Top-10 fall baseball story lines

Top-10 Story Lines as MLB heads towards the Postseason

10. Yankee Stadium hosts its final baseball game in September (this Sunday). The Yankees failure to clinch a 14th consecutive berth means no playoffs for the most famous postseason venue in all of sports, 100 world series games in all.

9. Next year's free agents. Will Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia, Manny Ramirez or Pat Burrell to name a few have that Carlos Beltran-esque post-season that takes them from the 100 to the 200 million dollar range?

8. Do more fans show up at the Trop when postseason play begins? I'm sure they do, but why now? The Rays have been playing well since May and are a young, exciting team. They are 19-1 when playing in front of more than 30,000 fans this year in St. Pete. Now that bodes well for October.

7. Does the American League take home the trophy home again? Despite blips to the AL's dominance in South Beach, St. Louis and the desert the senior circuit is once again inferior to the AL and won't have home field either thanks to another defeat in the midsummer classic.

6. The wild cards. Wild card teams have wreaked havoc on the playoffs this decade especially in a short best-of-5 divisional series format. Could either Tampa Bay or Boston in the AL and anyone from the New York/Philadelphia/Milwaukee/Houston logjam emerge as the final entry and find its way into late October hardball? I say yes.

5. The Dodgers. With the star power of Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez the team has been hot since August and looks destined for the divisional round. Can they make it out? Does Torre really deserve the credit if they win 84 games and get bounced in the first round? Should be a very interesting offseason no matter how they finish for Ned Coletti, Frank McCourt and the blue crew.

4. The races. Will the Mets collapse again? What will the Mets look like next spring if they do? Can the Rays hold off the Red Sox? Does the NL West winner get more than 85 wins? Can the Twins make it back to the playoffs? Who gets the best record in the AL and secures that home field?

3. The hardware. Who will take home the awards from the regular season? Ryan Howard has hit 45 home runs for the 3rd year in a row and despite his paltry .250 average and 200 strikeouts his impact has been remarkable over the last 6 weeks. If the Indians finish around .500 doesnt Cliff Lee deserve MVP consideration? If A-Rod can win it for the last place Rangers then what about Lee? Cleveland loses 100 games without him.

2. The NL Central. The Brewers fired their manager and the Astros have been in a post-Ike tailspin. The Brew-Crew hasn't been to the playoffs in my lifetime and the Astros were on fire until a hurricane tore up Houston and their home series against the Cubs. There are much more important things than baseball but it looks as though the storm is taking its toll on the team as well.

1. The Cubbies. It's been a century since the North-siders captured baseball's biggest crown by beating Ty Cobb and the Tigers in the 1908 fall classic. The "lovable losers" are in ownership flux but have been one of the game's biggest spenders the last few offseasons and are knocking on the doorstep. The scene in Chicago following a Cubs championship could make a European soccer celebration look tame by comparison.