and we regret that they do not meet our needs at the current time. And even if they did? No, we won’t be going down that road. We’re thinking Cardinals, certainly, and possibly someone else, like the Yankees. We think that would make for a classic, traditional World Series.

Do you realize the Cardinals and Yankees haven’t played a World Series since 1964? The symmetry is nice with that one, because we’re talking 50 years ago. The Cardinals have played classic teams and newer teams in their championship runs, as have the Yankees, but the last time they played each other was a half-century ago.

You know what? It’s settled. Definitely going to be the Cardinals and Yankees.

You’ll love it. Think of the tradition! The classic uniforms, the histories. The tradition. The proud, historical traditions are the second-best part of those teams, right after the proud, traditional history.

The Yankees will need a little help, of course, but we’ll figure something out. I remember when I was getting just hammered this winter with Cyrus the Official Scorer, and we invented Yangervis Solarte. Oh, man, how we laughed and laughed. Cy just kept saying “Yangerrrrrrrrrrrvis” and spitting his mead everywhere. Then we put him in the Yankees’ system, retroactively implanted him in the collective memory of organized baseball, and made him good. We woke up the next morning on the roof of a Waffle House, covered in vomit and syrup.

It was worth it. More to the point, we’ll just keep doing crap like that if we need to. Let’s see ... oh, my, there’s a lot of work to do. I need to get a list going. Okay, now, Vidal Nuno will have to turn into a fantastic pitcher ... we’ll have to heal Carlos Beltran and give him his powers back ... oh, we can certainly do something with Derek Jeter. Yep, this will work. They’ve already been outscored on the season, yet they’re two games over .500, so this won’t be as hard as I thought. Here, let me put Chase Utley on their roster in exchange for three prospects who will never reach the majors.

The Cardinals probably don’t need a ton of help, but we’ll be here for them. You know what we like about them up here? They just play the game the right way. Seems like they do everything right. They’re professionals, real professionals, and they just do things right. They’re not too full of themselves, and they put their heads down and just play, you know?They do the little things, and we love the little things. They respect the game, true professionals, and they just play the game the right way. We love that. They just do the little things and the big things and play the game the right way.

More importantly, we hate everyone in the Kansas City metropolitan area and we cannot wait to humiliate them and grind the spirits of everyone there into a sweet, delicious spice that we’ll sprinkle on our hot cocoa over the winter. We’re still arguing up here whether it would be more painful for them to get swept by the Yankees after finally making the playoffs, or having them collapse and miss the playoffs entirely. There’s also the option of a horrible strike zone in a one-game playoff ... really, we’ll have time to figure this out.

The Brewers will just get a garden variety playoff loss. The bats will go cold at the wrong time. Why did that happen? Gee, we don’t know. Just one of those things, lol.

But I’m pretty sure we’ve decided on the Cardinals and Yankees. It’s been too long. Think of how classic it would be? You’ll love it. The networks will love it. We’ll love it.

That was really an adorable idea, though. Brewers and Royals. Hee hee.

Also, we hate you and everything you stand for.

As always, apologies to the Onion