But if they played in the World Series, it would be a no-lose situation. Come on, where is the fun in that? Half of the fun of sports is walking the fine line between exhilaration and despair.

There is a reason why old-time boxing promoters used to pit fighters of different ethnic backgrounds against each other. The promoters, knowing the racial climate of the times, wanted to give the fans as many rooting interests as possible. Either they had the Irishman fighting the Italian or the Jew vs. the black guy, etc. Even when there were boxers of the same race, such as Joe Frazier vs. Muhammad Ali, they represented polar sides of the country — Frazier was the hard-working supporter of the war in Vietnam, while Ali was the draft-dodging, loud-mouthed new schooler.

You've got to give the fans someone to root for.

Fast forward to the present and the four choices are the Cubs, Red Sox, New York Yankees and Florida Marlins. While the Cubs and Red Sox have not won a world championship in about a million years, the Yankees have won four in the last seven years.

Then there are the Marlins, who nobody wants to see win it all. Not even their fans showed up to the ballpark this season, as the Fish drew an average of 16,290 fans per home game. That whopping total ranks them No. 28 out of 30 major league teams.

So we are left with these possible matchups: Boston vs. Florida, Boston vs. Chicago, New York vs. Chicago and New York vs. Florida. The real stinker of the group is New York vs. Florida with the David vs. David series coming just behind. If Boston were to play Florida, fans could watch and have two distinct options. They could root for Boston's Cinderella story to play out or hope it fizzles out.

What looks to be the real draw is New York and Chicago. It's the classic good vs. evil, David vs. Goliath, Rocky vs. Ivan Drago. With any luck this it what baseball fans will get. Who knows? Maybe Don Zimmer will try to mix it up with Ron Santo this time around.