My World Series Picks: Head and Heart

Here's who I think will win the 2011 World Series, which gets underway shortly:

Honestly, I don't think either team is deserving. It would have been a much better series if Detroit and Milwaukee had won the Pennants, instead of Texas and St. Louis. The Rangers were lucky that the AL West was so weak; the Cards were lucky that the Braves tanked down the stretch and blew the NL Wild Card.

The Cards will have home-field advantage, but does that matter if it doesn't go to a Game 7? It never has, since MLB went to a "League that wins the All-Star Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series" format:

It didn't matter in 2003: The Marlins won Games 1 and 6 at Yankee Stadium.

It didn't matter in 2004: The Scum swept, and besides they cheated.

It didn't matter in 2005: The White Sox swept.

It didn't matter in 2006: The Cards split the first 2 in Detroit and won 3 straight in St. Louis.

It didn't matter in 2007: The Scum swept, and besides they cheated.

It didn't matter in 2008: The Phillies split the first 2 in St. Pete and won 3 straight in Philly.

It didn't matter in 2009: The Yanks took Games 3 and 4 in Philly.

And it didn't matter last year: The Giants took Games 4 and 5, the clincher, in Texas.

The Cardinals were probably the least impressive of the 8 Playoff teams in 2006, but won it all.

They may do that again, especially since their pitching has straightened out and, bad year by his standards or not, they still have the best hitter in the game in Albert Pujols.

Cardinals in 6.

UPDATE: As it turned out, home-field advantage for Game 7 did matter.

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Here's who I hope will win the World Series:

Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. is a major Republican fundraiser and donor. He is scum.

But so are the Rangers' owners, formerly including George W. Bush himself.

As loathsome as DeWitt is, I can never root for a Texas team — except the Dallas Mavericks last June, because I like Mark Cuban as much as I can’t stand LeBron James. And, under some circumstances, the University of Texas Longhorns, because the rest of Texas hates them.

And, unlike Met fans who blindly support the National League team no matter what, I will not root for a team to win the World Series just because they’re in the American League.

Cardinals in 5. I want to see the Strangers again get embarrassed in their "fauxback" stadium.