PHILADELPHIA – Based on expectations and the first two games, this World Series should be a good one and a close one. The Phillies and the Yankees appear to be two closely matched teams that could very likely win as many games against each other as they would lose.

If the Series should wind up at three wins each after six games, then, it would seem to be unfair to have the seventh game determine the winner of the Series, especially since one team, the Yankees, would have homefield advantage, courtesy of Commissioner Bud Selig and Fox TV.

You know about that gimmick, right?

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If there is an epidemic of swine flu, Mariano Rivera will not get it. If everyone in the New York Yankees’ clubhouse gets chicken pox, Rivera will not get it. Rivera is immune from bad things.

There has been an outbreak of blown saves in this post-season, but Rivera has not caught the closers’ disease. Jonathan Papelbon caught it. So did Joe Nathan. It struck Huston Street, Ryan Franklin, Jonathan Broxton and Brian Fuentes, too. Fernando Rodney caught it one game before the post-season began, in the playoff between Minnesota and Detroit for the American League Central title.

Rivera, however, has avoided the pitching plague …

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When Jayson Werth was a young boy, he was a skinny kid and his family named him Stick. They even put the name on a license plate on his toy truck. It wasn’t original.

“I think I caught that off Stick Michael,” Dennis Werth related. “That came to mind. Stick Michael was a big influence in my career.”

Stick is Gene Michael, the Yankees’ senior vice president and special adviser, who also has served the organization as general manager, manager, coach and minor league manager, all of that after he played for the Yankees.

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