The World Series is almost upon us.

In one corner, we've got the team that, absent the New York Yankees, has the highest payroll in baseball, without a care in the world about how much its spending. In the other corner, we've got a team with a lower-tier payroll and a national profile that's non-existent.

While I've been a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers since I knew what baseball was, it was around the 1992 expansion draft that a friend and I were talking about wanting to be fans of a team from its inception. We had a choice between the Colorado Rockies and the Florida Marlins. We chose the Rockies.

Not too long after that, I won a bet with someone concerning the outcome of a Mizzou - Oklahoma State basketball game, and my winning was a Rockies baseball cap. Fitted. 7 1/4".

I wore that cap a lot over the first five years of the Rockies' existence. The Blake Street Bombers were exciting, though not particularly good. Better than the Brewers, though. Burks, Walker, Galarraga, Castilla, Bichette. That was fun baseball.

Then the move to the Eastern Time Zone and a gradual decline in the Rockies' competitiveness kinda forced me to lose track of Colorado. Like the Brewers, when a team isn't at least competitive, the team doesn't ever show up on television.

So this year was a good year for my two favorite teams. Milwaukee choked in the second half with lousy pitching, but stuck it to the Padres on the last weekend to give the Rockies a shot.

And the Rockies were on national TV, playing their 163rd game of the season. First time all year they'd gotten a national broadcast, albeit on TBS (which had gone HD just days before, lucky me).

Eight wins later, they're in the World Series against the bleeping Red Sox.

I'm not rooting against the Sox just because they're playing the Rockies. I'm rooting against the Red Sox because I hate them, too. If the Red Sox and the Yankees simply vanished, I couldn't be happier about life.

You don't have to hate the Red Sox to root for the Rockies, though. You could just hate the big money clubs that spend their way to the Series instead of working the hard way to get there. 

Where's all of those "Ditch Mitch and Rich" UK fans now?

#17 UK 43

#1 LSU 37 

Well, today Dan Patrick was back on the radio, much to my surprise.

I didn't get to catch all of the show, but from what I heard, he had been vacationing, most likely using up vacation days before he leaves ESPN after Friday's show. I didn't hear an explanation why he missed Monday and Tuesday, when ESPN, himself, and the guest hosts had been saying that he would be there.

He also shared that he now has a website where fans can keep up with what his plans are after he leaves. 

It doesn't sound like his tag team partner, Keith Olbermann, will be around for any final Big Shows.