Call me a dreamer, call me a naïve optimist, call me a dimwitted knucklehead, but I believe in my heart of hearts that a labor stoppage will not occur in major-league baseball. Well, make that a prolonged labor stoppage. I know that the players’ union, as of Monday, could conceivably set a strike date, but until I hear otherwise, I am going to proceed under the assumption that rational minds will be able to agree on how properly to distribute billions of fan-produced dollars among the 30 teams and will reach an agreement before the balance of the season, along with the postseason, is wiped out. Given that assumption, I am prepared to speculate on how the remaining six weeks of the American League’s 2002 season will play out, in regard to the pennant and wild-card races. I have no crystal ball, only one of my kid’s marbles that the vacuum cleaner nearly picked up, and the following predictions are merely guesswork, so don’t head out to Vegas to put money down based on these prognostications. Lord knows I’ve been as far off-base in the past as Jose Offerman on a one-out fly to right. But just for the hell of it, I’ll give it a try. Records are based on Monday morning’s AL standings heading into that evening’s action. The Yankees lead the AL East by four games over the Red Sox, Minnesota is a comfortable 13 games up in the Central (so we won’t even bother to monitor their road to the playoffs), and Seattle’s advantage in the West is two and a half games over Anaheim and four over Oakland. In the wild-card race, Anaheim leads Boston by a half-game and Oakland by a game and a half. Play ball!

August 12-15: Boston is in Seattle for three games. Of the Sox’ aces, only Lowe will appear in this series, while the Mariners will throw out three 11-plus game winners. Let’s give the Sox only one of three. The Yankees are in Kansas City for three, and as long as Jeff Weaver remains in the rotation for the pinstripers, I’ll only spot them two of the three. Anaheim returns home to host Detroit; I can’t see Anaheim sweeping, so we’ll award them a pair at Edison Field. Oakland hosts Toronto, but only Barry Zito is a gimme, so let’s assume the Jays snag at least one. Under these circumstances, the standings are as follows: Yanks over Sox by five, Anaheim by 1.5 over Boston, Oakland for the wild card, and Seattle’s division lead remains the same.

August 16-18: Sox move on to Minneapolis for three, where Pedro should dominate one, and Wakefield’s knuckleball — usually a dancer in a dome — could clinch a second game in the Metrodome. A sweep is possible, but not likely. The Yankees move on to Seattle, where they likely will drop two of three, and Anaheim welcomes the fading Indians, and takes two of three from the Tribe. Oakland, meanwhile, hosts the Chicago White Sox, a team that has been playing a lot better as of late. The ChiSox could very well take two of three in Oakland, so let’s move forward under that assumption. The current standings: New York over Boston by four again, Anaheim leads the wild-card by 1.5 over Boston but now 2.5 over Oakland, and Seattle’s lead is now 2.5 over Anaheim and five over the A’s.

August 19-22: Boston returns home from its brief road trip to host Texas. I could see Boston sweeping three at Fenway, even though they split in the Lone Star State last weekend. The Angels have to head right out again for another cross-country trip, this time to the Bronx, where they’ll be fortunate to take one. The A’s also head back east after a six-game home stand, but I think they’ll find themselves splitting the four-game series in Cleveland. Seattle, in the meantime, starts a lengthy road trip in Detroit, where they should take at least three of four from the Tigers. At this point, the Sox will have trimmed the Yanks’ lead to three games and will overtake Anaheim by a half-game in the wild-card race. Oakland will continue its fade by falling six behind the Mariners and 2.5 behind Boston in the wild card. Seattle now leads the West by four over the Angels.

August 23-26: Critical four-game series at Fenway as the Angels come to town. Let’s call it a split, while the Yankees take three of four from Texas. A’s sweep three in Detroit, while Seattle wins two of three at Jacobs Field. The Sox’ lead in the wild-card race remains a half-game over Anaheim and one over Oakland, but Boston trails the Yankees in the east by four. Seattle’s lead is 4.5 over the Angels and five over Oakland.

August 26-29: Yanks and Sox split a quick two-game series at Fenway, while Anaheim sweeps three at home versus the Devil Rays. Oakland takes two of three in Kansas City, and Seattle drops two of three in the Twin Cities. The Bombers’ lead is still four in the east, and the Angels regain the wild-card lead by one full game over Boston and 1.5 over the A’s. Seattle’s lead is now just 2.5 over Anaheim and four over Oakland.

August 30–September 1: The Sox head out on the road for a three-game series in Cleveland, where they should, on talent alone, take two of three. Yankees will take two of four at Skydome, the Angels should take a pair at home against Baltimore, Oakland will drop two of three at home to the Twins, and Seattle makes a clean sweep of the Royals at home. New York’s division lead is now 3.5 games, the A’s drop 2.5 back in the wild-card race, and Seattle’s lead is 3.5 and six, respectively, over Anaheim and Oakland.

September 2-4: Boston steals two of three in the Bronx, but still trails New York by two and a half games. Anaheim, very road-weary now, heads back to the right coast and takes only two of three in Tampa Bay. Oakland wins two at home against Kansas City, and the Mariners and Twins split a pair. The Angels’ lead in the wild card is still a game over Boston, and two over the A’s. Seattle’s lead over Anaheim is three and over Oakland is five.

September 5-8: Boston heads back home for a crucial four-game series at Fenway, where it should re-establish its dominance over the Jays and take three of four. Likewise, the Yankees should win three of their four home games against Detroit, leaving the Yanks’ division lead at 2.5. Anaheim goes to Baltimore but surprisingly takes only one of three at Camden Yards. Oakland drops two out of three at Minnesota, and Seattle takes two in Kansas City. Boston has now returned to the top of the wild-card standings by a half-game over the Angels and 2.5 over Oakland, and Seattle leads Anaheim by four and Oakland by six.

September 9-12: Boston has yet to lose at Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field, and that shouldn’t change here, as the Sox sweep four to go a whopping 31 games over .500. The Yankees take three of four in Baltimore, but their AL East lead falls to just a game and a half. Anaheim and Oakland have a huge four-games series near Disneyland, and a split is likely here. The Mariners should handily take three of four in Texas to extend their AL West advantages to five and seven, respectively. Boston ups its wild-card lead to 2.5 games over the Angels and 4.5 over the A’s.

September 13-15: Boston hosts the Orioles and takes two of three from the Birds, while New York takes two of three from the White Sox. Anaheim wins two of three at home versus Texas, while Oakland can only manage one win at Network Coliseum against Seattle. The standings with two weeks left now find Boston atop the wild-card race by 2.5 over Anaheim and 5.5 over the plummeting A’s, though it only trails New York by 1.5 games in the division. Seattle maintains its five-game lead over Anaheim, but extends its pad over Oakland to eight.

September 16-19: The Sox find themselves in a four-games-in-three days situation at home versus Cleveland, and manage only a split. New York takes three at Tampa to build a three-game advantage over Boston. Anaheim, in the midst of a brutal road trip against Oakland, Seattle, and Texas, gets only a split of its four-game series in Oakland. Seattle continues its hot play, taking three of four at Safeco Field against the Rangers to build a six-game cushion over the Angels and a whopping nine-game lead over the A’s.

September 20-23: Boston marches into Camden Yards but again manages only a split in its four-game match-up with the Orioles. The Yankees manage to take two of three in Detroit and build their lead to 3.5 in the east. Anaheim takes advantage of Seattle’s complacency to take two of three on the road, while Oakland defeats Texas two of three at home. The reshuffled standings find Boston up by just two games in the wild-card chase, with Seattle’s lead at five over Anaheim and eight over the A’s.

September 24-26: Hitting the home stretch, Boston takes two of three against a White Sox team long out of any kind of pennant race, while New York wins three of four at home against the Devil Rays. Anaheim goes to Texas, but the long road trip is taking its toll on the team, and the Angels take only one of three in the Arlington heat. With the division crown safely in the bag, Seattle begins shuffling its rotation for the playoffs and takes only one of three at home against the now-out-of-it A’s. Boston trails the Yanks by four in the division, but leads the wild-card race by three full games. Seattle has clinched the division with its five-game lead over Anaheim, while Oakland, now resigned to its no-playoffs fate, remains seven back.

September 27-29: In the final weekend, Boston clinches the wild card with its Friday-night victory at Fenway versus the Devil Rays. The Sox throw youngsters onto the hill for the remainder of the close-out series, ultimately taking two of three over the weekend. New York finishes its regular season by winning two of three in Baltimore to clinch its fifth straight AL East title, by four games over Boston (the same lead they held on August 12, by the way). The pinstripers’ 102-60 record is the best in the majors, and they will meet AL Central champ Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs. Anaheim is despondent at finishing out of the postseason, yet takes two of three in Seattle to finish its surprising season at 95-67, three games out of the wild-card hunt. Seattle wins the AL West crown by four games over Anaheim and six over Oakland, and prepares to meet Boston in the first round of the playoffs.

Postscript: Both of these American League playoff series should be doozies, with pitching playing a huge part in each. Since the first round of playoffs are five-game series, the Yanks will most likely put up Clemens and Mussina in the two games at Yankees Stadium, while the Twins’ rotation — hobbled by injury all season — remains up in the air. Mussina has struggled recently, and Clemens is always an awkward stride away from the DL, so this series is particularly intriguing. Pedro and Lowe could easily snatch the first couple of games out in Seattle, leaving the Olde Towne Team in a situation where they need to just take one of the remaining three to advance to the League Championship Series against (most likely) New York. Yikes.

In the meantime, let’s hope that this whole column isn’t mooted by labor strife. We can only pray that cooler and more logical heads prevail so that this spellbinding pennant race gets to play out to its logical conclusion.

For the good of the game, just play ball, damn it!

Or else we walk, too.

Sporting Eye runs Mondays and Fridays at BostonPhoenix.com. Christopher Young can be reached at cyoung[a]phx.com.