Mike Celizic

Forget what the schedule says. The World Series does not start on Oct. 28. It starts on Friday when the Angels visit the Bronx to take on the Yankees in the ALCS.

If this sounds dismissive of the National League, it isn’t. There will still be a World Series regardless of who wins the ALCS. But if you’re looking for the series with the most buzz and the biggest chance of producing the kind of baseball you’ll remember forever, it’s Yankees-Angels.

Yankee fans could do without such a prospect. Of all the teams in the playoffs in both leagues, it is the Angels they fear the most. There’s good reason for that. During the Joe Torre era of Yankee baseball that began in 1996 and included four World Series championships and 12 straight trips to the playoffs, only the Angels held a winning record against New York.

The Angels’ edge has continued during the two years of Joe Girardi’s reign. Although the Yankees managed to tie this year’s season series at 5-5, the Angels still hold a 79-66 edge since 1996. Los Angeles/Anaheim has also twice eliminated New York in the first round of the playoffs, in 2002 and 2005.

It’s hard to think of the Yankees as going through a long run of misfortune. They’ve missed the postseason only once since 1995. But the Yankees count only world championships as successful seasons, and they haven’t added a World Series flag to their collection of 26 since 2000. Worse, they haven’t made it past the first round of the playoffs since 2004, the year they blew a 3-0 ALCS lead to the Red Sox.

The Red Sox, on the other hand, had made a living beating the Angels in the playoffs, a tradition that started in 1986 and was repeated in 2004, 2007 and 2008. In their heart of hearts, the Yankees were hoping the Red Sox would again eliminate the Angels this year. They know they can beat Boston; it’s L.A. they’re not so sure of.

On paper, the Yankees have the better team, and it doesn’t matter who’s in the other dugout. New York has terrific starting pitching, great relief pitching and the best offense in the game.

It was all on display against the Twins, who have good reason to be sitting at home wondering how they could possibly have been swept in the ALDS. Minnesota is a very good baseball team, and the Twins kept taking leads against the Yankees only to watch the despised Pinstripes — in one case with a little help from incompetent umpiring — keep winning games with late thunder.

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But that’s how the Yankees came to be the only team in baseball to win 100 games. They are extraordinarily resilient, and when the game gets into the late innings, they simply rip it away from you. And once they get the lead, they start piling on, turning tight games into comfortable wins. Just ask Joe Nathan, a top-tier reliever, what they’re like with the game on the line.

I’ve been questioning the Yankees’ postseason credentials since 2004 for the simple reason that they haven’t had the great starting pitching or the middle relief that carried them to four titles in five years from 1996-2000. This year, I’m questioning no longer. With the addition of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett in the starting rotation and Phil Hughes and now Joba Chamberlain in the bullpen, the Yankees are again a complete team.

Completing the equation is everybody’s favorite lightning rod, Alex Rodriguez. After a string of postseason futility that went back to the 2004 ALCS, A-Rod has finally become the playoff monster his contract demands that he be. A-Rod destroyed the Twins almost single-handedly, striking again in Game 3 with the home run that tied the game and started the Yankees on the way to their sweep.

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There’s no question about it. If the Yankees get to the real World Series, they’ll be the prohibitive favorites.

But to do that, they have to get past the only team that’s consistently had their number for 15 years — the Angels. Anaheim has shown the same sort of resilience and pitching dominance the Yankees have so far. Plus, they have the emotional incentive of playing for their fallen teammate, pitcher Nick Adenhart, who was killed in a traffic accident by an allegedly drunk driver early in the season.

Nothing is easy in the playoffs, even the games that look that way. The Yankees’ sweep of the Twins could easily have been Minnesota’s three-game romp. And now New York meets the one team that has caused it misery year after year after year.

It may be the ALCS on your schedule, but in the Bronx, it’s the World Series. If you want to watch the best that baseball can give you this fall, this is it.

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