We are.

You can almost feel the intensity of the 2009 MLB World Series as the ALCS and the NLCS will decide which two teams will come out to play for the world championship.

In the ALCS, the New York Yankees are looking to return back to the big dance as they go up against the Los Angeles Angels, a team looking to get at least one team from Hollywood in the World Series.

In the NLCS, the Philadelphia Phillies are looking to return to the World Series and defend the world title they won last year after dominating the Tampa Bay Rays in five games. They do battle with the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team looking to give Joe Torre his first world championship ring since moving to Hollywood.

What’ll happen if the Yankees face their old mentor and take on the Dodgers? Will the World Series be settled in Hollywood this year? Can the Philadelphia Phillies win back to back titles and beat whichever team that’ll come out of the American League?

Here’s a look at all four possible matchups and who we think will take it. Unfortunately, we’re not picking the Los Angeles Angels to win ANY matchup. Sorry.

Los Angeles Angels vs. Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2009 MLB World Series

Another cross-town World Series match-up in the making? As everybody knows, this kind of scenario never materialized like the New York Yankees – New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals – Kansas City Royals matchups they were gunning for before mainly because there still is the ”baseball doesn’t exist west of Kansas” reaction.

And since East Coast fans usually can’t stay awake to…

The New York Mets are not the worst team in baseball.

They are not even the most incompetently run franchise in their own division. Yet, their campaign this 2009 MLB baseball season may have forever redefined the concept of losing.

Nothing has gone right for the poor New York Mets in this calendar year. From the ownership down to the bat boys, the entire organization has been beset by financial issues, management missteps, injuries, errors, poor timing, and just plain bad luck. Every week seemed to bring a new crisis or terrible disaster and through it all, they constantly found inventive and entertaining ways to squander victory. And there’s still a month left!

Let’s take a look at this disgruntled franchise on what has gone wrong this year. Actually, it started in the offseason when the Mets first gave Francisco Rodriguez a three year, $37 million contract. This was the biggest buyers market in years and no other big market teams were in the mix for a closer, and yet they still gave him premium money. Frankie finishes 55 games in 2010, 100 games between 2010 and 2011, and is deemed healthy after the 2011 season, his fourth year option vests for $17.5 million. The bad news is, Frankie has been declining the past four seasons and the decline has continued this season.

Then the injuries.

The first set of injuries came within a few days of each other in May. Carlos Delgado got injured in a game against the Pirates on May 10th, yet doesn’t go on the disabled list until May 16th, despite requiring hip surgery. Jose Reyes injures his calf in a game against the Braves on May 13th but was placed on the disabled list on the 26th, almost two weeks after the initial injury. Reyes has not been seen since, and apparently everybody thinks he’s a wuss for making sure he is completely healthy before returning to the field.

The Mets lost their last remaining star when David Wright was…

Vindication, that’s what Pedro should be gunning for at this point of his career.

Well, that’s what the Philadelphia Phillies are hoping for after they just signed the veteran for the remainder of the 2009 MLB baseball season. They just signed Martinez to a $1 million, one-year contract that can earn him up to $1.5 million in incentives and as far as the Phillies are concerned, they’re hoping he’s worth every penny.

The three-time Cy Young Award winner hasn’t pitched since last season with the New York Mets. He was miserable, to say the least, in his final two seasons in New York, winning only eight games in 25 starts. Still, that didn’t stop the Philadelphia Phillies from signing him up.

”Of course there’s some risk here. But we’d rather risk it on someone of his caliber and who knows how to win,” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said of Pedro Martinez.

As for Pedro, he’s just happy that somebody gave him a second chance. He knows he’s no longer the same player he was a few years ago but he’s willing to find out just how good (or how bad…) he could end up to be this season.

”I might surprise you, I might not,” the 37-year-old Martinez said. ”It’s going to be really fun to go find out.”

”I don’t expect to be the same Pedro that I was when I was 26. There’s…”

And while you probably wouldn’t give a flying fuck about it, at least we informed you about it.

That’s right, the 2009 MLB All-Star Game is set this Tuesday as the players fans voted in to play will hope they won’t make an ass of themselves like Brock Lesnar did over the weekend.

So who made the cut? Let’s start with the 2009 MLB National League All-Star starters. The NL team consists of catcher Yadier Molina of the St. Louis Cardinals, and top vote-getter Albert Pujols at first base.

And since Pujols was the leading vote-getter in balloting for the Midsummer Classic, he became the very first Cardinal to start an All-Star game in his home ballpark. ”It feels great to be there and represent the organization and the city you play in,” Albert Pujols said.

Albert Pujols is well on his way to another amazing year, leading the majors with 31 homers and 82 RBIs. He collected 5,397,374 votes to finish with the second-highest total in Major League history, trailing only Ken Griffey Jr.’s six million votes in 1994. Pujols has made the NL team eight times in nine seasons and will be making his sixth start.

The rest of the National League all star infield consists of…

Chad Pennington failed and even Brett Favre couldn’t save the godforsaken franchise.

Now that they have this young quarterback from USC, Mark Sanchez, looking forward to finally make his pro debut in the coming 2009 NFL football season, Jets fans have every reason to be hopeful.

But can this guy really save the New York Jets from obscurity? That is still yet to be determined. But as far as the Jets are concerned, they sure are paying a lot of money for this young stud to be the franchise’s savior.

A 22-year-old quarterback, still months away from his first NFL pass, Mark Sanchez already owns the distinction of being the highest-paid player in New York Jets history. The former USC Trojans quarterback hit the jackpot with a five-year contract that includes $28 million in guarantees, a team record.

The bare-bones amount of the deal is $44.5 million, although the true value, based on easily attainable incentives, is $50.5 million, according to sources.

The Jets made a bold move for Sanchez, trading up 12 spots and selecting him with…

Since Ramirez is suspended for 50 freaking games, there’s a very likely possibility that we won’t be seeing him in Philly.

And while that may have ultimately put LA’s 2009 MLB baseball season down the drain, they’re hoping that they can hold on without Manny just enough for a postseason run. As of this writing, the Los Angeles Dodgers hold the best record in baseball. Of course, with Manny Ramirez suspended for 50, there’s that possibility that some team will eventually knock them off the top.

I guess it is safe to assume that the Dodgers will be in survival mode until Manny Ramirez returns from his suspension. Can the Dodgers hang on? It begins on Tuesday, when they open up a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to start for the Los Angeles Dodgers on the mound. Kershaw got big outs with runners in scoring position to frustrate the last-place Washington Nationals the last time he started for LA, but it could be a different story against a potent Phillies lineup. Kershaw battled through a 31-pitch first inning, in which he loaded the bases but also struck out the side in his last outing. He was removed after allowing one run in five innings, requiring 99 pitches to get that far.

The Philadelphia Phillies are scheduled to have Chan HO Park for the Dodgers. Park finally put in the pitching performance…

That’s where it’s at people.

The 2008 MLB playoffs just got interesting after the two teams trailing in the two best-of-seven championship series wars were able to win one to make the final two wars before the World Series a little more competitive.

First, let’s start with the ALCS where the Tampa Bay Rays won what has been a shootout in Tampa. B.J. Upton helped his team beat the Red Sox 9-8 last Saturday with a shallow fly ball to tie the AL championship series at one game apiece.

The Boston Red Sox were coming in Tampa looking to take the early 2-0 lead. They never anticipated that the Rays will put up a fight nobody probably anticipated. The Red Sox and the Rays combined for seven home runs, tying a postseason record. And after 1:30 a.m., the Rays won a game that lasted five hours, 27 minutes when Perez beat right fielder J.D. Drew’s throw home.

The series shifts to Fenway Park for Game 3 Monday, with left-hander Jon Lester pitching for Boston against the Rays’ Matt Garza.

In the NLCS, the Los Angeles Dodgers came out early and finished of the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2 to get back into the series, trimming Philly’s lead to 2-1 in the best-of-seven championship series.

The Los Angeles Dodgers started strong courtesy of Blake DeWitt’s bases-loaded…

Unfortunately for Mets and Dodgers fans, their teams’ respective counterparts in the American League STILL generate more hype.

That’s the way things have been the last couple of years, and in this 2008 MLB baseball season, nothing has changed. Why? Probably has something to do with the way this team from the AL East simply knocked the hell out of the National League’s representative during last season’s World Series.

In the National League, the Philadelphia Phillies lead the East, the Chicago Cubs lead the Central and the Arizona Diamondbacks lead the West. And although they may be regarded as the ”weaker conference” in baseball, don’t expect that to stop them from proving why people should start thinking otherwise.

The Philadelphia Phillies lead the Eastern division with a 41-29 record, also having the best road record in the National conference with 20-16. Against the St. Louis Cardinals, we all saw how impressive this Phillies team can be after the Phillies won with a whopping 20-2 blast. Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Pat Burrell hit back-to-back-to-back home runs in the first inning, and the Phillies added nine runs in the fourth to win the opener of a three-game series Friday at Busch Stadium.

In the Central, division leader Chicago Cubs got a slight bump to…

What the heck happened to the New York Mets?

After leading the National League East by seven games with only 17 games to go in the 2007-08 MLB baseball season, the New York Mets made history Sunday, becoming the only team to miss the playoffs with the kind of meltdown they had the past few weeks.

Jeez… The New York Mets, after a healthy seven-game advantage in their division, just kept on crumbling down, losing to the Florida Marlins that virtually eliminated them from the postseason last Sunday.

The New York Mets completed one of the epic collapses in MLB history. The last time the Mets held the top spot in the NL East, the chances of them missing the 2007 MLB playoffs were 500-1. He he… The Mets hit it against the Marlins.

”It’s embarrassing,” Mets closer Billy Wagner said. ”That’s the big thing.”

The New York Mets, after looking like the more talented team in New York City, went for a pathetic 5-12 to finish the season. As they should be, the rest of the Mets are embarrassed, as is their general manager Willie Randolph.

”This is just a tough life lesson in baseball,” Willie Randolph said.

”Any time you have an opportunity to finish the deal and don’t capitalize on it, it will come back to haunt you. And it sure did with us. The bottom line is that we spit away an opportunity to…”

I knew it, these Yankees fucking up yet again was only a matter of time.

Yep, with the New York Yankees, all of a sudden, winning enough games to put them in sole control of the No.2 spot behind their rivals Boston Red Sox in the American League East, Roger Clemens got his ass suspended for five games for throwing a baseball towards Alex Rios and hitting him silly.

Oh yeah, it sure looks like Roger Clemens is back to his old tricks again eh? For all ya’ll who forgot already, Clemens was the same guy who threw a piece of the bat at then New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza.

In this 2007-08 MLB baseball season, Toronto Blue Jays standout Alex Rios is the latest of Clemens’ victims.

This incident was after a somewhat heated first two games in this three-game series between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays. During the opener last Monday, the Blue Jays’ Jesse Litsch threw behind the legs of Yankees’ slugger Alex Rodriguez followed by yet another Blue Jay, this time it was Josh Towers, hitting poor A-Rod on his calf in the third inning of game 2.

Understandably, the bullpens emptied TWICE and Clemens’ was probably just taking matters to his own hands. I mean, c’mon, why can’t these umpires see that the Blue Jays was only interested in taking A-Rod out for the 2007-08 MLB baseball season instead of just winning the…