Chase Colston

Of all the old sayings and adages we hear each day, there's a recent cliche that has dominated pop culture:

"If you're not first, you're last."

If the movie Talladega Nights can teach us anything - except that NASCAR is a wild and crazy hillbilly sport - it's that there's no first or last in the baseball playoffs.

No team won 100 games for the second straight season. Arizona and Colorado were the only National League teams to win 90. No team had a .600 winning percentage.

The 1998 New York Yankees were the last to win the World Series after finishing with the league's best record; and were also the last 100-win team to win the Fall Classic.

We on the same page yet?

It's parody in baseball.

There is no need to cry for a salary cap or whine about the big dogs spending all the money. It's a new era and the best team doesn't win the World Series anymore.

There is no "best team."

There is no Ricky Bobby or Jean Girard.

It's as pure as purists could ask for. It's more competitive than the NFL this year.

All eight playoff teams have holes. All have flaws. You don't know which Chicago Cubs or Boston Red Sox team is going to show up.

Embrace what baseball has to offer this October: the most evenly matched final eight in baseball history and potentially the greatest month of playoff baseball ever.

You don't have to look farther than the final months of the regular season to realize that.

San Diego and Colorado's wild card playoff Monday night showed how close the National League was this season. The races in both leagues went down to the final two weeks.

The New York Mets had a collapse catastrophic enough that Yankees fans don't feel so bad after the 2004 meltdown. Philadelphia, meanwhile, turned it on to win one of the best divisions in baseball.

Chicago has the chance to see its other team win a World Series for the first time in nearly a century. The Cubs, yes the choke-artists for the past 99 years, outlasted Milwaukee to win the Central.

Arizona, San Diego and Colorado made the forgotten NL West the best in the league.

The Yankees were a lost cause in June until they stormed back and nearly caught Boston for the division. Detroit gave Cleveland fits until it ran out of gas.

Los Angeles pulled away in the end, but Seattle played with the Angels for a while.

Start your engines.

This is where the copy goes.

CHASE COLSTON
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