After Brawl, Reds-Cardinals NLCS Only Fair

(This story was written by CBSSports.com columnist Ray Ratto).

You can talk your Yankees-Red Sox or Giants-Dodgers or Astros-Brewers all you want. You can talk Raiders-Broncos, or Giants-Cowboys. Celtics-Lakers, or even Canadiens-Maple Leafs, but there is only one rivalry in which the inhabitants not only don't like each other, but are willing to prove it whenever asked.

You saw the Tuesday brawl. You heard what precipitated it. You listened to the post mortems. These are two teams that have taken the old Keith Jackson dictum, "They ... just ... don't ... likeeachotherverymuch" and stretched it to its logical extremes.

From the managers, Tony La Russa and Dusty Baker, on down through the bullpen catchers, these are two teams with a rich and abiding hatred for each other, freshly exacerbated by the fact that the Reds have entered the postseason conversation for the first time in years, and Tuesday was just the latest example.

Brandon Phillips said he hated the Cardinals on Monday and enumerated the reasons why. Then he tried on Tuesday to pretend nothing was wrong, and Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina not only rejected his apology but gave him a couple of choruses from that cheery old Anglican hymn, GTFO.

And hilarity ensued. I mean, when you can't even make peace, then there's nothing else but war.

Which is why America, the modern America that digs MMA and snark and playing the dozens and walking around dukes up and cocked for quick release, wants Cardinals-Reds. They need Cardinals-Reds. They demand Cardinals-Reds.

We grant you this tells both the Giants and Phillies, as well as the Padres and Braves, that they can only get to October as division winners, and two of them must be hosed, but we haven't seen them throw down this often. The Giants and Dodgers have a low-simmering spat they like to channel from time to time, but the last real time we got something like this from either of them, Juan Marichal was playing tee ball with John Roseboro's head.

It is clear that both La Russa and Baker like a good fight, and if they could get at each other through the nest of failing fists without forgetting that their first responsibility is to get the next day's pitcher out of harm's way, they would absolutely do it. Baker has managed 17 years, La Russa nearly double that, and to them, mellow is a kind of jazz.

But the players have it on now, and the brotherhood of the common struggle (sticking it to the man at contract time) takes second chair to a good straight right lead. And even though they're not likely to let fly today in their series finale, they have scores to settle as Chris Carpenter has spike marks on his back, and Johnny Cueto has fence scrapes on his.

This is what Bud Selig has been waiting for all these years. Bloodsport. Not only the hard stares of Yankees shooting the malocchio (the Neapolitan evil eye) at Red Sox and vice versa, or highlights of Pedro Martinez and Don Zimmer, or stock shots of Ben Affleck and Billy Crystal in row two watching their own breath as a nine-inning game hits the 4:30 mark, but 50 players, 10 coaches, two managers, plus equipment men and clubhouse attendants, all sharpening spears in a metaphor for "300," while the trainers wrap bandages and prep triage tables.

This cannot fail to happen, we tell you. For reasons of ratings alone (which we don't care about), this is an itch that must be scratched. Cardinals-Reds is the battle whose time has come, and come again, and must arrive in October. America demands it, and well, you know how cranky Americans can be when they don't get some sort of vicarious hate-on as part of their entertainment diet.

I mean, how do you think the Real Housewives series survived so many cities? Those women are willing to kill each other.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for Comcast Sports Bay Area.