Games 1, 2, 5 and 7 are home games for the higher seeded team in this best-of-7 series. Injuries are turned off for the playoffs, meaning a player can be injured only for that particular game, but can return for the next game. Pitching rotations are on a four-man skip, meaning the fourth starter will be skipped if the first starter is ready to pitch. Since there are off days after games 2, 4, 5 and 6, some game 1 starters will be available in game 4 on three days' rest. Benched starters can be moved to the bullpen.

For the first time in league history, it's an all-Hanover Division World Series, and also the first time that two teams from the "Class of 1996" are facing off. Even more incredibly, this is the first World Series in Diamond Mind Baseball League history without Arkansas or Vancouver.

World Series XVI: Sweet Sixteen!

Newark Sugar Bears (#1, 118-44) vs. Marietta Mighty Men (#3, 93-69)

The 16th annual DMBL World Series pits two teams that have long battled for dominance in the Hanover Division: The Newark Sugar Bears and Matthew's Mighty Men of Marietta. In fact, since the two teams were founded in 1996, there has been just one year where one of those two teams didn't win the division. Of course, for the most part, the Mighty Men (founded as the Jerusalem Rabbis) have been the silver medalists -- Newark has won the division in 10 of the 12 years. (The Mighty Men won it, and the World Series, as the Rabbis in '00; the only other team to win the division since '96 were the Louisiana Lightning in '97.) Incredibly, while these two teams have been in the post-season a combined 20 times, they've never faced each other in the playoffs before.

Last year, Newark made DMBL history by winning their third straight championship; they'll hope to extend that winning streak to a fourth title this year. The Sugar Bears also won the title in '01 and '02, giving them five championships in six years. They've already extended another league record by becoming the first team to reach the World Series seven straight times. With their first championship in '97, the Sugar Bears have won six World Series titles, one more than Arkansas for the most in league history; and with eight World Series appearances, they're tied with Vancouver for the second-most appearances all-time. (Arkansas has 11; Austin is fourth, with three, while the Rabbis/Mighty Men, here for the second time, are the only other team in league history to make the finals.)

The Sugar Bears, led by manager Don Mattingly, have statistically the greatest offense in league history, setting records in numerous categories -- most notably runs scored (1,383), run differential (+549), most home runs (330) and highest team OPS (.995). They led the league in all those categories, of course, and also in wins (118-44, second-best all-time); home wins (63-18, second-best all-time); and road wins (55-26, tied for fifth-best all time). Yet for all that offensive firepower, remember they also had the league's third-best defense, allowing just 834 runs. Their pitching staff led the league in K:BB ratio (2.8), ranked 2nd in BB/9 (2.8), 3rd in HR/9 (1.1) and tied for 3rd in QS% (.488); their bullpen was 2nd in IR% (.284) and tied for 4th in SV% (.661); and their defense led the league in turning double plays (198) and their catchers ranked 2nd in throwing out would-be basestealers (.337 CS%). The Sugar Bears put that awesome combination on display as they breezed through the Sharks in the second round in four straight games by a combined score of 47-21.

Marietta manager Graig Nettles leads the most balanced team in baseball -- they ranked second in runs scored (959) and second in runs allowed (817), for a third-best +142 run differential. The Mighty Men got past the Bushslappers in four games in the first round, then went the distance against the Morris Division champion Endzone Animals in Round 2. They've been gunning for the Sugar Bears for 12 years and finally have them in their sights. The Mighty Men also have repeatedly accused the Sugar Bears of cheating, but if there's any bad blood between these two teams, it seems to be flowing only in one direction. The Sugar Bears seemed perplexed by all the talk about cheating. "We had a meeting with team advisers Bill Belichick, Floyd Landis and Tim Donaghy and we have no idea what the Mighty Men are accusing us of," former Sugar Bear and team spokesman Mark McGwire said. "We aren't here to talk about the past, let's talk about the World Series!"

The Marietta rotation has been hit-or-miss so far this post-season, with some truly brilliant performances mixed in with some ugly ones. Francisco Liriano has just one win in three starts, but he's looked every bit the Pat Listach Rookie of the Year Award favorite as he's pitched brilliantly so far (4 ER, 15 H, 5 BB, 23 K in 18.2 IP). A.J. Burnett has come up big in three starts, going 2-0 (5 ER, 14 H, 5 BB, 19 K in 23.0 IP), while Mike Mussina has had two terrific outings (0 R, 5 H, 3 BB, 13 K in 16.0 IP) and one ugly one (6 ER, 9 H, 0 BB, 6 K in 5.2 IP); will it be "Good Moose" or "Bad Moose" for the Mighty Men in the World Series? And the Mighty Men have a real problem if they need a fourth starter, as rookie Jeremy Sowers has been pounded in two starts (0-1, 10 ER, 10 H, 4 BB, 1 K in 5.2 IP). But will the Mighty Men turn to Woody Williams (5-4, 5.50 ERA, 13.7 R/9 in 13 starts with Marietta) or Gil Meche (2-5, 6.96 ERA, 15.9 R/9)?

Marietta has been getting good work out of its bullpen, particularly its nasty combination of closer and future DMBL Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera (1 W, 2 SV, 1 ER, 2 H, 0 BB, 3 K in 6.0 IP) and setup men Trevor Hoffman (1 ER, 6 H, 1 BB, 6 K in 9.2 IP) and B.J. Ryan (0 ER, 3 H, 0 BB, 2 K in 2.0 IP). Third-round pick Pat Neshek, who spent much of the second half of the season in Triple-A after posting a 5.58 ERA and 13.6 R/9, pitched well in the first round (1 ER, 2 H, 0 BB, 6 K in 3.0 IP) but fell back into bad habits against Philly (3 ER, 5 H, 4 BB in 3.0 IP). Rafael Betancourt allowed 2 unearned runs on 3 hits in his only appearance, while Brad Hennessey allowed 3 runs (2 earned) on 4 hits and 4 walks in 6.2 innings.

Just as they did all season long, the Sugar Bears hit better as a team (.398 BA, .459 OBP, .665 SLG, 1.124 OPS) than almost any individual player on any other team. Consider this: In the second round, six of the top 10 OPS's were turned in by Sugar Bears, including the top four. They also had six guys in the top 10 for Runs Created, including the top two; six for RC/27, including the top four; five in secondary average, including the top three; and seven in batting average, six in OBP, and five in SLG, including the top four in all three categories. The Sugar Bears have a reputation of cranking out one last career year from fading veterans, and this year was no exception: Their best hitters in the second round were retreads Marlon Anderson (.600, 1.855 OPS, 2 HR, 10 RBI), Jim Edmonds (.500, 1.618 OPS, 3 HR, 9 RBI) and Gregg Zaun (.444, 1.251 OPS, 2 HR, 8 RBI). But the core, as it has been for most of this incredible seven-year World Series run, is team captain Chipper Jones, Bobby Abreu and Manny Ramirez. The three have been joined in recent years by Carlos Guillen, Nick Johnson and Mark Teahen, forming a formidable lineup. The Sugar Bears also have a deep and talented bench, with Mark DeRosa, Michael Barrett and Nick Swisher all likely to see playing time against left-handed starters; Casey Blake, Brian Schneider and Alex Cora are primarily used as defensive specialists.

The Sugar Bears don't have a starting pitcher who can go toe-to-toe with Liriano -- the only guy in baseball who anyone thought could was Johan Santana, and the Endzone Animals lost both his starts in the second round. But while the Sugar Bears don't have a young gunslinger at the top of their rotation, they do have a veteran gunny sergeant in Randy Johnson. The Big Unit, who is looking for his sixth World Series ring, survived some shaky defense behind him to win Game 1 against Honolulu (5 R, 2 ER, 6 H, 3 BB, 0 K in 5.0 IP). The Sugar Bears pulled off a bit of a surprise in Game 2 as they started rookie lefty Joe Saunders, who gave them 7 quality innings (3 ER, 7 H, 0 BB, 6 K). Chien-Ming Wang may have had the best performance of any Newark starter, going into Honolulu to win Game 3 (3 ER, 7 H, 1 BB, 1 K in 8.0 IP). Javier Vazquez, who led Newark starters in ERA (4.38), R/9 (13.4), Ks (168) and quality starts (17) during the regular season, got pounded in Game 4 (5 ER, 7 H, 2 BB, 4 K, 2 HR in 5.0 IP) but still got a no-decision -- that's one of the advantages of pitching for an offense that averages 8.6 runs per game. We'll see if Newark tries Vazquez again or switches to veteran John Smoltz (18-7, 5.12 ERA, 14.7 R/9), who was left off the post-season roster in Round 2.

The bottom line: This year's Sugar Bear team may be the greatest yet in the franchise's storied history. Yet they know they will have their hands full with a scrappy Marietta team that has spent the entire season dreaming about knocking out the champ. In fact, while Newark had a winning record against every team in baseball, the Mighty Men came closest -- they tied for the best record against the Sugar Bears, going 6-7. (Hoboken was the only other team to go 6-7 against them.) The Sugar Bears went 3-3 against the Mighty Men in Newark but 4-3 against them in Marietta; it could be good news for Marietta, coming off five straight post-season road wins, that just three of the games will be played in Georgia. The Sugar Bears had 25 more wins than Marietta did this year, yet could that be another omen in Marietta's favor? The 118-win Sugar Bears will hope to accomplish what the 120-win '02 Falcons, 118-win '97 Iron Fist, 112-win '98 Iron Fist and 111-win '03 Sugar Bears could not -- cap a historic regular season by winning the World Series. Of the six teams in league history that won more than 110 games during the regular season, only the '06 Sugar Bears managed to win the championship.