A World Series to Savor

We're going to see something Monday night that we haven't seen in a really long time.

There hasn't been a Game 5 of the World Series with the teams tied at two games apiece since the Marlins and Yankees squared off in 2003. We haven't seen a World Series without one team winning two straight games in the first four since the Indians and Marlins in 1997.

Those are just two of the reasons why it feels like we're watching a classic World Series unfolding before our eyes. That might not mean much to Rangers fans who simply want to see the team celebrating on the field after watching the Giants do it last season, but for fans who appreciate the finer things of baseball life, this has been an absolute feast.

We've had a little bit of everything you could possibly want. Allen Craig went from unknown beyond the Gateway Arch to a household name thanks to a pair of pinch hits in the first two games of the series. We got a stirring ninth inning comeback in Game 2 after a pair of sparkling pitching performances from Jaime Garcia and Colby Lewis. Albert Pujols added another line item to his Hall of Fame plaque in Game 3 and Derek Holland dazzled the entire country on Sunday night.

The budding greatness of this series isn't going unnoticed. In what feels like a pretty huge shift, more people watched Game 4 than the Sunday night NFL game. That has a lot to do with Peyton Manning's absence, of course, but it shows that people still prioritize real sports drama over their bets and fantasy football lineups.

They should get plenty more drama this week. C.J. Wilson's attempt to turn around his miserable postseason is a compelling narrative, as is Chris Carpenter's attempt to keep etching his name deeper into the long book of Cardinals postseason heroes. And it is hard to imagine a storyline with more appeal than Pujols playing what could be his final games as a Cardinal under the scalding pressure of the deciding game or games of a Fall Classic.

Baseball puts its best foot forward on the grand stage far too rarely so it behooves all of us to appreciate the moments when it does appear. This is a Rangers blog and that makes our rooting interest pretty obvious, but you don't need to be doing the antlers in your living room to understand that something pretty great is unfolding before your eyes.