A new baseball champion will be crowned as early as Saturday, as the World Series is currently underway between the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals. It’s a blue World Series.

This marks the first World Series that includes a matchup of two expansion era teams. It’s crazy to think every World Series, over 110 years of them, included at least one team established around 1903, the year of the first World Series.

The Mets have not won it all since the infamous 1986 series against the Boston Red Sox, the team that blew Game Six in spectacular fashion, allowing the Mets to come back and win to force a decisive game seven.

Just the year before, in the 1985 World Series, the Royals took on their rival St. Louis Cardinals. There was also some controversy in Game Six, when the Cardinals seemed to have retired the last batter of the game in a close play at first base. Replay showed the runner to be out, but the umpire had another view. The Royals rallied back and won that game and the last game.

Some people say the Royals have the edge on the Series simply because they have last year’s playoff experience. That may be the case, as the Mets have not made the playoffs since 2006, but the Royals hadn’t made the playoffs since 1985 before last season’s magical run.

This year’s Series will come down to a strong pitching rotation of the Mets and playing small ball for Kansas.

This Series is likely to be a chess match, and whichever team’s manager makes the right move late in a game, will be the one to take home the victory.

Last year, the Royals lost the deciding game seven of the World Series to the San Francisco Giants. Down just a run, in the bottom of the ninth inning, they could not get across a baserunner on third. The Giants celebrated a championship on Kansas’ home field. The same will happen this year.

The Mets and Royals are two evenly matched teams, and this Series will go the distance. Expect another close Game Seven in Kansas for all the marbles. However, the Mets will remember the road they took getting to the championship.

The upset of a sensational Los Angeles Dodgers pitching staff in the NL division series, the sweep of a 97-win ballclub of the Chicago Cubs in the NL championship series and most of all, the jokes and second-guessing by fans and media throughout the year, will be that chip on the Mets’ shoulder.

That’s not to say the Royals don’t have some unfinished business from last year. They were that Cinderella team that lost to the well established and talented Giants team.

The Royals would love nothing more than to avenge last year’s loss — but they’ll have to keep waiting.