By Jose M. Romero

Major League Soccer’s Western Conference has produced the last three league champions – Real Salt Lake, the Colorado Rapids and the L.A. Galaxy – and also is home to the top club in the 2012 regular season, the San Jose Earthquakes.

Between the top-seeded Quakes and the No. 5 seed Vancouver Whitecaps, a team in only its second season of existence, the second through fourth seeds were separated by three standings points in the regular season. All of which should make the MLS postseason pretty entertaining in the West.

The Whitecaps and Galaxy open the postseason with Thursday’s knockout round match pitting No. 5 at No. 4. The Galaxy, the defending MLS Cup champion, probably feels a little disappointed with how its regular season went, and now must play the extra game just to keep its season alive.

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By Jose M. Romero / 

It’s Halloween Week. The NFL remains king of American sports, the NBA 2012-13 regular season tips off on Tuesday with openers all week and baseball is over.

But soccer still has a place here, and the Major League Soccer postseason starts Tuesday as well just outside of Chicago when the hometown Fire host the Houston Dynamo in the Eastern Conference knockout round.

With 19 teams in the league, the decision was made to add two teams to the postseason. They are the fifth-place finishers in both the East and West, and they face the No. 4 seed at the home of the fourth-place team Tuesday in the East and Wednesday in the West.

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By Jose M. Romero

Instead of staying home to watch Game 1 of the World Series Wednesday night, I opted to record the Spanish-language broadcast on, you guessed it, FOX Deportes, and attend a dinner honoring local teachers in downtown Phoenix.

A very wise choice for me.  Why? Teachers are important people, and I can’t bring myself to watch the San Francisco Giants. I just can’t.

I kept waiting for the Giants to be eliminated. The Cincinnati Reds choked away their divisional series, at home, no less. Then the St. Louis Cardinals had a 3-2 lead in the NL championship series, and the Giants came back to win that.

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By Jose M. Romero

Four Game 5s. Seven ninth-inning-or later rallies, either tiebreaking or come-from-behind. Two of the most dramatic comebacks from huge deficits in postseason history. One organizational decision in September that, in the end, could have cost a team at least one win, and ultimately, the right to move on to the league championship series.

Baseball had a great opening week, I’d say. Smashing. Mind-blowing. Memorable.

The game and its commissioner don’t always get everything right, but the one-game playoff decision was good if only for one reason – it got the right teams into the American and National League Division Series.

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