All year I look forward to October. The playoffs. The World Series. Baseball's climax. The best sport at its best. For my entire life I've been spared the unavoidable New York is the center of the universe nonsense of a Subway Series. For the most part, when the Mets have been good the Yankees have stunk and vice versa. It's been fine. Thank you.

We had a scare last year, but the good old Braves (message from Atlanta: It's the golden age now, pal) came through and knocked the Mets out in the League Championship Series. This year it looked like we were in the clear. The Yankees stumbled into the postseason looking entirely beatable, while the Mets, a better team, had to get past the red-hot San Francisco Giants just to get a chance at the Cardinals or Braves, both of whom had better records than New York.

Everything looked fine when both the Yanks and Mets lost their opening games, but the Mets bounced the Giants by winning three straight and the Yanks somehow defibrillated and beat the Oakland A's -- scuttling, by the way, a potential Giants-A's "Bay Bridge Series" that, make no mistake, would have been just as insufferable as a Subway Series, but only in the Bay Area. The local blats don't double as "national" newspapers here. The TV networks don't live here.

Anyway, no problem. Still only a one in four chance that the World Series would be all Big Apple, all the worm-infested time. We could have New York-Seattle, New York-St. Louis, Seattle-St. Louis.

But with their loss Monday night the Cardinals have failed, and so far the Mariners have likewise been unable to do what they must for the benefit of the rest of us, the 285 million of us who live in the United States and Canada but not in metropolitan New York: Beat the damn Gothams, save us from two weeks of Subway self-absorption.

Save us from 14 days of man on the street interviews. Some yutz in a leather coat: "Yo, if it ain't New Yawk pizza, it ain't pizza! Fughettabahtit heh-hey!" Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York." Hot dog vendors. Hansom cabs. Statue of Liberty. Liza Minnelli singing "New York, New York." Donald Trump. Rudy Giuliani. Hillary Clinton singing "New York, New York." TV people droning on about how great it is to have the Series in New York. That's what people want to see, they'll say, rubbing their little claws together.

Even if we can't avoid a Subway Series -- and, oh, you Seattle Mariners, I know you can hear me: Go! -- we can prove them wrong on that score. Let's not watch. Let's not talk about it. Say, how 'bout them Edmonton Oilers!

Ogden Nash wasn't talking about the Yankees, but he spoke for me and my 284,999,999 comrades when he penned these immortal lines:

The Bronx?
No, thonx!

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