The Best Team Won...Plain and Simple

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Baseball can be a very funny game sometimes.  Tony La Russa loves to say how there is no justice in it.  The second you think you have everything figured out and you have all the answers, guess what, you don't.  No one has all the answers.

It's why the best teams do not always win.  Say what you want about the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.  But they were not the best team in baseball that year.  They were the best at the right time...which is, ultimately, what matters most.

It's also true in other sports as well.  You think the New York Giants were the best team in the NFL a couple years ago when they beat the 18-0 New England Patriots in the Super Bowl?

False.

Well this year, apparently there is justice.  Because the best team did win.  It's been this way since Opening Day.  It's been this way since the All-Star Game.  It's been this way since the postseason began.

The New York Yankees were and are the best team in baseball in 2009.

They had the best lineup.  They had the best closer.  They had a phenomenal starting rotation.  They had very very good defense as well.

And they showed every single one of those phases throughout these playoffs.  The offense took over at times with heroic performances from Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui.

The pitching took over at times with the likes of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera.

You knew it was going to take an out-of-this-world performance from someone to knock them out.  It was going to take a team with enough offense, but more importantly, dynamic starting pitching to do it. 

That never happened. 

If someone was going to pull it off it was the Phillies.  They've got the best offense the NL has to offer.  They've also got Cliff Lee.

Turned out it wasn't enough.  And that's why the best team in baseball gets crowned as the official best team in baseball.

I guess there is some justice after all.