Best weekend in sports?

As most of you know, I write a Giants blog. Here is the latest entry. I usually won't do this, but this is so important, it needs to be said everywhere.

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. I'm a huge baseball fan. Don't get me wrong, football is probably the most entertaining sport out there, but baseball will always have a place in my heart. It's probably because as a little scrawny Jewish boy, I never played football, I played baseball. As most of you out there reading this know, the baseball season is winding down and if you're not a Yankee fan, then you're still a little concerned right now. At least, if you're a Mets fan, or from Colorado or Arizona or San Diego or Philadelphia.

Here's the basic run down of the baseball world - the NL East is now tied (as of Friday morning) with the Mets and the Phillies, and the NL Wild Card is led by San Diego by 1 game over the Phillies and the Rockies, and Arizona leads the NL West over San Diego by 1 game (and thus the Rockies by 2). There is only this weekend left to play. 3 games left, 5 teams within 1 game of each other, it's all very exciting.

But this is a Giants blog, right? And baseball doesn't have anything to do with football, right? Wrong. This weekend is a very special weekend. Let's forget the NL West teams right now and just focus on the Mets and Phillies for the NL East. If the Mets lose the division to the Phillies, it will be the 2nd greatest collapse by a baseball team in history. So every Mets fan is pacing and wondering what can happen. But, this weekend they have more to worry about. Sunday night we get to see the Philadelphia Eagles face the NY Giants. A battle of Phillie vs. New York. Oh man. Let's look at this some more shall we.

Sunday will be the first game the Giants play the Eagles this season, and while the game doesn't hold as dier playoff implications as the baseball games do, both teams are 1-2 and whoever is 1-3 has a very long shot of winning the division. The Cowboys are 3-0, Redskins are 2-1, and with a team 2-2 there's hope. There's little hope for a 1-3 team in the NFC East. So to say this football game is a big deal isn't even coming close to it.

Let's look a little further. I think that we can see who will win these games in a baseball/football comparison. The key underlier here is Washington. Both the Mets/Giants and Phillies/Eagles recently played a Washington team. The Mets just got swept in 3 games by the Nationals, and this weekend the Phillies play the Nationals at home for their final 3 games. The Eagles lost to the Redskins on an arrant throw by McNabb to miss a wide open receiver in the end zone on the final drive and the Giants beat the Redskins holding them on a goal line 3rd and short and 4th and short as time expired. The Mets lost to the Nationals and on the last game of the series gave up a 5-0 lead in the 6th inning. So football wise, Giants over Eagles, but baseball has Phillies over Mets in the Washington realm. But what of this weekend for the Mets? The Mets finish their season against the Marlins of Florida, who play in the same stadium as the Dolphins. The Redskins beat the Dolphins in OT in week 1, and as just stated the Giants beat the Redskins, so we can assume the Giants would beat the Dolphins, so we can go assume that the Mets will beat the Marlins.

Since the Mets and the Phillies are tied right now and won't play each other (obviously since there are 3 games left) there is also the possibility of a tie. If this happens, we would have a 1 game playoff. Playoff? Like last year? When the Eagles knocked out the Giants out on a last second field goal. So advantage Phillie if that occurs. But wait, let's look even deeper. The Giants started off last season 6-2 and finished 2-6, the Mets had a 7 game lead only 2 weeks ago that they have lost. If a one game playoff is how it's all decided, you better believe the spirits are pulling for the Phillies.

All I know is this. The final games of the seasons for baseball are played at 1:35 EST. Since the Giants play at night, you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be watching these baseball games.

Oh, and another secret loyal readers...I'm a Phillies fan, but not an Eagles fan. Go Phillies.