It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

The AL West is a world for holy beings. It shall continue in 2009.

1. Los Angeles Angels

The Angels have been the king of the West for a long time and should still be considered the favorites in 2009. But this season they will be challenged much more heavily than in years past and the reason for this is the health of their starting rotation. Last year they were able to overcome the Lackey and Escobar injuries with massive performances by Santana and Saunders. This year Santana is on the shelf with Lackey and Escobar, so picks up the pace?

Key Player: Jered Weaver, Someone needs to hold up the fort while Lackey, Santana and Escobar. Weaver has the most potentialof the starters in the rotation but his stats have gotten progressively worse season after season after season. His ERA and Winning Percentage have gone in the wrong direction every year since his rookie season. The Angels can ill afford one of their experienced pitchers regressing even more when they will be relying so heavily on youth to fill the hole left by their injuries.

Player to Eye: Kendry Morales, No more Teixeira or Casey Kotcman means it's finally time for Kenry Morales to get his shot at first base. The Cuban defect has absolutely raked in the minors never posting below a .300 average in any level. He hit .341 in both 07 and 08 in the minors. That has yet to translate in the majors to production or playing time. 2009 is his opportunity, what will he do.

Record Prediction: 84-78

2.Texas Rangers

Bats, Bats, Bats, Bats and ugh pitching. It's the Rangers modus operandi. With Millwood, Padilla, Benson, McCarthy and Harrison there could be a lot of long afternoons in the Texas Sun. But really who needs pitching in Texas when you can enjoy 13-10 games?

Key Player: Ian Kinsler, you really have no hope with any of the Rangers pitchers so naturally their key player is either Kinsler or Hamilton. Both are absolute studs and showed to be premium players in 2009. I'm going with Kinsler as the key player because Hamilton's RBI numbers are much a product of Kinsler staying healhty and getting on base. Kinsler missed 40+ games last year and has yet to compile over 130 games in his three seasons, if his health collapses again so will the Rangers' chances.

Player to Eye: Chris Davis, The rookie burst on the scene last year with power power power. He's a Rangers prospect, what did you expect. If you extrapalate his stats out to a full season, he's .285, 34 hr, 110 rbi, 102 runs. That's a beastly season.

Record Prediction: 81-81

3. Oakland Athletics

The A's are being exhalted by many for their potential to take home the AL West and well, I'm not quite seeing it. Why am I skepticle? Well tell me what big pitcher they have? With Duscherererer on the DL to start the year their rotation is Braden, Gallagher, Eveland, and two rookies in Cahill and Anderson. That's a division winning rotation?

Key Player: Matt Holliday, What shall the splits say in 2009? Matt Holliday in Coors was Manny Ramirez. Matt Holliday outside Coors was more Raul Ibanez. What will he do with an entire year outside of the friendly friendly mountain air? The A's really could use those Manny Ramirez numbers.

Player to Eye: Trevor Cahill and Brett Anderson, The season is one week away and the A's are eying up two rookies to put in their rotation. The two are listed as the A's #1 and #2 prospects, their time is now. Do both stick? Do both fall back in the minors? What do they do?

Record Prediction: 80-82

4. Seattle Mariners

I vastly overestimated the Mariners last year after the acquiring of Erik Bedard. So this year let me vastly underestimate them. They can be my MLB equivalent of Tampa Bay Bucs predictions, from one side of the spectrum to the other.

Key Player: Erik Bedard, King Felix is great but he needs a partner in crime and the Mariners needs that partner to be Bedard. He has shown Cy Young type stuff and is in a contract year so the Mariners certainly hope he comes through. The health isssues throw up about 5 red flags to make you take a step back and question just how much he'll be able to contribute.

Player to Eye: Brandon Morrow, Brandon Morrow went from just another young starting pitcher with potential to potentially amongst the leagues most dominant closers. He is yelling Papelbon at you. He has the stuff to start but the arm health just isn't cooperating. He's going to be the closer for good this year, adjust accordingly.

Record Prediction: 72-90

Check Out All the Previews: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West

First off we get the NL West, home to two of the worst offenses in baseball, possibly ever.

1. Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers come back as defending division winner. Their lineup shall be improved with the addition of the O-Dog and potentially the further development of their young stars like Kemp, Ethier, Loney and DeWitt. Their questionmarks however lie strictly on their starting rotation. The loss of Derek Lowe's consistency must be replaced somewhere. Will it be Randy Wolf? An improved Clayton Kershaw? They'll need someone to step up to maintain their Western dominance.

Key Player: Manny Ramirez, The Dodgers spent the entire offseason concentrating on bringing back Manny Ramirez. Without him their lineup lacks the main cog, with him they'll be full speed ahead. You probably can't expect him to hit 4000 like he did last year in Dodger blue, but the typical Manny .310 35 120 is absolutely essential to the Dodgers success.

Player to Eye: Clayton Kershaw, While people were frothing from the mouth for David Price this offsense, Kershaw clearly was the better option. In 107 innings last season he had 100 Ks and a 4.26 ERA as a 20 year old. This year he will be thrust into the rotation full time and the numbers could be lights out.

Record Prediction: 90-72

2. Arizona Diamondbacks

The Diamondbacks went through a mini collapse last season to get surpassed by the Dodgers. This year they bring back a squad with the best 1 2 punch in the NL and a whole lot of youngsters in the lineup with one extra year of experience.

Key Player: Max Scherzer, Having 2 great pitchers is wonderful, but they're only going to pitch 40% of the time. The Diamondbacks need that third cog and Scherzer is best candidate to become that man. He has the stuff to sit players on their ass on a consistent basis, he just needs to command the strike zone a little better and most importantly he needs to stay healthy.

Player to Eye: Felipe Lopez, A few seasons ago Felipe Lopez was a keeper player in my fantasy league (mine in fact), then he got traded to the Nationals and his production got shot in the foot. Last season he quitely, and I mean really quietly, batted .383 in 43 games for the Cardinals. In other words, he was a monster for them down the stretch. If the shitty Felipe Lopez was just a Washington casualty, and the real Felipe Lopez .290 hitter with double digit power and speed, than the Dbacks will be pumped they let the O-Dog go and brought in Lopez.

Record Prediction: 85-77

t3. Colorado Rockies

The Rockies made the World Series just two seasons ago, that seems like light years ago to me. They no longer have their best player, and what they got for him in Smith and Street have not stepped up this spring. Smith is going to miss out on a spot in the rotation and Street might just wind up being the set up man. So much for his promise.

Key Player: Ubaldo Jimenez & Franklin Morales, I'm going with the same two pitchers I went with last year as the Rockies key players. These are their two best arms. With Jeff Francis on the shelf for the eyar, they're going to need someone to step up in the rotation. Jimenez took a massive step forward in 2008, but still has further room to improve in 09. Morales on the other hand was miserable in 08, and really needs to step up in 09 if the Rockies are going to contend.

Player to Eye: Ian Stewart, Come on Colorado find this kid a spot in the lineup already. He's got mid 20 home run power but you can't find him a spot in the lineup on a day to day basis. You're playing Seth Smith as the starting left fielder? If Ryan Braun can make the transition to left field, Stewart can.

Record Prediction: 79-83

t3. San Francisco Giants

Great pitching, poop lineup. That was the Giants in 08 that is the Giants in 09. But fear not San Fran, you ridiculously overpaid for have Edgar Renteria now. Last year I underestimated both their hitting and pitching, this year they are mildly improved, but not enough to win in the mid 80s.

Key Player: Aaron Rowand, We'll go with Aaron Rowand again as their key player because, well, someone needs to step up and hit some homers. Rowand is probably the most likely to do so, but when Rowand is your #1 option that's not a good thing.

Player to Eye: Jonathan Sanchez, He's a K machine in the #5 starters role, but the ERA was certainly not terrific. If you get quality starts from your #5 guy than you are going to put yourself in position for a September run. Sanchez has the skill and potential to turn it around. Will he?

Record Prediction: 79-83

5. San Diego Padres

You want shitty lineups, you'll love the Padres. They just might be worse than the Giants lineup. It's Adrian Gonzalez and then slop. David Eckstein, post steroids Brian Giles, the Kouz, Jody Gerut, non-descript catcher and shortstop... Ugh. They already play in a pitcher's park, throw in their shitty lineups and pitchers are gonna love throwin in Petco.

Key Player: Chris Young, Chris Young got injured last year and down went the Padres rotation. It's not really his fault took a bullet line drive off his face but still, without him the Padres rotation is a 1 man show.

Player to Eye: Heath Bell, How many games the Padres going to blow out someone? 3? Maybe 2? Last year Brian Wilson chalked up save after save for the Giants because they couldn't score runs so any lead was just a run or so. Same thing goes for Heath Bell in 09.

Record Prediction: 69-93

Check Out All the Previews: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West

Here's the record predictions for 2009. I'll post a few points on them after you take a peek.



~The records are significantly and I mean significantly more towards the middle than last season. The reasons are as follows, I was mightily burnt by the massively incorrect predictions of the Tigers and Mariners. Massively incorrect. Second, I think almost every team in the MLB has terribly large holes.

~The numbers around the projections are just so that I can convince everyone the records work out so I don't have any jackasses this year yelling at me for having the AL win more games than the NL. They play interleague play, the AL dominates every year. They will again this year. Hence I have the AL having an 8 game over .500 record in interleague play.

~Over the course of the next few days I will have a preview up for each division. That will go into more details into what my thoughts are for each squad.

~Check Out All the Previews: AL East, AL Central, AL West, NL East, NL Central, NL West

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com. Also feel free to Check Out the Other Conference Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

It feels like a moment in a WWE match. You know the moment. Two heroes come into the ring to take out the villains. Everything is going well until all of a sudden one hero finds a folding chair and pulls it into the ring and all of a sudden when his partner's back is turned he smashes him to the ground. The hero has turned, he is now hated by all.

Today Seth Curry makes the leap to enemy. Instead of picking a nondescript ACC School or landing at VaTech to follow in his footsteps, he chooses Duke. We should have seen it coming. Soft Jump Shooters love Duke. He's the perfect Duke villain. Silky Smooth jump shot. Limited ability to play defense. Skinny as a pencil. He's the perfect successor for the Scheyer's of the world.

We shouldn't have been blindsided. It was an obvious decision. But we had hopes for a family that's added so much fun to college basketaball the past two years. The hopes are smashed, the Curry name will never be the same. Seth just dropped a massive chair smash to it.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

One thing I noticed when I was browsing through the ole NCAA tournament pictures on ESPN.com after the first few rounds was that there was a ridiculous amount of pictures of coaches yelling. In fact you could find a picture of basically every single coach screaming at their players or the refs or their MILF wives. So I decided to take on a new challenge and try to make a little collage photo of all the NCAA coaches yelling. The image below is 65 NCAA Coaches all screaming at someone.


*Almost all of the pictures I used were actually from the NCAA tournament. A handful of pictures were from a respective conference tournament and a handful were from google images. The only coach I could not find any picture of was Danny Kaspar of Stephen F. Austin. I replaced him with George Blaney the UConn assistant that coached in the opening round.

One trend I noticed over the first weekend of NCAA play is that sometimes in the big spot the opposing defense let's you get easy buckets. Sometimes Defense Is Hard breaks down some of those occasions.

The Scenario: Pitt tied up after a Levance Fields free throw goes into a press to try to force overtime.

The benefits of the press are forcing the squad to burn some clock getting the ball up the court. The negatives are if they break the press an easy basket awaits. So which route does it go.


Sam Young let's the ball get inbounded in front of him. Now here's where the obvious issues start. Look at where the two players responsible for Scotty Reynold's are. They are way behind him.


Sam Young finds himself out of position and blown by as well. Now we have a 3 on 2 fast break with great spacing. Reynolds like any good guard is going to take the ball to the middle on the break to make floor spacing completely optimal. Blair either needs to step up and pressure Reynolds and force the ball out of his hands or back off into the paint and set up a 2 man front a couple feet from the hoop to force Reynolds into a jump shot decision.


Instead of stepping in front or backing off Blair just waves his hand at Reynolds and let's him blow by. Now Gilbert Brown is on an island. Essentiall a 3 on 1 fast break, but time is slightly on his side. He needs to force the ball out of Reynolds hands.


There's a second left, contest the damn shot. Gilbert puts his hands up and essentially prays that Reynolds misses a 4 foot floater. And then....

So who wants to drop 349 dollars on those Knicks 4th round playoff tickets? The games on June 7th at the Garden, it should be a thriller. And it's game 2, so they have homecourt, man them Knicks are going to have a superb next few weeks.

It's time to pick between two midtier pitchers who will certainly be on my players to watch list come draft day.

The Fantasy Rankings

CBS ranks Yovani at 135 and Greinke at 142.
Yahoo Big Board says no to midtier pitching.
ESPN has Yovani at 86 and Greinke at 83.

So ESPN apparently loves pitching. Whichever way you cut it these two are side by side in the rankings.

Projections

Yovani Gallardo: 3.99 ERA, 13-9, 196 IP, 201 Ks, 1.30 WHIP
Zack Greinke: 3.99 ERA, 12-10, 194 IP, 156 Ks, 1.28 WHIP

The Projections say Yovani based on strikeout potential. The issue is that Greinke K'd 183 last season in just 8 more innings, why would the K numbers plummet by almost 30? Not sure I'm buying that.

Surrounding Lineup

The Brewers have big boppers in Braun and Prince that are significantly better than any Royals. Additionally JJ Hardy has put together back to back solid seasons. After those three there are some question marks. Will Rickie Weeks hit .220 again? Can Corey Hart get on base at a better clip or will he continue to basically never walk? Same goes with Mike Cameron. Is Bill Hall toast? And well Jason Kendall isn't really a question mark, he's just bad.

The Royals roster is "YOUTHENIZED", with Aviles, Butler and Gordon all core pieces of their lineup. They need each player to bump up their past seasons production. The additions of Coco Crisp and Mike Jacobs add both speed and power to the top of the lineup. With daily pt, Coco could potentially hit double digit homers and steal 20+ bases. Jacobs hit 32 home runs last year in 142 games. He can't hit lefties a lick, but he's got pop and is mashing in the spring with 6 bombs already.

Question Marks

The Greinke brain. The Greinke brain is a brain that has broken down and almost ended his career in the past. A little mental flair up and Greinke could potentially go from a solid mid-tier ace to a guy sitting in a Psych ward.

For Yovani its really the sophomore slump. Some times pitchers bust out in their rookies years and dominate and then the batters start to adjust to the pitchers repertoire. This is effectively Yovani's sophomore year.

The Verdict
This is a toss up and that's why it fits here. I owned Greinke last year and reaped the rewards and I owned Gallardo in 07 and reaped the rewards. This year if I'm going to target one or the other, I'm going with Gallardo. I feel as if their numbers are going to be very very similar but I favor Gallardo thanks to a much better lineup as well as being in the National League. Those extra Ks against the pitchers are just so delicious.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

How many times did you orgasm last night watching the Duke game? 2? Maybe 3? That game couldn't have possibly been more enjoyable. The best part about last night was it took maybe 5 minutes of watching the game to know that Villanova had a thorough advantage in physicality and athleticism and that it was just a matter of time before they pulled away. My favorite portion of the entire night was when Duke couldn't even get a shot off for like three straight possessions. Mostly because Duke doesn't actually play defense. They play the charging game. "Oh look someones driving to the paint, let me step in front of him and try to take a charge. The refs will give me the call cause we're Duke and Paulus sucks them off before the game."

Watching Duke get dominated completely made up for my bracket going boom last night thanks to the turnover machine that was Memphis. Let's carry the joy over to today by enjoying some pictures of Duke losers.





That makes me smile.

People remember the here and now most, they remember the pain and suffering from last season and they remember the joy from last season. The previous years are kind of just blended in the background of the memory. In a draft you must expose this. You must look for players that had a down year that you think will bounce back, they will come at a bargain basement price.

Take Aaron Harang for instance. Harang had two phenomenal seasons in 06&07. His era was 3.76 or lower, his WHIP was elite and his Ks were through the roof. And then there was last year. His ERA was a run higher he got lit up and well that is stuck in a ton of peoples minds. In reality he was both unhealthy and unlucky. His batting average against sky rocketed. Harang is going in the wee hours of your draft and could easily revert back to his stud levels in 06&07.

Another player that fits this category is Robinson Cano. Cano's a little bit of a loosy goosy guy and last year he had an abominable April. It tanked his entire He ended up hitting .276 for the season and is now thought of as a middle of the pack 2b. The thing is, he's not. He's shown up to the spring motivated and ready to go. He's mashing at a .389 pace. He's a .300 hitter, with 20 home run potential, hitting in a massive lineup, at the age of 26. Draft him.

These are the types of risks you want to take in. You want players with a track record for success coming off down years because people put way way too much weight in one poor season.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

Rule #1 while picking pitchers is control the controllables. In other words key on the projections which the pitcher has the most control over and then take the others into consideration. The most controlled pitcher stat? Strikeouts. Strikeout pitchers don't emerge from thin air. Mr. Wang in the Bronx is never going to strike out 200 hitters. Meanwhile Matt Cain who you probably can get at the same point just might.

The next two stats that are the controllable for pitchers are his splits, ERA and WHIP. A better pitcher is going to get outs and is going to give up less baserunners. It doesn't matter if he's on the Mets or the Marlins. Ricky Nolasco is simply going to have a better ERA and WHIP than Ollie P.

Wins are simply the tie breaker really. If a pitcher is on a better team than and the stats are nearly the same the pull the trigger on the Dodger instead of the Padre. Just don't let wins carry equal weight as the other stats.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

If you haven't seen how the rankings work go here.

For a list of the rest of the rankings and the rest of the fantasy baseball blowout go here.

Today I'm going to come out with rankings for all position players. Each position will include a spreadsheet with three tabs. Let me explain how it all works.

First of all, all the stats utilized in the spreadsheets are projections from CBS Sportsline. They were easy to grab and more close to expectations than the CHONE projections which are fantastically low for anybody that's missed significant time over the past few years. Plus, chone had Eric Young stealing 40 bases and being one of the most valuable 2nd baseman in fantasy baseball, and well I don't know if he's even making the roster. Secondly the rankings are for Roto 5*5, but my leagues rules. So, the difference is my league has hits not average and innings pitched not WHIP. Don't think that makes a big difference? It does, especially hits -> average. Ok onto the explanation. The base goals are also set to the category leaders in my league last year, so for instance the winner of my home run category had 300 so that's the goal to maintain for this season. Finally the roster sizes and divisors are all set to my roster size, so 2 per infield position, 5 outfielders, 7 starters, 3 relievers, all starting.

Stat %: The Stat % represents what percentage of your overall team stats a player accounts for. So say a player is likely to hit 30 home runs and your goal is 300. Than that is 10% of your desired home run totals. If he is going to get 0 steals in the process than that is 0% of your steal total. The Stat % takes all those percentages into consideration and averages them out.

+ %: The goal of +% is to show exactly how much slack a player gives you in a particular category to play with for the rest of the draft. So for instance, Ryan Howard is projected to hit 46 home runs. His 46 home runs is worth a +1.7333. What does that mean? That means effectively every remaining hitter you have can hit 1.7333 less homers than the average and you will still come out to the goal, 300. The opposite holds true for Howard and steals. He is projected to have 1 steal or a -0.849. That means that the rest of your roster needs to pick up almost an extra steal per person. At the end of the draft your goal would be to come as close to 0 in every category. Too positive in a category and you're overdoing it, too negative in a category and you're going to get hammered in it.

Weighted + %: The Weighted +% tries to bring all of the categories of the +% more closely aligned. So obviously a +1 in runs is not really worth the same as a +1 in home runs. They're are way more runs to go around than home runs, so the Weighted +% divides all categories by the goal #.

Now what are you waiting for. Get to the blowout.

You ready for a fantasy baseball blowout? I know you are. All posts today and possibly tomorrow will be related to fantasy baseball. So get ready for a ride. Posts start in a little bit and will consist of rankings, philosophies, favorites, etc. Fun stuff.

Fielder Rankings: Catcher, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop, Outfield

Pitching Rankings: Starters, Relievers

Philosophies: Never Chase Wins, Search for the Comeback Kids

Mancrushes: Yovani Gallardo, Matt Cain

Fantasy Toss Ups: Speed vs. Power, Ellsbury vs. Victorino, Holliday vs. Hamilton, Lackey vs. Haren, Kershaw vs. Price, Lincecum vs. Johan, Upton vs. Maybin , Greinke vs. Gallardo

PhotoHunt

Don't know if I've ever seen a guy chip it up to himself and then bury the bicycle kick.

H/T 101 Great Goals

This psat Thanksgiving I woke up at around 8, 8:30, drove down to my buddies house and conducted beverage drinking games until around 1ish or so. Thus when I was done eating Turkey dinner I was plopped on the couch fully zonked out and possibly drooling on myself.

In 2009, the NFL wants to make sure you do the same exact thing, even if you don't have a case of beer in the AM. We all have just grown accustomed to the Lions shit show on Thanksgiving, they always suck and you really want the game to but it never is. But at the very least the NFL has the excuse of not breaking tradition for scheduling the Lions in the 12:30 game. The NFL however has absolutely positively no excuse for scheduling the Raiders to the play the Cowboys in the second game. You really really really want to make sure we watch shitty football on thanksgiving don't you NFL? The Raiders have been terrible for forever and there's zero sign of them breaking out this year.

Hooray for two miserable games on feast day. As of this moment I reserve my spot on the couch for Thanksgiving afternoon comatose.

Yay for safety rules and elimating the physicality out of the NFL one step at a time. So much for highlight films of big hits. Here's a run down of the 4 rules they have put through over the past week.

The Bernard Pollard Rule

Everyone's calling it the Brady rule. Nonsense, name it after the hero. No longer when a defender is on the ground can they dive at the quarterback. So essentially being a defensive lineman and getting knocked to the ground is like the WedgeRats getting stabbed in their foam sword battles. It's time to play dead. The NFL will probably say something moronic like, well they can get up and then when they get back to their feet they can tackle the quarterback. How many times has Bob Kraft been on the ground trying to stand up when a 350 pound man is pushing him in the back? That's going to be completely wasted effort. One injury to a high profile Quarterback and we need to turn their knees into endangered species.

The Let's Try To Eliminate Kickoff Return Touchdowns Rule

Honestly I think this rule pisses me off the most. No longer can a kickoff return have a wedge blocking scheme. If you don't know what a wedge is then you don't watch much football, but I'll explain. It's like the flying V but for kick off returns. You get 3 or more blockers to form a V and blast through the defense and let the ball carrier follow behind the path of destruction. No longer. If three players are within two yards of each other shoulder to shoulder it will now be a 15 yard penalty. A 15 yard god damn penalty for blocking. For blocking!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhh, this rule is ridiculous. Let's just eliminate kickoffs completely. Skip the god damn commercial breaks and give the ball to each team at the 20s, cause if you can't have guys block within 2 yards of each other what the hell is the point?

The Keith Rivers Broken Jaw Rule

I'm ok with this one. Basically, Hines Ward blind side blocked Keith Rivers in the head and broke his jaw. Now it'll be flagged a 15 yarder. Basically when you blind side block a guy you can hit him in the chest and not the head. I'm ok with this rule although watching the Ward hit over and over again was pretty awesome.

The Let's Blow Up the Receiver Rule

I'm not really fervently against this rule either. Essentially when you go up against a defenseless receiver you can't hit him in the head anymore. Before you couldn't go helmet to helmet, now you can't go shoulder or forearm to helmet. Basically they don't want Wes Welker getting his head blasted off going over the middle on an incomplete pass again. I get it, you want to eliminate concussions but what if the dback goes for the chest and the receiver ducks and turns it into a head shot? Will that be a penalty as well? It just seems like the NFL is really shackling the Dbacks aggressiveness and definitely eliminating big hits.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

The fantasy mancrush tracks players that I am very high on and will target often in my drafts.

Today we're going with Matt Cain. And yes, I'm in love with the mid-tier pitcher.

Spring Stats

The Spring stats for Cain are also a little eh. 21.1 innings with an era of 6.33 and 20 Ks. Not exactly mowing them down, but it's spring and he's been around for 3+ seasons, I'm not worried.

Projections

Bill James: 13-11, 3.55 era, 213 innings, 192 Ks, 1.30 WHIP
CHONE: 11-10, 3.76 era, 189 innings, 166 Ks, 1.32 WHIP
ESPN: 11 wins, 3.65 era, 202 innings, 177 Ks, 1.31 WHIP
Sportsline: 10-13, 3.73 era, 210 innings, 190 Ks, 1.31 WHIP

Everybody says solid ERA, yay for Ks,, yay for workload, and boo for wins.

Rankings

ESPN: #133 Overall, #30 Starting Pitcher
Yahoo: #26 Starting Pitcher
Sportsline: #147 overall

Yahoo is slightly higher on Cain than everybody else, but the sentiment is that Cain is going to go in the 12th-15th round of your drafts.

Sum Up

Don't search or draft by wins. Matt Cain controls his controlables and is downgraded heavily for losing games. Yes his team's offense is highly highly suspect, but Tiny Tim won a shitload of games for them last year and it can be done by Cain. What you know you're getting is a solid ERA for a player available in the double digit rounds, a boatload of strikeouts, and a heavy workload. And that's just accepting that he won't make a leap in production. The kid is 24 and has been a beast in the big leagues for three seasons, don't let the crappy win totals the past two season frighten you. It's gonna turn around at some point.

My bracket is fantastico. 3 out of 4 final four squads. My champ and runner-up still intact. Solid. ODU, James Madison and Pacific all cruised to easy victories on the evening while Bradley just needed to hit a tiny little jump shot to move on. And by tiny little jump shot, I mean this:



Well that's a solid way to win a basketball game. All in all the CIT is an infinitely better tournament than the CBI. The CBI is strictly a business proposition their to suck college programs of money without morals. The only reason the Oregon State Beavers are in their tournament is because the coaches brother-in-law is the president. Plus they had shitty St. John's in the tournament with their losing record. Meanwhile the CIT is an honest tournament. It's a tournament for the little guys. It's teams with winning records from smaller conferences most of whom coming from 1-bid conferences. It's a good way for the little guy to get a few more games in and feel good about the season. Plus, filling out a bracket with endless possibilities is enjoyable. All in all, good job by CollegeInsider.com for starting up a fun little postseason tournament. It doesn't matter that little to nobody cares about it, it makes sense and it works.

H/T AA on the video

The WBC has come to an end for the second time and just like the first the Japanese are your world's best baseball team despite the Koreans best efforts. The Koreans down by two in the 8th inning fought back lead by Lee Bum-ho. In the 8th Bum-ho lied a double off the wall to lead off the inning and eventually scored on a sac fly. In the 9th Bum-ho singled in the tying run after Yu Darvish decided to avoid bats by striking out two and walking two. At the end of the night the hero was fittingly Ichiro. With two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd Ichiro fought off pitch after pitch after pitch until eventually lined the ball up the middle two score the go-ahead runs. In the bottom of the 10th with the bottom of Korean lineup up, Darvish casually used his slider to dominate and clinch the Japanese second World Baseball classic in two attempts.

And now we go into random thought mode.

~TEAM ASIA DOMINATES!!!!!!!

~The Japanese may or may not be the best baseball team in the world but they have three top tier pitchers who all pitched well. America has some solid starters who didn't show up for the tournament but it's not like pitching Roy Oswalt should be a liability. Meanwhile, the Japanese got solid starts from Dice-K and Hisashi Iwakuma and had Darvish come out of the pen in back to back games.

~The Koreans were effectively a National League team. Solid to spectacular on defense. A solid but unspectacular middle of the order and slap hitting bitches at the bottom of the lineup.

~There are many issues with the World Baseball Classic, the biggest in my estimation is its live feel. In the vast majority of the games in the tournament the game did not have the feel of being an important game. The obvious reason for this is piss poor attendance. When you turn on a game and are watching it on television and see 15,000 people in the stands and half of the behind the plate seats empty, it doesn't scream this game is important get into it. Last night on the other hand did thanks to the Korean fans and their stupid thundersticks. The place was load, their was a solid atmosphere and it vastly increased the intensity and feel of the game.

~The first problem is most people aren't in the baseball mood right now. It's March Madness time. It's basketball time. It's not time for some new baseball tournament with some funky rules during Spring training. Americans just aren't into it enough right now.

~The second problem is the location of these games. The biggest baseball markets in America are in cold weather cities. But in March you can't hold games in NYC, Boston or Chicago so you have to hold them in Miami a place where they never ever show up for baseball games.

~So what needs to happen to take this tournament to the next level? Well it needs the best players around the world to play in the games. Each squad has all-stars but they certainly don't have the best of the best. No Johan. No CC. No Mariano. No Pujols. No Sizemore. And the list goes on and on. Players seemingly look for a reason to back out. Take Joe Nathan for instance. He was 'injured' or something. He's already thrown 6 innings in spring training. Chances are he wouldn't have even thrown that many innings in the WBC. Additionally as soon as someone gets a mild sprained ankle they pull out like a sissy girl (I'm looking at you Shrek and Doucheroia).

~The World Baseball Classic absolutely positively makes the most sense during the an elongated all star break. Every 4 years take 2 weeks off and shove the games in that time frame. Players are in midseason form, players that are unhealthy would get extra time to heal, Americans are in the baseball mood, and you can showcase the games in the greatest stadiums in America (Wrigley, Fenway, Yankee Stadium). Too bad MLB will never fly with that idea, it would make this tournament infinitely more relevant and popular. Alas, they seem to be content with showing it in March to rabid baseball fans like myself, Latinos and Team Asia.

The fantasy mancrush tracks players that I am very high on and will target often in my drafts.

First up is man crush numero uno, Yovani Gallardo. The Mexican K wonder is back and ready to make up for his fantasy groin kick in 2008 when he blew out his ACL and dashed your hopes for a consistent ace.

Spring Stats

The Spring stats for Gallardo are a little eh. 18.2 innings thus far giving up 11 runs while striking out 16. Obviously spring stats can be read into a little too much but it would be nice if he would throw in a quality start or two over the final weeks to make you feel a bit more comfortable.

Projections

Bill James: 13-9, 3.99 era, 196 innings, 201 Ks, 1.30 WHIP
CHONE: 7-5, 3.50 era, 108 innings, 112 Ks, 1.25 WHIP
ESPN: 15 wins, 3.40 era, 193 innings, 187 Ks, 1.26 WHIP
Sportsline: 12-7, 3.36 era, 182 innings, 166 Ks, 1.34 WHIP

The projections are ranging. The things with the Chone projections is that it always seems to think people who were injured last year will be injured this year, I think that's a kink in the formula. James has the Ks elite and the ERA so so whereas Sportsline and ESPN have the ERA elite and the Ks of varying greatness. The win totals are always something to throw up in the air but personally I think the Brew Crew have a solid offense especially if Rickie Weeks can come anywhere near approaching the .304 he's currently hitting in spring (highly doubtful but one could hope, especially one that might target him as well).

Rankings

ESPN: #86 Overall, #18 Starting Pitcher
Yahoo: #28 Starting Pitcher
Sportsline: #135 overall

As you can see there is a massively varying take on Yovani's value. At #86 I would contemplate drafting him but be a bit gun shy. At #135 I'd be jumping off my seat in joy.

Sum Up

I heart Yovani. The Ks will be elite and the ERA will hover around 3.50 which is solid as well. His health is not in question as his injury was via freak collision and to his knee not his arm, so don't be scared off by that. In the end your hope with Yovani, as well as all pitchers for that matter, will be his run support in his quest for wins. The kid has nasty stuff, now go draft him.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

This bracket was a debacle. I doubt the Beavers and now after their easy victory by 1 point in overtime over the Catamounts of Vermont they get to host my pick for champion of the universe Stanford. The Cardinal dispatched the Shockers on the road by 14. UTEP dumped Northeastern with relative ease at home and for their troubles they get the deadly Richmond Spiders who knocked off Charleston by 2.

But forget my embarassing bracket for a second and let's just contemplate the audacity of this tournament in which you pay 60,000 dollars to host a game. Stanford went 18-13 in the regular season meanwhile Wichita St. went 16-16 in a worse conference, yet the Cardinal had to go to Wichita to play? Even after two wins in the tournament the Beavers are still just 15-17. That's right they were 13-17 and still got invited to play in a postseason tournament, that's what you get when your brother in-law can make fun of special needs kids on a latenight show. So they are 15-17 currently and the Cardinal are 20-13 currently, yet the Beavers are hosting the semifinal game.

Essentially this tournament is built to not be taken seriously. Thanks Gazelle Group.

And boom goes me bracket. I went 6 for 8 in round 2 but lost the big one. On saturday early in the AM, the Baylor Bears went into Blacksburg and whiped the floor with the Hokies 18 points and I officially lost any chance of winning my NIT bracket of one. In other games the Gators punded rival Floridians Miami. Stephen Curry's season is over as they got thumped by St. Mary's. The Kentucky Wildcats staved off Billie G's firing for another day as Creighton missed a game winning three in the closing seconds. The Fighting Irish snuck by New Mexico in the closing seconds. Penn St., San Diego St., and Auburn all advanced comfortably to the 2nd round.

The ole quarterfinals start tonight with Baylor at Auburn and Penn St. at Florida. Then on Wednesday St. Mary's goes to San Diego St.

One trend I noticed over the first weekend of NCAA play is that sometimes in the big spot the opposing defense let's you get easy buckets. Sometimes Defense Is Hard breaks down some of those occasions.

The Scenario: Tennessee goes up 1 and now has to stop OK St. on the Cowboys final possession.

At this point time it's pretty obvious that this pick and roll isn't going to lead anywhere. He's headed towards the sideline and baseline and would have to take a long route to the hoop. It almost makes no sense that they would set a screen in that direction.


Instead of letting him take the screen to nowhere land, or at the very least having one defender hedge the screen, both Tennessee players hedge. This basically forces Eaton to crossover and head towards the paint. Exactly where he wanted to go the whole time.


The on ball defender is now completely toast and it's up to help defense. The defender of the screener is now closest to Eaton but he's obviously a step behind thanks to hedging the screen. The remainder of the defenders are spread out on their players who are all chilling at the 3-point line. But you've got a guy with a step heading to the lane, it's time to collapse and force someone to make a jump shot.


Nobody gets off their guy. All of the Tennessee players outside of Tyler Smith are stuck watching Eaton drive the lane, leaving it all on Smith's shoulder to get a defensive stop. A defensive stop he needs to get while completely out of position.


Out of position and a step behind your options are three-fold. 1) Foul the shit out of him and hope he misses the free throw. 2) Just let him score the layup and avoid the foul. 3) Attempt to defend the shot but because you are out of position you are 90% likely to foul but not foul hard enough to completely deter the shot attempt. Smith chose option #3.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

~Adios Cinderella, all of the little boys and gals have been put to bed. And if anyone claims Arizona is a Cinderella they should be slapped in the mouth.

~How Chalklity is the bracket? A couple of upsets in day 2. A 12 seed in the sweet 16. But really when someone tells you they have the entire sweet 16 it's not surprising. It's just umm, so you went with Arizona, good for you.

~Of the #1 seeds Pitt, Louisville and UNC were challenged while UConn dominated. Of all the 1 seeds I still think that UConn is most likely to go down in the next round. Followed by Pitt. I feel as if Purdue is one of those teams that can get lights out from beyond the arc and beat anybody, will they do it against UConn? Probably not, but its possible. In all likelihood the Chalklity bracket will let the 4 1 seeds move on.

~The Wolverines fought well against Oklahoma but were completely done in by foul trouble to both Manny Harris and DeShawn Sims. The fact that they were able to stay in the game for so damn long without their two best player doing much of anything and Harris sitting on the bench forever in the first half makes me think that Oklahoma isn't very long for this tournament. Sure Blake Griffin is a beast and had 33-17 (fell short of the 30-20 I predicted), but the rest of the team is suspect. Their jump shooting is particularly fantastic and they'll find it difficult covering all of Cuse's jump shooters. Additionally, Cuse has several big bodies to throw at Griffin in succession. Essentially I think the Sooners go down in the next game and Cuse moves on. As for Michigan I hope Sims and Harris decide to stick around for next year and that some of their in coming recruits don't suck.

~Of the other 2 seeds, Duke snuck by in helping hand to an absolute lame call at the end of the game. Two kids going for the ball that Scheyer tossed to the other end of the court, the kid from Texas extends his arm and the jackass from Duke pulls a Brazilian soccer player and gets the foul call. I hate Duke. Michigan St. held off the Trojans at the end after the game was tight throughout while Memphis embarrassed Maryland.

~Speaking of the ACC, they obviously can't be very pleased by their 5-5 showing. Especially when Duke gets bumped by Nova in the next round. Of all the losses the Wake Forest complete no show was the worst of all the bunch.

~The Big East Dominates. 5 Sweet 16 teams is a record and proves the strength of their league this year.

~The poor jackass from Marquette that stepped over the endline must feel great about himself today.

~Speaking of Marquette, I'm glad Dominic James was able to get on the court in his final collegiate game. Too bad it ended in a loss.

~Wisconsin is the universe's most boring team. Thank god they switched coverage off of that Xavier 'Sconsin slop fest in my local market.

~My bracket is mediocre and shall not be winning anything.

~I feel as if this tournament has been just ok so far. There have been a couple solid finishes but nothing incredibly memorable. The Cinderella getting its shit pounded in doesn't really help. What I do think it leads to is the potential for great games this coming weekends.

~In the end of the Sweet 16 I think we get all four 1 seeds, two 2 seeds and two 3 seeds. I think Oklahoma gets bounced and then one of the other twos. The order of likelihood of defeat is Duke then Michigan St. then Memphis. And I still feel like my final four of Pitt, Louisville, UNC and Memphis is gonna pan out.

One trend I noticed over the first weekend of NCAA play is that sometimes in the big spot the opposing defense let's you get easy buckets. Sometimes Defense Is Hard breaks down some of those occasions.

The Scenario: Western Kentucky makes a bucket with 7+ seconds to go to tie the game.

This is only a mild mistake. One theory is that you want to get back and set up your half court D, the other is that by pressuring the ball on the inbound you can waste more time. They only have 7 seconds to shoot, every second wasted makes it harder to get off a good shot, so I'm obviously on board with pressure there.


Western Kentucky opts to continue not to pressure the ball letting the Demetri Goodson get the ball to half court in a just over a second and a half. Again this isn't the end of the world if you set up your half court defense.


And this is the beginning of the end. Orlando Mendez-Valdez begins to guard Goodson but he's immediately in a shitty position. Guarding a faster player who is going full speed while you are tucked in his side pocket. Mendez-Valdez is toast at this point.


At this point it should be blatantly obvious to every Western Kentucky player that Mendez-Valdez is burnt to a crisp. So it's time for some help D and a collapse on Goodson. There's only 3.8 seconds left. Play some D.


Ahhhhhh, that's not help D. You just did a faint hand wave at the ball. What the hell is that going to D?


Oh shit, 1 Gonzaga player with a boatload of space. Umm, where's the defense gonna come from now? Obviously the two guys in the paint are the only ones who have any chance at contesting the shot.


And so one guy manages to get there but instead of contesting the shot and risking a foul he just let's him get away the easy look. Bucket. Game Over. Nice Seeing You in the 2nd Round. Have a safe trip back to Kentucky.

If you can't fully see that bracket above, I recommend clicking on it, it really is the dumbest bracket ever created and sums up where this post is heading.

Come thursday morning I decided to go fuck and join a pool. My buddy Grutt was in one at work and had asked me if I wanted in earlier in the week so I responded and got in. I filled out my chalktastic bracket that I showed the other day and as of this moment I sit at 19-2. The problem is that I didn't know the scoring method going until around 3 o'clock.

So whats the scoring method and why is it such a big deal. The point system is essentially Seed Multiplied by the Round with which they win in. So picking Arizona (12 seed) in the first round is worth 12 points. Picking UConn to win in the Elite 8 (round 4) is worth 4 points. Picking Akron to win in the 2nd round is worth 30 points. And so on. In the email, that I clearly only glossed at, it said the scoring system "rewards good picks". False. It convinces you to make stupid picks, like the jackasses bracket above.

In looking at the brackets between myself and the leader, I've currently made one less correct pick then him. We only have a total of 5 different picks remaining. See if you can find a trend.

Round 2
18 point swing: Washington (8 for him), Purdue (10 for me)
18 point swing: Xavier (8 for him), Florida St. (10 for me)

Round 1
17 point swing: Arizona (12 for him), Utah (5 for me)

Elite 8
12 point swing: Uconn (4 for him), Memphis (8 for me)

National Championship Game
12 point swing: Louisville (6 for him), Pitt (6 for me)

The weight is all in the front. Basically if I get Purdue and FSU right its worth double him getting Louisville and Uconn right. How does that make any sense whatsoever. Is picking Florida State to beat Xavier a harder pick than picking Pitt to navigate the entire field and win the National Title? Absolutely not.

If you ever set up a bracket, don't use the above scoring method, unless of course you want moronic brackets filled out.

The CIT I think is my new favorite bracket to fill out. Because you have to guess so many things. Not just whose the better team. If you take a look above you'll notice the red arrows, that signifies where teams really are going. In essence I went 6 and 2 in the first round which is solid. But what I only went 2 for 4 in slotting the correct opponents. So I predicted Pacific and Idaho to play each other, which was a gimmee giving their proximities and then I predicted the winner of Oakland Kent St. to play Bradley. I just didn't get the Oakland Kent St. matchup right. Where I guessed wrong was the top of the bracket, where I had Liberty facing off against ODU and the winner of Evansville Belmont against James Madison. Those got flip flopped. So overall, 6-2, 2 for 4 on the game matchups, and 3 for 4 on the host cities for the quarterfinal matchups. I'm so gonna win my CIT pool.

~One thing that I've realized today is that I filled out way way way too many brackets. I'm in one pool for money and all of last night I thought I had picked Michigan in the pool as a homer pick and I thought I was on my way to a day of 16 of 16. Alas, I look this morning and well I was 15 of 16, with one miss. Michigan. Oh well, I guess that's the price to pay for this weeks boredom and constant bracket filling out.

~Also, I thought I just ported my pool picks to the "Picks on the site" but um, not completely.

~If you listened to me (aka Grutt) and picked against Michigan because I said they aren't good (they really aren't), well then I'm sorry. At least you know I got it wrong too.

~Speaking of Michigan, was it their goal to try to give their fans a heart attack? I mean they had the game in the bag until they decided to not score for essentially the last 5 minutes while allowing Clemson to bury 3 consecutive threes. Now they get Oklahoma which probably won't be a good thing. I feel safe in predicting 30-20 from Blake Griffin.

~Illinois sucks, I hope you didn't pick them.

~UConn and UNC were out of their opponents league. Really wasn't very fair, that's the benefit of being the 1 seed. You get a theoretical practice game to tune up for the 2nd round.

~I fell asleep during the late games. Tis lame, I know.

~Therefore I missed the end of the VCU UCLA game and VCU's epic come back that just fell short.

~I hate Duke. Hopefully Texas can beat them.

~Perhaps picking Memphis to go to the final four was not a very good thing. Off last years misery you would think that free throws would be a key thing to focus on during practice. Yet they go 11 for 28 from the line in the opening round. 11 for 28? God that's atrocious. They needed a kid who never plays to come into the game and bail them out with boatloads of three pointers. Perhaps they just play to the level of the opponent and will come out and thump the Terps tomorrow.

~American's theme song has to be "America, Fuck Yeah", right?

~The coin flip bracket went 11-5 yesterday. For your sake, I hope that's not better than you.

4-4, Yuck. Home teams went just 4-4. The Johnnies not surprisingly went down. The Cardinal are well on their way to the title. Charleston did not let down. But the real question is how dare I question the Beavers and the Shockers? I really have no justification.

The ole NIT first round is done and in the end I went 11-5, which is not bad.

To put it bluntly the NIT first round was a round for the favorites. The better seed won 14 of the 16 games. Davidson, URI and Miami were the only squads to win on the road and Miami was a higher seed that needed to go roadtrippin thanks to scheduling conflicts. Because of that there's really nothing to talk about. The Hokies needed double OT to beat Duquesne so their run to the championship might be a bit in question. Billy Gillespie would probably like to win the tourney so maybe he doesn't get shit canned. Davidson is playing St. Mary's next which could be entertaining. But in the end the majority of the 2nd round games are going on at the same time as NCAA games, so its highly doubtful you'll be tuning in.

Per Billings request. Here's the coin flip bracket. Heads, the higher seed moved on. Tails, the lower seed moved on. There's a significant chance that all final four teams are eliminated by friday night and a very good chance all are eliminated by the end of the weekend. But if Robert Morris ever makes the finals I'm gonna frame this here quarter.

Hey it's the real thing, my actual picks. I'm posting these mostly so you can mock how blatantly boring, horrible and uninspiring they are. Hey look I selected a 2 seed to make the Final Four. Oh wow, living on the edge. And look a 3 seed in the Elite 8, ahhh craziness. And look at all those upsets in the first round.

To really explain my picks I'll give bullet points cause we all love bullet points:

1) I'm biased towards the Big East, which is obvious.

2) I'm a glutton for Pitt punishment. They've burnt me countless times before so why not one more time for good measure. My theory is they are the Lonny Baxter Maryland squads. I kept on going with them and it eventually worked out for me, so why not Pitt?

3) Having watched Michigan play about 10 times, I know they aren't very good. I also know Illinois isn't very good either. Hence why they were the one 5 seed I had going down. Probably won't happen.

4) I really wanted to pick Michigan in the first round and then sacrifice them in the second but, why did they have to get Clemson in the first round?

5) I haven't watched a single Pac 10 game this year. Which probably explains me picking against basically every one.

6) I was desperately looking for a reason to knock pick UNC and the Lawson injury was an excuse to do so.

7) I hate midmajors and minors apparently.

8) I seriously contemplated Purdue over UConn but couldn't pull the trigger.

9) I seriously contemplated Clemson over Oklahoma but couldn't pull the trigger.

10) I haven't watched Memphis play at all, but I really really don't think UConn is a Final Four team anymore and really really really didn't want to go 4 #1s for the second straight year so I jumped out on a ledge and picked them.

11) And mainly, I have no balls.

If ever this bracket is a winner then we are probably in line for the most boring NCAA tournament of all time. Please Please feel free to rip all of my picks in the comments. An infant could have made better picks.

A certain way to fail is to go with who you picked in November. Last year it failed thanks to Rose's inability to hit free throws and this year it will fail because I picked UCLA to make the final four and frankly they aren't very good. So ya, I didn't go with these picks this year, instead I'm going way closer to my typical boring chalk selections as you shall see in a few.

Honestly, who the hell thinks this is a good idea? Why would you buy a Green Bulls jersey? Why? It looks like they took the Green and Black Celtics jersey, which is by far their worst jersey, and taped Bulls over Celtics. They should revoke their win from last night and give it back to the Celtics.

In the quest to figure out how exactly to select 10 different brackets on ESPN.com, I decided to come up with a few brackets that were based on principals. The bracket above works on one principal. Simply pick the team with more wins. Yes it's obviously one of the dumbest brackets you could possibly fill out, but in the end I actually like it. You get a few lengthy runs to the sweet 16 by double digit seeds like Cleveland St., North Dakota St., and Utah St. You get a terribly chalky Elite 8 and Final 4. But then you get Memphis, not exactly a big time favorite, winning it all. It's got that balance between ballsy early upset picks, sensible final four picks, and edgy winner pick. It's actually not a bad bracket.

We've all heard the rumormill by now, Jay Cutler and Josh McDaniels are not friends. Jay has put his house on sale, desires out of snowy Denver, and has requested a trade. Many ESPNites come on the air and say that things are irreconcilable and that he is going to get traded and naturally teams without a quarterback of mention, aka the Jets, come up in discussion.

Cutler is a proven quarterback in the NFL and the Jets seemingly have limited faith in the future of Kellen Clemens so obviously I'm interested in potentially getting a pro bowl quality QB (Even If I did Bash the pick on draft day. Whoops). The Jets have two major needs right now, Quarterback and Wideout. Getting Cutler would go a long way in giving this team the potential to regain a spot in the postseason.

The question is of course, at what cost? If it costs Leon Washington as I heard in one rumor than sure. I mean I love Leon but he's not going to pass the ball. If it costs a first round pick than absolutely. Would you rather have Mark Sanchez or Jay Cutler? Rather have Jeremy Maclin or Jay Cutler? The answer is obvious, you want the quarterback. But what if they ask for two first round picks? Or a first round pick and Leon Washington? At what point is the price tag just too much? If the only thing they do for the rest of the offseason is bring in Cutler than they would still have a major gap at wideout and the question would quickly transfer to, it's nice that you brought in a Quarterback but who the hell is he going to throw the ball to? I want him, but I don't want to give up the farm.

With all this being said, I still believe that cooler heads will prevail in Denver and that somehow someway Cutler and McDaniels kiss and make up. The Broncos trading their franchise quarterback makes absolutely no sense, especially when the price tag is currently depreciated.

I'm not sure the Royals signing Sir Sidney Ponson is going to work out that great for them. He looks quite large.

It's Called Kickin It With the Chief. Unfortunately Chief Kickingstallionsims was eliminated last night, so he won't actually be joining the bracket. Sad Face.

Might as well fill up a Ladies Bracket. Obviously UConn is going to win the whole thing. I picked basically no upsets because there usually aren't any in the Women's tournament. Finally, I picked Louisville instead of Maryland to avoid the Chalkolate bracket.

No earned runs in 9 innings? That's like a psuedo shut out. Kei Igawa is going to dominate this year.

ESPN is letting you fill out 10 brackets again so while we contemplate our actual bracket, we decided to yet again fill out a bracket based on theoretical 1 on 1 matchups. Unlike last years bracket, we decided to amp it up and go with historical players.

Check Out All the Brackets: West, East, South, Midwest, Final Four


Final Four

Magic Johnson (Michigan St.) over Dwyane Wade (Marquette), Magic's got too much size to hold down Wade who while holding the edge in quickness likely wouldn't be able to get to the rack with complete ease.

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Lew Alcindor (UCLA), my biggest question would be how can Alcindor get the ball into paint. I don't know if he could back down MJ, considering he's was never very thick. And I don't know he could be able to dribble around the court without having MJ steal it from him. For this main reason, I'm giving it to MJ. Obviously if Alcindor could just get the ball in the post every single possession it would be nearly impossible for MJ to stop him given the height advantage. I just don't see how Lew gets the ball there.

Finals

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Magic Johnson (Michigan St.), MJ is just a superior and taller version of Wade which would get it done against Magic. Magic could try to back him down, but MJ should be quick enough and enough of a superior athlete to get the ball to the rack.

ESPN is letting you fill out 10 brackets again so while we contemplate our actual bracket, we decided to yet again fill out a bracket based on theoretical 1 on 1 matchups. Unlike last years bracket, we decided to amp it up and go with historical players.

Check Out All the Brackets: West, East, South, Midwest, Final Four



1st Round

Wes Unseld (Louisville) over Nobody (TBD), Wes Unseld eats nobody.

John Havlicek (Ohio St.) over Nobody (Siena), back to back nobodies.

Gilbert Arenas (Arizona) over Keith Van Horn (Utah), how many broken ankles would Van Horn end up with.

Tim Duncan (Wake Forest) over Franklin Edwards(Cleveland St.), don't think Franklin would have a chance.

Jerry West (West Virginia) over Jim Paxson (Dayton), its not even John Paxson.

Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas) over Nobody (North Dakota St.), Wilt has sex with Nobody's mother and sister.

Bill Sharman (USC) over Dana Barros (BC), is Dana Barros seriously the best BC pro? Seriously?

Magic Johnson (Michigan St.) over Nobody (Robert Morris), snooze this bracket's first round was boring.

2nd Round

John Havlicek (Ohio St.) over Wes Unseld (Louisville), Unseld would be a tough out given how physical he was but in the end I'm giving the edge to Havlicek's scoring ability.

Tim Duncan (Wake Forest) over Gilbert Arenas(Utah), Arenas would have a chance given his speed advantage over Duncan, but how would he be able to stop The Big Fundamental when he got the ball on the low block? He wouldn't.

Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas) over Jerry West (West Virginia), Jerry West was great, but Wilt would dunk all night.

Magic Johnson (Michigan St.) over Bill Sharman (USC), Magic would overpower any player from the 50s.

Sweet 16

John Havlicek (Ohio St.) over Tim Duncan (Wake Forest), this probably will be a controversial decision but I think a player who can shoot and drive and has multiple ways to score the basketball in addition to having enough size to force Duncan into a few misses would be able to take him.

Magic Johnson (Michigan St.) over Wilt Chamberlain (Kansas), this is arguably the hardest decision in any bracket. In one corner we have a 7 footer who once scored 100 points in a game and changed the entire way basketball was played. In the other corner we have a 6 foot 9 point guard with handle and post moves and a little bit of everything. The reason I picked Magic is I think he has enough size to force a few stops on Wilt and his superior handle would allow he to get the ball into better positions to score than Wilt. Certainly a massive toss up, but going with the Magic Man.

Elite 8

Magic Johnson (Michigan St.) over John Havlicek (Ohio St.), Magic's size and post moves would be enough for him to get it done.

ESPN is letting you fill out 10 brackets again so while we contemplate our actual bracket, we decided to yet again fill out a bracket based on theoretical 1 on 1 matchups. Unlike last years bracket, we decided to amp it up and go with historical players.

Check Out All the Brackets: West, East, South, Midwest, Final Four



1st Round

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Nobody (Radford), is MJ getting a bye really fair?

Shaq (LSU) over Billy Shephard (Butler), Shaq could probably score at will against the entire current Butler team.

Deron Williams (Illinois) over Greg Smith (Western Kentucky), can't say I know who Greg Smith is.

Adam Morrison (Gonzaga) over Bill Turner (Akron), can't say I know who Bill Turner is either.

Eddie Jones (Temple) over Byron Scott (Arizona St.), Similar players but Eddie always had more of a knack to score the basketball.

Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse) over James Silas (S F Austin), Melo easily beats someone I've never heard of.

Chris Webber (Michigan) over Horace Grant (Clemson), Horace Grant's offensive game is limited.

Wayman Tisdale (Oklahoma) over Marvin Webster (Morgan St.),

2nd Round

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Shaq (LSU), this is one of those instances that your really have no idea what would go on. Obviously MJ is one of if not the best players of all time. But Shaq would have 6 or 7 inches on him and about 120 pounds. If Shaq could ever get the ball in the post on a consistent basis than I'm not sure how MJ would stop him. Then again if the ball was inbounded at the top of the key, Shaq would have to either let MJ take an open jumper or allow Michael to drive past him at will. I went with MJ because of the latter. I think it would be more difficult for Shaq to back MJ down and get into a position to score than it would be for MJ to hit an open free throw jumper. So MJ over Shaq it is.

Deron Williams (Illinois) over Adam Morrison (Gonzaga), the dirty sanchez would have no chance of covering Williams in a game of 1 on 1.

Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse) over Eddie Jones (Temple), Carmelo's length would overcome Jones far superior defense.

Chris Webber (Michigan) over Wayman Tisdale (Oklahoma)

Sweet 16

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Deron Williams (Illinois), after beating Shaq, Deron is a breeze.

Chris Webber (Michigan) over Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse), I'm a homer and think CWebb's size on D would fluster Anthony and CWebb would be able to score at will against Carmelo's meager D.

Elite 8

Michael Jordan (North Carolina) over Chris Webber (Michigan), I'm a homer but not THAT big of a homer.

Arod should take a lesson from Julian Tavárez in the art of brutal honesty.

"Why did I sign with the Nationals?" Tavárez said on Sunday. "When you go to a club at 4 in the morning, and you're just waiting, waiting, a 600-pounder looks like J-Lo. And to me this is Jennifer Lopez right here. It's 4 in the morning. Too much to drink. So, Nationals: Jennifer Lopez to me." (Fanhouse)

See how useful that was? He made a ton of people last and endeared himself to his organization. Ok maybe he didn't do that second part but he definitely nailed the first part.

ESPN is letting you fill out 10 brackets again so while we contemplate our actual bracket, we decided to yet again fill out a bracket based on theoretical 1 on 1 matchups. Unlike last years bracket, we decided to amp it up and go with historical players.

Check Out All the Brackets: West, East, South, Midwest, Final Four



1st Round

Billy Knight (Pittsburgh) over Skeeter Swift (E Tenn St.), Skeeter Swift wins the name battle but not the basketball battle.

Bernard King (Tennessee) over John Starks (Oklahoma St.), two former Knicks go at it, but Starks is just to little to handle King in the post.

Michael Finley (Wisconsin) over Dave Cowens (Florida St.), Finley too superior and athlete to Cowens to get held down.

David West (Xavier) over Freeman Williams (Portland St.), not sure who Freeman WIlliams is.

Lew Alcindor (UCLA) over Gerald Henderson (VCU), and the sky hook from start to finish.

Paul Arizin (Villanova) over Kermit Washington (American), unless Kermit decided to jack Arizin up like he did Rudy Tomjanovich he loses.

Kevin McHale (Minnesota) over Slater Martin (Texas), Slater was the defensive stopper on the Mikan championship squads but he wouldn't contain McHale's plethora of post moves.

Grant Hill (Duke) over Nobody (Binghamton), Grant gets injured but still manages to hold off nobody for the victory.

2nd Round

Bernard King (Tennessee) over Billy Knight (Pitt), Knight is a better player than he was a Hawks exec, but he isn't enough to come close to taking down King.

Michael Finley (Wisconsin) over David West (Xavier), the speed and the athleticism of Michael Finley, let him easily out maneuver West.

Lew Alcindor (UCLA) over Paul Arizin (Villanova), two hall of famers battle, but big Lew gets it done.

Kevin McHale (Minnesota) over Grant Hill (Duke), Hill sprains his ankle after the 2nd point and retires from the match.

Sweet 16

Bernard King (Tennessee) over Michael Finley (Wisconsin), King has too many different ways to score, while Michael Finley is for some reason convinced he is a good jump shooter.

Lew Alcindor (UCLA) over Kevin McHale (Minnesota), in the battle of the post beasts, Alcindor's height and length are too much for McHale to get past.

Elite 8

Lew Alcindor (UCLA) over Bernard King (Tennessee), it all comes down to King's ability to keep Alcindor out of the post. Would Alcindor be able to back down or dribble drive enough to get the ball into the lane and use his sky hook? I say yes, and hence Alcindor takes it down.

ESPN is letting you fill out 10 brackets again so while we contemplate our actual bracket, we decided to yet again fill out a bracket based on theoretical 1 on 1 matchups. Unlike last years bracket, we decided to amp it up and go with historical players.

Check Out All the Brackets: West, East, South, Midwest, Final Four



1st Round

Ray Allen (Uconn) over Gerald Wilkins (UT Chattanooga), Jesus Shuttleworth has too smooth a jumper.

Danny Ainge (BYU) over Antoine Wright (Texas A&M), Antoine's got better athleticism but Danny is cagey and would bite off his ankles.

Glenn Robinson (Purdon't) over Nobody (Northern Iowa), the big dog barely sneaks past nobody.

Brandon Roy (Washington) over Bailey Howell (Miss St.), not quite sure who Bailey Howell is.

Dwyane Wade (Marquette) over Nate Williams (Utah St.), must he spell his name Dwyane? Can we get that edited?

Anthony Peeler (Missouri) over Ed Peterson (Cornell), no idea who Ed Peterson is.

Jason Kidd (California) over Steve Francis (Maryland), Kidd would back down the franchise in the post and bury layup after layup on him.

Anfernee Hardaway (Memphis) over Paul McCracken (CS Northridge), Phil McCracken would have taken down Penny. His brother Paul, not so much.

2nd Round

Ray Allen (UConn) over Danny Ainge (BYU), Danny knows Ray Ray is better than him, that's why he brought him to the Cs instead of coming out of retirement.

Brandon Roy (Washington) over Glenn Robinson (Purdon't), Roy would run circles around the Big Dog.

Dwayne Wade (Marquette) over Anthony Peeler (Missouri), this matchup isn't up for serious discussion.

Jason Kidd (Cal) over Penny (Memphis), Penny before the countless injuries gives Kidd a run for his money but Kidd plays tough enough D to fluster Hardaway. Lil Penny is not pleased.

Sweet 16

Ray Allen (UConn) over Brandon Roy (Washington), smooth strokin Jesus in his prime was better than what Roy has shown us thus far.

Dwyane Wade (Marquette) over Jason Kidd (Cal), Wade is just bigger stronger and more athletic than Kidd.

Elite 8

Dwyane Wade (Marquette) over Ray Allen (UConn), Ray Ray is solid but he wouldn't be able to stop Wade from getting to the rack.

If you've seen Jay Bilas over the past few weeks you've probably noticed that he's been advocating the NCAA Tournament to completely eliminate the Auto-bids and go to a 64 team at-large tournament. Seriously he's advocating this, saying the story of a team like Penn St. would be just as good as a team like Vermont. They both have interesting kids and they both want to play in the tournament just as badly as the other.

To this I say, wow. Isn't half the intrigue of the first round of the NCAA tournament about watching those 12 seeds from the MAC face off against a 5 seed from the Big 10 and give them a run for their money. Isn't the tournament about Hampton shocking the world and knocking off Tim Floyd's #2 seeded Iowa Cyclones? Do we really need 10 teams from the ACC and 10 from the Big East and 10 from the Big Ten instead of an Ivy League school and a SWAC school? So what if the tournament isn't the best 65 teams in the country. Does Penn St. or VaTech or Notre Dame really have a chance to win the National Championship?

Furthermore, if you eliminate the Autobids you might as well just religate conferences like the Ivy League to division 2 because in all likelihood none of those teams are going to amongst the top 65. In addition, how much are we watering down both conference play and conference tournaments. If an extra 31 at large bids are given out, then teams like VaTech and Florida wouldn't have been playing for their lives in the tournament. They would have already been in.

All in all, taking away the autobids just strips the NCAA tournament of part of its heart. It would be a completely miserable idea.

It looked so much fun when I did it this morning that you all are clamoring to fill out your very own CollegeInsider.com Tournament Bracket. Well now you can. I've included the bracket image below with nothing but the first round games filled out. And I've also included this handy map of where all the schools are located which will help you plot out your future match ups. Just remember none of the 2nd round matchups are set, so this bracket is pretty much just a guide line. The committee could potentially send Rider out to Portland if they really wanted to in the 2nd round. Nothing is finalized. Anyway, enjoy filling it out and playing with the map.



View Larger Map

Your welcome.

The 2009 NIT predictions are an exercise of big names and favorites. St. Mary's is the squad everyone thinks is the last team that got left out of the NCAA's, so they move onto MSG to prove the committee wrong. Kentucky gets on a roll to save the douchebag Billie Gillespie's job. Billy Donovan doesn't really lose in postseason tourney's so the Gators advance to MSG. In the end the ACC battle hardened Hokies cut down the Nets and proclaim themselves the 66th best team in the country.

Today is a day to practice brackets, so the CBI, CIT and NIT brackets will be filled out.

It's PhotoHunt Time. Take a look at the pictures and see if you can figure where the 5 differences are. Click on the Image to get a larger view if needed. Then when you are done check out the answers linked below.

In the quest to fill out as many brackets as possible this week I've stumbled across the CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT), now the 4th avalaible postseason tourney. This is the tourney for the powerhouses like Evansville and Drake. Of course I wanted to fill out a bracket but I just couldn't find one. I was little confused until finally I found this disclaimer

In much the same fashion as the old NIT, future opponent will be determined at the conclusion of each round throughout the tournament.

So what you're telling me is not only do I have to pick the winner of the 1st round games, I also have to attempt to read the minds of the CIT committee and try to figure out who is going to play who and where they are going to play each other? Now this is a difficult bracket to fill out.

The first step was to figure out the locations of all the schools, because they obviously want to cut down on travel costs. After that was done I kind of naturally bracketed them with another game so that all 4 teams were relatively in the same region. After that I just went through the tournament like a normal bracket. It's an elementary approach but how else can you try to sift through the chaos that is this non-bracket based tournament.

After breaking it down to the end I have Old Dominion knocking off Pacific, with that being said they'll probably both lose in the first round.



Today is a day to practice brackets, so the CBI, CIT and NIT brackets will be filled out.

It's time for the 2nd edition of the College Basketball Invitational. I'm pumped are you pumped? Last year my picks were thwarted by the dreaded reseeding that is done in the semifinals, this year I'm gonna go rock solid. Stanford the favorite is gonna take it home. They'll get Houston in the Semifinals thanks to reseeding after the Beavers are defeated. On the other end of the bracket Charleston shall upset Richmond and then upset Nevada who previously cruised through their home games.

The bracket looks money doesn't it? My CBI Bracket shall be unchallenged and easily win its pool of 1.

Today is a day to practice brackets, so the CBI, CIT and NIT brackets will be filled out.

I have a small little pet peeve when it comes to bracketology and when they pop up numbers blindly on the board. Every single time ESPN or CBS or whoever throws up numbers to compare two teams they one of the stats they throw up is record vs. Top 50 and sometimes record vs. Top 25. This flat out annoys the shit out of me. It puts a number on the board without a face.

For instance, I heard someone on ESPN arguing that Oklahoma deserved a #1 bid over UConn because the Sooners had a 5-3 record over Top 25 teams and the Huskies only went 4-3 against Top 25 teams. What the hell does that mean? Did Oklahoma play Pitt twice? Did Oklahoma beat Louisville by a ton on the road? Absolutely not. Is there a big difference between playing two #1 seeds in the tournament than playing a couple of 4 or 5 seeds? Absolutely. So why do people just blindly use these moronic metrics as arguments?

Is there a measurable difference between beating the 49th ranked team and the 51st ranked team? Not really. So why do we just throw up the stupid number like it actually means something. Put a face behind the victories and losses. Paint a complete picture rather than arbitrarily picking a cutoff for a meaningless metric.

Saw these two commercials the other night (plus on Deadspin), think it's a good way to head into the weekend.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Todays as good as any day to talk Jay Gibbons. Why? He just got cut.

Explaining It Away

Gibbons came in as a 25 year old rookie played in 73 games and had some decent numbers. He looked like he might have some potential. Over the next few years his average and obp started to increas while his slugging fell. In 2004 Gibbons was sapped of all his power which could be attributed to injury right? He only played in 97 games. The next year he had his best season with his best career ba, obp and slugging % but the fall off would come steadily over the next two seasons.

The Verdict

Jay Gibbons never really jumped to all star level and I bet maybe three people read this sentence because no one cares about Jay Gibbons careeer, but a las he fell in the Mitchell Report and popped in my head so I wanted to take a peak. His numbers don't really scream at you, but the 2004 fall off is questionable. His pick up in production the next two years kind of squelches that or suggests that he started using HGH and perhaps something undetectable instead.

Well He Did Get Some HGH So...

As you've noticed I am not very pleased with how the Yankees are going about their process of selling tickets this season, well it just got worse. MLB teams have recently started the process of a lottery for premium tickets. The Mets had one for Opening Day tickets. As noted here the Red Sox have one for Monster Seats, Budweisers Seats and other premium games. It's common place and you really can't complain about it. The Yankees however have taken this approach about a mile sprint further, by having a lottery for the opportunity to purchase tickets. Not premium tickets, just tickets.

So say I want to go buy games against the Royals in mid June, well unless I win the lottery than I'll have to wait until they finally decide to sell the tickets to the general public. And who the hell knows when that will be cause if you notice below they still are only mentioning this whole lottery process and not when tickets truly go on sale. Go here to sign up for the lottery and because I've informed you, if you win I expect you to take me.


God this is annoying.

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com. Also feel free to Check Out the Other Conference Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

Living in Connecticut my entire life I have boatloads of friends that are UConn fans, say I get to banter UConn hoops a ton. For the entire season, my main theme of questioning UConn's championship hopes have been who is going to take the big shot. The typical answer I received was, "Whoever Is Hot That Night". Well, last night proved that UConn A) Has no idea who should shoot and B) Has no ability to get a good shot off. Let's break down the 5 big time failed UConn possessions.

Down two with the ball in the closing seconds, you might only remember the fact that the Huskies tied up the game. How could I blame you, the game did last another 90 minutes. In reality UConn only scored because of a fortuitious bounce, after Craig Austrie of all people decided to take the game in his own hands and take a horrendous runner at close to full speed. Lucky for them, and us, the ball bounced to Thabeet than after he got blatantly fouled and ripped off the ball fell right to another Huskie for a wide open layup. In a recurring theme the Huskies called a timeout prior to this possession to set up a play, and well I don't think they ran it.


This isn't as bad as it looks because UConn only had 4 or 5 seconds to get the ball up the court and attempt to score after the Cuse tied it up, but still get to the rack. And why didn't Calhoun call a time out to try to run some sort of play? Walker pretty much got the ball ran up the court and threw up a shot that had no chance to go in.


In OT2, UConn only had time for a half court heave so that can be ignored. In OT3 however UConn had ample time on their possession to draw something up and attempt to get a good shot. Instead they didn't call a timeout to draw up a play and wound up with AJ Price hucking up a three from NBA+ range. Again UConn got the fortuitous offense rebound and Adrien got a decent look that he couldn't bury.


In the 4th overtime the Huskies again had ample time to run a play and had a timeout just prior to draw one up. Unlike the rest of the possessions, they at least attempted to get the ball to the rack and/or try to draw a foul. Price just couldn't get it done.


With 15 Seconds left in the 5th overtime, UConn called a timeout to set up a play. What do they get? AJ Price hucking up another three from NBA+ range. Adrien again got the rebound and again missed an open look. But the theme remained, UConn had ample possessions for someone to step up and ice the game and nobody did. No Huskie could make a play.

The Huskies will be presented with these challenges in the tournament and unless they figure out who is their playmaker by then, they will fail.

If you've watched ESPN anytime over the past few weeks you probably noticed their commercials about the NEW espn.com. You know the ones that bounce from Bill Simmons to Notre Dame to Mike Golic to Biba Golic and they say things like espn.com/TUNA. Well that link does in fact work, bringing you to Bill Parcells. Considering they are just in the infancy of the /somethings, I have a few suggestions that ESPN most certainly can add to their list.

ESPN Personalities

Type in Boomer's signature phrase and you're at his bio. espn.com/ITSLIKENOONEHERESWORKEDONTVBEFORE

Like Stuart Scott would guy by anything other than his signature stare. espn.com/LAZYEYE

Bill Simmons gets a link that sums up his writing style. espn.com/WHINYGUYFROMBOSTON

Screamin A needs a loud link. espn.com/AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

For all of Skip's popularity I'm not sure if this would work but he gets espn.com/EVENMYMOTHERHATESME

John Clayton gets a link which explains why he really loves football. espn.com/ILIKESNIFFINGJOCKSTRAPS

Rick Reilly needs a link to his blog page of things too short for a column. espn.com/HEGETSPAIDHOWMUCH...FORTHIS?

Pedro Gomez gets a link summing up his current location. espn.com/ILIVEINBARRYBONDSDRIVEWAY

ESPN Shows

Cold Pizza First Take gets a link, not sure why. espn.com/NOBODYACTUALLYWATCHESTHISSHOW

Around the Horn gets the espn.com/TALKINGHEADS

The Mt. Rushmore of Sports Was a classic segment so it gets espn.com/WEMAKEYOUDUMBER

Because Mayne Street is Most Certainly the best internet show ever it gets espn.com/ITSJUSTTOOGOODFORTV

Players

Nobody Loves it More Than Mike Piazza so espn.com/HEARTSTHECOCK is his.

Man of mystery Marko Jaric gets a link that sums up what people think about him. espn.com/HOWTHEHELLDIDHELANDADRIANALIMA

In honor of going from 33 to 34 Vlad gets espn.com/THISYEARMYBIRTHDAYCOUNTEDTWICE

Bernard Pollard gets the important tagline espn.com/HERO

Brett Favre gets what everyone wants him to do. espn.com/PLEASESTAYFUCKINGRETIRED

Ray Lewis gets the tag the court couldn't pin on him. espn.com/MURDERER

The Sporting World's Lord and Savior, Tim Tebow, gets an apporpriate link.
espn.com/JESUS

Coaches

Need Bill Belicheat info? Obviously the link is espn.com/CHEATER

Eric Mangini obviously gets his signature nickname. espn.com/MANGIDIOT

Mark Mangino requested his link to be what he had for lunch. espn.com/6EGGS4BIGMACS3KRISPYKREAMS3PIZZAS...
They told him it wouldn't all fit.

The Rest

Mr. Al Davis probably can't use the interwebs but he has this espn.com/SENILE

All the excitement of a cricket match gets you this link espn.com/WORSTSPORTONTHEPLANET

Random Profane Car Ad, ESPN Likes to Link On Mel Kiper's Page
espn.com/BIGBILLHELLS

Feel free to throw any extras in the comments.

The UEFA Champions League opening Knockout Round concluded yesterday with one storyline dominating all others. The English Premiership is simply the best league on the planet. With just 8 teams remaining in the competition the English make up half of the field as every single English squad in the tournament has yet to be knocked out.

Chelsea, currently 2nd in the Premiership, knocked off Juventus, 2nd in Serie A, 2-2 thanks to the precious away goal by Didier Drogba.

Arsenal, currently 5th in the Premiership, knocked off AS Roma, 6th in Serie A, on penalty kicks in Rome.

Liverpool, 3rd in the Premiership, pounded powerhouse Real Madrid, 2nd in the Primera Division, 5-0 on aggregate after the 4-0 whoopin at Anfield.

Finally and certainly not least, Manchester United, best in the world, put the Special One in his place by knocking out Inter, 1st in Serie A, 2-0 at Old Trafford.

The thing that elevates Enlgand even higher is the fact that this exact same scenario took place last year. The same exact 4 squads made up half of the Quarterfinals. Unfortunately they were denied the opportunity to make up the entire semis when Arsenal and Liverpool were drawn to play each other. Hopefully the draw this year will be different and avoid all England matchups thus giving the Premiership the opportunity to further embarrass the rest of the soccer world.

Stumbled Upon This and Thought It Was Awesome. It's Deportivo Táchira of Venezuela's Jose Francisco Gonzalez who really likes sitting at the barber shop for hours.

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Remember Greg Vaughn? No? Well he hit a lot of homers out of nowhere, so we take a peak.

Explaining It Away

Greg Vaughn was an excellent prospect being selected 4th overall in the 1986 draft out of Miami. He was always a swing for the fences type of guy and never really had an average above .272 in a single season. His production severely fell off in 2000 at the age of 34 which can be explained as A) He was getting older and B) He was playing in Tampa for miserable teams.

The Verdict

Greg Vaughn is one of those players that has ok power numbers throughout his 20s and then all of a sudden in his low 30s he morphs into an animal. That throws up significant red flags. Can a player go through his entire 'Prime' and not figure it out until his skills become diminished? It's not like his average or obp or anything about his all around game improved, it was simply his power and his slugging percentage. It's not a guilty verdict but...

Does 50 Home Runs Ever Come Out of Nowhere?

As you could tell, I'm not very pleased with the whole Max Kellerman is out at 1050 ordeal. Well today he's replacement (hopefully only on a temporary basis) Brandon Tierney said something completely bafoonish. The Yankees should bat Johnny Damon 9th and bat Brett Gardner first. Why? His reasoning was that he doesn't want the bottom three batters to become automatic outs (aka Molina, Ransom and Garnder), so he wants to split them up. Let's just throw some quick stat analysis at this nonsense.

If you just throw likelihoods out there the leadoff batter will on average get an additional at bat in 8 of 9 games. Let's just say the lineup switches back to normal when Arod comes back consertaively 40 games in the season. That's conservatively 35 more at bats in the leadoff spot.

Now let's extrapolate that over projected averages for Damon and Gardner. We'll use the CHONE numbers at FanGraphs for the comparison. Damon is expected to have an OBP of .351 to Gardners .341. That difference actually doesn't equate to much, maybe an base reached for Damon. Gardner is expected to hit 2 homers in 446 at bats to Damons 15 in 551 at bats. That translates to a missed homer. Damon's expected slugging percentage is expected to be .417 and Gardner's is expected to be .345. That translates to 2.52 extra bases.

All in all those numbers don't look like that big of a deal, but the point is why the hell would you take away 35 at bats from a better player. All you're effectively doing is flip flopping Damon and Gardner in the order so you're really not changing the lineup chemistry at all, all you're doing is sacrificing effectiveness in the 1st inning and taking at bats away from a better player.

Thanks for the expert analysis BT. If you're going to replace Max, please be better.

It's time to determine which league is the biggest disgrace in this whole St. Patty's Day Merchandise debacle. Each league has put up a strong case but only one can be the absolute worst. I wrote a little sum up for each league but if you need the hideous reminder of what all of their crap looks like clip on each of the links. 1. NBA - The NBA just might be the worst thanks to their complete lack of effort. The vast majority of the merchandise they are trying to pawn off looks exactly like the lakers sweatshirt, some plain green clothing item with a team's logo the size of a quarter. It's essentially a 10 dollar champion sweatshirt with a Lakers logo on it, selling for 50 dollars, but in Celtics colors. The NBA also seems to think you really really really want a polo shirt with their logo on it, but in green of course. 2. NFL - When I think Irish, my mind obviously thinks Bengal tiger. White and green Jaguars hats are also very Irish. The NFL hitched a lot of their wagon to beer mugs and pint glasses which at the very least is better than the NBA right? 3. NHL - The NHL decided to go completely in the opposite direction of the NBA and opt for "Irish" graphics everywhere. That meant pictures of an "Angry" Leprechaun wearing a stupid Flyers t-shirt on a t-shirt. Pretty dumb. The NHL and the NFL also have the same exact design for player Jersey T's so you might be walking down the street with an Ovechkin shirt and you could see someone in an Adrian Peterson shirt wearing the exact same thing. Yay. 4. MLB - The MLB might just take it home thanks to sheer volume. No league has more crappy St. Patty's day merchandise than baseball, and their league isn't even really in action on St. Patrick's day. You can get an Irish trash can, an Irish flag, a hideous tie, sweatshirts, t-shirts, 45,000 different hats, etc. All crap.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Yesterday, I mentioned how the Yankees are obviously having difficulty selling season tickets given their constant streaming of ads on YES and the local talk radio stations. Well, later in the evening I received an email from the Yankees ticket office which took it one step further. This weekend the Yankees are holding an Open House. The Open House will allow you to go to the stadium and scope out your potential season tickets. You know, the tickets that cost $325 a pop that you would be on the hook for a minimum 20 of games.

The best part about this whole Open House thing is that it was email blasted to every single person who's on their email list. Let's do some simple math here. Say you bought 2 tickets per game at 325 a pop. That's 650 dollars for at minimum 20 games. That's 13 grand. That's 1/2 a decent car. Would I rather have 1/2 a car or 20 baseball games? Hmm....

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Mr. Bacne himself is up next for the microscope.

Explaining It Away

Looking at Mike Piazza's numbers you'll notice a tremendous amount of consistency and then a drop off in his mid 30s. There certainly aren't any Bret Boone like red flags. After the opening year, which can be completely ignored as they were simply September call up numbers, there's nothing really questionable, and he looks clean.

The Verdict

Unless Piazza was roiding from day 1 (a distinct possibility given his rise from Mr. Irrelevent Draft Pick to rookie of the year) it's doubtful he cycled on the juice in his career. His numbers are remarkably consistent and his dropoff in his mid 30s is to be expected due to his physical breakdown from catching daily. Additionally, the fall off started years before testing began. Nothing lines up, so...

Evidence Suggests He Preferred Hot Man Injections Over Steroids

Just in case you missed it, the UConn Huskies finished off their undefeated regular season by punching fifth ranked Louisville in the baby-maker, 75-36. The Huskies in total won 36 games this season, and while that's impressive it's really the manner of their victories that needs to be noted.

1. The Huskies did not win any game by less than 10 points.

2. In 36 games the Huskies average margin of victory was 31.5 points.

3. In 5 Games against ranked teams UConn won by the same average of 31+ points.

4. UConn's average margin of victory on the road is even better, coming in at 32+ points.

5. Louisville lost 1 of their 30 games against teams not named UConn, they lost by 28 and 39 points respectively in their two matchups.

6. Oklahoma's Courtney Paris Guaranteed a National Championship but her squad lost to UConn by 28.

7. UConn Doubled Up Their Opponent 9 Times this year, including the Big East Title Game

8. UConn won 16 of their games by 30+ points.

9. UConn won 26 of the 36 by 20+ points.

10. In the Big East Title Game, Maya Moore scored her last point with 7:52 to go in the game, the score read Maya Moore 28, Louisville 27.

Honestly, if they don't win the championship it's going to be just as ridiculous as the Pats not winning the Super Bowl two years ago. They are head and shoulders better than every other team in the league, not winning a title is not an option.

Today is March 11th, we are less than 4 weeks away from the start of the baseball season and just a little over a month away from the opening of Yankee Stadium on April 16th, yet STILL single game tickets can not be found. The Yankee Website still does not even mention the phrase "Single Game Tickets" anywhere on their website. Nowhere, you can't find it. One month away and I still can't get a ticket without signing up for 18 more.

Why? Because the Yankees are struggling to sell their season tickets. The good folks at Fauk Youk (terrific name) caught a screen shot of the Yanks attempting to peddle Season tickets last night. Listen to the radio and you'll hear the same spot. They desperately want to sell the season tickets and that's why they continue to wait to sell the single games. I'm just getting a little impatient.

One of the greatest (or worst depending on where you stand) part about baseball is that the best team doesn't always win. Sometimes a pitcher steps up to the occasion and carries and inferior team on his back. Sometimes to good team is just having a bad day. Sometimes lady luck graces her presence with a few well timed mistakes or seeing eye singles. There's a reason why the worst of the worst major league teams still win at least 1/4 of their games.

The fickleness of basebal was no more evident than last night when the Nederlands defeated the Dominican Republic for the second time in the span of four days. The Nederlands consists of ragabound minor leaguers and has beens like the Pontoon and the Sausage Attacker. The Dominican Republic shows up with an All Star Cast of 1st round fantasy draft picks like Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez. You look at the Nederlands roster and find me one player that even gets consideration for making the Dominican Roster. And yet last night it didn't matter.

It didn't matter that the DR has 23 major leaguers to the Nederlands 2. It didn't matter that Sydney Ponson has 90 of the 95 Nederlands career victories while the DR has 518. It didn't matter that the DR squad is making 80+ million dollars in MLB contracts where the Nederlands isn't even taking home 1/2 mill. None of it mattered. And that's why baseball is great, no sport gives the underdog a better chance of getting it done.



Perhaps the person who called me a moron for NOT picking the DR to win the WBC has a retort now

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner which means Sports industries are going to attempt to peddle some ass ugly merchandise at you that they dipped in green paint. Here's a look at some of the MLB's premium garbage.

As I've State Before I'm Not a Big Fan of the Green Nonsense Despite Being a Redheaded Irishman.

New York Mets single game tickets go on sale this sunday morning (March 15th) at ten am. One of the first thing you'll notice when you're going to buy tickets is that, well it's confusing as all hell. There are 28 different seating options with a combination of 5 different tier level games.

Here's what you need to know about the tier levels.

1. Plan on going on the weekends? Cross the value pack off your list.

2. Plan on going on the weekend but don't really want to see a really really bad team like the Nats or Pirates? Cross the Bronze pack off the list.

3. Don't want to watch the Nats or the Marlins? Cross the Value Pack off the list.

4. Want Yankee Tickets? Get Ready to Pay 2 to 3 times more for them.

5. Want to watch a team outside the division? Chances are good you're going silver or better.

6. Interleague Play? You've got the Golden Rays or the Platinum Yanks

7. One of the many Transplant Cub Fans? You're a Golden Boy

8. Want to be in the stadium Week 1? You're a Golden Boy

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Mr. Boone was once the best power hitting second baseman in the league. How questionable was his success?

Explaining It Away

Yeak, this one is tough. Umm, late bloomer? He showed potential power early in his career and he just liked playing in Seattle a lot more than everywhere else? And umm, his career was kind of like a running backs in that it just all of a sudden fell off the map? Any of these convincing you?

The Verdict

Guy never hits more than 24 home runs in a season and then in his age 32 season he hits 37? And in SafeCo a pitchers park to boot? And he follows that up with 24, 35, 24 homer years still at SafeCo? And then he completely falls off the map in 2005 never to be heard from again? We've got a Screamer...

Man Get Big Muscles In 30s. Hmm....

Here's a quick blind resume list of MVP candidates in the NBA this year. If you take a peak at the numbers you'll notice that Player B leads the way in every category but rebounds (granted turnovers is a bad thing). Think you can identify who is who? The answer is in the comments.

Player A: 28.0 PPG, 47.4 Pct, 5.5 Reb, 4.9 Ast, 2.7 TO, 1.3 Stl, 0.4 Blk
Player B: 29.4 PPG, 49.2 Pct, 5.1 Reb, 7.6 Ast, 3.5 TO, 2.2 Stl, 1.4 Blk
Player C: 28.1 PPG, 48.8 Pct, 7.4 Reb, 7.0 Ast, 3.1 TO, 1.7 Stl, 1.2 Blk

Over the past week or so I've heard an advertisement on ESPN 1050 about Colin Cowherd's debut on the network next week from 12-2. This confused me. Were they going to take an hour away from Max Kellerman's 10-1 show? Why would they do that when it's by far the most entertaining show they have? If they're going to do that I'd imagine it would completely piss off Kellerman who would admit he has a large opinion of himself. What the hell is happenning?

Today, ESPN 1050 read a statement at the start of the 10 o'clock hour which essentially read "Yesterday was the last day of the Max Kellerman show. ESPN 1050 and Max have agreed to part ways." I should have known that it was a major red flag, I should have known that it wasn't just the reduction of an hour but the elimination of an entire show. God that sucks.

Kellerman has been on air since the latter half of 2006 when 1050 booted Colin Cowherd off NYC synidcation and replaced him with Kellerman. Since then the Max Kellerman Show has been far and away my favorite NYC Sports Talk Show. Far and away. First of all it was smarter than most shows. He actually brought up meaningingful stats and attempted to incorporate some of the newer sabermetric tools into his show. Next he was different. He wasn't just sports sports sports, he actually mixed in some entertainment as well and some games that were sometimes stupid but always fun to listen to aka the Killer Animal Tournament. Finally he was a blatant New York homer, going as far as nicknaming the Cleveland Cavs the New York Cavaliers of Cleveland. The show was just entertaining, flat out entertaining and I rarely missed it. What's most bothering to me is that yesterday, his last show, the ESPN 1050 Web Feed 'didn't work', and by didn't work I mean it wasn't working just from 10-1. Thanks ESPN!

I guess the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. This end was just a little abrupt and premature for my liking.

ESPN 1050 Replaced the Max Kellerman Show 10-1, with Brandon Tierney (the former night guy / former co-host with Stephen A) who is not bad but can get a little dull from 10-12, and Colin Cowherd from 12-2. Not quite sure what that means for Tirico & van Pelt who were only being broadcast from 1-2 on 1050 with Michael Kay coming on at 2.

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner which means Sports industries are going to attempt to peddle some ass ugly merchandise at you that they dipped in green paint. Here's a look at some of the NBA's premium garbage.

As I've State Before I'm Not a Big Fan of the Green Nonsense Despite Being a Redheaded Irishman. And god damn the NBA's apparel is awful, that's by far the shittiest collection of them all.

Last night St. Mary's took the court on tip off down 1-0. That wasn't the Vegas spread that they needed to overcome, nope, they were actually down by a point before the opening tipoff. Why? Because of another ridiculous and antiquated college rule that I bet you had no idea about. Omar Samhan of St. Mary's threw down a two handed dunk in the warm ups and received a technical foul for his efforts. Matt Boldin nailed one of the two free throws and the Zags got 1 extra point to throw on their blowout.

My biggest issue with the rule? His dunk wasn't anything special, it was just a plain two handed dunk that you'll see dozens of times in a basketball game. I understand if you want to keep kids from practicing 360 tomahawk dunks prior to the game, but a run of the mill two handed dunk? Snooze. Take a look at the highlights and judge for yourself.



That's worth a technical foul? Give me a break.

I have a simple question for you, the public, do you or do you not like baseball? It's a pretty simple yes or no question. If you do, than you should like the World Baseball Classic. If you don't than you shouldn't. It's really as simple as that.

Instead of wasting time watching meaningless spring training games that absolutely nobody cares about, you get to watch games in March with all stars playing 9 innings. You get to watch has beens like Ruben Rivera, Randall Simon, and my boy Ramiro Mendoza play for the first time in forever. I watched multiple games so far this weekend. I watched the Pontoon somehow hold the Dominican Republic to 1 run and pull off a shocking win. I watched the US vs. Canada play a highly entertaining game. I watched my boy Ramiro give up 5 runs and nighty night.

I understand the people complaining about all the pitching rules and the limits, but my answer to that is stop god damn whining. Do you like baseball or do you not like baseball? There's not other time to play this thing. None zero. It's the only time that works, so stop bitching about it. And ya some of the rules are dumb, especially the rule that had Japan (2-0) play Korea (2-1) for the #1 seed in Asia (that makes zero sense) but again its simple do you like baseball or not. This is hands down more entertaining than spring training, who cares if a lot of premium talent pulled out and it isn't the best it could be. It's better than nothing.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that expectations for the #6 pick in an NFL draft are not 13 total tackles but that's exactly what Vernon Gholston gave the New York Jets last season. In essence Gholston was a complete non factor. He recorded zero sacks and the majority of his 13 tackles came on special teams. He was even inactive for multiple games including a 3 game stretch from week 14 to week 16. Not what you're paying
$40 million dollars over five years for.

This is why I've thrown Gholston on my wish list for 2009. He could be like a free agent signing in that any production this year will be more than his zero production last year. The man has a body like a freak, perhaps the Defensosaurus can figure out a way to utilize it where Mangini could not. I'm not saying my hopes are high, but is 5 sacks too much to ask? I would really like for Vernon not to be added to the mile long list of New York Jets epic draft busts.

I went with Vintage helmets because it added a little twist. Click on the Image for a Full Size Version. If you want the Excel File for whatever reason or have a correction to the schedule, email me at SimonOnSports at gmail dot com.

Check Out the Other Helmet Schedules.

*Update, Download the Entire Helmet Schedule Here

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you.

Vitamin B12 hit a home run in the WBC this weekend off the Pontoon so let's take a look at his stats and see when he started enjoying the B12.

Explaining It Away

Looking at Tejada's stats I don't think much jumps out at you. He ramped up at the start of his career and started to hit his prime at the age of 26. He held on to those peak numbers for 7 seasons plus a little bonus pop from moving from Oakland to Baltimore. He then started the true decline in 2007 and 2008 when he was 33 in Dominican Years, or 47 in American years. There aren't any questionable spikes, just a ramp up a steady peak and a ramp down. That's how you picture most careers to work.

The Verdict

Miggy was both thrown under the bus by Mr. Palmeiro and taken to task by both Congress and the Mitchell Report. He obviously took something whether that be steroids or HGH. He likely took it in 2000 when he played with Giambi and the likes in the Bay Area and he obviously continued it with the Oreos.

Yummy, B12 Is So Delicious

St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner which means Sports industries are going to attempt to peddle some ass ugly merchandise at you that they dipped in green paint. Here's a look at some of the NFL's premium garbage.