Too bad Tulowitzki is hitting two hundred.

Killed some braincells this weekend, don't remember a lot but here's what I got feel free to fill in the blanks with some comments...

Power Rankings Recap

The assessment was pretty good I think. The Immortal 4 finished 5 under somewhere in the upple middle section, although surprisingly mostly due to J-Box's putting, he nailed 2 bird putts and an iggle putt, who knew. Conor, a sober one at that, and Carlson both cheated again and finished in the top couple of spots. P-Bird by all accounts solidified his lieing by winning the long drive. Team Gayrutt finished somewhere around 6 over qualifying them for very close to last if not last, and did not record a single bird all day long. And for the most part I was too drunk to remember any of the other scores. Probably should have had some breakfast not made by Arthur Guinness if I wanted to remember most of the shit to put in the guy.

Apparently the Carl Pavano of golf made it through all 18 this year. Next year is guaranteed for a breakdown.

Grutt Wins Bet = Lame

So we had a bet that Grutt wouldn't hit the green on the Par 3 closest to pin hole and withing 30 minutes on the course I get a buzz from Grutt saying a lost and that he hit the green. Little did I know that the green was 120 away from the tea and the size of the Mediterranean, I hit a horrible shot and landed on the green and apparently grutt's was worse. Boo to that.

Wes Sucks at Golf

That is all.

Perras Piss Ball

So someone in the 4-some decided to hit a ball directly next to our tee box and decided that calling fore wasn't important. Somehow that ball ended up in a puddle of refurbished budweiser, and Perras enjoyably picked up the ball and probably continued to play with it. Ouch...

Death of my Driver Hole #14

I shank one of my many drives off the tee and calmly toss my driver over my head, truly calmly, typically on a club throw I would get lots of hang time, this one was just a toss over the head. And then I hear everyone in my group cracking up, and turn around and there it is, club snapped in half. Apparently it landed directly on the head, and snap. Boo to that.

Words of Wisdom from Jimmy Bones

It would have been good if it were straight.

It would have been good if it didn't go in the woods.

I'm just gonna go back to drinkin beers

I wish I owned them copper clubs like you guys.

What, I showed you where not to go.

The Great Lakes are saltwater right?

"The Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes connect." Cotton

How about you build Bones a copter whap, whap, whap....

Random Time Line Stuff

So I took notes, most of them don't make any sense to me right now...

9:34 Tehrani definately has the least hetero outfit, Pierce has sweet hat to save skull from the sun, Drew showing the chest hair and work boots, D-Rock dressing classy?
11:01 5th hole, 1st bird
11:26 Cotton's hat so gay
1:07 Alcohol 1 Immortal 4 0
1:20 Simone Embarrasses Team
1:23 Simone Doesn't Embarrass Team
1:25 J Breezy = Tiger Woods
1:45 Next year we need to stay drunk the entire time so we peak earlier
2 something or other Fors grills me for something I didn't do cause I have red hair
6 Kei Igawa doesn't suck, miracles do happen
7-9 Simone takes death nap
12 Back to Liets
3 am 'Martinez' tells girl he wants to go Mudd Driving
3 am Grenier gets a nice birthday kick to the temple, hello hospital

What white kid didn't love Thunder Dan during his heyday?

~I would be willing to bet a lot of money that there are a decent amount of trades in the top 15 picks and that the players selected differ from my mock draft no later than pick 6, my guess is Calvin Johnson will probably blow the lid off my whole my draft by having someone trade up for him.

~Joe Thomas has decided to go fishing instead of attending the draft, I don't know about you but this turns me off for several reasons. This is the biggest day of your life and you're going to lounge around on a pond all day instead of getting up on the podium? Do you not care that much / is this somehow not a big deal for you. In addition fishing sucks, its to friggin boring.

~I still can't believe the Patriots got a first round pick for Deion Branch, that seemed like too much to give up at the time for me and I'm sure the Seahawks would like to have their pick right now rather than Branch. You know the the Patriots will unearth some unknowned guy that will have a huge impact on their team this year. It happens every year. Pick range 20-30 is the perfect avenue for Bill to improve his team.

~If you're the Raiders why not take the best player in the draft Calvin Johnson and trade Randy Moss to a team that might motivate him so he has some value. Another year in Oakland is another year wasted for Randy Moss's skill set and another year where his value declines.

~I hope the Jets draft a cornerback in the 1st round and not the Olsen kid from Miami. I'm just never excited about picking a 1st round TE. The whole Anthony Becht waste probably lead to that.

~If your Washington don't you almost have to trade your #6 pick down to pick up a few more selections. I mean you don't have a 2nd or 3rd round pick right now. How is your team ever gonna be any good if you never can accumulate a lot of young players that fill well under the cap.

~Busts: Marshawn Lynch, Ted Ginn

~Falling to Far: Dwayne Jarrett

This is what I put into the ESPN Draft Forecast Game yesterday, I'd say this is what happens if there are no trades. My guess is there will end up being a ton of trades and it will look nothing like this. I think I did horrible in this game last year.

1st - Oakland Raiders, JaMarcus Russell, LSU QB

The Raiders suck all over the place, why they think a qb is going to solve this issue I have no idea. Russell has a big arm and is a large man, but without a decent offensive line Big Tree fall hard. He does fit the profile and look of a Raider, so that's a plus.

2nd - Detroit Lions, Gaines Adams, Clemson DE

They should take Calvin Johnson, but most likely they won't because Matt Millen, even though he's bullet proof apparently doesn't want to get fired. Chances are they trade this pick at some point, but if they don't I bet they draft Adams.

3rd - Cleveland Browns, Adrian Peterson, Oklahoma RB

Today I found out that Peterson reinjured his collar bone in the Fiesta Bowl and could miss 2 to 3 months, basically all of training camp and the preseason. Hmm. Shall I rethink it? Too Lazy. Anyway I just don't think the Browns want to bail on Charlie Frye yet and that leads them away from Brady Quinn. If Peterson stays healthy, the combo of Peterson, Edwards, and Winslow would give them promising players at all skill positions on offense.

4th - Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Calvin Johnson, Ga Tech WR

If the Bucs are sitting at 4 and Calvin Johnson is still on the board they will sprint to the podium. He's a stud.

5th - Arizona Cardinals, Joe Thomas, Wisconsin OT

Same goes for the Cardinals who are probably saying their prayers that a massive offensive lineman falls into their laps so they possibly develop some semblence of a rushing attack.

6th - Washington Redskins, Amobi Okoye, Louisville DT

Who the hell knows what the Redskins will do. It makes sense for them to trade for Briggs, they never draft anyone. But if they stay, they'll probably go for this kid, who's a 19 year old beast of a man.

7th - Minnesota Vikings, Brady Quinn, Notre Dame QB

Sorry, but I watched Tavarus Jackson last year, I don't think the Vikings want a poor man's Mike Vick to be captaining their franchise for the future.

8th - Atlanta Falcons (from Houston), LaRon Landry, LSU DS

The Falcons draft a d-back every year it seems like, and typically a VaTech d-back. Unfortunately no VaTech d-back is highly touted so they will jump on the Geaux Tigers bandwagon.

9th - Miami Dolphins, Levi Brown, Penn State OT

Dolphins need a lot, my guess is they just go safe and grab the Offensive tackle, unless of course they trade up for Quinn.

10th - Houston Texans (from Atlanta), Leon Hall, Michigan DC

Personally as a huge Michigan fan, I think Hall and Branch are a bit overrated. Maybe it was just the fact that they were completely outcoached in the Rose Bowl, as always, but their touted defense got torched, especially their secondary, which was lead by Hall. So the Texans probably draft him because, their franchise consists of a bunch of morons.

11th - San Francisco 49ers, Adam Carriker, Nebraska DE

49ers have been attempting to load up on offense the past few years with Smith, Gore, and Davis, so they probably go defense here and pick up Carriker and wait for a wideout with their 2nd round pick.

12th - Buffalo Bills, Patrick Willis, Ole Miss ILB

I think every single mock draft I looked at had the Bills taking Willis and it makes a lot of sense given the fact that they losdt Spikes.

13th - St. Louis Rams, Alan Branch, Michigan DT

Alan Branch is a large large man, and with the addition of Dante Hall, they won't make the mistake of drafting Ted Ginn, good move for them trading a 5th round pick for Hall instead of wasting a 1st round pick on Ginn.

14th - Carolina Panthers, Reggie Nelson, Florida DS

I have no idea what to expect from the Panthers. I 've seen just about everything including drafting Olsen the TE from Miami. I think you have to go value pick and get the best guy, not just needs, and will end up taking Nelson, who is a special athlete.

15th - Pittsburgh Steelers, Lawrence Timmons, Florida St OLB

They lost Porter so the sensible pick is an linebacker who will fit their new 4-3 scheme. Not sure why they are going to change from the 3-4 that's worked for the past 10+ seasons, but new coach new team.

It's pig Dinner Weekend and at the request of a few chumps I did a little team by team Power Rankings. So drink up be merry and don't get all of your front teeth chipped in half by some unconfirmed assbag who pulled your feet out from under you.

1. The Cuntry Club: Derick Fors(2002), Matt Bielik(2001), Jon Keaney(1999), Add New Member

Should I even count Fors team in the running for the best score, he is the Pro at the course and probably has played it hundred if not thousands of times already. A sabotage would need to be held most likely to ge them to lose, even if they do end up with just 3 guys.

2. Don't Hassle The Hoff: Jason Casimiro(2002), Jeffrey Costa(2002), Matthew Siska(2002), Gregory LaCamera(2002)

I could be wrong but were all these guys on the golf team with the exception of Siska? I feel like they post a good score every year.

3. G.F.Y.: Ryan "Thunder" Fournier(2000), Dana "The Towering Infermo" Griffin(2000), Max "The Dirty Sanchez" Gomez(2000), Kevin "The Brokeback Cowboy" Landrigan(2000)

I also feel like what ever team Dana plays on always puts up a top score, could be wrong on that assumption to but these three teams seem to be on the top of the leader board every year.

4. The Mighty Putz: Jamie Carlson(1999), Mike Dorval(2002), Keith Kerr(1999), Add New Member

I swear Carlson cheats every year. Somehow someway his team ends up with a good score when it's highly doubtful they are that good.

5. Duke Lacrosse Alums: Conor Casey(2004), Brian "Breathmint" Abcunas(2004), Karl Gebhardt(2004), Gary Pedro(2004)

Every year somehow this team does well. I don't particularly get why, I can't imagine Abcunas being any good even though he did play hockey. Never really got how somehow that awkward could play a sport. I wouldn't put it past Conor to pull a Jamie Carlson every year. Hopefully, P-Bird doesn't run over anymore headstones so we can continue to golf at this course in future years and not be banned from this course like so many before it.

6. Immortal 4: Matt Simone(2005), Jim Loiselle(2005), Dan Schwab(2005), Justin Billings(2005)

Billings and Cotton are good, I'm bad, Jimbo usually is in the bag by the 9th hole. Typically we finish in the middle of the pack because no one ever either A) Sticks it right by the hole or B) Makes a putt. The Forecast is for a little bit of rain so perhaps, Jimbo decides to prance around the golf course in solely his boxers again, 'To Stay Warm'. Genius.

7. BallBags: Paul "Lassie" Elliott(2003), Matt Long(2003), Dirk Diggler(2003), Matt Clark(2003)

I'm probably an idiot but I'm missing the connection of who Dirk Diggler is. Perhaps it's coach Rob I'm sure every former baseball player misses his leadership and guidance and would go completely out of their way to see him again.

8. Team Bushwood: Wes Salomon(2005), John Courtney(2005), Shawn Walker(2005), Tony Maglione(2005)

Wes is quite possibly the worst golfer to ever hold a club. If I had to put an over under on the number of his shots that the team will use, discounting putts, for the entire day I would lay it at 2.5, and then I would take the under the way under.

9. Delta Force: Jay Cardinal(2001), Jonathan Rich(2001), Paul O'Brien(2001), Ben Wilson(2001)

We played behind them I think last year and if I remember correctly they were not very good.

10. Busch Light Brigade: Andrew Frascotti(2006), Andrew Mills(2006), Jeff Perras(2006), John Tehrani(2006)

One of the Biggest Question Marks of the tournament is whether Tehrani, the Carl Pavano of Pig Dinners, will in fact be able to make it through all 18 holes. Vegas Line is 2 to 1 he will. Also, if I was Sweet Lou I would be much more appreciative of my eldest son as you will soon see despite the fact he can't properly sit on lawn furniture.

11. Chipper 'n Dales: Brent Shannon(Undergrad), Mike Pierce(Undergrad), Ryan DeChristoforo(2006), Drew Forrest(2006)

Should have named this group the Dead Presidents and the Forrest. Now I'd imagine Drew being very awful at golf, and can't see Brent being particularly good either. I would expect Pierce and Brent to be bringing their a games with outfits, and fully expect Pierce to be wearing some fruity hat to keep his skull in the shade.

12. Clubs and Shrubs: Brian McDonough(Undergrad), Eric Robert Sands(2005), Bryan Bussone(Undergrad), Kiki Martinez(Undergrad)

I was going to put them higher because Buss is surprisingly good at golf and Sands isn't bad himself, then I put it together that they'll probably be stoned by the third hole and smashing their golf carts into bushes.

13. Chronic Master-Putters: Chris Hamel(2004), Sean Coughlin(2004), Aaron Vanney(2004), Derek Ransom(2005)

Half the team is high the other half, not so good at golf. Chances are good that D-Rock and Buss meet at some point in time during the day to pull a drag race and or a little modification of Bumper Cars.

14. Phi Gamma Slammas: Joseph Renaud(Undergrad), Barrett Franklin(2005), Joe Frascotti(Undergrad), Lou Frascotti(1979)

Sweet Lou what exactly did you do to your son to deserve this kind of torture. Sure you will be able to grace the course with someone so great that they recorded a hole in one during their first round of golf and played a round with Tiger Woods at Pebble Beach, but how will you not end up being embarrassed when he straps the team on his back and makes every shot?

15. The Fraternity of Mu Tau: Anthony Smith(2005), Sean Mahoney(2005), Joseph Gruttadauria(2005), Rick Adams(2005)

In a heated battle for last place Team Derby should be able to drag down I'm good at every Rick by producing absolutely no quality shots throughout the entire tournament. Mahoney does however have the body of a Phil Mickelson and is from Tampa, could he perhaps make up for Grutt's ineptitude. Probably not.

I think next year there should be a 4-some of the worst golfers, with Wes, Ziggy, possibly Grutt and another.

Unknown Soldiers

Sure I may know some of them, but I have no idea how good they may or may not be at golf.

AberKoski & Bald: Justin Dyer(1999), Matt Koski(1999), Rick Gallimore(1999), Jim Armitage(1999)

The "Blue Max" School of Dance - Talent Scouts: Wally Towner, "Head" Inspector(1983), Bill "I've Fallen and I Can't Get It Up" Trask(Undergrad), Misael Diaz(Undergrad), Add New Member

Burnt Stumps: Bill Musiak(1993), Jim Meystrik(1995), Dave Henry(1993), Sean Conley(1995)

FIJI Masters: Henry Fitzgerald(1975), Joel Angelico(1975), Add New Member, Add New Member

Fiji Masters Steel Traps: Dave Vogt(1977), John Wilbur(1977), Alex Vogt(1975), Add New Member

J.A.B.J: Matt O'Brien(1997), Alan Assner(1996), BG Chabot(1996), Matt Pelkey(1996)

Monkey Dicks: Scott Theriault(1998), Mark Palmer(1998), Mike Dunbar(1996), Mark Simon(1996)

Night Train Express: Andy Williams(1936), Sean Doherty(1992), Paul Bordieri(1993), Ed Leono(1995)

No Name Golfers: Bill Johnson(1993), Matt Jeffers(1993), Chris Ledoux(1993), Derek Anderson(1993)

What is wrong with the Japanese? Could you possibly get away with this in American?

So from now on every time Dice-K gives up a home run I think Varitek should go to the mound and give him a swift jimmy tap with his catchers mit. Seems like it is acceptable punishment in the far east.

Apparently Cups should be mandatory on crosses in the box. Most likely that guy would have rather not scored the goal. Although Blunt testicular trama is always fun.

From: The Offside

Two days ago Sebastian Telfair was arrested on a guns possession charge (his girlfriends gun) after getting pulled over for driving 77 in a 45 in his massive Landrover and the Celtics couldn't run to the teams locker room fast enough to rip his name off of his former locker and say:

I wanted to let you know that we have removed Sebastian's nameplate from his locker in Waltham. The facts and circumstances of his case have not been determined but he does not have a Celtics locker and we do not anticipate that he will," Celtics managing partner Wyc Grousbeck wrote in an e-mail to The Boston Globe on Tuesday.

"The players on the Celtics have been explicitly warned, this year, to obey the team and league gun prohibition as well as state laws. We take this very seriously and will act accordingly once the facts have been determined," Grousbeck also stated.

Personally I think this is completely laughable. The Celtics made a horrendous trade in picking up Telfair and have would have taken anything he could have done as an excuse to attempt to perge him from the roster. How about you do some in house cleansing and tell Ainge that he should have to pay a portion of Telfair's salary. It's not as if Telfair hasn't done stuff like this in the past, he did get caught with a gun in 2005 at Logan airport while going on a team plane.

There reaction was like oh my god Telfair got caught with a gun, this is completely unacceptable, and since he sucks and is a waste of our roster spot right now and is a reminder of how miserable our GM is with regards to trades, we want him off the roster ASAP.

Chad Ford of ESPN does a good job of summing up the Celtics quickness of action, but its an INSIDER article, so you probably can't read it. Basically in essence the Celtics most likely will not put Telfair on the roster, but won't waive him either considering he is still a 21 year old point guard with potential, who doesn't get paid much, and has an expiring contract at the end of next season. So my guess is Danny will be shopping him and his girlfriends gun around the NBA for the next month. My guess is it all depends on whether the C's get a top two pick in this years draft, else you should expect the whatever pick they get (#3, #4, or #5) to be shipped with Bassy and Ratliff for a veteran.

In the end every should be reminded that it was Danny Ainge's lunacy that brought Telfair to Boston, I thought it was a miserable move at the time and somehow it exceeded my terrible expectations. And right now for some reason I almost feel bad for the guy.

Ouch...

~Extrapolate Arod's 3s for an entire season:
675 ABs, 270 Hits, 234 Runs, 63 Doubles, 126 Homers, 306 RBIs, 9 SBs -- WOW

~At the opposite end of the spectrum extrapolate David Wrights #s:
621 ABs, 162 Hits, 99 Runs, 27 Doubles, 0 Homers, 36 RBIs, 27 SBs -- OUCH

~Mets Record = 12-6, Yankees Record = 8-10, Go Figure.

~Jason Giambi might be the slowest baseball player of this generation. Last night in the 8th inning down 4, Giambi standing on second base Cano hits a line drive up the middle. Giambi rounds third but doesn't score in spite of the fact that Elijah Dukes kicked the ball no lie 30 feet in front of him. Posada proceeded to foul out, and Cabrera struck out to strand the bases loaded. So Giambi's fatness cost me both an RBI from Cano and a save from Reyes, as he came in up 4 instead of 3.

~This also got me annoyed heavily because Joe Girardi said something completely retarded. When Giambi didn't score on the boot, Girardi said it wasn't that big of a deal and they didn't want to push it because Giambi's run didn't mean anything. That was completely stupid. It was the 8th inning, the only time that forcing a run is meaningless is in the 9th inning when the run comes prior to the tieing run. At any other point in the game it decreses the deficit. Thus in the next inning when Arod blasted another homerun, Giambi would have come up as the tieing run instead of being up down 2. How could a manager of the year say something that stupid?

~I can't stand Michael Kay, I just can't. I really wish the Yankees had a different announcer. He tries to analyze stuff too much when that's not his job. And how long are you going to chime in on the fact that Key Igawa needs to get used to American food. It's America, there are Japanese restaurants all over the place, he can afford to order a meal from any restaraunt in the Tampa St. Pete area, I'm pretty sure he can find atleast one decent place to get a meal. Does American food make you forget how to throw a strike?

~Basically the overall broadcasting of the Yankees last night was piss poor. Where oh where have you gone Bobby Murcer and Jim Kaat.

~Something I absolutely don't get about the draft. Leon Hall is getting hyped as the #1 cornerback in the draft and solidified his status as so after a solid 40 time, as a diehard Michigan fan that's cool you have the #1 player at a given position. But here's what I don't understand Dwayne Jarrett's stock is on the decline after a poor 40 time and is garnering some unfavorable comparisons to Mike Williams. Anybody watch the Rose Bowl? Anybody? Did that slip past the scouting calendar? Maybe 205 yards and 2 TDs in a game where on occasion he was matched up with the #1 cornerback in the draft is bad. I've got to be missing something.

~Hooray the Celtics are going to attempt to cut complete ties with Telfair.

~Jimmy Rollins just needed a double to get a cycle and get me some cash.

~Just went to the pisser and was directly behind a guy walking into the door and in a 3 urinal bathroom he took the middle one. I'm pretty sure there's nothing in life simpler than this that annoys the hell out of me.

For the most part I simply write about sports, but on occasion someone says something so profoundly stupid that I need to comment. Yesterday, that women was Sheryl Crow, who's music isn't any good, said this on her tour blog yesterday:

"Although my ideas are in the earliest stages of development, they are, in my mind, worth investigating. One of my favorites is in the area of forest conservation which we heavily rely on for oxygen. I propose a limitation be put on how many squares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required. When presenting this idea to my younger brother, whose judgment I trust implicitly, he proposed taking it one step further. I believe his quote was, "how bout just washing the one square out."

Wash a friggin square out? What kind of toilet paper are you using? Some kind of persian cloth? And this is your ingenious plan on saving the environment, using less toilet paper. You can not be serious, one sheet individual square of toilet paper, I don't believe there's any chance in hell that would work. Perhaps Sheryl Crow just likes to wipe her ass with just her hand, or perhaps she only shits gold. Maybe we should up that to no pieces of toilet paper and every bathroom should contain multiple bidets and bars of soap, that way we can waste water instead of paper.

Oh and she has more ideas one of which includes wearing items of clothing where you have a detachable sleeve, and use that as a napkin for the night instead of using an actual napkin. And you can bring another sleeve with you to the restaurant and attach it right on.

This woman needs to be stopped, no person this stupid should be allowed to talk.

~I very much enjoyed the fact that both the Spurs and Mavericks got knocked off their pedastal game 1. Could possibly lead to some good first round series. One has to question how the Mavericks who won 67 games this season have been swept thus far this season by the Warriors. Is there truly a possibility that the Mavericks can beat every other team in the NBA but for some unknown reason Nelly has his old squads number? How miserable would it be if a team won 67 games had multiple 15 game win streaks and then got bounced in the first round of the playoffs by a team that hasn't made the playoffs since C-Webb was on the roster. Also, I can't stand the Spurs and would much rather see AI and Carmello move onto the next round. Get some fresh blood in the mix.

~On the opposite side. The Suns, Cavs, and Pistons are going to roll through their series with no issue at all.

~What the hell happenned to Andrei Kirilenko, he used to be a defensive force and an underrated player. Now he's crying on the bench over a lack of playing time?

~I just can't get into the Hockey Playoffs right now. That move to Versus is quite possibly the single dumbest cable move of all time. The NBA was on 8 hours a day this weekend, the NHL on the other hand was on NBC once a day. And Versus, a channel I don't get probably the rest of the time. Stupid.

~Cole Hamels had 15Ks in a game in which his team turned a triple play, that's pretty impressive, 15 Ks in effectively 8 innings.

~The Oreo's are on fire now, and just swept the injury riddled Blue Jays. I think a lot of credit should go to their GM for giving them a solid bullpen this year. Oh wait their GM is Jim Duquette? The same guy that traded Kazmir for Victor Zambrano? OK disregard that credit.

~The Braves are back to their old methods of dominating the Mets at every turn. Should be an interesting year for the typical Braves Mets clashes.

~Why is Barry Bonds hitting a homer every day? Boo to that.

~Speaking of dominance, Rafael Nadal once again rolled Roger Federer on clay. It really is coming down to in order for Federer to win the French this or any year, he needs someone else to knock out Nadal, and considering Nadal has something like a 70 match winning streak on clay, that's probably really doubtful. Chalk up another French Open win for the Spaniard in the gay Capri pants.

~Chelsea sucked it up and drew at Newcastle yesterday, so they remain 3 point behind Man U. Boo to that.

~Man in baggy shorts jacks up dude in tight nut hugging shorts, and the world is a better place.

~Going into the weekend I told my buddy that I would actually be pleased if the Yankees took one of the games and lost the series. With the pitching matchups lined up Schilling, Beckett, Dice-K vs. Pettite, Karstens, Wright, asking for anything more than a single game would have been a bit stupid. But thanks to a combination of things they got swept, it that blew.

~Back to Back to Back to Back, is cool but it was against Chase Wright, a kid whose only started 4 games above Class A ball. I think Manny's ball hit the moon though.

~Here's the funny part about the Yankees, the middle relief are struggling because they are pitching every single game this season, especially Proctor and Vizcaino who are both a couple games into double digit appearances already. Meanwhile Mariano is struggling because he is never getting into any games because the games the Yankees have been winning have been complete blowouts. I mean giving up huge hits to Coco Crisp and Marco Scutaro in the same week, that's terrible.

~Meanwhile I understand that Wright got rocked for 4 straight homers, but your bullpen is dead, did you have to take him out immediately after the 3rd. Another 5 innings for the bullpen to burden, I'm sure they were pumped.

~How many times will Joe Torre have Andy Pettite's 'bullpen' session be an actual relief outing? This is already the second time he's done it this season. So basically Andy Pettite is tough enough to throw in game between starts meanwhile that sack of sh*t Carl Pavano is back on the DL with forearm stiffness. I think he should just get jumped on the streets, the guy is such a friggin wuss.

~Here's a question, if Philip Hughes is a top 2 pitching prospect in all of baseball, and the Yankees are completely depleted with injuries in their starting rotation why are they starting 3 guys that aren't nearly close to his minor league pedigree? Are they that protective of the kid? Do they feel that adamant about making sure that when he gets called up he stays up, to the point they don't mind getting rocked on a weekend series at Fenway? Seems pretty stupid to me.

~Niether Dice-K and Beckett were overly impressive this weekend when facing a good lineup. Count it up to nerves or the Yankees patience, but these guys looked great at the start of the season and gave up 6 and 5 runs respectively but both ended up with a W thanks to the fact they were facing Schmuck pitchers.

~On the other hand, the much maligned Red Sox bullpen was pretty much flawless and the other Japanese guy Okajima was a solid addition to the pen, despite the fact he was ineffective last night. And of course once again Papelbon looks unhittable in the 9th, moving him back to closer was a smart move, especially when in a few months Lester is back in the rotation.

~I love how they keep on saying the Yankees lineup has no holes, and then Will Nieves steps up to the plate because Posada isn't playing and they mention the fact he doesn't have a single hit yet this season. Not to mention the fact that hitting in front of him was Melky, hitting around the Mendoza line, and Dougy Minkowitz who's not so good. Right now the bottom 3 in the Yankees lineup is not so good. The Red Sox lineup yesterday was better than the Yankees lineup. Now with Matsui and Posada in the lineup the pendulum swings back to New York, but no holes, ha, I have as many hits as Nieves this year.

~A Rod went two games without hitting a homer and it's almost surprising.

~Does Manny have Cheetos in his hair?

~Why is JD Drew playing well? I think it's about time he gets injured.

~I wonder if Wily Mo has ever seen a pitch he didn't want to swing at, guy has no plate discipline.

~Varitek was on fire this weekend, hopefully he regresses back to what he was doing the first few weeks.

~Pedroia made the biggest play of the game yesterday, snuffing Phelps line drive in the 8th which would have tied the game.

~Colter Bean is not good at all. He has no idea what half of the plate his pitches are going end up.

~The Yanks need to answer next weekend at the stadium when they actually might have some favorable pitching matchups. Igawa(sat) Wang (Sun) and pick one Rasner or Wright friday against Dice-K (fri), Wakefield (sat), Tavarez (sun).

Whats more fun than a slash in the balls.

I wonder why they got completely blown out in the second half.

I'm feeling very lazy about analyzing every last one of these series for the first round so I just did a bracket. But I'll give a few quick thoughts.

Best Series: Heat vs. Bulls
Best Upset Chance: Nets
Easiest Series: Cavs vs. Wizards

Another year, another #1 rated quarterback flocks to USC. After the high school recruiting period where the Trojans unfortunately were not able to land the #1 Quarterback prospect in the country (Jimmy Clausen who's headed to ND) it did not take them long to grab another #1 rated QB. Mitch Mustain, the 2006 top recruit from Arkansas who stayed in state only to get ticked off by the fact that Arkansas was running the ball almost exclusively with McFadden and he was being benched for a stiff decided that he was going to transfer. Well yesterday, he chose USC, aka Quarterback U. My question is how in the world does Pete Carroll keep on bringing these guys in year after year even though they already have an established quarterback, a former #1 Quarterback himself. Let's take a look at the USC Quarterbacks both the past few seasons and currently on their roster.

Recent QB History of USC

Carson Palmer - 2002 Heisman Winner
Matt Leinart - 2004 Heisman Winner
John David Booty - #1 rated QB of 2003
Mark Sanchez - #1 rated QB of 2005
Aaron Corp - #3 rated QB of 2007
Mitch Mustain - #1 rated QB of 2006, won't be eligible this season.

How in the world does he get all of these guys? I understand Booty, he came out and didn't know Leinart was the guy and went to USC and was forced to redshirt before gaining the job last year. But starting with Sanchez, #1 QB in the country you join a team with a Heisman winner on the roster and a #1 QB in the country whose been soaking in the system for two years. This year Aaron Corp, #3 QB in the country, you're sitting behind two #1 QBs of the country, why not go to another university and start at minimum your sophomore year.

And Mustain, jeeze, #1 rated in the country could probably start in 2008 for any team in the country but USC who will almost certainly start Sanchez. I just don't get it. I understand that USC is obviously a fantastic gateway to the NFL, hell Matt Cassell got drafted and he didn't even play ever, but wouldn't you rather have a starting job on another team. Wouldn't you rather play? Mitch you have a very limited chance of starting in 2008 and unless Sanchez struggles, which no USC quarterback ever does, you doubtfully will start in 2009. So you're what hoping your much better than Aaron Corp so you can start for one year in 2010? Any other high profile team would have scooped you up in a second to start in 2008. Why USC? Pete Carroll is just amazing.

Or not...

It's all in the Sox.

Coach of the Year: Sam Mitchell

I bet there are a good portion of people who have no friggin idea who Sam Mitchell is what he looks like and would never recognize him walking down the street as Sam Mitchell even if he was wearing a t-shirt that said My Name is Sam Mitchell. Well Mitchell got the Raptors, yes the Raptors, the 3 seed in the east and a division crown. Sure its the worst division in the NBA, but somebody had to win it, and technically they aren't the worst division winner, even though the Heat have a worse record because of the obvious fact that Wade missed signifcant time.

2nd Place: Avery Johnson
3rd Place: Jeff Van Gundy

Sixth Man: Leandro Barbosa

Barbosa is the perfect sparkplug for the Suns, he is lightning fast, can shoot the three or drive the lane, is a scoring machine, can play sidekick to Nash or can take over with Nash on the bench. He's a pretty easy pick for sixth man.

2nd Place: Jarry Stackhouse
3rd Place: Manu Ginobli

Defensive Player: Bruce Bowen

The defensive player of the year is such a huge crapshoot for the NBA. I don't know if this is ever given out on the basis of anything other than reputation. I mean I'm just gonna give it to Bruce Bowen because of his reputation and because of his ability to guard just about anyone on the court with the exception of a center. He guards Dirk, Kobe, Nash, he guards the best player on the other team every night and the Spurs don't give up many points.

2nd Place: Marcus Camby
3rd Place: Shane Battier

Rookie of the Year: Brandon Roy

This is pretty much the easiest of all the choices, Brandon Roy after sitting out much of the start of the season came in and was the only consistant rookie in the NBA. He was an impact scorer and helped turn the Blazers into not the worst franchise in the country.

2nd Place: Andrea Bargnani
3rd Place: LaMarcus Aldridge

Most Improved Player: Al Jefferson

I might be a wee bit biased here, but Big Al emerged this season, especially the second half of the season as a dominant low post threat and was putting up very similar numbers to year in year out All-Stars like Elton Brand and a guy everyone considers great Dwight Howard. In fact Jefferson was so good this year that the Celtics had to sit him in order to tank their last two weeks of the season.

2nd Place: Kevin Martin
3rd Place: Monta Ellis

Most Valuable Player: Tracy McGrady

Everyone says this award comes down to Dirk and Nash this season, with a few whispers in the distance for Kobe, but I really think T-Mac should get consideration. The Rockets were brutal without him, 2-8. And unlike the Suns and Mavericks the Rockets had to deal without their second best player for 32 games in which T-Mac lead the team in just about everything to the tune of a 20-12 record. With both T-Mac and Yao in the lineup the Rockets were 30-9. Extrapolate that over the entire season and they are just as good as the Mavs the Suns and the Spurs. Without T-Mac the Rockets are just as lost as the Suns are without Nash, and with him a healthy roster they are just as good as the Suns. Who would you rather have as your 3rd best player, Shawn Marion or Shane Battier? Can it be argued that Amare is better than Yao? Sure.

So why no love for Dirk, he's not good in the closing seconds. T-Mac has dropped multiple triples in the last 20 seconds of a game, Dirk perpetually struggles and if Avery was smart would just continue feeding the ball to Jason Terry at the end of the game.

In the end I just wanted to go with someone a bit different and I think it could be argued that McGrady should be behind Nash and/or Nowitzki, but I think people are overlooking just how important he is to the Rockets. How bad were they last season when he missed games, they missed the playoffs.

2nd Place: Steve Nash
3rd Place: Dirk Nowitzki

Maybe that argument with the radio jock really rattled Charlie Manuels mind, maybe it were the facts that I brought up earlier today about how their bullpen is horrendous and Brett Myers has simply sucked it up his first three starts this season, but Charlie no brains has decided to screw over ever person that drafted Brett Myers expecting 200 Ks by... using him as the setup man? Are you kidding me Charlie? Your opening day starter sucks it up for three games and you bail on him that quickly? I wonder how that conversation went...

Chuckles: Hey Brett

Wife Beater: Hey Coach, whats up

Chuckles: You know how Ryan Madson is f'n awful and keeps losing games and is our '2nd best' guy in the pen, and we f'n suck.

Wife Beater: Um... Sure coach.

Chuckles: Well you know how you've been getting whiplash this season because you've been getting hit so hard.

Wife Beater: Well, coach, I

Chuckles: Ya well I want to limit the amount of whiplash you can get in one day. So your our new Set Up man. Feels good eh?

Wife Beater: [Mumbling] Great now I have to drop myself on my fantasy team, and pick up who, Jon Lieber... Ya that sounds like a brilliant idea. [Mumbling] How about if you get the MVP to get a friggin hit, maybe he could be the setup man. Grr.

...
I targeted Brett Myers in every draft I had, except someone jumped on him a round or two before I was going to. Thank the good lord. And better yet in my keeper league, he was a keeper, ha. Sucks for that guy.

The Tigers are beginning to immensely piss me off with their efforts of getting their best pitcher Jeremy Bonderman a friggin win, why because I have him in all three of my leagues. I'd be less upset if he wasn't pitching terrifically in every start, but he is and somehow someway the friggin Tiger's have botched it every single time.

Bonderman's Game Logs

6 IP, 3 Rs, 3 Ks - Gave up 3 in the first and bounced back to throw 5 strong, Tigers score 3 the entire game and the bullpen blows the tie for the opening day loss.

6 IP, 2 Rs, 8 Ks - Tigers score absolutely no runs until they shell Riske in the 9th for 3 runs and win 3-2.

9 IP, 1 R, 4 Ks - Tigers score one run the entire game against Halladay and the bullpen blows it in the 10th for a 2-1 loss.

7 IP, 1 R, 6 Ks - Todd Jones blows a 2 run lead in the 9th to the friggin Royals and they go and lose in extras.

So right now Bonderman's sitting with a 2.25 ERA, 4 Quality Starts, a WHIP of .857, and no friggin Ws. Meanwhile, Chase Friggin Wright picked up a win last night. Immensely annoying.

Nothing is bothering me lately more than this idiotic hammering home on the Mike and Mike show of their Greeny Rule and why you should reward winning. Well yesterday Dick Vitale, now a confirmed moron, wrote a column backing the rule and came on Mike and Mike to voice his opinion of switching around the lottery order. Now I've already hammered it home why I think the Greeny Rule is moronic, and why I think tanking gives us a fun extra storyline at the end of the year but I have another axe to grind with these clowns.

The keep on bringing up the point that these bad teams should be forced to go out in free agency and bring in players to improve their teams and that losing shouldn't reward them with the best chance of bringing in the next superstar. The problem with that whole philosophy is that teams almost never win without massive success in the draft. How many big time superstar free agents have their been in the past few seasons? How many teams ever win because of their free agent signings? Basically Nash has been the only legitimate free agent signing in the past 4 or 5 years, and he went to a team with Marion and Amare, not a team that stunk.

Past 21 NBA Champions The MVP

2006 Miami Heat - Dwayne Wade
2005 San Antonio Spurs - Tim Duncan
2004 Detroit Pistons - Chauncey Billups*
2003 San Antonio Spurs - Tim Duncan
2002 LA Lakers - Shaq*
2001 LA Lakers - Shaq*
2000 LA Lakers - Shaq*
1999 San Antonio Spurs - Tim Duncan
1998 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1997 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1996 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1995 Houston Rockets - Hakeem Olajuwan
1994 Houston Rockets - Hakeem Olajuwan
1993 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1992 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1991 Chicago Bulls - Michael Jordan
1990 Detroit Pistons - Isiah Thomas
1989 Detroit Pistons - Joe Dumars
1988 LA Lakers - James Worthy
1987 LA Lakers - Magic Johnson
1986 Boston Celtics - Larry Bird

4 of the past 21 champions in the NBA have won with a free agent as their most important player. 3 of which were Shaq on the Lakers. So in actuality only two franchises have won an NBA title in over 20 years because of a key free agent signing, it doesn't happen. The Pistons with all their signings and trades are the absolute exception to the rule, and their is always one exception to the rule. If you change the rules and bury a franchise like the Grizzlies into the ground they will never ever get out of it, and the Grizzlies aren't tanking (much) they just completely suck. You're asking the Grizzlies and other miserable teams to be the exception rather then giving them the real path to success, and it just won't happen.

~So the Red Sox are giving Dice-K the Pedro treatment, aka not scoring any runs for him. Pedro in his prime should have won 20 games every single season but didn't because the Red Sox for some reason seemingly shut down their potent offense when he took the mound, and thus far this season the Red Sox have done the same in 2 of the 3 Dice-K starts. Not saying that this pattern necessarily will continue, but he certainly has pitched very well. And it's not like the Red Sox should struggle to score runs against Gustavo Chacin, not like he's dominating at all.

~John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, and Greg Maddux all pitched yesterday, how weird is that.

~Has anyone in baseball this season been worse than Jorge Julio thus far this season? The Marlins desperate to pick up a closer sent a supposedly decent prospect to the D-Backs to get Julio to close. Within a week and a half Julio was bounced as the teams closer, sits on the roster at 0-2 with 2 blown saves. He's walked atleast one batter in every appearance, including a one inning outing where he walked 4 batters, including one with the bases loaded. His ERA currently sits at 19.06, ouch.

~At the opposite end of the spectrum how great of a start is Ian Kinsler on. While Arod is off to a fantastic start and is getting a lot of attention, not many people are saying anything about Kinsler who currently is hitting .360 and has 7 homers over the first 2 1/2 weeks of action. I targeted Kinsler when I made my draft rankings for second baseman, and in one of my 3 leagues I got him, and am very pleased. In my keeper league he was actually protected, which was pretty surprising but so far it looks like a pretty darn good decision.

~Wow the Phillies are pretty terrible right now. Not one their 2,3,4 hitters Victorino, Utley and Howard is hitting above .250 and combined they have 3 homeruns. Their opening day starter, Brett Myers, has more runs allowed than innings pitched, and lets just say their bullpen has been less than stellar. It's a sad thing when Pat Burrell has been your second best player thus far this season.

~Had my first triple save night last night which is stellar. Basically in my keeper league everyone has 3 closers on their roster, if you have a night where you get a save from each it's a pretty solid night. I went 3 for 3 with Hoffman, Reyes (who's been great so far) and the newly picked up Jason Frasor (dumped Julio thank the lord).

It's a sad day for Americans after such a senseless, senseless act. My best friend went to VaTech and is completely dedicated to Hokie nation and absolutely loved his time in Blacksburg and is a bit shaken. There's a good chance that I myself during the time I visited him stepped foot in that building myself as he had classes in the building throughout his college career and I spent a few hours in some computer labs around campus while he was in class.

I understand the back tracking and saying that the police should have implored the president to shutdown campus but I think everything is monday morning quarterbacking, there's no history of this type of event ever. Nothing like this has ever happened, I'm sure the cops and the VaTech officials looked at everything and made what they thought was the best decision and that there was no threat to anyone outside the dorm. Unfortunately they were wrong, but there is absolutely no reason to put any of the blame on the president or the campus police, they did not contribute to this horrible event, stop making them out as horrible people, I'm sure they are torturing themselves enough. VaTech campus is enormous, it's a mini city, tracking down a single individual whether or not that had an accurate description would be almost impossible.

And the fact that his creative writing was a bit disturbing, again that doesn't lead people to feel that anyone is capable of murdering 32 people in cold blood, it just doesn't.

There's nothing that can be said or done to ensure that a vicious, messed up person, won't do this, it's just the world we live in unfortunately, so let's all hope and pray that people like this in the future reach out for help before something like this happens again.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the families that must deal with the senseless loss of a son, daughter, father, mother or sibling.

With the major problems that have cropped up this season due to the weather (snow & massive rain) and extreme cold of this month of April there are a few simple steps to ease the pain of future months like this. I understand that the scheduling is very complex, especially considering the Mets, Yanks, Cubs, White Sox are never in town on the same day, and other problems but I think the major leagues should try to set some standards in the month of April in the future.

1) Obviously try to get as many games in at places that are either in warm weather or under a dome. This ensures that their won't be any snow outs or the even more ridiculous cold outs. Half the teams inthe AL fit the mold and almost half the teams in the NL fit the mold, these teams should have more home than road games the first month every year.

AL Dome Teams - Toronto, Tampa, Minnesota, Chicago, Seattle
AL Warm Weather Teams - LAA, Texas

NL Dome Teams - Milwaukee, Arizona, Houston
NL Warm Weather Teams - Atlanta, Florida, San Diego, LAD

San Fran and Oakland are not warm weather, but do not otften have snow or incredibly frigid cold.

2) Do not schedule a teams lone trip to an opponent in April. The Mariners were making one lone trip to Cleveland this year, all snowed out. There is plenty of time to schedule teams road trips in the last 5 months of the season, by scheduling them in the most dangerous month of the year you are taking a severe risk.

3) Schedule close to 2/3 of the games in April as divisional games. When Divisional games get snowed or rained out it's not nearly as big a deal. Each divsional team will make another two trips to their opponent, scheduling double headers later in the season or increasing a series by a game is not that big a deal, attempting to find a time when the Giants can play in Pittsburgh a big deal. Teams in cold weather parks should almost exclusively play divisional opponents the opening month.

Just taking these 3 simple steps should curtail many of the problems baseball will face the remainder of the season when attempting to make up all the canceled games.

Even though he just might in fact qualify as the ugliest referee on the face of the planet.

Not sure if I believe this whole video footage, if it is real these guys have way way too much time on their hands...

~The wearing of the #42 jersey was pretty cool throughout the league, and I decided to browse a list of who wore the number. Turns out only two white players in the entire league chose to where the number, that being Jim Thome and Grady Sizemore. I don't know if I would have worn it if I was in the big leagues, but I'm surprised only two guys chose to wear the number and both of them just happened to be studs.

~It is pretty amazing how little Pub Larry Doby gets for being the second black man in baseball, the first in the AL, only two months later than Jackie Robinson. I'm not diminishing Robinson's role in American history, but Larry Doby had to go through much of the same racism and hit cities that Robinson hadn't been to yet. His role is only a notch below that of Jackie's and I'd be willing to bet that out of all the people that know the name Jackie Robinson, only about a 1/4 maximum have heard the name Larry Doby.

~Sorry BJ, but I just picked up Jason Fraser your closer replacement, so I hope when they come down with the news of your elbow later today its not good.

~Carl Pavano is still a massive wuss and is going to join Wang and Mussina on the DL. Now the Yanks have a rotation of Pettite, Igawa, and three complete unknowns, gonna be a rough few weeks.

~Mariano gets dumped on on his first save opportunity, not very good.

~The Diamondbacks are 9-4???

~All the rainouts yesterday were pretty lame, especially for the Giants and Pirates who lost a double header and are now in a similar spot as the Indians and Mariners were with their snowout. Good thing for the Pirates and Giants both of them suck, so making up the games won't be necessary.

So it's officially done the Celtics have finalized their tank job after their loss on friday night to the Milwaukee Bucks to clinch the 2nd worst record in the NBA. And Ryan Gomes let the not so secret tanking scheme out of the bag:

"I probably (would have played), but since we were in the hunt for a high draft pick, of course things are different," Gomes said. "I understand that. Hopefully things get better. Now that we clinched at least having the second-most balls in the lottery, the last three games we'll see what happens. We'll see if we can go out and finish some games." Quote from Deadspin

He's not saying anything anyone didn't know already. The Celtics started the tank job almost a full month ago when Doc blatantly threw a game against the Bobcats. And then a few weeks ago when Big Al and Pierce sat for the 'season'. In actuality Jefferson came back yesterday after they clinched the 2nd worst record. And most laughable of all given Sebastian Telfair minutes in clutch time. And well every Celtic fan should be pleased with their current spot and chances to get Oden or Durant, it's not like winning these games would have gotten anything, so if the lottery balls don't float their way, atleast they can say they tried.

Tanking is a Good Thing

Greeny is on his kick again about how the NBA should change their draft structure which I've refuted in the past. Giving the #1 pick the the Warriors or Clippers as a benefit for just missing the playoffs makes less sense than giving it to the worst team. Why would Warriors or Clipper management not make it their #1 priority with a few games left to get a superstar for the next decade instead of getting bounced in 5 games by the Mavericks. Logic dictates get a stud and next year your team could legitimately challenge for the NBA title.

So why do I think tanking is a good thing. Well it provides some storylines for teams that have none. It creates an end of the season race that would not exist otherwise, and it actually makes the games the Celtics, Bucks, Grizzlies, etc. play important. They're just important to lose not win. And I would guess that about 70% or more of each of these teams fan base was hoping for their teams to lose games for a better chance at Oden or Durant. If the Celtics had zero chance of getting Oden or Durant right now, which they would have if Greeny got his way, I wouldn't care for a second about the Celtics, they would be completely and utterly dead to me. I don't care if Pierce doesn't play in a game or Big Al doesn't play in a game, I'm not gonna watch the 2nd worst team in the NBA anyway, and I'm certainly not gonna shell out 80+ bucks for a ticket, but atleast now I can look at the box score and the recap the next morning and smile as it is so blatantly obvious that they want to lose. And good for them its the right thing to do.

~I'm gonna take a day off from Imus, it makes me annoyed and I want to get the opinion of one of my friends before I drop a final comment. One thing I definately can say is that I agree with Whitlock even though for the most part I can't stand him.

~Mike and the Mad Dog are interviewing some guy that Russo is calling a Monday Morning Quarterbacker, it's pretty funny. Especially Russo, he's overly defensive of Imus, but he won't even let the guy talk. Russo isn't even listening to this guy, and just yelling. And asking the same question over and over again.

~Larry David is advising the Jets in their draft strategies? Um huh? The same guy that helped mastermind the greatest show on television is providing his input on who the Jets should draft, um ok. Hopefully they continue with their good drafting of last seasons and not their past epic failures.

~The whole Duke rape scandal was a disgrace, I'm glad it's over and I hope I never hear about it again. It's amazing how much of a hubbub it was when we thought three white guys raped a black girl but how it's completely less a deal when it's become obvious that this black girl falsified everything and ruined a year of the lives of three guys. Who may or may not be complete d-bags.

~The Twinkees should probably rethink the stadium without a roof given the fact they play in Minnesota and its friggin cold there and with Global Freezing going on it would be advisable if they had a bit of climate control.

~I have one of those head to head matchups tonight in fantasy that always sucks, aka you have 2 starting pitchers going against each other so it makes sure you can't get a win out of one of your starters. Tonight I have Kei Igawa going against Dan Haren, so advantage A's although the A's love to make errors while Haren is pitching. He's given up 6 runs this year, 5 unearned. Nice D. I hope Igawa atleast has some command over his breaking ball, his first game he did not and that was the reason he was pummeled.

~Throw a holiday the Nationals won.

This is my statistics project for the end of the semester. I think it's pretty friggin sweet that I will just look up baseball stats and call it school work, MBA = much easier than Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering. Well here's the ole project proposal, I'll be posting the results and analysis whenever I finish the project / do the work...

When constructing a baseball lineup in any league whether it is the major leagues, a high school team or a little league team there have always been general guidelines to go by. Through this regression test I would like to find what if any correlation these guidelines have to the overall production of a major league offense or if all the premises I have been taught my whole life about building the ideal lineup are actually erroneous. With new theories about ideal hitters and looking at statistics developed through the ‘Moneyball’ philosophy it is important to see how or if these age old theories are still accurate.

Dependent Variable: Runs, the easiest way to analyze how a baseball team performed over the course of a season is to use how many Runs a team scored.

Independent Variable #1: DH Rule, the first aspect that needs to be accounted for in this regression test is to account for the difference between the NL and AL teams and their use of the pitcher as a hitter or in the AL a DH. So the sets will be assigned a value of 1 if they are in the AL and 0 if they are in the NL.

Independent Variable #2: Leadoff Hitter Pitches Per Plate Appearance, a common statement for a leadoff hitter is that it is essential for them to take a lot of pitches, especially with their first at bat. Taking several pitches is supposed to give the batters later in the lineup a better look at what the pitcher is throwing.

Independent Variable #3: Leadoff Hitter Stolen Bases Per Game, the ideal leadoff hitter is supposed to be fast. The best measure of a player’s speed and is the stolen base that should help their roster score some cheap runs.

Independent Variable #4: Leadoff Hitter On Base Percentage, another important trait of the leadoff hitter is to get on base. If the leadoff hitter does not get on base than the big hitters that ‘should’ be hitting 3 and 4 in the lineup will not have rbi opportunities.

Independent Variable #5: 2nd Hitter (Strikeouts-Sacrifices) Per Game, the second batter in the lineup is said to need a few characteristics. First to be able to put the ball in play, this can be measured by Strikeouts, the less strikeouts, obviously the better. Secondly, a #2 hitter should be adept at moving a runner over on the base paths via a bunt. To combine these characteristics into one I came up with Strikeouts – Sacrifices.

Independent Variable #6: 3rd Hitter On Base Percentage + Slugging Percentage, the 3rd hitter is ‘supposed’ to be the best hitter in your lineup. The OPS stat is commonly used as the best depiction of a hitters ability.

Independent Variable #7: Cleanup Hitter Slugging Percentage, the cleanup hitter should be the masher in your lineup. A HR hitter, a guy that pretty much hits extra base hits.

Independent Variable #8: 5th Hitter Runner’s in Scoring Position Average, the #5 hitter is there to clean up whatever mess is left on base behind the masher. Batting Average with Runners In Score Position shows how effective he is in knocking home the batters left on base.

Data Collection: All data will be gathered from online websites most likely Sportsline.com and ESPN.com, as it will be difficult to gather the exact data for an entire team at a position in the lineup I will be gathering the data of the player that hit most in each lineup spot for each team. This way I can get accurate data for the majority of the games played in the major leagues last season. I am using all percentage data for my independent variables to extrapolate a per game approach which will to an extent counteract the differences in games played. I will note games played and the player for each team at each lineup position on a separate spreadsheet.

In addition to using percentages for variables, I wanted to make sure I didn’t have variables that held a direct connection to the overall runs scored for a team. Stats like runs scored by the leadoff hitter or Runs Batted In for the 3rd batter or cleanup hitter would not bring much insight to the end results as they are a proportion of the teams production levels.

Predictions: My guess is that none of the variables individually will explain the overall run production of a team but that a combination of the variables

~King Felix > Dice-K, atleast for today. I think people last year while they were jumping off the King Felix bandwagon forgot the fact that he was only 20 and that most kids while their 20 are sitting on their ass eating doritos watching a baseball game. Right now after two weeks Felix looks like the best pitcher on the planet, will that keep up this season? Who knows? Should this kid win a Cy Young barring injury, absolutely. As for Dice-K, I wouldn't be upset if I was a Red Sox fan, I mean he only gave up 3 runs, not like he got shelled or anything. And he didn't give up any bombs or anything. He's gonna win 16-18 games.

~Mussina going down with a Hamstring injury certainly isn't good for the Yankees. I wonder how many times Karstens or Rasner will need to get bombed before Hughes is called up. Something to watch.

~Imus getting canned by MSNBC is pretty much nonsense. Oh well, I guess the sponsors were too afraid to have any negative reflection on themselves and them pulling out pretty much guaranteed msnbc bailing ship.

~Celtics only need to lose to the Bucks and they ice the 2nd worst record in the NBA, thanks for the benching of Pierce and Big Al, solid move Danny.

~Speaking of the C's, on ESPN.com there's an article written about how the C's would contemplate jettisoning Jefferson if they got Oden and that he thinks they don't need a big man that he's their big man of the future. A) You are the C's big man of the future, but a combination of you and Oden would be unstoppable. B) If the Celtics got Oden and traded Jefferson I will write hate mail to Danny. A lot of Hate mail.

~The Hockey playoffs started, woo. I used to love the hockey playoffs, I used to watch it far more than the NBA playoffs. Now? Well I don't even get the station they are on, so. Ya, I won't be watching much more than a little bit of the Rangers games cause I actually get those. On the topic of stupid, the Rangers, Islanders and Devils are all playing at the same time. Smart move NHL, very smart.

~Amaker landed at Harvard, quite funny.

Is not so good... So this video is from last year I know, but I never posted it last year cause I didn't do all the Youtube stuff last year and thus, its up now.

What is up with Giants players posing like auditioning for playgirl. First Tiki Barber with all of his Haines commercials running around in his boxers and now Michael Strahan prancing around in a kilt and attemptin to expose himself. Somehow this was the relevent picture on espn when I was looking at the Jets schedule and ran across their matchup.

October 7th Jets @ Giants

Your 2007 New York Giants skirt wearing girly men, and that doesn't even cover Eli Manning.

Snoop Dogg has come out to make sure the public is not going to compare his or any rap lyrcis to that of Don Imus's comments on his radio show. Here's a quality quote from Snoop:

"It's a completely different scenario," said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [the cable network home to Imus] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha-----as say we in the same league as him."

So to put it into terms it's ok to call a girl a ho if you are A) Not white, B) Not old, C) If you are talking about girls that aren't in college. Or if you have a rap album. And since Imus conflicts with all A, B,C and to my knowledge does not have a rap album, nor plans on making one, is not in the same league as Snoop Dogg, a man who's been arrested multiple times for possessions and weapons charges. I'm not saying I dislike Snoop, although his music has been less than stellar since the days of the Chronic, but come on Snoop your currently awaiting an arraingment, Imus used a word that you use on every single one of your albums. Maybe if you think it's such a big friggin deal to not call women at colleges ho's perhaps you should avoid that word in your lyrics. Just because you are a black man and a rap artist doesn't mean you get a free pass, and then get to act all offended when someone does the same stuff you've been doing for over a decade. What a joke, talk about a ridiculous double standard and people wonder why the world is the way it is today with race sensitivity.

One thing I've heard people complain about as well is that its an over the radio comment so any children could hear it. Come on, my guess is that 99% of Imus audience is 30+.

~For those of you that are unaware ESPN as Deadspin put it went Nuclear on their fantasy game. Basically over the first week of the season any moves or trades that have happened in the league did not count, they reverted all rosters to the draft day roster and calculated the first week stats based on those rosters. I am currently in one ESPN league with my buddies just for fun, I have Arod thus I mauled the guy I was playing, and since it's the one league I don't have money invested in and the one draft I missed I didn't pay much attention to the faulty working of ESPN last week, but it is humurous.

~ESPN did redeem itself to me, aka a person who didn't care it was down anyway, I get free fantasy insider, which doesn't matter that much and a free prize football league for the fall, woo, whatever that means.

~How about Milwaukee drawing 19,000+ for the Indians game yesterday, that's a pretty solid number. I wonder what they actually charged for tickets.

~Speaking of the Cleveland snow, when/how do they plan on making these games up? They gonna do a double header just one random day when they have coinciding days off, do they even have another series in Cleveland?

~Jorge Julio sucks, he blew another one last night, ugh.

~Dan Wheeler takes over the closers role and yesterday comes in the 9th with a 4 run lead gives up 2 and who's warming up, Lidge.

~It's definately the high socks for Arod. Their magical.

~Cowherd is bring up the A Bomb from Arod call by Sterling as if its a big deal. Trying to gather a story from nothing, not working.

~If you're not watching Dice-K vs. King Felix tonight at 7 on ESPN2 or NESN you're an idiot... Or your cable company is still run by a bunch of douche bags who still blackout the red sox games even though you're not in a blackout zone despite the fact you have repeatedly called them and sent them emails informing them of their idiocy.

Too bad Roma got dumped 7-1 by Man U and that was their only goal.

It's pretty amazing how far he hit that ball given the fact that any sane person would have let go of the club prior to smashing it against the tree.

Calm the frig down. Yesterday I'm listening to Mike and the Mad Dog on my way home from work and and Mets fans are completely out of control right now. After one good season Met fans think their the hottest thing since sliced bread. Saying their the most exciting team in baseball, that they are going to overtake the Yankees, destroying Jimmy Rollins... I'll break it down point by point...

1. Mets = Most Exciting Team in Baseball - It's tough to label a single team as the most exciting team in baseball, each team has different story lines and each game is it's own entity. The Mets have Wright, Reyes and Beltran three supreme talents but how many people outside of New York City are going out of their way to watch any of these guys. I love Reyes I think Reyes is really exciting, but would I rather watch Johan Santana, or Dice-K, or Pujols the answer is yes.

2. Overtaking the Yankees - This is the most laughable thing I hear everyday on the FAN from Met fans. They always have to compare themselves to the Yankees and say how they are a younger team and more exciting and blah blah blah. You are not going to overtake the Yankees this year, this decade, or this century, just face the facts. It's no different for the Nets and the Jets they are the 2nd team in the city for better or worse forever. Arod gets more publicity locally and globally than practically ever Met combined. Just enjoy the fact you have a terrific team with solid chance of winning the NL and possibly the World Series, stop comparing yourselves to the Yankees, it's a standard you will never live up to. Division Titles since the strike: Yankees 11, Mets 1.

3. Grilling of Jimmy Rollins - Rollins said that he thought the Phillies were the team to beat in the NL East, that's it. It wasn't a bold statement, it was the typical I think my team is good and we're going to win statement, hell he didn't even guarantee anything, and the Philies were predicted by many to win the Division, it wasn't a ludicrous statement at all. Yet, Met fans feel the need to crucify the guy like he spat out obsurd statements. It's not as if he's Felipe Lopez saying the Nationals were the team to beat in the NL, that would have been completely obsurd. Just enjoy the fact the Phillies are struggling to start the season, no reason to kill Rollins.

4. Mike and the Dog, Hate the Mets - Another recurring theme on Mike and the Mad Dog, people calling up and saying the hosts hate the Mets and give them no respect. Get over yourselves. Both picked the Mets to win the division and win 90+ games. Both continually say the Mets are a good team. Neither will proclaim them automatic NL Champions, and why should they. Russo's Giants are going to completely suck this year, so all season long he will be rooting for the downfall of the Yanks and Mets, just laugh it off at the fact that his team stinks and his best player is a roiding cheater and they shelled out boatloads of money for Zito a staff #2. And Met fans typically hate Francessa because he tells them the Yankees are more important to New York, they are, it's a fact.

Met fans need to just focus on their solid team, with questionable starting pitching, and the upcoming battle with the Braves for the division. Stop whining and stop comparing yourselves to the Yanks.

~Last week Colin Cowherd, a guy a gave raving reviews last year pulled a dumb ass prank which brought down one of the best sports blogs on the web, The Big Lead. Basically what he did was tell all of his listeners to hit the site at the same time and thus overload what was an underdeveloped bandwidth causing the server the site was located on to crash. This caused The Big Lead to search around and find a new server to host their site and caused their site to be down for around 2 days. Basically it was friggin stupid and pointless on his part, and yesterday at the end of his show he gave a half ass apology saying it was dumb. Yes Colin it was dumb and childish and pointless and I know for a fact you lost atleast one listener, my buddy Joe who went on a much better rant than mine.

~My personal opinion is that Colin did not come up with this idea by himself. I personally believe in the 'hit' conspiracy, whereby some techie at ESPN was in a meeting with execs talking about how to deal with the sports blogs, The Big Lead in particular breaking negative news at ESPN all the time. The Big Lead started the whole controversy with the fat black guy Jason Whitlock, broke the Harold Reynolds sexual harassment case, and the Salisbury texting his penis suspension. I think they basically said we need to hit them with atleast a jab, and thus informed Colin that he was going to do this hit. Which he most likely willingly said yes, partially because I don't think he minds for a second being a complete dick. And partially because I think he will do just about anything the execs tell him to do. He may be on in a ton of markets, but he was replaced in NYC, aka the biggest market.

~Now onto Imus and his nappy headed ho's comment. It was blatantly a joke gone completely wrong. I can understand calling for a suspension and I think the 2 weeks he got was just, can't complain too much there, but firing him, give me a break. He said one off color and wrong comment, why must this world be so damn sensitive to words. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson coming after him and saying he should be fired, what a joke, both of those guys are a joke. I'm not a fan of Imus nor will I ever be, but he does do a lot of stuff with his Imus Ranch charity for kids of all backgrounds, so I don't think he's a bad guy. What kind of benefit have you provided the world Rev. Sharpton?

~Obviously it was stupid and his wording was bad and dergatory but this was the essence of what he was saying. The Tennessee team was more attractive than the Rutgers team, because he followed up the nappy headed ho comments by saying the Tennessee girls were cute. Well guess what, Tennessee consists of mostly black players as well, so he wasn't deragotory in his remarks there. Maybe he equates a women basketball player having a massive tattoo on her arm as a negative. So yes suspend him, berate him if you like, but there's no benefit to firing him, chances are good that he's raised more money and done more good for people around the world then you or I have or ever will.

~Finally the whole 'fag out on me' comments by Billy Packer. In retrospect it's pretty funny how that is actually a real phrase with no derogatory meaning. Billy showed you fools, of his mastery of the enlish language, too bad he's the biggest douche of the three clowns noted in this Quick Notes section.

~First comes first, time to give Zach Johnson his just due. At the turn I thought only Retief or Tiger had a chance to win, they have the pedigree, and Retief was playing better than anyone on the course. But Zach Johnson turned it up a notch and nestled himself close to the pin and made every makeable birdie putt on the backstretch. He definately lucked out when his ball on the 18th fell a few feet short of the bunker but hey everyone needs a little luck sometime.

~Honestly, I'm not that shocked that Zach Johnson won a major, unlike the majority of the planet I actually know who Zach Johnson is thanks to playing fantasy golf every year on ESPN. Sure he never really won tournies in the past, but he was always a quality choice because he makes 90% of the cuts and typically finishes well. Hence why he made the Ryder Cup team least year. And in the Ryder Cup last year he was probably the best American in an otherwise dreadful showing. So while him winning the Masters is certainly a surprise, especially over Woods and Goosen, I am not shocked he won a major, he's a very good yet under the radar golfer.

~Now the attention shifted to Tiger. I think something needs to be said about how he never 'comes from behind' to win any of these majors. It seems like for the most part when he wins a major he blows the field out of the water completely. But he has yet to win one down the stretch when he's not in the lead coming into the final round. So while everyone was thinking to themselves Tiger is going to win this, there is no way he doesn't win this, I think people, myself included, were missing the fact that he just doesn't come back and win these things. When he's on his A game he destroys the field, and when he isn't like yesterday he's good enough to finish top 5, but he just doesn't have it in full gear and it only takes one guy playing well to beat him.

~And lets be completely honest, despite Johnson playing well down the stretch, Tiger had every single opportunity to win this tournament. On 14 he had a completely makeable putt for birdie and missed it. On 15 while down three he went for the green, despite having to slice it around the tree, and aggressive move that myself and my family thought he should do, but in retrospect it was the wron choice. If he had laid up and made birdie than he would have still been in it, instead he dunks it into the water and pars the hole. On 16 he had a makeable putt and missed, and on 17 he had a wonderful drive and completely misread his approach shot. All in all it was there for Tiger to take and he didn't do it.

~Tiger snapping his club on the tree was pretty darn humurous. How often do you think we will get to watch the best golfer of a generation to be forced to swing at a ball with full knowledge that his club is going to snap in half on his follow through.

~Tiger wasn't showing enough red.

~Federer is betterer.

~JJ rocked out at +14 aka tied for 37th. Atleast he made the cut.

~One of my favorite parts of the afternoon was on 17 when Justin Rose who had just moved to +2 and completely in contention hit his tee shot over the trees and into a completely different fairway. Talk about succumbing to the pressure.

~I think it would have been cool had Retief won. Why? He made the cut at +8 simply because of the Master's clause that if you're withing 10 strokes of the lead you make the cut. I wonder how many times that a player has won the Masters after making the cut solely because of that clause. Plus Retief's approach shot where he had to go over 3 trees and stuck it within 5 feet was pretty ridiculous.

~I have another all week training session this week so the posts will be sparse most likely.

Talk about a pathetic job of defending. Man U had their lead shrunk down to 3 points in standings in front Chelsea, they're coming...

2 Outs in the 9th, Arod up bases loaded down one, whats more exciting than that. Come through in the clutch and get a curtain call get out and get incredibly booed. And Arod comes through in the clutch. 2 Strike fast ball thigh high outer half and Arod hit a bomb to straight away center. Definately the high socks. Also, the curtain call was pretty funny as you could see he didn't want to do it.

Final Line for Arod: 3-4 2 HRs, 2B, 6 RBIs, 4 Rs, BB

In other game news, Kei Igawa was miserable, he had no control all game long and his pitches were way too high making the Yankees staff 4 for 4 on terrible outings. But the fought back and kncoked around the O's pen.

The newest fad for obsenely wealthy sports addicted billionaires in America is to just cross the pond and buy a sweet English Premiership team. The newest member of this club is E Stanley Kroenke, an obscenely rich man that somehow flew under my radar. Kroenke this week purchased a 9.99% share in the London based Premiership club Arsenal, which last year lost in the finals of the Champions League, aka their pretty good. They typically have a chance to win the premiership every year and rarely finish below 4th.

Anyway what I didn't know was how many friggin franchises this dude owns. First of all, he started a succesful Real Estate company, but his wife just happens to be a Walton, aka an heirass to the Walmart cash. So he's loaded. Anyway, he Co-Owns the St. Louis Rams, owns the Nuggets, Avalanche, Colorado Rapids of the MLS, Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League, and Co-Owns the AFL Colorado Crush team. Jeebus that's a lot of franchises. No way he pays that much attention to how the Colorado Mammoth are doing. Man it's cool to be rich.

It's at the end of the clip, in an Asia Cup match between Shandong Luneng a Chinese team vs. Seongnam Ilhwa a Korean squad.

I think I'm going to post every cool bicycle kick I see.

In a commercial that is...

So it's early April and everyone is focused on recooping from the end of the tournament as well as enjoying the start of the baseball season and the glory of the Master's. Obviously then no one is concerning themselves about Charlotte Bobcats basketball but they are missing out on the emergance of a goofy white guy beginning to dominate. And it certainly is Dirty Sanchez Morrison, no it's some Argentine dude name Walter, Walter Hermann to be exact. I suggest clicking on that link so you can see his mug shot, super feminine. Since being thrust into the starting lineup early last week, Hermann has dropped 20+ in 5 of the 6 games and is averaging just under 20 per, 119/6, you do the math I feel lazy. If you think you've seen him somewhere it's probably cause he was a key cog in the Argentine Gold Medal winning squad in 2004. The NBA needs more white guys dropping 20+, but can we get a single American to do it, just one, is that too much to ask?

Over under on days before Danny Ainge gets wind of this and offers up a massive deal for a white guy.

And yes I just picked him up on my fantasy team just in time for the finals.

~The Celtics succesfully tanked last night by sitting out Al Jeff, Paul Pierce and of course Scalabrine. The loss was a big step in the right direction for the Celtics.

~For all those people that make the point that rewarded the teams that finish in last is bad because teams tanking and sitting out their best players hurts season ticket holders spent good money, I disagree. At this point in time what does every Celtic fan want, Oden or Durant. Any logical Celtic fan realizes tanking is the way to go, for Season ticket holders they know that nothing good is coming out of a Celtic game from now until the end, so it doesn't matter. But imagine what the value of each ticket would be if they got Oden or Durant next year. Through the roof.

~Hollinger named Big Al the most improved player this season and I think he's got a very good chance of winning the award. Since the break his numbers are practically identical if not better than Elton Brand. Woo. An Oden Big Al tandem wins a title I guarantee it.

~Surprise Billy Donovan is staying at Florida, now Kentucky is going after Rick Barnes who's a horrible in game coach. For their sake I hope they get him, so he can suck and get booed out of the arena worse than Tubby. Kentucky get a good coach not just a big name. Give Jay Wright a call please. He would be perfect.

~So I had one last draft with my buddies last night for fun, a free league, no money. I couldn't make the draft cause it got pushed back a day. So I set my prerankings. What does the friggin draft do? Picks up Big Tex, Derek Lee and Konerko with 3 of my top 5 picks, with only a 1B and Util spot available. Then it picked up Rolen when Arod was my first pick. How friggin stupid is this autopick thing. Annoying.

~Was gonna pick Justin Rose as my sleeper pick yesterday, but went with Howell instead, if I didn't I'd currently have the top 2 on the leaderboard in my 4 contenders list.

~JJ was in sole possesion of the lead for about 15 minutes, pretty cool.

~Phil making the turn at +4 not so good Mickletits.

~Saw Blades of Glory last night, pretty funny but not as good as The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

~I'm so glad I'm at work so I can;t watch Dice-K or the Masters, lame.

AL Wildcard

Tigers vs. Yankees

The Yankees get their revenge on the Tigers and Kenny Rogers who will have fought back from the DL will get rocked by the Yanks. Pettitte will shutdown the Tigers in his start and Kei Igawa will have morphed into the best #4 pitcher in major league baseball.

Red Sox vs. Angels

The Angels will pretty much sweep the regular season awards with Vlad and Big Mike taking home the MVP and coach of the year, but they will get into the playoffs with Bart and Dreamwever hoping their healthy. My guess is atleast one will be down and the Red Sox will feast on Ervin Santana and whoever is the #4 guy.

ALCS Red Sox vs. Yankees

A classic Yankee Red Sox matchup from the olden days. Probably won't be as shocking a come back as 2004 or as exciting a finish as 2003 but it should be a good one as these teams stack up well against each other. In the end I think the Red Sox have a more reliable starting rotation. Beckett has dominated the Yankees in the playoffs in the past, and Jon Lester should amount to a solid #4 guy.

NL Wildcard

Mets vs. Astros

The Mets sneak into the playoffs relying on the advancement of Pelfrey and whatever they can get from Maine and Oliver Perez. I doubt Pedro has any impact coming down the stretch run and most teams will be licking their chops to face the Mets and Glavine and the young folks in the first round. But lets face it, the Astros aren't that good even if they do have Clemens.

Dodgers vs. Phillies

The Phillies ride what amounts to a top two lineup in the National League to the playoffs. But pitching has won in the playoffs and will continue to win. The Phillies do not have a reliable bullpen and the Dodgers will have Broxton in the closer role who throws fire, the Dodgers have three solid pitchers at the front end of the rotation and the Phillies will have to rely on the Wife Beater and a Cole Hamels way past what his workload should have been.

NLCS Dodgers vs. Mets

A rematch of last years Wild Card series where the Dodgers pretty much got pounded. This year I think its different. Jason Schmidt, Derek Lowe, Brad Penny and by that time Chad Billingsley along with a youth infused lineup will be able to outmatch the Mets inexperienced or old pitching staff. The Mets go down once again in the NLCS, and make it 2 for 2 for the New York squads losing a step before the series.

World Series Dodgers vs. Red Sox

This would be one hell of a storyline riddled World Series. The return of the Dodgers to the World Series for the first time in ages, but more so the return of plenty of ex Red Sox back to Fenway. Nomar vs. the Sox in a World Series? How much play would that get. Grady Little back in Fenway after he was ridiculed for leaving Pedro in. Derek Lowe potentially having the opportunity to close out the Sox in the World Series? But in the end, gonna go AL, and the team with the three ace at the top of the staff...

Champs: Red Sox, hopefully I'm wrong and way wrong.

*I think the Yanks are the best team still, but as proven in years past the best team just isn't winning these things.

By far my favorite golf tourny of the year. The course is cool, the tradition is phenomenal, I love the quirky way they decide the field and the best players in the World always contend and more often than not you will get a Tiger, VJ, or Phil taking it home instead of a Justin Leonard, Rich Beem, Todd Hamilton, type. Which is much more entertaining.

4 People to Watch to Contend

Obvious - Phil Mickelson - Mickeltits loves the masters, it's his best tourny by far, and he's already got two hefty Green Jackets. He never misses the cut here and routinely finishes in the top ten. If you're going to pick Mickeltits to win a major this season, this should be it. Will the defending champ get it done, I don't think so, but he'll certainly make it interesting.

Secondary - Sergio Garcia - I get the feeling that this just might be Sergio's year to get off the schnide, well that is if Tiger doesn't sweep through the majors. A Euro hasn't won a major since 1999, since Paul Lowerie one the Van da Velde tank job British Open. Their due and Sergio is still the best of the litter.

Unknown - Henrik Stenson - A Swedish Stud that is still almost completely unknown on US soil by the casual golf fan. He didn't make the cut last year, but has the potential to become a world renowned superstar.

Darkhorse - Charles Howell III - He sucked last year and finished in last. Dead last out of 90. Behind every amateur, behind the ancient Gary Player, everybody. So why him? Well Augusta is his home, he has played very well this season thus far and I think that he will take some pressure off himself this week. Plus he's a bomber.

3 People Who Might Surpisingly Miss the Cut

The Goofy Swinger - Jim Furyk -Furyk isn't a blaster and is more of a precise golfer. That is why he's so much better at the US Open than the Masters. While contending is pretty much out of the question, Furyk missing a cut at a major would still be surprising, but very much could happen.

The Shocker - Adam Scott - Coming off his first win in awhile it would seem like his game has come around. I'm going to take a flier and say that he struggles this weekend similarly to last year, except in the earlier rounds rather than the latter.

The Old - Fred Couples - Fred has made the cut at Augusta 23 years in a row. So I'd say if he missed the cut it would be pretty shocking. In addition Fred played pretty darn well last year at the Masters finishing in 3rd. But every streak needs to end at some point, will this be the year.

2 People to Root For this Weekend

The Old Guys - Arnold, Jack, Gary, Seve, Watson - This is what makes the Master's so great. The best players in the world typically win the Master's atleast once and they come back every year to tee it up with the current best in the world. None of these guys have any chance to win, but imagine if Arnie or Player made the cut I think that would be cool enough.

The Locale Boy - JJ Henry - It's JJ's first trip to Augusta National and while he hasn't played terrifically in the past few weeks he has been making cuts. I think his game will suit the Masters well. He's a bomber and the further you hit the ball at the Masters the better your chances are. Unlike the US Open which kills players for spraying into the rough, the Master's rough can be handled. I think JJ makes the cut and finishes around 30th, not bad for the first go round.

1 Winner

Tigger Woo - I'm really going out on a limb on this one. Fact Tiger has been almost unstoppable since the start of the 2nd half of last season. Fact Tigger is dominant at Augusta. Fact this season has the potential to go down as Tiger's best ever, he is playing that good now. And he is going to throw on yet another green jacket. I'd take Tiger over the field this week. We've seen Phil hand over one green jacket to Tiger in the past and this weekend we shall see it once more.

~Arod has improved this season in my book and I think I'm gonna lay off him. Not because I expect him to perform in the clutch, not because he will be any better in the field, and certainly not because I expect him to be a monster in the postseason, any of those things will be welcomed. But to me it's his new wardrobe. I do not ever remember Arod ever busting out the high socks in his yankee days or in his ranger/mariner youthful years and there he was yesterday drilling a home run of my flier of a pitcher (Juan Salas, looks like he's not closing) in beautiful high socks. Why any baseball player would ever where his pants down around his ankles when it blatantly looks better high style is beyond me. So Arod you've got one Yankee fan off your back for awhile, but if you revert back to the long pants I will grill you just as hard as before.

~John Beilein at Michigan I am pumped with this news. He got the Mountaineers to the Elite 8 with no NBA talent at all and certainly no superstar. If he can recruit the Detroit and Chicago areas, get some solid shooters and athleticism, and who wouldn't want to play in his offense, Michigan could actually be good again. This was probably the best candidate they could have landed and I think this shows some dedication to the basketball program in general, and could bring some excitement back to Ann Arbor. The only issue with Beilein is that at 54 he's not exactly a youngster, but hopefully over the course of the next 5 years he can rebuild the program to respectability and get them some wins in the tourny.

~It will be interesting to see who comes out this season, I really hope the G-Town kids stay as they would definately be in the running for preseason favorites. I wonder what Connely does.

~I'll do Masters picks and my Baseball Playoff Picks Manana.

I'd go back to mayoring the lovely city of Cincinnati.

Besides the fact that he's ugly and could quite possibly be the Celtics consolation prize last year.

Joakim Noah acts all ghetto with his chest bumping and screaming. And then he comes out and says shit on National TV about how most people won't understand it but they're gonna light it up in Gainesville and party and all this BS. I understand you're gonna get trashed and party at school but you are the least ghetto person in practically all of college basketball.

A) You're french, you eat croissant's and caviar, you did not grow up in Compton or a rough neihboorhood period.

B) You're father is a loaded tennis player / pop star in france, aka you grew up with a ton of money.

C) Your mother is a former Miss Sweden.

D) You're grandfather was a professional soccer player in France.

E) You went to a Prep High School in Princeton, New Jersey

I'm a white kid of Irish and Italian descent from lower Connecticut and I am arguably more ghetto than you. Quit the friggin faced. It's annoying and completely fake. I don't think I've ever heard someone act like that big of a clown during a championship interview.



You are not ghetto.

1) Use his 2nd Half Timeouts to Freshen Up Oden - Timeouts can be used for several things during the course of a basketball game, they can be used to draw up plays in the last minute of the game, to recoup when the other team is on a huge run and they can be used to give your guys a breather. There was no reason with the 2 minute tv timeouts and the arsenal of timeouts at Matta's use for him to be tired. If Matta used 3 timeouts sporadically during the 2nd half to give his big man a breather but not have him miss any time, that's how he could have done it.

2) Install a Player to Never Leave Humphrey - Whether it was Lighty, or Butler, or Lewis, someone should have shadowed Humphrey and not left him at any point in time, until they were absolutely 100% positive one of their big man wrapped up the rebounds. There were 3 occasions where Humphrey was completely wide open for a three which he buried, and his 4th three was off a sweet pump fake which you can't do much about, certainly can't blame Matta for that one. But the wide open ones should have been dealt with.

3) Hedge the Screens - For the most part when Richard or Speights was in the game running the pick and roll Oden was covering them. When they ran the pick and rolls to get Oden uncomfortable which freed up Green, for open 3s cause Oden dropped back there was a simple solution. Hedge the screen. If Oden jump the screen before Green could have turned the corner it would have given Conley or Butler, whoever was covering Green the time to recover back to the ball. I can't imagine that Matta didn't know they were going to try to run pick and rolls against Oden. And when they ran them with Richard and Speights, guys that aren't terrific offensive weapons, hedging the screen wasn't a risky maneuver and could have possibly resulted in Green not nailing every single one of the threes he shot. (This was actually one of the few good things Billy Packer pointed out during the game)

4) Harris Should Not have Played the 4 - He was completely overmanned by Noah who is not that physical of a post player, and on the occasions he covered Horford he was completely dominated down low. Terwilliger or Hunter should have been in the game more to match up for defensive purposes, but both only played 5 minutes a piece. And it's not like they would have missed much on the offensive end, Harris had 7 in 26 minutes and was 2-8 from the field, all 3 point shots. Which goes with the next point. I'd also argue Lighty should have been in there more than Butler who was providing nothing, but I have less a problem with that.

5) Pound the Paint, Stop Shooting 3s - I know some people will say you can't go against what got you here. The Buckeyes buried a lot of 3s this season and that got them to the championship and brought them back in games against Tennessee and Xavier. But here's the fact, 10-15 (Oden FGs), 4-23 (3 pt FGs and 2 of those came in the last minute when it didn't matter). Not only was Oden dominating whoever covered him but no one could stop Conley from getting to the rack which does a bunch of things. First the Buckeyes were in the bonus in the second half with 10 minutes to play. Second, Horford, Noah and Richard all had a ton of fouls. Third you better utilize Oden and Hunter (The Last point) for offensive rebounding purposes. Long rebounds from 3s are almost impossible for Oden to snatch up cause they can go anywhere, if Conley gets to the paint and perchance Oden's guy goes up to contest the shot, even if he misses it could be a quick cleanup for Oden. I can't find the stat online but CBS posted the points in the paint differential with about a minute or so to go and it was something like 46-20 Buckeyes. It was obvious that was the way the Buckeyes could have won the game, especially when they got it down to 6. But they kept bombing their miserable 3s.

In addition Oden should have never left the low block for any reason. They couldn't handle him, and the pick and roll just got Oden away from the basket. It was successful in other games but it wasn't needed yesterday. Conley could beat his guy by himself no problem. All the screens accomplished was getting Oden away from the hoop which Florida was probably happy about. And why do they ever pass Oden the ball in the high post on the elbow, he's not Tim Duncan, he doesn't have that in his game yet. Oden should have been on the block all game long, no exception.

I'm not saying that Ohio St. would have won the game if Matta had done these things, but he certainly could have made the game competitive down the stretch. All in all I think he'll look at this game film sometime this week and know that he got completely out coached.

Turned on ESPN during halftime and saw this classic, "Steroids don't make athletes..." commercial followed by Gary Matthews Jr. leading off for the Angels, and Sosa leading off the top of the second. And then Milwood is afraid of the HGH and walks him on 4 pitches.

And we're back, finally...

10:31 Oden and Noah exchange buckets. Harris can't cover Noah, has Matta not figured this out yet? Lewis a thunder dunk after Harris deflects an entry pass to Noah, and I spoke to soon.

10:33 Ugly man picks up #3. Guess we won't be seeing him for awhile. #8

10:34 Does Chris Richard play football? He should. He's a big boy. Note to Oden Horford can make an elbow jumper.

10:37 The second go round of leave Humphrey hope doesn't work either. 30 Second timeout, just long enough for CBS to fit in one commercial, sweet.

10:38 So now why is Oden completely dominating now? Any chance he's one of those throw it into Neutral Guys? Has he watched to much video of elderly Shaq, I'll wait for the playoffs to turn it on? Does he really want to be the #1 draft pick.

10:44 Oden is not a high post player, don't give him the ball there.

10:46 Quick shot of the Ugliness chewing his mouth guard on the bench. #9

10:48 If Harris can't cover Oden, he certainly can't cover Horford in the post. Stupid.

10:50 Ohio St. continues to gun stupid threes. You already have 6 fouls on the Gators and Oden is dominating downlow and every single one of their big man has a ton of fouls. Drive the lane. Even if you miss Oden has a good chance of the cleanup. You are completely not taking advantage of a dominant offensive rebounder. I don't think Mata is a very good coach.

10:54 "This is gonna have to be Noah time." what the hll does that mean. I hate Humphrey.

10:57 Horford picks up his 3rd foul, the Buckeyes need to continue to drive to the paint, And yet on cue Butler misses a 3. And at the other end Humphrey guns an ugly shot which goes right to Richard, bucket and 1. Damn it.

11:00 Oden's mom is dancin in the stands. I would be dancin too knowin my boy is about to make tons o bling. She's not that big of a woman though. Well atleast it doesn't seem like she is. Ugly man picked up #4. #10

11:03 Oden drops a sweet block, but of course Humphrey finds himself wide open, and buried of course.

11:04 Oden picks up #3, shouldn't be that big a deal. The guard needs to do a better job of covering the point so Oden doesn't need to play help D 20 feet away from the hoop.

11:07 CBS drops the stat Buckeyes 2-17 from 3, Gators 9-17, quite a difference.

11:11 What how was that not on Horford, Richard was nowhere near that play, such bullshit.

11:12 Another friggin 2, Lewis responds with an and 1 on the other end, but misses the free throw.

11:13 Richard bull rushes Oden for a bucket and now the difference is 2-18 to 10-18. And Horford throws up some bullshit that goes in. God friggin damn it. Make it 2-19.

11:15 Horford blatantly travels but gets a foul call and this game is all but over. 2-19 from three. Thanks for showing up perimeter guys.

11:18 They show three coaches, Tressel, Meyer, and Belichik, all could coach better basketball than Mata. Lewis guns another three and the refs call a sympathy foul on Richard who was pretty much just boxing out Oden. Definately a pity foul call. Down 13 with 2:20 to go.

11:20 Lewis misses three free throws and Billy Packer mentions that Oden is tired again. For the 18th billion time. And the Ugly man buries his free throws and I'm officially disgusted. #11

11:21 Conley gets to the rack no problem for a bucket, hmm any reason that wasn't the strategy all game long?

11:23 Noah's father is pretty ugly too.

11:26 Butler nails a three when it counts. Or not.

11:27 Oden gets in one final Dunk in his college career, and in a tourny where his teammates carried him for many of the games, they completed failed him on the biggest stage.

11:29 Conley buries a three, what a joke. An absolute joke. Game over, and Gainesville is toast of the town, and I'm done...

Mark this down as the first minute by minute blog I've ever done during a game. I got my wireless working at home so it's allowed me to do this.

9:00 Prison Break was incredibly intense at the end and I had my suspissions about the next season but I think it's going to be incredibly intense and sweet again. I'm currently taping 24 cause I don't like not watching a whole episode, problem with that is last time I tried to tape 24 Jack Bauer spited me. I feel weird betraying Jack once again.

9:07 Over Under for tonight on how many times I mutter god damn Noah is ugly should be set around 22, I think. Chalk #1 down at 9:07.

9:08 Gus Johnson is ten times better than Nantz and Packer.

9:09 Gumbel to Gumbel, where's the youtube clip for this?

9:10 Speaking of Ugly, Thad Matta anyone?

9:11 Billy Donovan in his pregame speach "Tonight I'm coaching for the largest contract in NCAA history."

9:13 17 straight championship games for the d-bag's packer and nantz. 33 for packer. Woo. Noah is friggin Ugly. #2. I'm a Michigan fan and I'm definately rooting for the Buckeyes, is that sacrilige? There's just something about the Gators I don't like. Probably Noah, and the fact that when the Celtics crap out and get the 3rd pick they will take him. And I will vomit.

9:17 The theme of this tourny is Ugly, how friggin Ugly is this court, did someone seriously think to themselves... "Hmm I think it really needs a bit of lime green, ya and weird glowing lime green stripes on the sidelines." Also, does anyone other than me find the two different color woods annoying? You see this all the time. I can't stand it.

9:19 They used Greg Oden to say one word in the Buckeye introduction and that word... "Just" Now I know that word is in his vocab. Excellent.

9:21 "And ready to repeat..." Noah's so friggin Ugly... My buddy Joe put it best, he will go down as the Ugliest man ever to get a three-some. #3

9:22 Thad Matta definately looks like a troll. I thought tip off was 9:21 friggin liars. Tick.

9:23 Tick more Nantz nonsense.

9:24 And finally the tip to the Gators. Boo.

9:25 Horford completely grapples Oden on one end off an offensive rebound and no call, then Harris gets called for a ticky tack foul. And then they call a ticky tack on Horford before the entry pass. I dont get it. And Packer uses the words ticky tack out of my mouth. I need to wash out my mouth with soap.

9:27 Harris is too small to cover Noah, or mayvbe he's scared of his uglieness. #4

9:28 Oden has already played more minutes in the first half than he did against G-Town. And a ticky tack hand check foul on Conley. They certainly can't have him in foul trouble. 7-5 Buckeyes

9:29 Oden's first bucket, an awkward left handed hook over Horford.

9:30 First TV timeout... 6 minutes after tip, gotta love the commercial schedule, and this horrible Chevy Mix Tape commercial to boot. Spongebob no pants? Um why? Stopping a Ceiling fan with your tongue, sounds like an intelligent decision.

9:33 Hahahaha Billy D pullin a funny prank. That sphere in the shape of a basketball looks like Epcot, a pretty dumb trophy.

9:34 Horford definately just tried to draw a foul on that turnaround and got no call. The officials got the notice to not give these big guys early fouls. This has the feel of a terrific game. Noah draws a dumb foul probably cause he's ugly. And so's his shot. #5

9:36 Another entry pass foul call, this one on Noah, kind of a lame call. And now one on Hunter. Here comes the token white guy. Terwilliger.

9:38 What the hell happened to Brewer, how about a replay. Ok now how about a good replay. Guess not. Billy Packer wants unlimited fouls, good call. Travel on Oden and Packer complements him on his move. "Pretty Good Move" Ha ya the travel move is always a good one.

9:39 Number 2 on Conley with 12:16 left and on a 3 nonetheless, stupid foul. This press is working pretty well for the Gators, as Hodge gets an and 1 and Noah does his patented I'm Ugly scream. #6

9:42 CBS was buggin out for a second, not cool. Second Commercial break. Gators 17-13. And this is our Country? I flipped to ABC, don't know why but that one legged girl Heather Mills, did a front handspring. Impressive. Oh no, Clyde or Cliff is on their way out, basketball vs. beer an epic duel.

9:46 Oden engulfs Brewer on a layup and no call, interesting. Brewer buckets a 3 20-13. Boo. Ha Noah got dunked on sweet.

9:47 Now they buzz Oden for a reach in even though he got all ball. Terrifically funny. It was a good 10:41 before his first foul though.

9:48 I don't like Richard posting up Oden, that has fouls written all over it. Oden finally comes out.

9:50 The ole timeout at 7:59 on the clock, probably good for Ohio St., give Oden a rest and get him back in. Thad was probably going to wait until the end of the TV Timeout anyway. The Buckeyes need to get Oden the ball a lot in this game especially when Noah is on him, Noah isn't strong enough to cover him. In other news Brad Lidge got right back on the train tracks, blowing his first save opp. of the season.

9:53 Oden stays on the bench, don't get it, but he's coming in on the first whistle. Probably why Thad isn't a good coach.

9:54 What a pass to Terwilliger for a dunk. Conley = Pimp. Oden now comes in at 6:18, 1:41 seconds on the bench for no reason.

9:56 The jump hook not working for Oden. Harris's nickname is Microwave, a classic nickname but one already used. Buckeyes employ the leave Humphrey open for a three strategy for the first time of the game. Doesn't work. And Richard gets a ticky tack on the other end.

9:58 Brewer buries a 3, 30-22. Now Green knocks 3. 33-22. Damn it. Thad drops his first, my team is getting smoked I need a time out of the game.

10:00 Sum up so far, the Buckeyes offense has been gun threes or give the ball to Oden in the post and he forces up a shot. I feel as if they should be able to do better. Shouldn't the Buckeyes be able to exploit Humphrey on the offensive end, he is a short white jump shooter.

10:02 Keep them off the line strategy Billy, they have 10 foul shots to the Buckeyes zero, what the hell are you talking about.

10:03 Billy Packer says something stupid about how Conley can't handle being covered by a 7 footer. He dribbled the ball off his leg to a guy that's 6 foot 8. I hate you Billy Packer.

10:04 Oden gets fouled on his hook shot buries it, and the ref says on the floor. Can we get the NBA continuation rule in college already. Atleast Ugly Duckling has 2 fouls. #7

10:08 Buckeyes first free throws of the game... Does he miss the front end... No. Misses the second. 37-27.

10:09 Buckeyes need a bucket on their last possession and they don't get it. Should have given the ball to Oden in the post. 40-29 at the Half.

First Half Sum Up

Florida is draining their 3s which spells terribly bad news for the Buckeyes. And throughout the tourny Ohio St. has won with minimal production from Oden. Tonight he's got 11 and 7 at the half. Aka they'd be getting toasted without him. Also, I can't stand how they keep saying Oden can't play a lot of minutes. If he can't that's pathetic. Friggin Shaq played a lot of minutes in his prime. You get two minutes off for every 4 you play. And you get 20 minutes between halves.

Well Second to last that is. The Grizz have the worst record in the NBA pretty much locked up so now it comes down to who wants #2. Whats more interesting to you, whether or not the horrible Knicks or Pacers can move into the last spot in the East or how these teams that have everything to win by losing will strategize down the stretch.

Current Standings

Celtics: 23-50, leading the pack
Bucks: 25-47, 2 1/2 back
Atlanta: 27-47, 3 1/2 back but 4 in the win column
Charlotte: 28-46, 4 1/2 back but 5 in the win column

The 76ers and Trailblazers are 29-44 6 games ahead of the Celtics meaning they would have to lose pretty much the remainder of their games and hope that the Celtics 6-3 or better down the stretch, and everyone else wins games aka they got pretty much no shot.

Remaining Schedules

Celtics: @MIL, MIA, @IND, @ATL, PHI, MIL, @ORL, @MIA, DET
Bucks: NO/OK, BOS, @ATL, NY, ORL, IND, @BOS, CHA, ATL, @CLE
Atlanta: @NJ, MIL, @PHI, BOS, WAS, @CLE, @MIL, IND
Charlotte: WAS, @WAS, IND, @MIA, MIA, @CHI, @MIL, NY

Breakin it Down

The Celtics had this in their hands but have continued to win ball games since Pierce came back. Thus they need to take Pierce out during clutch time. They have even been winning close games against playoff teams, the Cavs and the Magic. The Bucks and Hawks on the other end have both lost 6 in a row. The Hawks might sideline Joe Johnson for the remainder of the season, to 'not damage him further'. I find it classic how between these 4 teams they have 5 games in the last two weeks against each other and the two biggest competitors have 2 against each other.

Personally I think the Bucks get it done and the Celtics slide between them and the Hawks, why because the Celtics under Doc and Danny can't do anything right. They will most likely defeat the Bucks this week and next week and catapult the horrid Bucks into the 2 hole.

You can be excited down the stretch for games with the Pacers to sneak into the playoffs only to get dumped by the Pistons in round one, me I'd rather watch these teams fight for the best chance of getting Durant and Oden.

UCLA vs. Florida

~Those foul calls on Aaron Afflalo pretty much ensured that UCLA was going to go into half time with a big deficit. And when he came back he had no spark. He's one of those streaky players where if he's hot he can hit everything, and when he's cold he isn't making crap. Well sitting down the last 10 minutes of the first half ensured the ice.

~UCLA is terrible to watch and was completely overmatched against the Gators. They had a chance to open the game with a lead since the Gators decided to only jack up three the first 10 minutes of the game and didn't score at all, yet UCLA can't run any kind of offense. Kansas would have given the Gators a much better game but since Bill Self is a terrible coach he got his jock handed to him by Howland.

~That being said when UCLA gets a few McD's all american studs they are going to be ridiculously good. Howland has that team playing great defense, it's just their offense blows. If they ever got a kid like Durant, someone who can carry an offense by himself, they would be almost unstoppable. If UCLA doesn't win a National Title in the next 5 years I would be very surprised.

~After Florida went on its big run in the 1st half there was not a moment when I think anybody in the bar thought UCLA had a chance.

G-Town vs. Ohio St.

~Went to a local bar to watch this game and missed the first segment before the first TV timeout. Thus I missed every second Oden played in the first half. Can we please just calm down with the whistles for one moment.

~Hibbert was terrific. And the biggest play of the entire game was when he got whistled for his 4th foul, which easily could have not been called. A little hold at the top of the key, calm down. Once he got taken out, nobody could cover Oden and the Hoyas offense sputtered. If I'm a team looking for a big man in the NBA I'm snatching up Hibbert. I'd equate him to being a Zydrunas Ilgauskas, in his prime. Tall enough to dominate when healthy and when covered by someone smaller. A good passer and a little more finesse than physical. He will be good in the NBA and will make a few all-star games.

~Why did Jonathon Wallace not shoot more threes? Did he miss any?

~Mike Conley Jr. should stay in school for one more year and come out and get drafted by the Celtics after the C's get Oden this year. He is going to be a fantastic pt guard in the NBA. He just has that it factor, not afraid at any moment of the game. And it would be a shame if he and Oden didn't play on the same team in the NBA. Stern make this happen.

Championship Game Keys

~Oden needs to be in this game for a long time. Which means he needs to not grab two fouls in the first 3 minutes. I don't trust Terwilliger or Hunter to cover Noah and especially Horford.

~Florida bombing threes is a big time key. If Humphrey, Green and Brewer are knocking them down the Buckeyes will struggle because they most likely will need to double down on whatever big Oden is not covering.

~Give the ball to Oden in the paint early and perhaps you can get Noah or Horford in foul trouble. It won't hurt the Gators as much as Oden out, cause Richards is good, but if Horford or Noah are not in the game it lessens the likelihood that Oden picks up dumb fouls

~The Buckeyes need to get off to a strong start. If the Gators start hot and get a big lead early I think they will roll.

~Billy Donovan isn't going anywhere. This talk is dumb.

My Pick: Ohio St., I picked them to win preseason, I picked them to win in my bracket, I'm sticking with 'em. Buckeyes get revenge from football.