As some of you might remember, I picked the Giants to win the World Series. Then I read Joe Sheehan's e-mail newsletter, in which he commented on the Giants' utter lack of qualified candidates for the DH slot. Unfortunately, by then it was too late to change my pick, because doing so would have made it seem as if I were too stupid to have noticed Baker's problem in the first place.

Which I was.

I don't feel too awful about it, though, because Dusty Baker makes a lot more money than I do, and he also failed to notice his problem in the first place.

But did Baker's lousy bench really hurt the Giants badly? To find out, I punched in the stats for every Giants DH and pinch-hitter in the World Series.

The results?

Many of us, when we remember the Giants' bench, will remember Shawon Dunston's two-run homer in Game 6. More of us would remember if the Giants had actually won Game 6. But still, it was a big moment, as much for its unlikelihood as for its importance.

But Dunston's homer was not only the high point for Baker's bench, it was very nearly the only point. That crew -- Dunston, Tsuyoshi Shinjo, Pedro Feliz and Tom Goodwin -- stepped to the plate 27 times, and they managed three hits and one walk. They scored two runs, and drove in three runs. Dunston's homer accounted for one of the hits, one of the runs, and two of the RBI. Both of the other hits were singles.

As a group, they were awful. But did they really hurt the Giants?

The Giants lost Games 2 and 3, and then Games 6 and 7.

In Game 2, Dunston DH'd and went 1-for-4 with an RBI single. Call that one a wash.

In Game 3, the Angels won by six runs.

In Game 6, Dunston hit the home run. Kudos to Baker, who supposedly gave Dunston the nod because he's a good low-ball hitter, and Kevin Appier throws a lot of low balls (indeed, the homer came on a low fastball).

In Game 7, Goodwin, Feliz, and Shinjo combined for six at-bats and nothing else. Call that one a disaster.

The Giants won Game 1, 4, and 5. In none of those games did the bench play a significant role.

In the end, all we know for sure is that the Giants didn't win the World Series. So in hindsight, you have to think a decent bench would have given them a slightly better chance of not losing.

Bottom line, the bench was invisible in Game 7. And not in the good way, like the best umpires. Invisible, like they weren't even there. Not that you can blame six at-bats for a three-run loss. But if nothing else, a better bench might have meant a slightly better Game 7, which is all that those of us who aren't partisans of other club wanted to see.

Rating the Game 7s
Some men, when faced with a Game 7, will get on the phone and organize a great party. Other men, paid to create sentences linked together in paragraphs linked together in columns and articles, will try to invent new ways to describe stories we've already heard (if in slightly different forms).

And then there's me, who, when faced with a Game 7, sets up an Excel file.

Specifically, an Excel file to "rate" the drama of baseball games. If you're not interested in the nuts and bolts, feel free to skip ahead a couple of paragraphs ... Basically, I assigned points for various things: two points for each inning that ended with the game tied, one point for each inning that ended with only one run separating the two teams, three points for each time either team took the lead, and four points for each extra inning.

I also awarded five bonus points if the losing team got the tying run on base in the last inning, and more bonus points if the final score was close, or close to close: four points for a one-run game, three points for a two-run game, etc. And finally, I allowed myself to award bonus points just because I wanted to, in the case of special circumstances. Generally, the bonuses are five points because the game is remembered for something special. The last game in 1946 is remembered for Johnny Pesky holding the ball -- even though he didn't really hold it, and it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had held it -- so that game gets five bonus points, too. There were eight games that got five bonus points.

Five Games 7 got 10 bonus points: five of them because the game ended with a walk-off hit (1924, 1991, 1997, 2001), and one because Pete Alexander struck out Tony Lazzeri (1926). And I gave one Game 7 a whopping 15 bonus points, because everybody thinks the last game of the 1960 World Series was one of the greatest ever, and I didn't want to explain why I came up with something different.

Even with all those bonus points, that bizarre game, capped by Mazeroski's home run, manages to rank just eighth, which probably indicates a deficiency in my method rather than the game itself. Anyway, because you demanded it -- actually, one of you asked nicely for it -- here are the top five:

1924 Big Train finally wins Series
1912 Red Sox beat Giants with 2 in 10th
1991 Greatest pitcher's duel ever
1997 Marlins need 11 innings to top Tribe
2001 Schilling and Johnson quiet Yanks

As you can see, we have been blessed in recent years. Spoiled, even. So we shouldn't feel cheated by this year's Game 7, which did not fare particularly well in my Excel file. According to this method, 2002's Game 7 is tied for 24th place with the Games 7 of 1964 and 1986. Last night's game earned 12 points with two innings that ended with a tie (four points), two lead changes (six), and a three-run final deficit (two).

No, it wasn't a great Game 7. But it was a very good World Series that went the distance, with a number of interesting storylines and an eventual winner that finally turned its back on four decades of mostly awful (and often tragic) bad luck.

So please, don't talk to me about TV ratings. This game is supposed to entertain us, and the 2002 World Series was a lot more entertaining than 99 percent of what I can find on my TV.

And I've got a dish.