FanHouse Benfranciscogiants

The playoffs are almost over and the stage is set for the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies to face the dreadnought New York Yankees ... or the Los Angeles Angels Angels, pending a dead Christopher Lloyd-style miracle.

The bottom line is this: the World Series is like one block to our left, and we're going to have to start buckling down and making some declarative statements. Before we do that, though, today's Dugout features some pre-ALCS decision arguing and some sad realities.

The image to the right is of White Sox slugger Carlos Quentin's leg breaking off at the foot and spraying the clubhouse with his highly-pressurized, inner goos.

The word around orthopedic circles is that Quentin may need to wear special, theraputic shoes to correct leg-to-footal inaccuracies and keep him off the disabled list. You can't hear "guy needs to wear special shoes" and go to any other joke, so do not expect me to make that here. Instead, what follows is an empassioned discussion about gel inserts, and how they make the bottom of your feet feel great but squish the top of your foot into the top of your shoe.

This morning's Dugout is after the jump.

Here is everything you need to know about Minnesota: they have the biggest mall on Earth, it is negative thirty-eight degrees in the middle of July, nobody would ever want to go there, and their baseball team is next up for the AL Central leg of our The Dugout Spring Training Event.

We started it off yesterday with the Detroit Tigers, so give that a read if you haven't yet. And check back tomorrow when we cover the Royals and the White Sox, and it's all really biased because I am an Indians fan, and the closest I will come to "winning" is insulting people anonymously on the Internet.

Today's Dugout is after the jump.