After 162 games, here's what we have from the 2008 regular season: The Tigers and Indians flopped, the Yankees broke the bank, and the Mets choked (again). The Diamondbacks vanished, and the Royals were the Royals (again). What we don't have is a world champion. But for that we have playoff baseball. Here are 15 reasons why I live for October:

1. Watching and waiting for the reactions of FOX, ESPN, and TBS executives when they put two and two together and realize that there's absolutely, positively, no scenario that can produce a Yankees-Red Sox ALCS in 2008. (I still think all three are in a bit of denial at this point.)

2. Manny being Manny.

3. Watching every series unfold in the complete opposite manner from which Baseball Tonight analyst John Kruk predicts. (Sometimes I wonder how this man was ever a major leaguer . . . does he ever get a pick right?)

4. Seeing how much weight Tony Gwynn can gain in the course of one TBS broadcast.

5. Seeing how many hot dogs Tony Gwynn can put down in that same three-hour time frame.

6. Finding out that life goes on for Major League Baseball in October without the Yankees.

7. Getting a chance to see the Tampa Bay Rays - the young up-start team that everyone said would fold in May, and June, and July, and August, and September - just keep on keepin' on.

8. Thunderstix and The Rally Monkey - a more dangerous combo than Miss Teen South Carolina and thinking.

9. Because maybe we'll get a seven-game World Series for the first time since 2002. Is it really that much to ask?

10. Setting the over-under for how many times Hank Steinbrenner issues the same press release to the media between now and the end of the postseason. It's the one where he whines about the Yankees terrible, horrible, no good, very bad season, and then demands changing the playoff format to accommodate the Yankees every year. (Right now I'll go with seven - one for each Divisional Series and LCS and on before the World Series starts.)

11. Two words - and a bunch of four letter ones I can't print - Ozzie Guillen.

12. The re-emergence of Harold Reynolds as an on-air analyst on TBS. Does anyone else ever wonder what the heck the producers at Baseball Tonight were thinking when they fired him?

13. Because no matter what - it ain't over till it's over.

14. Not having to wait until the NBA playoffs to see Craig Sager reporting dressed as Dr. Teeth from the Muppets.

15. The feeling you get when you watch the world champion hoist that World Series trophy high in the air. You watch as teammates and managers douse each other in triumphant showers of champagne in a clubhouse covered in transparent tarp. At that exact moment you catch yourself thinking that maybe, just maybe . . . that will be your team next year.