Who will win the World Series?

Let’s check with Dr. Emmett Brown. He knows.

Yeah, that’s Doc Brown, the wacky scientist played by Christopher Lloyd in the movie “Back to the Future.” That was 25 years ago, an anniversary that’s being celebrated by Hollywood just as the 2010 World Series is beginning in Northern California.

The movie, a money-making blockbuster, was about high school kid Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) who was accidentally transported in a time machine back from 1985 to 1955. He runs into his parents-to-be as teenagers and works to make sure they fall in love so he can get back to the future.

Remember some of the film’s great lines?

Doc: Then tell me, Future Boy, who is President in the United States in 1985?

Marty: Ronald Reagan

Doc: Ronald Reagan? The actor? Who’s Vice President? Jerry Lewis?

Early in the film, Doc Brown tells Marty where he’d like to go in his time machine, improbably crafted from a DeLorean automobile.

“25 years into the future,” Doc says. “I’ve always dreamed of seeing the future, living beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. . . . I’ll also be able to see who wins the next 25 World Series!”

Movie fans remember the end of the film when frizzy-haired Doc is about to take Marty and his girl friend Jennifer (Claudia Wells) zooming into the future in his garbage-powered DeLorean. In the script, they flew away in the car – “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,” Doc proclaims – and left 1985 behind.

All of us, of course, know who won the next 24 World Series. But only Doc Brown knows if the 2010 winner is the San Francisco Giants or the Texas Rangers.

And, really, we did our best to check with him but he was much too busy. Something about a fluxcapacitor and a Clock Tower and, oh yes, he had to feed Einstein. He was barking.

–Dick Kaegel