My daughters always say that the crossover episodes are the best episodes, and sure, they’re usually talking about the musical crossover between Supergirl and The Flash, but this is kind of the same thing. It’s playoff time, and what better time is there to do a little playoff predicting with the sensational Molly Knight. Her Substack is great, but, of course it is. Everything that Molly does is great. She is basically Los Angeles royalty — I think her family goes back several generations — and she wrote the glorious book The Best Team Money Can Buy and she’s just the coolest.
So, let’s do this thing — thoughts and predictions. If you like it, let us know, we might keep on doing the crossovers.
Astros vs. White Sox
Joe: Look, this thing won’t come down to the managers; these games almost never do. But this seems like a good time to say: I love Houston manager Dusty Baker. I just love the guy. He’s been at the heart of the game for a half century. Was on deck when Henry Aaron hit the home run. Was there for the birth of the high-five. Played in three World Series. One of the game’s great storytellers. And, not for nothing, wherever he has gone as manager, his team has won. It’s really quite striking when you look at his career.
Still, his reputation as a tactical manager is … well, let’s just say it’s a muted reputation.
Meanwhile Chicago’s Tony La Russa is already in the Hall of Fame, and his plaque calls him, “A master of maneuvering lineups and managing bullpens.”
So, yes, I am desperately wanting Dusty Baker to out-manage Tony La Russa.
But, as mentioned, it won’t come down to that. What it will come down to is that the Astros -- with those old familiar standbys Jose Altuve, Yuli Gurriel, Carlos Correa, Alex Bregman and a pair of 24-year-old bashers in Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker -- have the best lineup in the American League. They dominate the strike zone. The White Sox rotation is strong. But the Astros lineup is stronger.
Prediction: Astros in 4.
Molly: Like Joe, I’m a big Dusty Baker fan. I get angry when he’s booed at Dodger Stadium. I can’t believe he doesn’t have a contract extension after this year. All he did was manage a team of cheating pariahs back to the postseason and somehow make them palatable.
Maybe I’ve just accepted the Astros will win this division forever, as long as the A’s remain broke, the Mariners remain locked out of the playoffs for some karmic sin, and the Angels remain irrelevant in a way only the Angels can. (Seriously, this team employs Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani and nobody outside of the OC cares.).
The White Sox are a team I wished I had watched more of this year. But from what I’ve seen, Tony La Russa defied critics by figuring out how to manage a team of young Latin American stars without dimming their lights. I think I’m going to go against the grain here and take the White Sox because everyone is taking the Astros. I like Lance Lynn in Game 1 and potentially on short rest in Game 4 if Chicago needs it. He is, after all, a self-described big bastard. I also like Dylan Cease to go four scoreless and strike out 12. He seems built for this type of max effort situation.
Prediction: White Sox in 5.
Red Sox vs. Rays
Molly: It was cute how the Red Sox beat the Yankees and celebrated like they had any shot against the Rays. We’re at the point now where Tampa has built a year-in, year-out AL East juggernaut yet Yankee and Red Sox fans still act like everyone should be fired when they don’t win the division. Researching this piece to figure out how the Rays are this good again was an adventure in itself. Brandon Lowe hit 39 home runs? Sure! Wander Franco reaching base 43 straight games to tie Frank Robinson’s record for those 20 and younger? Absolutely!
The Rays lost in the World Series last year, which bodes well for them winning it all this year. The Dodgers had to lose twice to get to the promised land. And in retrospect all that playoff experience is why they were able to come back from 2-0 and 3-1 series’ deficits against the Braves to win the NL pennant in 2020. The Rays are going to break through one of these years, and they’re my AL pick to make the Fall Classic again this season. They should have no trouble with the Red Sox.
Prediction: Rays in 4.
Joe: The Rays are so good, it’s just ridiculous. They have no money, few fans in the stands, an eyesore for a stadium, and none of it matters. They just acquire and develop player after player, star after star. They are the best team in the American League and then they got even better by calling up a 20-year-old phenom like Wander Franco.
The Red Sox, meanwhile, have been playing over their heads all year. It’s unclear how you win 92 games when you have a pitching staff kept together with duct tape and superglue and Rule 5 relief pitcher Garrett Whitlock.
So the Rays go in as a favorite, definitely, but who really knows? These teams have already played 19 times this year, and the Rays have outscored the Red Sox over those games—but only 106 to 104.
Prediction: Rays in 5
Brewers vs. Braves
Joe: I don’t get the Braves at all. Not even a little bit. Coming into the year, I had them as a Top 5 team in baseball. And then for three months, they slipped on banana peels and did various comical pratfalls and were below .500. And then their most dynamic and exciting player, Ronald Acuña Jr. got hurt and it was like, “OK, their season is over.”
Instead, they got Jorge Soler and Adam Duvall, both of them turned into stars, and the Braves won enough to overmatch the rest of the National League East (which, admittedly, was not that hard to do).
The Brewers, meanwhile, jumped to the front of the National League Central on June 19 and never looked back -- even though their marquee player, Christian Yelich, never found his power stroke and the whole lineup hit .240. You can do this when you have three dominant starters like Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta. Milwaukee will miss reliever Devin Williams, who got into a fight with a wall and, predictably, lost. But there’s just so much pitching.
Prediction: No idea. Toss-up. I’ll say Brewers in 5 but I don’t really feel it.
Molly: It’s no secret that I’ve been gaga over the Brewers rotation all year, especially Corbin Burnes, who I wrote back in August was the most underpaid player in baseball. Having to face Burnes, co-ace Brandon Woodruff and strikeout monster Freddy Peralta in a five-game series is a nightmare for any team. New Brave Joc Pederson will probably hit a few playoff dingers because that’s what he does. Also, this:
Like Joe, I have no idea how the Braves made the playoffs, except that watching the NL East this season was like watching a car crashing into a burning building. The Braves are here without Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mike Soroka. They aren’t going any further. This series is the easiest call for me to make.
Prediction: Brewers in 4
Giants vs. Dodgers
Joe: I am not going to lie, I was waiting to read what Molly wrote about this series before I said anything since she knows 10 bajillion times more about the Dodgers and Giants than I do. I still have no clue whatsoever how the Giants won 107 games. It just doesn’t compute for me. I know that my friend Farhan Zaidi is a genius, and I know that Buster Posey is really good, and I know that Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford and Brandon McCarthy and Brendan Frasier and probably seven other Brandons or Brandens or Bradens or Bardens had great years.
But this team still makes absolutely no sense to me.
I’ve thought the Dodgers were the best team in baseball all year long and I continue to think that. I have no earthly idea how anybody matches up with them. And yet … the Giants did outlast them for the NL West title, and won the season series 10-9. My head says Dodgers in three. My heart says the Giants will never stop winning. My prediction says …
Prediction: Dodgers in five, I guess. Or not. I don’t know.
Molly: My head is still spinning from last night. These Dodgers could win the World Series and that one-game wild-card death match over the Cardinals might wind up being the hardest part. Or….they could get swept by the Giants and be out by Monday.
I’ve been writing about the race between the Dodgers and Giants for months. A month ago I wrote that the Dodgers were better. I still believe that, even though Los Angeles lost Max Muncy and Clayton Kershaw to injuries last week. Kershaw was gone for a few months this year so we got a chance to evaluate the boys in blue without him. They’re not as good as they are with him, obviously, but this is a squad that might finally be poised to run the table without Kershaw carrying them the whole way. Losing Muncy was a horrible blow to the offense, but the Giants also lost their first baseman, Brandon Belt.
I also like the Dodgers in this series because Julio Urias wasn’t pressed into service in Wednesday night’s wild-card game vs. the Cardinals. Urias is the x-factor for me. Will the Dodgers use him as a starter and reliever like they did last year in the NLCS and World Series? It worked pretty well! The Giants deserve respect for what they did during the regular season. But all of that goes out the window now. Cody Bellinger redeemed his dreadful season with a hit, two walks, two stolen bases and a run on Wednesday night. Can he continue his return to competence by turning in similar games vs. Logan Webb, Kevin Gausman and Anthony DeSclafani? If he is able to, the Dodgers might win in four.
Prediction: Dodgers in 5.
SIXTH REMEDY
O sick person who complains about his suffering! I say to you: think of your past life and remember the pleasurable and happy days and the distressing and troublesome times. For sure, you will either say “Oh!” or “Ah!” That is, your heart and tongue will either say “All praise and thanks be to God!”, or “Alas and alack!”
Note carefully, what makes you exclaim “Praise and thanks be to God!” is thinking of the pains and calamities that have befallen you; it induces a sort of pleasure so that your heart offers thanks. For the passing of pain is a pleasure. With the passing of pains and calamities, a legacy of pleasure is left in the spirit, which on being aroused by thinking, pours forth from the spirit with thanks.
What makes you exclaim “Alas and alack!” are the pleasurable and happy times you have experienced in the former times, which, with their passing leave a legacy of constant pain in your spirit. Whenever you think of them, the pain is again stimulated, causing regret and sorrow to pour forth.
Since one day’s illicit pleasure sometimes causes a year’s suffering in the spirit, and with the pain of a fleeting day’s illness are many days’ pleasure and recompense in addition to the pleasure at being relieved at its passing and saved from it, think of the result of this temporary illness with which you are now afflicted, and of the merits of its inner face. Say: “All is from God! This too will pass!”, and offer thanks instead of complaining.
SIXTH REMEDY
{(*): This Flash occurred to me in a natural manner, and two remedies have been included in the Sixth Remedy. We have left it thus in order not to spoil the naturalness; indeed, we did not change it thinking there may be some mystery contained in it.}
O brother who thinks of the pleasures of this world and suffers distress at illness! If this world was everlasting, and if on our way there was no death, and if the winds of separation and decease did not blow, and if there were no winters of the spirit in the calamitous and stormy future, I would have pitied you together with you. But since one day the world will bid us to leave it and will close its ears to our cries, we must forego our love of it now through the warnings of these illnesses, before it drives us out. We must try to abandon it in our hearts before it abandons us.
Yes, illness utters this warning to us: “Your body is not composed of stone and iron, but of various materials which are always disposed to parting. Leave off your pride, understand your impotence, recognize your Owner, know your duties, learn why you came to this world!” It declares this secretly in the heart’s ear.
Moreover, since the pleasures and enjoyment of this world do not continue, and particularly if they are illicit, they are both fleeting, and full of pain, and sinful, do not weep on the pretext of illness because you have lost those pleasures. On the contrary, think of the aspects of worship and reward in the Hereafter to be found in illness, and try to receive pleasure from those.
SEVENTH REMEDY
O sick person who has lost the pleasures of health! Your illness does not spoil the pleasure of Divine bounties, on the contrary, it causes them to be experienced and increases them. For if something is continuous, it loses its effect. The people of reality even say that “Things are known through their opposites.” For example, if there was no darkness, light would not be known and would contain no pleasure. If there was no cold, heat could not be comprehended. If there was no hunger, food would afford no pleasure. If there was no thirst of the stomach, there would be no pleasure in drinking water. If there was no sickness, no pleasure would be had from good health.
The All-Wise Creator’s decking out man with truly numerous members and faculties, to the extent that he may experience and recognize the innumerable varieties of bounties in the universe, shows that He wants to make man aware of every sort of His bounty and to acquaint him with them and to impel man to offer constant thanks. Since this is so, He will give illness, sickness, and suffering, the same as He bestows good health and well-being.
I ask you: “If there had not been this illness in your head or in your hand or stomach, would you have perceived the pleasurable and enjoyable Divine bounty of the good health of your head, hand or stomach, and offered thanks? For sure, it is not offering thanks for it, you would not have even thought of it! You would have unconsciously spent that good health on heedlessness, and perhaps even on dissipation.
EIGHTH REMEDY
O sick person who thinks of the Hereafter! Sickness washes away the dirt of sins like soap, and cleanses.
Sins are the lasting illnesses of eternal life, and in this worldly life they are sicknesses for the heart, conscience, and spirit. If you are patient and do not complain, you will be saved through this temporary sickness from numerous perpetual sicknesses.
If you do not think of your sins, or do not know the Hereafter, or do not recognize God, you suffer from an illness so fearsome it is a million times worse than your present minor illnesses. Cry out at that, for all the beings in the world are connected with your heart, spirit, and soul. Those connections are continuously severed by death and separation, opening up in you innumerable wounds. Particularly since you do not know the Hereafter and imagine death to be eternal non-existence, it is quite simply as though lacerated and bruised, your being suffers illness to the extent of the world.
Thus, the first thing you have to do is to search for the cure of belief, which is a certain healing remedy for the innumerable illnesses of that infinitely wounded and sick, extensive immaterial being of yours; you have to correct your beliefs, and the shortest way of finding such a cure is to recognize the power and mercy of the All-Powerful One of Glory by means of the window of your weakness and impotence shown you behind the curtain of heedlessness, rent by your physical illness.
Yes, one who does not recognize God is afflicted with a world-full of tribulations. While the world of one who does recognize Him is full of light and spiritual happiness; he perceives these in accordance with the strength of his belief. The suffering resulting from insignificant physical illnesses is dissolved by the immaterial joy, healing, and pleasure that arise from this belief; the suffering melts away.
NINTH REMEDY
O sick person who recognizes his Creator! The pain, fear, and anxiety in illness is because it is sometimes leads to death. Since superficially and to the heedless view death is frightening, illnesses which may lead to it cause fear and apprehension.
So know firstly and believe firmly that the appointed hour is determined and does not change. Those weeping beside the grievously sick and those in perfect health have died, while the grievously sick have been cured and lived.
Secondly:
Death is not terrifying as it appears to be superficially. In many parts we have proved in completely certain and indubitable fashion that for believers death is to be discharged from the burdensome duties of life. And for them it is a rest from worship, which is the instruction and training in the arena of trial of this world. It is also a means of their rejoining friends and relations, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom have already departed for the next world. And it is a means of entering their true homeland and eternal abodes of happiness. It is also an invitation to the gardens of Paradise from the dungeon of this world. And it is the time to receive their wage from the munificence of the Most Compassionate Creator in return for service rendered to Him. Since the reality of death is this, it should not be regarded as terrifying, but on the contrary, as the introduction to mercy and happiness.
Moreover, some of the people of God fearing death has not been out of terror at it, but due to their hope of gaining more merit through performing more good works with the continuation of the duties of life.
Yes, for the people of belief, death is the door to Divine mercy, while for the people of misguidance, it is the pit of everlasting darkness.
Dear Joe POSNANSKI,
Next Text :
SPIRITUAL REMEDIES FOR THE SICK
(*This is written about 85 years ago)
[This treatise was written as a salve, a solace, and a prescription for the sick, and as a visit to the sick and a wish for their speedy recovery.]
It describes briefly Twenty-Five Remedies which may offer true consolation and a beneficial cure for the sick and those struck by disaster, who form one tenth of mankind.
FIRST REMEDY
Unhappy sick person! Do not be anxious, have patience! Your illness is not a malady for you; it is a sort of cure. For life departs like capital. If it yields no fruits, it is wasted. And if it passes in ease and heedlessness, it passes most swiftly. Illness makes that capital of yours yield huge profits. Moreover, it does not allow your life to pass quickly, it restrains it and lengthens it, so that it will depart after yielding its fruits. An indication that your life is lengthened through illness is the following much repeated proverb: “The times of calamity are long, the times of happiness, most short.”
SECOND REMEDY
O ill person who lacks patience! Be patient, indeed, offer thanks! Your illness may transform each of the minutes of your life into the equivalent of an hour’s worship.
For worship is of two kinds. One is positive like the well-known worship of supplication and the prayers. The other are negative forms of worship like illness and calamities. By means of these, those afflicted realize their impotence and weakness; they beseech their All-Compassionate Creator and take refuge in Him; they manifest worship which is sincere and without hyprocrisy.
Yes, there is a sound narration stating that a life passed in illness is counted as worship for the believer-on condition he does not complain about God. It is even established by sound narrations and by those who uncover the realities of creation that one minute’s illness of some who are completely patient and thankful becomes the equivalent of an hour’s worship and a minute’s illness of certain perfected men the equivalent of a day’s worship.
Thus, you should not complain about an illness which as though transforms one minute of your life into a thousand minutes and gains for you long life; you should rather offer thanks.
THIRD REMEDY
Impatient sick person! The fact that those who come to this world continuously depart, and the young grow old, and man perpetually revolves amid death and separation testifies that he did not come to this world to enjoy himself and receive pleasure.
Moreover, while man is the most perfect, the most elevated, of living beings and the best endowed in regard to members and faculties, through thinking of past pleasures and future pains, he passes only a grievous, troublesome life, lower than the animals.
This means that man did not come to this world in order to live in fine manner and pass his life in ease and pleasure. Rather, possessing vast capital, he came here to work and do trade for an eternal, everlasting life. The capital given to man is his lifetime. Had there been no illness, good health and well-being would have caused heedlessness, for they show the world to be pleasant and make the Hereafter forgotten. They do not want death and the grave to be thought of; they cause the capital of life to be wasted on trifles. Whereas illness suddenly opens the eyes, it says to the body: “You are not immortal. You have not been left to your own devices. You have a duty. Give up your pride, think of the One Who created you. Know that you will enter the grave, so prepare yourself for it!”
Thus, from this point of view, illness is an admonishing guide and advisor that never deceives. It should not be complained about in this respect, indeed, should be thanked for. And if it is not too severe, patience should be sought to endure it.
FOURTH REMEDY
Plaintive ill person! It is your right, not to complain, but to offer thanks and be patient. For your body and members and faculties are not your property. You did not make them, and you did not buy them from other workshops. That means they are the property of another. Their owner has disposal over his property as he wishes.
An extremely wealthy and skilful craftsman, for example, employs a poor man as a model in order to show off his fine art and valuable wealth. In return for a wage, for a brief hour he clothes the poor man in a bejewelled and most skilfully wrought garment. He works it on him and gives it various states. In order to display the extraordinary varieties of his art, he cuts the garment, alters it, and lengthens and shortens it. Does the poor man working for a wage have the right to say to that person: “You are causing me trouble, you are causing me distress with the form you have given it, making me bow down and stand up;” has he the right to tell him that he is spoiling his fine appearance by cutting and shortening the garment which makes him beautiful? Can he tell him he is being unkind and unfair?
O sick person! Just like in this comparison, in order to display the garment of your body with which He has clothed you, bejewelled as it is with luminous faculties like the eye, the ear, the reason, and the heart, and the embroideries of His Most Beautiful Names, the All-Glorious Maker makes you revolve amid numerous states and changes you in many situations. Like you learn of His Name of Provider through hunger, come to know also His Name of Healer through your illness. Since suffering and calamities show the decrees of some of His Names, within those flashes of wisdom and rays of mercy are many instances of good to be found.
If the veil of illness, which you fear and loathe, was to be lifted, behind it you would find many agreeable and beautiful meanings.
FIFTH REMEDY
O you who is afflicted with illness! Through experience I have formed the opinion at this time that sickness is a Divine bounty for some people, a gift of the Most Merciful One.
Although I am not worthy of it, for the past eight or nine years, a number of young people have come to me in connection with illness, seeking my prayers. I have noticed that each of those ill youths had begun to think of the Hereafter to a greater degree than other young people. He lacked the drunkenness of youth. He was saving himself to a degree from animal desires and heedlessness. So I would consider them and then warn them that their illnesses were a Divine bounty within the limits of their endurance.
I would say: “I am not opposed to this illness of yours, my brother. I don’t feel compassion and pity for you because of your illness, so that I should pray for you. Try to be patient until illness awakens you completely, and after it has performed its duty, God willing, the Compassionate Creator will restore you to health.”
I would also say to them: “Through the calamity of good health, some of your fellows become neglectful, give up the prayers, do not think of the grave, and forget God Almighty. Through the superficial pleasure of a brief hour’s worldly life, they shake and damage an unending, eternal life, and even destroy it. Due to illness, you see the grave, which you will in any event enter, and the dwellings of the Hereafter beyond it, and you act in accordance with them.
That means for you, illness is good health, while for some of your peers good health is a sickness…”