2008 Baseball Predictions

Let’s see how completely I fail at this:
NL East: Mets
NL Central: Cubs
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Phillies

AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Indians
AL West: Angels
AL Wild Card: Yankees

I was conflicted about the American League. I think there won’t be a big difference between the Yankees, Red Sox, Indians and Tigers and 3 of those teams will make it. The Tigers bullpen looks downright awful right now and I think people are underestimating how far Dontrelle Willis has fallen off, so they were my odd team out. The NL is a bit more straightforward, although I think the NL West will be a good race and the Braves and Brewers will also be competitive.

NLDS: Mets over Cubs, Diamondbacks over Phillies
ALDS: Red Sox over Indians, Angels over Yankees
NLCS: Mets over Diamondbacks
ALCS: Red Sox over Angels

World Series: Mets over Red Sox in 7. David Ortiz makes a backbreaking error at first base in the last game ever played at Shea Stadium, Johan Santana beats Josh Beckett twice and Jose Reyes wreaks havoc on Jason Varitek all series long. All that equals another New England team falling to another New York team, this time in baseball.

This girl feels my pain.

Here’s some food for thought next time you think “Holy shit being a gazillion feet tall must be awesome because you can dunk and scare kids and get stuff off of shelves and catch really high throws at first base!”. Today a friend sent me an article by a young woman that captured a lot of the awkwardness I felt growing up.

I couldn’t tell you how many stares, comments, jokes, and other such unwanted attention I’ve received through the years (and continue to receive). Sometimes it’s been funny, sometimes irritating, and sometimes just outright rude (I’ve been called a waste of height because I didn’t parlay my life into a basketball career on a few occasions). Being a quiet, geeky-looking (doofy was the term I heard a lot), skinny, tall kid with glasses was not always terribly easy and there were times when I honestly wished I was like anyone else and didn’t get the attention I did. On top of that, I somehow didn’t fit into a lot of people’s expectations – I wasn’t good at basketball, was horribly awkward and generally not outgoing one bit. Even recently, someone asked me “Don’t you get a lot of girls? I would think chicks dig tall guys.” You all know the answer to that one.

Now that I’ve matured, much like the girl who wrote the article, I’m fine with it. I’ve grown into a pretty well-coordinated and athletic young adult (or so I’d like to think – at least I don’t trip over my own feet anymore) and I can take the comments and the stares a lot better than I used to. I never did get any good at basketball (I will, however, block the shit out of you) but I did parlay my height advantage into a softball career at first base. However, I think this just goes to show that a lot of people have something that just makes them more uncomfortable or self-conscious than they have to be, if only because someone will always seem to find something unusual about you to point out. Even being Goliath isn’t all it’s cracked up to be all the time.

On a funnier note, during class today a discussion broke out about the merits of the various Kickboxer movies (Cody from Step by Step was in them!), and came across this doozy of a Wikipedia article on Kickboxer 2. It’s short, but sweet and to the point:

“Kickboxer 2 has been described as similar to Kickboxer, but with more kicking, but maybe less boxing. There is some jumping to be seen.”

That stunning review almost makes me want to spend the $10 to buy the DVD on Amazon, which hilariously declares on its cover that it’s “Better Than Kickboxer!” Almost.

What’s my passion? eBay knows.

Here’s an e-mail I received from eBay today telling me to “fuel my passion”. What’s my passion you ask? Well, based on my recent purchase of a flask, it’s obviously: flasks.

I don’t know if spending three bucks on a convenient means to carry booze around qualifies it as a “passion” of mine, but maybe the folks at eBay are trying to tell me something. Or maybe, maybe I’m just in denial and I want a different liquor flask for each day of the week. You’ll never know!

In an unrelated story, I heard this great new song on the radio this week. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. I think it’s by this girl named “Rihanna” and while I can’t remember what it’s called, it goes something like this:

Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music Please don’t stop the music

Hell yeah! Who’s stopping the music? Certainly not I! Who needs a tape deck in their car? Certainly not I!

/head explodes

Arrogance falls hard.

Adios, Elliot Spitzer. The “fucking steamroller” couldn’t steamroll his way past a prostitution scandal. Has any politician has as precipitous a fall since being as overwhelmingly popular as Spitzer was upon his election? It takes a special kind of arrogance to do what he did, building a career and an image on busting corrupt businesses and prostitution rings and thinking his own involvement in such endeavors wouldn’t be noticed or punished.

This is even more disappointing for me personally, because I voted for him and had a positive impression of him as Attorney General. A cynic would cite this as another example of the fundamental corruption of politics, and it’s hard to argue with that sometimes. David Paterson is now charged with trying to undo the damage Spitzer did to his office and to the state Democratic Party for the remainder of this term.

Here’s a far more thorough and angrier post on the whole matter than I provided that you may find of interest.

In lighter news, I’m wondering whether the random complements I get from older women at work about my hair. beard, and overall appearance mean that I was fashionable as of the 1960’s. Or maybe it means I should be in the 45-65 year old dating pool. No, I’m not going to explore this possibility any further.

I am totally going to this.

It appears that the New York Rangers may be pegged to play the second outdoor Winter Classic next season at Yankee Stadium before the ballpark closes its doors for good. Ignoring for a moment the baseball purists* who will no doubt bitch and moan about the last event in the revered Stadium being a hockey game (Hockey? Isn’t that on the fishing channel?) this is actually one of Gary Bettman’s few good ideas as NHL Commissioner. Having 55,000 people fill up Yankee Stadium to root for the Rangers would go a long way in giving hockey some more good exposure in the United States as well as helping the NHL continue to reestablish its viability as a major sports league. With that said…who else wants to get tickets?

The Rangers’ surge up the Eastern Conference standings continues after another shootout win yesterday (Am I a reverse jinx or what?), as they now stand just 3 points out of first place. Granted, the 8th place Flyers are “only” 8 points out of first, but one can dream of a #1 seed.

Oh, and Johan’s looking good. I thought I’d point that out.

*I don’t like the term “baseball purist.” I usually relate it to people who throw a shitfit when you use VORP or OPS or some other crazy math to evaluate a player instead of a scout’s totally subjective opinion. In other words, the same crotchety old men who SWEAR that players of yesteryear were better even though there were like no black or hispanic players and pitchers threw 150 pitches an outing and ruined their careers when they were 29 and there were no specialists coming out of the bullpen to throw cutters and sliders and 97 MPH fastballs at hitters. Right. Just as good as today.

Can you taste the sarcasm?

Thanks Moises Alou. I’m glad you got the first of your bi-annual DL stints out of the way early. Four to six weeks? Bullshit. Hernias take longer to heal when you’re 67 years old. See you in May. On the bright side, it’s Angel Pagan time! Um.

It’s not really his fault he’s injury prone, but health is going to be a big factor in whether the Mets are really the best team in the National League this year. We’re off to a great start on that front!

Also, I want to thank the New York Rangers for spending around $86 million on Scott Gomez and Chris Drury and somehow managing to not have a single player that can hit the fucking net consistently in a shootout with no defensemen around. That’s a remarkable skill. Jaromir Jagr figure skates up to the goalie and misses the net every chance he gets but goddamned Jeff Tambellini can turn into Mario Lemieux circa 1992? What the fuck? Even more remarkable is that they managed to lose on Tuesday to Wade Dubielewicz and the glorified AHL squad that is the New York Islanders, who thanks to mostly to Ted Nolan’s black magic keep hanging around. Great. At least the Flyers lost again.

They go at it again tonight, and hopefully the Rangers and especially Henrik Lundqvist get back on track. He’s been shaky lately to say the least. The Rangers have no chance of going anywhere without him at his best.

What the hell am I doing? Certainly not my assignments. Oops.

Because I live in the 80’s…

With 70-80 Nintendo Entertainment System games already in my collection it seems like a rational thing to do to invest in the following:

- Two “new” NES controllers (new in that they work better than one of mine), and
- Five games, including Mike Tyson’s Punchout!, the one classic game not in my possession.

I also wish I had a better way to store my cartridges than two beaten up cardboard boxes but so it goes. There are a handful of games I haven’t even tried (I basically inherited a bunch from someone else) but one of them is Wall Street Kid and I’ll be damned if I’m going to play an NES simulation of the stock market circa 1989. That said, if you have any old Nintendo stuff you want to dump, let me know. I can’t get enough, apparently.

Also, I’m throwing it out there now that my spring break plans are: nothing. That means I’m accessible! I never had the benefit of one of those crazy spring break road trips to Mexico or whatever the hell it is that cool people do, and seeing as this is the last spring break I’ll ever have, I never will, but whatever.