They said that only a handful of teams could reach the World Series. That the Yankees might as well include the Series on its pocket schedule. That the only path to October was through New York City or Atlanta.

They were wrong. There are many ways to October, many paths to the World Series. Here are a few.

Ben Weber was released twice in his career, pitched for an independent team in Salinas, Calif., pitched two years in Taiwan and once paid the bills by working for $4.50 an hour on an assembly line job so dull and numbing that he couldn't even say what product he assembled. He didn't give up, though. He kept pitching. And now here he is, in the Angels' bullpen, ready to pitch in the World Series.

"The people in Taiwan,'' Weber said, "are probably saying the same thing the people in all independent leagues are saying. 'I can't believe it. If he can do it, I can do it.'"

There are so many ways to reach the World Series and Weber's was the express lane compared to Brendan Donnelly's. He played nine years in the minors, pitched for two independent teams and was released six times. He once was released after a team demoted him to Double-A to make room for high school science teacher Jim Morris. Donnelly didn't give up. He kept pitching. And now here he is, a 31-year-old rookie in the Angels' bullpen, ready to pitch in the World Series.

"Every once in a while," Donnelly said, "after a bad day or a bad week or a bad year, I would say to myself, 'What am I doing? I need to face facts and get started on a real career.' But the sun always came up the next day and I would be ready to keep going."

There are so many paths to the World Series. While Weber and Donnelly spent a lifetime in the minors, Barry Bonds has been around the majors virtually his entire life, since his father, Bobby, and godfather, Willie Mays, played and would take Barry to the ballpark with them. Barry grew up to become one of the best players in baseball history, but it took him 17 seasons to reach the World Series. But here he is, playing outfield for his father's old team and about to play in the World Series on the same field he used to play on with Disney cartoon characters during family softball games.

"I always wanted to play in the outfield with my godfather, I just didn't know the age difference at the time," Bonds said. "I just said, 'I'm going to play the outfield with you, be in left field.' I have the opportunity now to play left field and I play against the ghost of Willie and my dad."

There are so many roads to the World Series, some of them shorter than others. Francisco Rodriguez was in the minors a month ago. He pitched just 5.2 innings in the majors before the postseason. He won his first game in the postseason. And his second. And his third. And his fourth. And now, at age 20, he's in the World Series, with as many postseason victories as Sandy Koufax.

"As soon as I cross that line, I'm another person," Rodriguez said of his ability to handle pressure at such a young age. "When I get the ball, it's the only thing there is to me. I forget my family, my friends, I forget everything."

You can reach the World Series from so many places. Jarrod Washburn comes from a Wisconsin town so small that he needed to buy a satellite dish in order to pick up the World Series on Fox. Now he's not only pitching in the World Series, he's starting Game 1 for the Angels.

So many places. Washburn is from Wisconsin. Rodriguez is from Venezuela. Tsuyoshi Shinjo is from Japan. Livan Hernandez is from Cuba. Weber pitched in Taiwan.

And then there's Jason Schmidt.

He lives in southwest Washington, near Mount St. Helens, by the Columbia River, in a small town called Longview, a small town where it rains much of the year, a small town where players huddle and shiver in a cold, steady rain -- in July. A small town where, well, where I grew up, too. Although we went to different high schools (he grew up in Kelso, which is across the river from where he lives now), Schmidt played teeball at the same park I did and he would occasionally listen to Giants radio broadcasts just as I did at night.

"I'd lie in bed with the radio and hear the games through the static," he said with a smile Friday.

I grew up listening to the Giants through the static and dreaming of playing outfield for them in the World Series. My father wasn't a major-league player and my godfather wasn't a Hall of Famer, and I wasn't nearly good enough, but I guess it wasn't that crazy a dream. After all, Schmidt grew up a couple miles from me and he is living out that dream. Tonight, he starts Game 1 of the World Series for the Giants.

There are so many paths to the World Series. And who knows? The beauty of baseball is that whether you grow up in a major-league household in San Francisco, or dirt poor in Venezuela, or on the other side of the Pacific, or in Castro's Cuba, or in a small Washington town by a volcano, one of those paths may begin right outside your door.

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at cuffscaple@hotmail.com.