This World Series might be galling to Dodgers fans. The National League is represented by the Philadelphia Phillies, a team that won 24 fewer games than the Dodgers. The Phillies are a third-place team that grabbed something that did not exist last year: the 12th and final spot in the postseason.
"I don't look it as a third-place team being in," union chief Tony Clark said Friday. "I look at it as two of the teams playing the best baseball that made the playoffs are playing in the World Series."
If the Phillies win the World Series, their 87 regular-season victories would not represent the low for a full-season champion. The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won 83 games, and then won the World Series.
