Major League Baseball likes to call its World Series the ``Fall Classic,'' one of those apple-pie appellations evocative of autumn leaves in a Norman Rockwell painting -- except that the phrase has mostly become a misnomer.

The Series has come to rarely present a bona fide ``Classic,'' only reaching the full, winner-take-all seventh game four times in the past 22 years, and not since 2002.

Even the ``Fall'' part is stretching it now that the longest season reaches November and fans dress for ballgames as if girding for winter Sundays at Lambeau Field.

Now, though, in Yankees-Phillies, an actual Fall Classic teases us.

Philadelphia is one victory, Wednesday night in New York, from gifting us with a rare seventh game. I root unabashedly for that, but it goes beyond a lifelong Red Sox fan's instinct to hope against all things Yankee. Well, OK, you got me. It's mostly that.

But it's also that I just don't want this World Series to end. It has been compelling enough, with enough drama, to make the full possibility of games seem only right.

Baseball continues to be better than other sports at certain things as it moves to survive its steroid era at least partly still clinging to its America's Pastime heritage. One of those things is Opening Day. Baseball is the only sport where the capital letters and red, white and blue bunting seem right. Another is Game 7s. You work since February and nine months later it comes down to maybe one pitch -- no other sport matches that.

STRONG TV RATINGS

This has all of the elements of a big World Series demanding seven games; it is why TV ratings have been strong, bucking an industry trend.

These are the two best teams playing the best. No pretenders. No heartwarming lil' overachievers. You can have David with his fabled slingshot; give me two Goliaths going at it. Put it this way: When the defending World Series champion is the decided underdog, you have officially entered a Cinderella-free zone.

Only three other times in World Series history (that's since 1903), has a defending champ (Phillies) faced an opponent that won at least 100 games during the season (Yankees). Before this, it happened only in 1999, 1974 and 1962.

These are major markets, important cities, great sports towns, rabid fans.

This is the World Series in which Chase Utley with five home runs already has tied the Series record set by ``Mr. October'' himself, Reggie Jackson, in 1977.

This is the World Series when Miami's Alex Rodriguez finally took a bat to his rep for lousy postseasons, with six playoff homers and club-record 18 RBI. So far.

(Baseball could use a seven-game ``Classic'' to further distance itself from the steroid stink, and A-Rod stands as a ready symbol of the moving on. In the spring, the steroids revelation that enveloped him was all anyone talked about. In October and into November, it's his home runs making news, shame overrun by accomplishment.)

This is the World Series when Johnny Damon stole two bases on one pitch.

This is the World Series when CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee, Cy Young winners on this stage for the first time, could debate for days over who's happier to be an ex-Indian.

TURMOIL AT WORK

You want a sprinkle of controversy? Got you covered there, too.

In New York, some are calling for the benching of Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira and his .105 Series average.

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