The Karma Year/World Series Pick

My brother has an expression when he feels like he's living in a world in which he doesn't belong.
"It's like living in Biff's 1985," he says. For those of you who don't know, the concept of Biff's 1985 is from Back to the Future Part II. In the year 2015, the trilogy's recurring villain, and generally an unsavory brute, Biff Tannen hijacks the time traveling Delorean, goes back in time, and gives his younger self a sports almanac for the "future," allowing him to bet with a 100% success rate on all sporting events and eventually makes him the most powerful man in Hill Valley. When the protagonist, Marty McFly, returns (from 2015) to 1985 from, he finds his home town looking like a dirtier and sleazier Las Vegas, his father dead, and his mother married to the very same Biff -- still unsavory, but now unfathomably rich.

For most of my "sports life," I have felt like Marty living in Biff's 1985. It goes without saying that my teams never won, and I can stomach that. It just seems that every time I've have any preference about who wins a game or series, that team is doomed. Perhaps I just have a soft spot for teams I know deep down won't win. In any case, in a world where Kobe Bryant is the face of the NBA, Alex Rodriguez is the face of baseball, Charlie Weiss is perceived as a member of the human race, Tony Romo is dating two famous divas (Jessica Simpson/Terrell Owens) -- well, as my Grandpa would say, "I feel irrelevant." I have long felt irrelevant to the sports world, and this year started out just as bad as all the others.

Let's start with football and more specifically, the New England Patriots. Their coaching staff was caught cheating but never lost. Rodney Harrison was on PEDs but it was forgotten. They even acquired Junior Seau after his obnoxious speech about "graduating" and the Football Gods still gave them break after break. They they spat in the faces of these Gods by attempting to go undefeated in the NFL. Were they punished? No! They were spared the chore of playing the Colts in the AFC Championship game and got to play a LaDanian Tomlinson-less and Phillips Rivers' ACL-less Chargers team instead. And then they get Eli in the Super Bowl? Eli?!?

Then, something changed. New England's luck ran out. I couldn't believe it! Did the team that karmically deserved to win actually win?? What was going on? That's when I realized, if New England had lost to the Ravens or Eagles in the regular season, this wouldn't have been half as good. This year was different. The Karma Year.

Moving onto basketball and the arrogance of Memphis and John Calipari. It turns out free throw shooting does matter and the "dribble drive" offense doesn't be winning championships. Then the NBA Finals. After the interview-before-you-play-the-game/series-acting-like-you've-already-won kiss of death from Stephen A. Smith, the media pretending that asking to be traded even smells like leadership, the "Pau Gasol Christmas," and the unbelievable and creepy crush that Mark Jackson seems to have on Kobe, the Celtics basically crushed them. I saw that one coming though. By that time, I was onto the Karma Year.

Now, I'm trying to get ahead, so here is my World Series prediction: Dodgers over Yankees in 6.

Of course, it would be hard to top seeing the Jeter/A-Rod/Giambino Yankees fail to make the playoffs, but this is what the Karma year does. It makes you feel hopeless. It allows the most detestable team to get all the way to the Championship game with all cylinders running and the media on their side. You will see a hundred million sentimental "win one for the last year of Yankee Stadium" pieces. You'll emotionally numb yourself to the point where you'll believe it was meant to happen. "Maybe they should win one in the last year in the 'House that Ruth Built.'" Then, it'll all come unraveled for the Yanks and you'll remember how much pain the pinstripes have caused you and your team (they probably have stolen one or two of your players) over the years and you'll rejoice.

OK, so... how I choose LA to be the team to take down the Yankees? Well, I had it narrowed down to LA, Chicago, and Milwaukee, and after the Manny Trade, it became all too obvious. However the most important basis for this prediction is, of course, the fact that it could continue a possible pattern for the Karma Year. In the Super Bowl, The New York Giants were the fan-friendly soldiers of Karma defeating evil in Boston's own New England Patriots. In the NBA Finals, Boston's role switched when the Celtics were the vanquishers of evil, defeating Kobe and the Lakeshow. In the World Series, LA will be the team to overcome the reprehensible New York Yankees who, coincidentally (or not), share the same residence as the wonderful team who defeated the Pats in Super Bowl XLII, The New York (football) Giants. The Circle of Karma is completed.

If this really happens, we'll know that either A) That all sports are fixed, or B) That there really are sports gods and that we're all safe and sound, back in the year 1985. I'll choose to believe the latter.