The San Francisco Davids have slain the Philistine (pronounced "Phillies team") #Giants

The San Francisco Giants are going to the World Series

It will be a finale without the marquee teams, and the eventual world champs will be an underdog team with a feel-good story, no matter which side prevails.

Tonight's game could not have been any closer or any more nerve-wracking. The Phillies made it exciting by getting two guys on base with one out in the eighth, then getting two more on base for their big man with two down in the ninth. Then, to create even more nail-biting, Mr. Howard took the count to 3-2 and then fouled one off, with palpable tension hanging like a San Francisco fog over every single pitch. If Howard could have driven the ball in that at-bat, especially on the 3-2 count with the runners going, the Phillies could have won the game right there, thus restoring them as favorites to win the series.

The only part of the game that disappointed me was Ryan Howard taking a called third strike. I want to see a game and a series like that end on a ball put into play, or at least on a big swinging strike, not on an ump's arbitrary decision whether to raise his hand. With everything hanging on that call, there must have been millions of hearts lifted and millions more crushed to see the ump's arm go up for a strike.

C'mon Howard, swing that big bat!

Congrats are in order to San Francisco for what they accomplished this year, irrespective of what happens in the World Series. They came into the season with a punchless offense, while the Phillies managed to add Halladay, then Oswalt, to a team which had already been good enough to win the last two NL pennants. They are arguably the the best team of this millennium. The Giants, despite their name, seemed more like the biblical David than the Philistine (pronounced "Phillies team") giant he opposed.

Exactly halfway through their season, a milestone which happened to fall exactly on the fourth of July, the Giants were 41-40, thus mired in fourth place in their own division. But the kiddie corps of Bumgarner and Posey came up in mid-season, then Lincecum sprang back to life, and the team improved to 51-30 in the second half. Of course that still wasn't as good as the mighty Phillies, who managed to go 54-27 in the same period, but San Francisco ultimately had just enough stones in the slingshot to slay the mighty Goliath.