The Final Score

Mayor Daley attended a huge Cubs pep rally Tuesday, wore a Cubs hat and looked a little uncomfortable.

But everyone there knew that he'd be at US Cellular Field that evening dressed appropriately for the White Sox blackout.

He looked pretty happy after the game.

Big sports weekend for Chicago Norm Jr.

He'll be on the field at Raymond James Stadium for Thursday's (No. 10-ranked) South Florida-Pitt football game and at Tropicana Field Friday for Game 2 of the ALDS.

Joba Chamberlain.

So says Dave Howard, Mets' VP of business operations. I called him today to see what happens now to Shea. Here's highlights of our chat:

- Every Mets employee has moved to Citi Field.

- Shea is being prepared for demolition right now by removing all salvageable stuff and memorabilia items.

- About two weeks from now demolition contractor takes over. Process will be "gradual," as they take down the stadium section by section.

- The goal is to have it be a parking lot by Opening Day, but it seems more likely that will happen a little later into the season.

- Citi Field is almost all done: about 90 percent of seats are in and sod should be down by end of October.

A while back we told you how Rieber has a stunningly wide range of great movies he has never seen. We even did a top 10 list.

1. Slap Shot
2. Raging Bull
3. Fast Times
4. The Blues Brothers
5. The Big Lebowski
6. Fight Club
7. Weird Science
8. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
9. Remember the Titans
10. Rounders

Since then, many, many other movies that Rieber has never seen have been unearthed. Too many to count or list really. Fletch and Hoosiers are two of them.

So we've decided to make October "Help Rieber Increase His Movie-Watching IQ" month on TFS.

Please vote on the list above or write in one of your own to get us started. Rieber will rent the winner and watch it and then let you know if he feels ashamed that he had never seen it.

Thanks for your participation.

See, it's not just me.

Gary Myers of the Daily News, who I recommend you read right after you read Glauber first, had this nugget in his Sunday column this week:

Joe Girardi is not the only manager/coach in town who withholds injury information. When Eric Mangini was asked after the game Monday night in San Diego if Brett Favre was nicked up, he double-talked around it without mentioning Favre had sprained his left ankle. At just about that time, Favre was having X-rays taken. When Favre came into the interview room, he was asked if he was hurt. It was pretty obvious because he had an Ace bandage wrapped on his ankle. He stated he just was in the X-ray room, which made Mangini's non-answer look ridiculous. Favre was limping so badly on his way back to the locker room it looked like he could use crutches. Mangini has an awful lot to learn as a coach, including how to be forthcoming. The Belichick act is not working for him. Not every bit of information must be treated as a government secret. What has it gotten him so far? A 15-21 record. Maybe he should try something different.

I propose a change to baseball's postseason format. It fixes one problem and adds something baseball only gets every now and then.

The problem I would fix is the fact that there is no bonus to winning a division and no penalty for being a wild card.

The thing I would add is a one-game playoff in each league every year. As we've seen with the White Sox-Twins, one-game play-IN games really get people pumped up.

How to do this? Easy. Instead of one wild card per league, have two. But the two wild cards have to play a one-game playoff series at the team with the best record. Winner moves on to the series that starts Thursday, so you have three days to deal with ties, rain, etc.

This way, baseball is guaranteed two playoff games on the Monday after the season. More teams will be in it to the end.

And this is most important: Teams will play harder down the stretch to win the division and avoid the wild-card playoff game.

So this year, the loser of the AL Central would be wild card No. 2 and would have to go to Boston to play wild card No. 1, the Red Sox, in a one-game wild-card playoff series. But maybe the Red Sox woud have gone all-out to win the AL East instead of coasting the last month.

In the NL, the Mets would be visiting the Brewers in the wild-card playoff game. So the Cubs and Phillies winning their divisions would have real value, instead of just one extra home game in the first round.

The best part? It doesn't extend the season one day.

If I had known it could have been back page news, I would have asked someone to photograph it.

It was in practice a few years ago. I was standing there minding my own business when Marbury ran by me on the way to the locker room and gave me a hard slap on the butt. I have no idea why. It hurt for several hours.

He did not offer to pray for me.

These are the three teams I am most interested in watching:

3. Chicago Cubs.
It's always intriguing when they're in the playoffs, for obvious reasons. As fitting as it might be for them to win it all this year, on the 100-year anniversary of their last title, I don't see it happening. They'll lose in the first round and Lou will go bonkers.

2. Los Angeles Dodgers.
Joe Torre + Manny Ramirez = must watch television. Manny's numbers since joining the Dodgers are unreal: .396 / .489 / .743 with 14 doubles and 17 home runs in 187 at-bats. That means he's on base almost half the time. That's a 1.232 OPS, not to mention an average of an extra-base hit every 6 at-bats. Wow.

1. Tampa Bay Rays.
The most unbelievable baseball story in decades, perhaps since the 1969 Mets. Weren't they supposed to cave down the stretch? Especially after injuries to Evan Longoria and Carl Crawford? So much for that. This has to be the feel-good story of the season.

My predictions:
NLCS: Dodgers vs. Brewers.
ALCS: Angels vs. Rays.
World Series: Dodgers vs. Rays.
Rays in 6!

I don't know how I missed this, but thankfully FOTFS Brooks Simpson always has his eyes and ears open for the interesting, bizarre stuff from the world of sports.

Here's what happened last Friday: Bengie Molina hits a home run, but they rule it a single. So they pinch run for him. Then the umpires decide to go to instant replay, which shows that it was in fact a homer. But, alas, Molina already was run for, so he gets credit for the HR, but the pinch runner must run the bases for him. (Funny thing is Scott Proctor gave up the homer.)

The Molina brothers not only are good catchers, they always find a way into the record books with home runs. Yadier hit the back-breaking, gut-wrenching go-ahead home run against the Mets in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. Jose hit the final home run in Yankee Stadium history. And now Bengie has hit one of the most bizarre home runs ever.

That's what I wrote about today.

Suddenly there are only two years remaining on Derek Jeter's 10-year, $189-million contract, and it's going to be awfully difficult to ask him to take a paycut after they gave Alex Rodriguez the richest deal (for another 10 years, no less) in the history of baseball.

What does this mean? As A-Rod and Jeter approach 40 years old, the Yankees very well might have $50 million a year locked up in these guys.

Try building a team around that. Good thing the Yankees have planted a money tree called their new stadium.

I agree with Neil Best - Shea Stadium's closing ceremonies were enjoyable. The ovation for Dwight Gooden was pretty cool, too. Wonder if Gooden turned around and flew to Chicago to see if Gary Sheffield can hit HR No. 500 - and ruin CN's Monday afternoon...

As for what took place at Shea Stadium before the ceremony, well, baseball can be a very cruel game.

Wow. Just wow.

I spent the postgame in the Marlins clubhouse to see if they were celebrating in style, but they had a ho-hum been-here, done-that feel to them. Which makes sense, since this is now old hat for them.

One player took particular joy in the Mets' demise.

"Let's put it this way," Paul Lo Duca said. "I'll sleep well tonight."