L.A.'s getting hot at just the right time, and no, I'm not talking about the 90+ degree weather in early October.  You know what, if the Dodgers keep winning, I'll vow to stop complaining about the heatwave and how it's affecting my allergies.  Done.  No more complaining.  How can I complain when I've been walking around smiling for no other reason than Dodgers baseball?  I went out with some friends this past weekend after we clinched and they were asking me after about 20 straight minutes of my awkwardly smiling and shaking my head what I was doing.  I had no other answer than, "I just can't believe it.  20 years.  I'm just so happy."  I was wearing my Dodgers hat out and I can't tell you how many friends and strangers alike were coming up to me to give high-fives, exchange stories, or do a round.  It was amazing.  Everybody felt exactly the same way I did.  That's part of the beauty of sports.  People who would have never had another reason to come together are talking, about games they've been to, games they're going to, what they expect in the next round, whatever.  I must have talked to at least 20 different people and all of us were in the same frame of mind.  Just happy.  It's kind of funny to think that a group of guys playing baseball can bring this kind of joy to an entire city full of people that they'll never meet, but I'm not complaining.  Walking around with a smile for days at a time doesn't happen all that often.  I'll take it when I can get it.

Moving away from the abstract and toward the slightly less abstract, the Dodgers were facing something against the Cubs that proved abundantly beneficial, the Woe Is Me factor.  The second anything remotely bad happened, every Chicago Cubs fan went into doomsday mode.  The Woe Is Me card was played, and they simply imploded.  My little sister said that watching the Cubs was like watching the Angels in the Outfield team before the angels got there to help out.  No matter how you look at it, the second James Loney hit that grand slam in Game 1, the series was over.  Every Cubs fan thought, "here we go again" and the Woe Is Me mentality set in.  They knew they were going to lose.  It was just a matter of time and they started feeling sorry for themselves.  Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Moreover, the Cubs players didn't have the types of personalities to take themselves out of the hole that the fans were digging.  Looking forward to the Philadelphia series, Philly is another city that can fall victim to the Woe Is Me factor.  For Philly it's a city-wide syndrome that reaches out to all of the local sports, but the effects nowhere near as prevalent as the Cubs' curse.  The question will be, what will happen to the Phillies at the first sign of trouble?  Will they implode like the Cubs?  Will their fans turn on them early the way Cubs fans did?  How will the players handle it?  Will they revert back to the form they showed in the Rockies series last year?  I don't know.  That never came up against the Brewers.  Brad Lidge struggled a bit in Game 1 but the Phillies were never down in front of their home crowd in a way that would trigger doomsday thoughts.  They drilled C.C. in Game 2 and cruised in Game 4.  The Dodgers have yet to face any adversity either, but this group of Dodgers doesn't have a history of collapsing, namely because this group of Dodgers has never existed.  No Dodgers fan would associate this 2008 squad with anything we've seen.  Never before have we had a trump card like Manny.  Our team could be getting 1-hit, down 2-0 in the bottom of the ninth, but if Manny was due up third, we'd think, "we've got a chance."  Any other year and it would be game over.  It's a new year for us, not necessarily for Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard and co.

Most people would agree that the Cubs had more talent than do the Phillies, but the Phillies might make up for it in their demeanor.  Ryan Howard may strike out a lot, but he's an affable guy who can hit one out of the park at a moment's notice.  I'd be willing to concede that the Phillies as a whole are more mentally tough than are the likes of Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, and the list could go on and on.  However, I will say that all bets are off if Manny Ramirez goes Albert Pujols and crushes a homer against Brad Lidge late. 

As a Dodgers fan I am quietly both optimistic and apprehensive.  I know that's about as straddling the fence as you can get, but that's how I'm feeling.  This is the best Dodgers team that we've fielded in two decades and the team's spirits are as high as I've ever seen.  They look in the dugout and see Joe Torre and they have a guy like Manny to fall back on when things go bad.  There's no possibility of a doomsday mindset with those two guys in town.  I could see Philly getting hot and riding a blazing Cole Hamels, but I could also see the Dodgers' bats continuing to produce without a drop off in our starting pitching performance.  Like I said, I'm quietly optimistic and apprehensive.  Apprehensive because it's the Dodgers and we have our own Woe Is Me syndrome.  Quietly optimistic because we have Manny and this looks nothing like any of the Dodgers teams in the past 20 years.  The quietly optimistic part of me has gotten a lot louder in the last week.  Hopefully it's screaming by the time I'm at Dodger Stadium for Game 4.

Note:  My next column will be strictly about the Presidential race.  I apologize to the sports enthusiasts out there.  I promise it's only a one column retreat from sports.  The NFL Power Rankings will be out later this week along with my weekly picks.