I’m not ready for the Cubs and Blue Jays to go away

The World Series is almost certainly going to be the Royals vs. the Mets. The Mets vs. the Royals. Say it a few times because it’s going to stick in your head for the rest of your life. Like “Braves vs. Twins” or “Yankees vs. Diamondbacks.” It will be Hall and Oates, it will be Sonic and Knuckles, it will be televised baseball and boner pills, and the pairing will never leave your lexicon. Royals vs. Mets.

Unless something amazing happens. But we’ll get to that.

For now, assume that the obvious will happen. Just six teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven on the road. The Blue Jays are probably hosed. There have been 33 best-of-seven series that started 0-3 in postseason history. One of the teams came back, and 28 of them were swept. The Cubs are almost certainly hosed.

Royals vs. Mets. Rolls off the tongue a little funny at first, but I think I’m already used to it.

It’s here that we realize that the League Championship Series is the cruelest round of all. The Wild Card Games are pills you know you shouldn’t take, and they’re six hours of ups, downs, trips to the bathroom and manic euphoria. They make you feel awful, elated. You’re glad they existed, and you’re glad they’re gone. It’s swirling madness, with eight teams left at the end, promising more swirling madness.

The Division Series are impossibly unfair, where two dominant performances by any single player can tilt the best-of-five series. Back in May, the Brewers took two different three-game series from the Cubs. It meant nothing. A best-of-five series isn’t too far removed from that brand of baseball nihilism. It stings, it stings bad, but it’s easy to explain away.

The World Series is played by two pennant-winning teams who just won the pennant, too, look at those pennants the pennant-winning teams won. It used to be a much bigger deal before the expanded postseason, but there’s still a fantastic amount of gravitas attached to a pennant, with Russ Hodges’ voice rattling around in our skulls forever. It’s brutal to watch a team lose in the World Series, but while almost nobody goes back to relive a Division Series-clinching moment, I still remember going back to watch David Bell singling home Kenny Lofton. I still appreciated Tim Salmon mouthing “That’s the farthest ball I’ve ever seen hit.” I still appreciated the spectacle of the World Series coming to my city.

The League Championship Series are where everyone gets used to the winning. There was already a champagne celebration when everyone made the postseason, and there was another one when they moved on. The World Series is right there. Literally the World Series, the event you’ve heard about your entire life, the dream of every baseball player and fan. The momentum is tangible. Everyone can see it, right? It’s our old pal, momentum, ha ha, hey, this thing is hilarious, somebody get this thing a cigar, let’s, wait ... hey, where did momentum go? Where are my keys?

Even for the unattached baseball fans who aren’t necessarily rooting for anyone, it’s cruel because we just got used to the teams. I’m not ready to let go of the Cubs yet. Kyle Schwarber is a delight, a man-mountain who hits a variety of home runs that we’re just not used to. Anthony Rizzo is one of the best hitters in baseball, and Kris Bryant will be. We just haven’t seen evidence of that yet. We know it’s coming, though. Or that it would be if the series were longer. Which it isn’t.

I’m not ready to let go of the Blue Jays yet, the team that won 18 out of their first 22 games after the trade deadline, the neo-Murderer’s Row of 450-foot homers and bat flips and parrots. They were the unstoppable team this year. They were the easiest team to picture winning it all, and that was before The Seventh Inning of Supreme Destiny. I could watch Kevin Pillar warm up in the outfield for two hours. Their fans are, uh, fervent. In a scary, pleasing way. Every Blue Jays game these days is a treat. And they’re probably going away for months.

Those two teams are still around, of course. The Cubs can win four games in a row. The Blue Jays can win three games in a row. More than that, the Mets can lose four games in a row. The Royals can definitely lose three games in a row. And if that happens in either case, I’m not ready for them to leave, either. The Mets’ absurd and fantastic young rotation, the one Mets fans deserved immediately after scattering the ashes of Generation K, shouldn’t be attached to anything as ghastly as an all-time-awful postseason collapse. The implausible Royals and their single-single-single-single-death attack, the team that clawed through six feet of earth just to get out of the Division Series, shouldn’t have to watch another team pull the football away. Not after they got so close last year.

Here’s my modest proposal for future postseason formats, then:

Wild Card Game: Winner moves on

Division Series: Best of five

League Championship Series: Best of 29

World Series: Best of seven

Just imagine it, a month of four great teams trying to reach the World Series, a month to get to know their nuances and peccadillos and nooks and crannies, a month of them making an explicit case why they deserve the pennant. Shorten the season to 120 games if you need to. This could work.

Until I’m commissioner, though, we have this. A best-of-seven series in which we’re unprepared to say goodbye after a half-week of games. The Royals and Mets will make for a good World Series, alright. After a couple days off, we’ll be ready for it. It will make sense. And we’ll get used to it. I just wish the Cubs and Blue Jays could play each other for three weeks after the World Series, though. I’m not ready for them to go away just yet.

SB Nation presents: The Cubs have been so good this year