The last time the World Series didn’t feature the Yankees or a wild card winner was in 1995. Lenny Dykstra and Ozzie Smith were All-Stars; Edgar Martinez, John Valentin, Albert Belle, and Chuck Knoblauch – all of them now retired – had MVP-caliber seasons. Joe Torre was working as a broadcaster and Mariano Rivera was a starting pitcher who looked like he might make a decent middle reliever. Mets fans were dazzled by tremendous young talents like Jeff Kent, Carl Everett, and Edgardo Alfonzo; pitching studs Jason Isringhausen and Bill Pulsipher made their debuts, while phenom Paul Wilson waited in the minors.

There’s an excellent chance the strange streak involving the Yankees and the wild card streak will be extended this season. The Yankees may be struggling, but there isn’t a dominant team in either league and the wild-card winners will likely prove at least as dangerous in the postseason as any of the divisional winners.

I wrote in this space yesterday that nine teams are jockeying for three American League playoff spots; today I’ll take a look at the National League, where the playoff picture is similarly cloudy. The Phillies lead the National League wildcard race by half a game over the Braves, with another six teams within five games of a playoff spot. One among those teams – the Pirates – has essentially no shot at contention, but among the others, there isn’t a team that couldn’t win the World Series if it made the playoffs.

It looks pretty clear right now that the team to beat is Chicago. Derrek Lee, a legitimate Triple Crown candidate, has carried the team and been by far the best player in the league thus far. Catcher Michael Barrett and third baseman Aramis Ramirez rank atop the league in production for their positions, with veterans like shortstop Neifi Perez and right fielder Jeromy Burnitz making surprising contributions. Despite injuries to ace pitchers Kerry Wood and Mark Prior and shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, the Cubs have hung in the race due to a bang-up managing job by Dusty Baker and staggering pitching depth – emergency starters Glendon Rusch and Jerome Williams would be rotation mainstays on either of the New York teams. With Wood and Prior due back in the coming week, the Cubs are primed for an extended run of success, and General Manager Jim Hendry has proved over the last two years to be a master of the deadline deal.

That said, I don’t think the Cubs are the best team in the race – or even the second- or third-best. The enormous advantage they enjoy is that the teams that are – the Florida, Philadelphia, and Atlanta – will spend the rest of the season beating each other up. The Cubs do have 14 games left against St. Louis, but they also have plenty of series against patsies like Houston and Cincinnati. The NL East teams don’t have that luxury.

Still, any of these teams could reach the top. The Marlins, though they sit in fourth place in the division, can count on the best offense in the league, featuring stars like Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Delgado, as well as dominant starting pitchers Dontrelle Willis, Josh Beckett, and A.J. Burnett. Of all the teams in the race, they’re probably the one that’s underachieving the most – usually reliable center fielder Juan Pierre and slugging third baseman Mike Lowell have done nothing at all, and if they step up the offense will become all the more imposing. Should the team figure out a way to patch some bullpen holes and replace Al Leiter, who’s simply done, they may still be the team to beat.

The Phillies are very similar to the Marlins. They’re a deep and well-rounded team that hasn’t quite put it all together yet, though they have a few more holes and only one dominant starter, Brett Myers. They’re also relying a bit much on some probably unsustainable performances – 38-year-old Kenny Lofton, for instance, is not really a .380 hitter, and second baseman Chase Utley probably can’t be expected to slug .532 over the course of the season. Like the Marlins, the Phillies are quite capable of asserting themselves as the best team in the league, but the depth of the division may prove their undoing.

Easily the most interesting team in the wild card race is the Braves, who have bizarrely turned into a Triple-A team over the last few weeks, staying in the race while fielding a lineup that on some nights features seven rookies. If the kids can hold the fort down until Tim Hudson, Mike Hampton, and Chipper Jones return to full health, the perennial division winners could make a late surge. It’s hard at this point not to see the Braves as the baseball equivalent of Monty Python’s Black Knight, cackling that “‘Tis only a flesh wound!” as starting pitchers and sluggers go down, but even the Black Knight eventually had his head lopped off. One has to think at this point that the Braves’ 13-year run atop the division is done.

Past these three teams are another three with much weaker chances. It’s too early to entirely write off the Diamondbacks, Mets, and Dodgers, but not one of those teams is above .500 and all have some rather glaring and obvious holes. In the Diamondbacks’ case, this is the predictable result of the team’s traditional reliance on expensive veteran talent. While in the past Arizona has displayed an excellent knack for picking up players who can perform at a high level despite being seemingly over the hill, the acquisitions of Shawn Green and Russ Ortiz have not worked out well. But playing in a fairly weak division and fielding some real stars like Troy Glaus and Brandon Webb, they do have a shot.

The Mets’ problems are well-known; the truth is that they’re likely a year away, and they’ll need to be both excellent and lucky the rest of the way to be playing meaningful games in September. The Dodgers have simply been undone by injuries to Milton Bradley and Eric Gagne and a puzzling inability on the part of management to fill holes at third base and in the rotation.

Above all, it’s worth remembering that any one of these teams can win. Last year, the Astros, who won the wild card, were under .500 as late as August 22. It helps to be good, it helps to play in the right division, but as in any pennant race, the best thing a team can be sometimes is hot at just the right time.