Strange things happen on Friday the 13th.

I’ve seen movies about it.

When the majority of elite teams tip off Friday night in college hoops, the likelihood of a big upset looms large. (And yes, I’m basing all of this on numerology.)

Washington, the 13th ranked team in the country, plays late in the evening on Friday at home in Spokane. Usually, the top teams schedule a pair of powder puff teams to help them easy back into the grind of conference play that leads up to the NCAA Tournament.

The Huskies went a different way on a day when the odds won’t be in their favor. The Wright State Raiders, a member of the ultra-competitive Horizon League, will invade Bank of America Arena on Friday night and hope to deplete Washington’s savings account.

Starting a fine backcourt of Isiah Thomas and Justin Dentmond, the Huskies are a legitimate threat to make it to Lucas Oil Stadium for the Final Four in April. But they won’t reach that level in the first game of the season.

Wright State is obviously outmatched in this game on Friday night.

Then again, it is Friday the 13th for the number 13 team in the country.

In a World Series where the only consistent thing remains the time of game (all have been within a two minute window hovering between 3:25-3:27), the anticipation should reach a crescendo on Wednesday night in New York City -unless we have a 7th game for the first time since the Angels beat the Giants in ’02.

When the Phillies outlasted a Yankee team hell-bent on scoring an obscene amount of runs later in the game on Monday night, Philadelphia did more than stay in the chase for the championship.

They have a legitimate shot to win the World Series. Seriously.

Philadelphia will send Pedro Martinez, of all people, to the mound in the big ballpark to face his ultimate nemesis. Martinez will have to last at least six innings to give his club a chance to win the game – and to give his bullpen a rest. Lacking a true closer than can effectively record outs and not give up runs, Philadelphia may want to enlist Kyra Sedgwick before the series moves back to New York. She seems pretty good at her job.

Andy Pettitte will start for the Yankees in a position that can place him in Monument Park. A lifelong winner for the Yankees and Astros, Pettitte still has the stuff to dazzle the jaded fans in the Bronx. Undefeated in the postseason this year, Pettitte could notch the most important victory of the his career on Wednesday, which would bring the Yankees their 28th World Series title.

Experts and observers love to make predictions for sporting events. I consider myself more of the latter than the former, although I have seen every at-bat of this World Series. That being said, I have absolutely no clue what will happen on Wednesday night in “The House That Greed Bought.”

I just know it will take about three hours and twenty-five minutes to play ball. The exact amount of words used in this column.

Spooky.

If you look at a box score long enough, you’ll start to see things that don’t exist. 

 Exhibit A: The 2009 World Series.

Checking out the composite box score of the first four games of the series, you’d think the Phillies are at least tied with the Yankees. They have more homers, have struck out less and have more walks after the four games of the World Series.

All of this is terrific for the Fightin’ Phils.

And all of it is meaningless.

Philadelphia blew a chance to even the series on Sunday night in a wild 9th inning defensive breakdown that leaves New York on the verge of another World Championship.

You don’t have to be a graduate of the Bill James school of advanced baseball-ology to understand the Phillies problem: they can’t hit with runners on base. Philadelphia checks into game five of the Series only driving in 8 runners in scoring position in 31 tries. That won’t put a ring on even Beyonce’s finger. Chase Utley, who’s delivered three memorable blasts off all-world pitcher CC Sabathia, can’t come through in the clutch. All of Utley’s homers were solo shots and he’s only knocked in one run with runners on base.

In the other dugout, a man who didn’t start at least two of the games in the Series looks like he may walk away with the Most Valuable Player award. Hideki Matsui leads the Yankees in batting average and hit an important pinch-hit in Saturday’s Game 3 to sew up a New York win. In a Series where Derek Jeter has stuck out six times and Alex Rodriguez has fanned seven times at the plate, it’s hard to imagine that New York even leads the World Series.

One more spooky coincidence that makes even an ardent baseball observer giggle with glee: the last three games of the World Series had the exact same time of game after nine innings. That is to say, games two through four of the Series were each played in three hours and twenty five minutes. Exactly.

The Bowl Championship Series must be run by a group of 14-year-old girls who list slushies and Aunt Anne’s pretzels as their reason for living one week and then develop an eye shadow fetish a week later.

While wonderfully naive, they are quite fickle. There’s no big picture for the majority of teenagers and they change their collective minds as quickly as an instant message.

On second thought, I take that back. A group of teenage girls could probably get it right.

 In the current BCS standings, a pair of undefeated teams won by at least 30 points and fell three spots in the weekly BCS standings.

And there’s no outrage. No shock. No playoff talk.

Why would Boise State and Cincinnati drop do much after convincing wins?

The only answer: check out who moved up in the standings. The University of Southern California checks in at number 5 in the current BCS release. They beat a mediocre Oregon State team at home on Saturday evening by six points. They’ve lost a game to one of the worst teams in the Pacific-10 Conference. They also face a suddenly strong Oregon team on Halloween.

The bias shown in favor of the power conferences in collegiate athletics isn’t new.

It also isn’t fair.

Does USC deserve to be in the top 5 in the BCS at the midway point of the season? No.

They have a loss. Simple as that.

Hopefully, in the next six weeks or so, we can figure out who are the best teams in college football. Until then, I think I’ll eat a Fun Dip.

Just after 1:00 AM on Sunday morning, Maicer Izturis made the biggest mistake of his life.

Izturis didn’t pick up a DUI, get into a fight he couldn’t win or cheat on a spouse. During a driving rainstorm at the new Yankee Stadium in the second game of the American League Championship Series, Izturis got in trouble.

He made an error.

And it will cost his team a shot at the World Series.

For those of you who couldn’t make it until 1 in the morning, here’s what happened in the 13th inning. Jerry Harriston Jr. (of all people) led off the inning with a pinch-hit single. Brett Gardner bunted Harriston over to second base, which made the Angels intentionally walk Robinson Cano.

On a Melky Cabrera ground ball to second base, Izturis made the worst fielders choice in the history of the postseason. Instead of recording a sure out at first base, Izturis threw it to Erick Aybar who was covering second base.

No out was recorded as Harriston chugged home to give the Yankees a 2-0 series lead.

Moments like this usually cripple a quality ballclub because they mean so much in the grand picture. If Los Angeles somehow ties the series up, they have a shot to win the series at home. Now, they must win at least two games at home to stay in the ALCS.

The first pitch for game three happens in about an hour.

In the city of Angels, fans of L.A. need to unleash the rally monkey.

If you haven’t a chance to watch the Philadelphia Phillies in baseball’s postseason, don’t even worry about catching the game in the first eight innings.

It doesn’t get good until the 9^th.

In a pivotal game that saw the winning pitching blowing a late-inning lead, Philadelphia beat the Colorado Rockies in a tight four game series to win its National League Division Series on Monday night.

The Phillies have treated their fans to three consecutive games that would give bandwagon fans a good reason to quit. It takes a true baseball fan to put up with four hours of equal parts anguish and delight the Phillies deliver on a nightly basis in the postseason.

Tied at a game a piece in the NLDS, Philadelphia waited until the 9^th inning in Game 3 on Sunday to take command. Slugger Ryan Howard lived up to his clutch legend by driving a sacrifice fly to tally the go-ahead run. Struggling closer Brad Lidge, whose ERA looks like the price of an Extra Value Meal, walked two Rockies in the 9^th and still ended up with the save.

Monday’s game was borderline ridiculous.

Clinging to a 2-1 lead in the 8^th inning, shaky reliever Ryan Madson gave up three runs and put his club in a 4-2 hole with only three out to play with at Coors Field.

I guess the Phillies really like challenges. Down to their final strike, Howard tied the game on a double that looked like a homer off the bat. Jayson Werth followed with a base hit. And just like that, the Philadelphia Phillies showed what a playoff tested baseball team does best.

They never quit.

On the other side of cavernous Coors Field, Houston Street was left wondering why this became the worst night of his life. Having the best year of his short professional career with 35 saves a respectable ERA of 3.06 in the regular season, Street ran into a pair of potholes against the Phils. He fooled around with Philadelphia’s power hitters in Games 3 and 4 and collected a pair of losses to show for his shoddy work. Notching two quick outs in the deciding game on Monday, Street started to pick at corners of the plate and needed to make power pitches to get himself out of a hole. He couldn’t even make it out of the 9^th and finished a very short postseason with an ERA over 13.

Meanwhile, in the winning clubhouse, Brad Lidge celebrated another series win. He’ll say it’s a team game (and it is) and that the Phillies have a long way to go (they do). But on a brisk night in Colorado, Lidge did what many thought he couldn’t do anymore. He got the final out in the 9^th inning to clinch a spot in the League Championship Series.

Just like he did in Game 3.

Think Harry may be pulling some strings in the pristine press box in the sky?

For the next month, the best tournament to find a champion takes place in eight baseball stadiums. It’s the only game that consistently relies on a team concept to win a title. In football, the best player almost always involves himself in the decisive play. In basketball, the clutch shooter either makes or misses the definitive shot. In hockey, it usually comes down to the goalie and his wiliness to make a clutch save.

It’s not the same in baseball.

The 8th place hitter of the lineup, a September call-up with a lifetime batting average hovering around the Mendoza line, can become a legend in one at-bat.

Think I’m kidding?

Track down Francisco Cabrera and ask him how he feels in October.

Even with October magic happening every season, the weight of the World Series seems to lose its luster as we enter a world dominated by the National Football League. Regardless of the matchups, I guarantee you that the Sunday Night Football game that pits a 4-0 team against an 0-4 team will double the rating of the divisional series game that airs on TBS. Even though the cable home of baseball’s postseason does an admirable job of covering the past time, the problem of pitching a quality product to basic cable doesn’t give an aura of importance to the game. It treats the opening round of the playoffs as a sorbet, when it should be promoted as the main course.

For what it’s worth, here are my predictions for the opening round of 2009 baseball playoffs:

*Detroit Tigers over N.Y. Yankees in 4 games. (If Minnesota wins the tiebreaker, I like the Yankees to beat the Twins in 4 games.)

*Los Angeles Angels over Boston Red Sox in 3 games

*Los Angeles Dodgers over St. Louis Cardinals in 5 games.

*Colorado Rockies over Philadelphia Phillies in 4 games.

It still stings two and a half months later.

You can see it on his face as he tells you the story. The always polite man from Kansas wrinkles his brow when he remembers that weekend in July.

He’s told this tale more than once and will tell it again everywhere he goes for the rest of his life.

Tom Watson, at 59 years of age, just completed a picture perfect tee shot on the 72^nd hole at Turnberry. Everything seemed final. Watson would become the oldest major winner in professional golf history at a course where he picked up an Open title in 1977.

Except he finished in second place.

“When I saw the ball [in the air] on my second shot,” Watson said Wednesday at a press conference before the Senior Players Championship. “It reminded me of ’77.”

In that tournament, famously dubbed “The Duel In The Sun,” Watson beat out Jack Nicklaus to win the Claret Jug. He wasn’t as lucky this time at Turnberry.

Watson said he knew something was up when he heard the crowd, pulling for him all weekend long, gasped after the ball rolled off the green. When an entire United Kingdom groans in unison, it’s never a good sign for a living legend.

Watson remembers everything about the 18^th hole at Turnberry on that Sunday. The distances to the front of the green, to the pin and why he chose to hit an 8-iron instead of a 9-iron. “I thought it was the right choice,” he simply put it. Nearly three months later, he still thinks he should have hit the 8.

And yes, he still remembers the putt for par.

“It was an awful putt. It stunk.”

Watson kept saying that he just wanted a shot to win the championship. In the minds of many who woke up early to see a legend peak with the best in the world, the real winner of the 2009 Open Championship was Tom Watson.

Don’t let facts get in the way of a truly remarkable story.

At the end of September in college football, the top 20 teams in the country usually have nicknames like Crimson Tide, Trojans and Gators that populate both the Associated Press and USA Today polls.

It’s a little different in 2009. Teams with nicknames like Cougars (Houston, not BYU), Horned Frogs, Bearcats and Broncos prove they can handle the big time Bowl Championship Series teams and stick around in the race for the National Championship.

What an unusual September in college football. In a sport that balks at a playoff system, it’s becoming increasing difficult to actually figure out who deserves to wear the crown of the best five teams in the country.

Is Florida, with Heisman trophy winner and a team full of players with symptoms that appear like swine flu for the past few weeks, as unbeatable as the preseason publications proclaimed? Taking a 4-0 record out of September with two conference wins and zero quality victories, the Gators still have a large question mark as they wait for their night game against LSU?

Does number two Texas deserve a first place vote? Looking shaky in a 10 point win against Texas Tech a few weeks ago, the Longhorns must establish an identity on offense. Although the majority of the statistics won’t say so, Colt McCoy doesn’t look like the calm, cool quarterback last year that put the ‘Horns in the BCS discussion for the majority of the season. A favorite to make the National Championship Game in January, Texas must pass Oklahoma if they wish to end up in Pasadena.

Why does Alabama look like the best college football team on paper? Enjoying a soft SEC schedule in ’09, Alabama looks like the contender many of us thought they were last season. Facing a pair of road games in football’s best conference to kick off October, ‘Bama could roll into the Championship Game in January easily…especially if Florida doesn’t appear in the SEC Championship Game.

And then there’s Boise State, a team most people remember from the miraculous upset in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. Don’t look at this team as a bunch of trick-shot artists who got lucky to get in the top five. The Broncos beat a very good Oregon team in their first game of the season and look like a lock to finish the regular season without a loss. But does that make them a title contender?

If USC finishes with just one loss and Boise State goes undefeated, what school would land in the BCS Championship Game? Let’s just say that Tommy Trojan will fight on over a smaller program, or as Pat Hill might say, the powers that be in the NCAA would pick a big name school anytime, any place, anywhere.

It felt like a playoff game wherever you where on Sunday, didn’t it?

It sure did in the WBAL newsroom.

In between producers gathering information for stories and reporters preparing for their show, you could hear audible moans, groans, cheers and old fashioned hollering.

Sunday was a blood game – a game that decided the best team in football’s finest conference – and the class of the American Football Conference lives in Baltimore.

This means very little after the second week of the season, but then again you have to start somewhere.

While the Chargers coaching staff (and their fans) will second guess Norv Turner’s peculiar call to run Darren Sproles up the middle to gain two yards on a 4^th down situation, San Diego can only blame themselves for not taking advantage of red zone opportunities.

The Chargers kicked 4 field goals from inside 30 yards.

Exchange two of those for touchdowns and the home team walks away a winner.

Baltimore needs to fix its secondary issues more than Gov. Mark Sanford needs to attend weekly therapy sessions. The problems of the Ravens defense, and there are many, are fully exposed. You can beat this team through the air.

The trap game for Baltimore is set for this Sunday against Cleveland.