THE SURVIVOR OF BASEBALL’S HOT RIVALRY, BRAVES-PHILLIES, COULD WIN IT ALL

Taylor Swift won’t show up, but she might have more fun watching Ronald Acuna Jr. and a Philadelphia cast charged by Bryce Harper, who have given baseball a wild ride as Yankees-Red Sox fade away

     A World Series begins three weeks from tonight, a hollow NFL date, meaning baseball is avoiding The Sports Colossus and hopes Tay Tay becomes an Atlanta Braves fan. That won’t happen, considering she gained 29.4 million viewers last weekend and would gain about one-third that digit.

     So, why don’t we get started now? Is it possible a championship will be staged in the division round of the National League postseason? The Braves have Ronald Acuna Jr., not necessarily a draw for Taylor Swift but a magnificent player for all times, and finished establishing the greatest offensive numbers ever: the highest slugging percentage while tying a major-league record with 307 home runs. And the Philadelphia Phillies have set new standards with the most inebriated chumps in the stands — actually, they’re good-hearted souls, but they tend to make first-inning noise like the final minute of a close Super Bowl.

     “I know I yelled at the dugout and couldn’t really hear myself,” said Bryson Stott, whose grand slam blew out Miami. “Any time we get to play here, you know it’s gong to be loud from the first pitch. I wouldn’t want to play anywhere else. It’s a phenomenal time every time we take the field here in the postseason.”     

     The question is whether the Phillies, in a best-of-five stampede that includes only two games at Citizens Bank Park, can absorb the mob blasts and once again send home the historic Braves. It happened last season, when they came within two games of winning the Series. And their circuitous way of meandering through a regular season turns up a town nearly 50 years since the first Rocky movie.

     “J.T., how many more playoff wins?” manager Rob Thomson said.

     “Thirteen,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto, who now can answer 11.

     This is how they make their fortunes, in a city where spend-happy owner John Middleton posted a sign between the clubhouse hallway and the dugout: MAKE MORE HISTORY. In a season when the Mets, Yankees and Padres failed to attain lavish investments, he is the achiever who spends the most, fifth in the sport. Fans are smart enough to dismiss April through September as long as the Phillies play well. They are, at a time when Atlanta has starting pitching issues beyond Game 1 rider Spencer Strider, and to hear the boys, they don’t care if the Braves finished 104-58 when they could be out in a few days.

     “It’s gonna be a war,” third baseman Alec Bohm said. “I mean, it’s a war, man.”

     “We’re starting over,” Realmuto said. “It’s a brand new series. They had an incredible year this year. But we all know we have confidence in this clubhouse, and I think last year’s series helped that.”

     Said last year’s Mr. October, Bryce Harper: “Atlanta’s really good. They’re one of the best teams in baseball. They hit 300 homers this year. That’s incredible. It’s going to be an electric series. We can’t wait.”

     Nor can we.

     The Braves and Phillies have baseball’s crackling rivalry, as the Yankees and Red Sox have tossed away October. When the sport has newfangled ballclubs — Baltimore, Texas, Minnesota and Arizona — it’s urgent to have sizzling mechanics early in the playoffs. The Dodgers get a break with the Diamondbacks. The Braves instantly are facing their about-face, even with Acuna, the first man to hit at least 40 homers and steal 70 bases, and Matt Olson, who quietly hit 54 homers.

     “It’s pretty incredible so many players in the big leagues and my name is alone,” Acuna said through an interpreter.

     “He may be blazing trails,” said Braves manager Brian Snitker, “that no one will go to again.”

     When the Braves hit one homer or none, they are 35-35. When they hit a second, they’re 61-18.  “Sometimes, I get a little nervous before the game,” Strider said. “Then I look at our lineup and I feel a lot better.”

     Oddly, Strider has some of the best pitching stuff but would rather fans remain home. Am I kidding? “Absolutely, there should be no fans, 2020 season, no fans,” he said of his pandemic-driven take. “Get rid of the fans, it’s too loud. It’s too loud, everybody be quiet. We don’t need cheering, we know you’re watching. I don’t need the fans. You stay out the stadium, I mean, back it up. … Just try and be quiet.”

     Before he knows it, he could be home for the winter. It shouldn’t shock anyone if the winner beats the Dodgers and returns to the Series, which the Braves won in 2021. Nor should it surprise folks if the winner beats the American League team.  All you need to know is how the Astros and Phillies went nine innings, in Game 5 of last year’s Fall Classic, in a sloggy fray that lasted three hours and 57 minutes.

     Swift and her Swifties still won’t show up. But if you’re waiting for the World Series? Try tomorrow and watch backwards.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.