The Phillies are going back to the World Series. As much as I expected this to happen, it’s still a bit surprising -- looking back at the whole year -- that any team could repeat as NL Champions. But if there was a team that could do it, it’s this Phillies squad. One might expect Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins to carry a team back to the playoffs, but it was guys like Jayson Werth, Carlos Ruiz, Shane Victorino, Raul Ibanez, Pedro Feliz, Cliff Lee and, yes, the bullpen, that pushed this team into the World Series.

It’s a fun bunch to root for, that’s for sure. But as I tweeted yesterday, there’s a wonderful sense of accomplishment, yet an understanding that there’s more work to be done. Last year, just getting to the World Series led to unbridled joy, but this year it feels different. It feels like there’s more. Don’t get me wrong, this has been a great season, win or lose in the World Series. You can’t expect to win it all. But maybe this team does. They, at the very least, expected to be back here. It’s exciting, but we’ll save the tears for a parade.

We look at the potential opponent in the Yankees. We’ll have more on this in the next few days, but how important is it for the Yankees to close out the ALCS tonight and avoid a Game Six, or potentially a CC Sabathia appearance in Game Seven? The sooner the Yankees can close out the Angels, the sooner they can set up their team for the World Series.

And the sooner MLB can set up what looks to be a star-studded series, the better. Sure people wrote about LA vs. NY, but the fans in LA don’t even care about their team, so why should the rest of the country. New York and Philly are great sports towns, and great baseball towns. Sports matter more in these cities. And if you don’t know the names on these teams by now -- Howard, Utley, Rollins, Jeter, A-Rod, Posada -- you don’t like sports. This is a marquee event in sports.

This series could have Super Bowl like publicity. After the lowest-rated World Series ever, could the Phillies and Yankees play in the highest?

Tech Talk:

Robots are taking over the press box. Yes, per the New York Times, students at the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University have created a computer program that can write a game story...basically as good as any AP story. It’s pretty amazing, really. We wonder if this could become the norm; story by numbers, with the copy editors cleaning up the details and adding a few quotes or extra nuggets at the end.

Could computers eliminate the need for a beat writer? Or, as Nick suggests, could press row be filled with giant robots?

More seriously, could this be the future of general sports writing? Obviously the opinion pieces need a human touch, but could the nuts and bolts, pardon the pun, stories be done electronically? Could aggregation be done by computers and not bloggers? Are bloggers the future of the industry, or writing’s equivalent to the mini disc?

Speculation Station:

What was Steve Phillips thinking? If you suspect someone is crazy, they probably are. And if you aren’t sure if they are or are not crazy, they probably are. Actually, if they act sane, they will probably end up crazy at some point. Which is why you don’t ever sleep with people who could end up screwing you, albeit in a different sense than the three times Phillips was ‘screwed’ by Brooke Hundley. Hookers don’t stalk your kids on the internet. Hookers don’t show up at your house with letters to your wife. Well, dead hookers don’t, at least.

Seriously, I don’t get stepping out on your wife and kids a few times with an assistant. I’ll refrain from belaboring the ‘you’re a rich, handsome guy’ angle. Is it a power play?

And while we’re on the topic of power plays, what in the world happened at Deadspin yesterday? I reached out to Daulerio after the barrage of ESPN philandering posts with no reply. We’ll talk to him at some point. But I have to speculate that the missives shot at totally random and virtually unknown ESPNers, including just two people on the talent side of things (and low-level talent for ESPN’s standards) was

more puppet-master than anything else. Look what I can do to you if I want. I have all the information at my finger tips. It’s almost like Erik Kuselias, Katie Lacey and Jed Drake were collateral damage in this weird game of chicken Daulerio decided to play with the ESPN PR people.

For what? To freak out a few infidels in Bristol? Because the PR office didn’t tip him off  about the Phillips news after he inquired about it a few weeks back? But if you read what he wrote, he asked them if Phillips was going to be fired the next day. He wasn’t. Is it the PR office’s job to keep Deadspin in the loop indefinitely? I’d think that would be the opposite of their jobs. But something pissed off AJ to the point where he took the reader on this strange, not-really-all-that-wild ride through ESPN’s hamper. Except the only dirty laundry he posted was the equivalent of granny panties. Where’s the edible underpants?

Nobody cares about Erik Kuselias being a douche. Look at the guy...was that so hard to figure out on our own? And Katie Lacey, by his accounts, was a SVP who slept with another VP. So what? That happens everywhere, doesn’t it? What was the point of posting that? Was anything illegal? Was there news merit to that story?

It’ll be interesting to see what happens today. Will Daulerio start to go after those he’s protected for years because they funnel him insider information? Is anyone safe? Was that the point of all of this?

All in the name of page views, I suppose, even if the pages being viewed aren’t really all that compelling. Daulerio is a really smart guy. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.  There’s got to be more to this, right?

Josh Zerkle on tomorrow’s show to talk about Blogs with Balls, and I’m sure a lot more. Thanks for listening.