It’s finger-biting, tossing-and-turning-in-bed, stomach-churning time.

It’s a finger-biting, stomach-churning time: Can Harvard, 5-0 in the Ivies, defeat 4-1 Penn Friday night in Philadelphia? The nation awaits the result with bated breath. (Where, you ask, does the phrase “bated breath” come from? I asked the same question, and Google responded. It comes, like everything else, from Shakespeare: “Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,/With bated breath and whispering humbleness…” Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene iii.)

 

But who cares anymore about football? As Geoffrey Norman has pointed out, pro football is in decline. As for college football, on Saturday, #1 ranked Alabama played #15 LSU; the game was scoreless through three quarters before Alabama limped to a 10-0 victory. Borrrring.

 

Whereas what can one say about baseball, and this year’s World Series? Well, Joseph Epstein actually does say it all (well, almost all) in this week’s cover story, “Joy in Mudville: A fair-weather fan’s notes.” (Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, we’re not becoming THE SPORTS STANDARD. Yet.) What a seventh game! And really, what an excellent post-season in general. If you want to read a couple of other fine short pieces about aspects of the Series, I recommend Billy Witz, “Kris Bryant Takes Lessons from Ted Williams’s Batting Bible,” and David Leonhardt’s “Cubs, Nerds and ‘True Baseball.’ Both are from the New York Times, and are well-worth two of your ten free articles a month. (In fact, I tend to use all of mine on sports, with an occasional classical music or restaurant review.)

 

So, what about the competition among THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s readers to pick the World Series teams? Entries were submitted in two waves, in April and October. There was one clear winner, long-time subscriber Janis H. Evans, who not only correctly predicted a Cubs-Indians World Series way back on April 4, but predicted the Cubs would win in 7 games. Ms. Evans is a Cleveland area resident–indeed, she ran last year for Mayor of Chagrin Falls, a Cleveland suburb. And as my colleague Jim Swift, a loyal Clevelander, points out, it’s fitting that an Indians fan was such a fatalist as to pick them to lose rather than to win in seven.

 

In any case, Jim is assembling an appropriately impressive reward for Ms. Evans. I overheard him in the office last week negotiating for a discount on a gift card with the fine Cleveland area bar and wings chain, the Winking Lizard Tavern (much enjoyed by WEEKLY STANDARD folk during the GOP convention this year). In any case: Congratulations, Janis Evans, on your fantastic pick, and on vindicating the claim that WEEKLY STANDARD readers are not just perceptive but positively clairvoyant….