Post-Season Picks - Updated (better performance than the umpires)

Off to a good start, picked three of the four division series correctly (what is a "division"?). One shoulda-seen-it-coming stumble. Doing much better than the umpires. What's going on there? They used to be the best of all the referees. I sure hope this doesn't mean replays. Fox-driven baseball takes too long as it is.

Series	Winner	Comments	How I'm doing
Red Sox-Angels	Sox in 5	Home field plus better bullpen. Changing of the guard at catcher for the Red Sox. Ellsbury is the difference. Abreu re-surfaces.	Who saw that coming:  Papelbon giving up his first run and blown save in 26 post-season innings? The end of a (brief) Bosox era. Ironically, Angels sweep is good for the Yankees.
Dodgers - Cards	Dodgers in 4	Torre manages better than LaRussa. Manny shines. Cards' Cy Young candidates are overrated.	LaRussa outmanaged again in the post-season
Phils - Rockies	Phils in 4	Phils have the edge offensively. Rockies are riding their late-season rush (again) and may win one at home. Phils could almost play in the AL East. Almost.	Phillies were the better team.
Yankees- Twins	Yankees in 3	Biggest danger for the Yankees is to finish too soon and then have to wait for the war between Boston and LA to conclude.	True to form. Twins did not have the talent.
League Championship Series
Yankees - Red Sox Angels	Yankees in 6	It's been too long for Derek Jeter and company. This may be the best team he's played on. Girardi goes back to Posada behind the plate for every game, realizing he needs the extra bat. Burnett is on the spot.
Phils - Dodgers	Phils in 6	Manny does all he can. Then gets lost on the way to left field. Phils have too much depth, offense and pitching. And Howard.Interesting match-up. Although the Dodgers have Torre and MANNY.
World Series
Yankees - Phils	Yankees in 5	Phils almost have the power to compete with the Bombers. But not quite enough. Yankees have better pitching and the home field advantage. Sabbathia becomes a Yankee legend.

Are You Kidding Me?

With major sports leagues' seasons overlapping this time of year and the start to the NBA season still a short three pointer away, I guess I missed the Celtics signing  "Rasweed" Wallace as a free agent. What in the hell is Danny Ainge thinking?

Signing such a selfish player can't be a good thing. It won't work. There are certain uniforms in sports that demand respect and should be considered an honor to wear.  Requirements for wearing a uni like the Celtics green should necessarily exclude players like Wallace, well known to be a disruptive force on any team for whom he's played.

He has the potential to dishonor the uniform that so many  guys who went before him were honored to wear. I'm calling a technical on Ainge.

Poor Children Learn. Teachers Unions Are Not Pleased

RICHARD WHITMIRE AND ANDREW J. ROTHERHAM writing in the Wall Street Journal on October 1st make note of the fact that teachers' unions are taking a hit in some of the most liberal publications in America.

$15 gets you a ticket, a hot dog, a soda and two All Stars

If you need a reason to go to a minor league game, here's a beauty: former New Britain Rock Cat teammates Tori Hunter and David Ortiz getting ready for the ALDS. Not every minor league player turns out to be an All-Star, but that's true in the majors, too.

Post-Season Picks

Last night went according to form. Here are my picks going forward:

MLB Post-Season Picks

Series	Winner	Comments
Red Sox-Angels	Sox in 5	Home field plus better bullpen. Changing of the guard at catcher for the Red Sox. Ellsbury is the difference. Abreu re-surfaces.
Dodgers - Cards	Dodgers in 4	Torre manages better than LaRussa. Manny shines. Cards' Cy Young candidates are overrated.
Phils - Rockies	Phils in 4	Phils have the edge offensively. Rockies are riding their late-season rush (again) and may win one at home. Phils could almost play in the AL East. Almost.
Yankees- Twins	Yankees in 3	Biggest danger for the Yankees is to finish too soon and then have to wait for the war between Boston and LA to conclude.
League Championship Series
Yankees - Red Sox	Yankees in 5	It's been too long for Derek Jeter and company. This may be the best team he's played on. Girardi goes back to Posada behind the plate for every game, realizing he needs the extra bat. Burnett is on the spot.
Phils - Dodgers	Phils in 6	Manny does all he can. Then gets lost on the way to left field. Phils have too much depth, offense and pitching. And Howard.
World Series
Yankees - Phils	Yankees in 5	Phils almost have the power to compete with the Bombers. But not quite enough. Yankees have better pitching and the home field advantage. Sabbathia becomes a Yankee legend.

Don't Doubt the Power of Manny Being Manny

There are few position players in baseball who can realistically carry a team for any significant length of time.

Sure, there are guys who can do it for a series, or even two. But rarely alone - when Jacoby Ellsbury seemingly carried the Red Sox in the 2007 post season, he wasn't even the MVP -  and more rarely still for any significant period of time.

It's possible for Albert Pujols to carry the Cards. It may be possible for Alex Rodriquez, although he's always had superstars around him who make him better, not the other way around.

But Manny Ramirez can do it.  By himself, he can keep a team winning for weeks at a time. He did it in Boston and he did it in Cleveland. He is potentially the most dangerous player in this post season.

There is a columnist in Los Angeles who disagrees with that assertion. Steve Lopez has decided that Manny is no longer playing hard enough. And if you agree with him, he might give you his World Series tickets. Of course, the World Series is still seven post-season wins away and it seems as if Steve Lopez is already thinking World Series. And if he is, he must believe that the Dodgers will get that far.  And the Dodgers are going no where without Manny.

Sportsmanship

You may have seen this. A Connecticut high school football player, Nick Reardon of Wolcott Tech, scored his first career touchdown. He had been diagnosed with testicular cancer and began chemotherapy the Monday after this game.

Walcott Tech is not a very good football team. They typically lose by several touchdowns and rarely score one themselves. 

So when they played against Avon High School recently, the score was expectedly lopsided. Late in the game, though, Reardon scored. 

The sportsmanship part of the story is that the play was called from the other sideline, by Avon head coach Brett Quinion.

It Will Come Out Eventually

I'm a freebie virgin.  It's true. I get no gifts, free products or demos when I write this blog. Nothing. Although I'm certainly open to it.  I must be one of the few not on that gravy train because according to the New York Times,

The F.T.C. said that beginning on Dec. 1, bloggers who review products must disclose any connection with advertisers, including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers, as occurs frequently.

Frequently?  What am I missing? And what's the value of the freebies? Has Apple been sitting on my free iPhone? Has Audi held out on the S5? I'll be glad to offer musings on what it's like to live on the beach in the Hamptons. Really. And I don't need one of the bigger cottages either. Anything on the water will do.

It's possible they've been trying to reach me all along. So maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss the telemarketers who - whoops - ignore the fact that I'm on the Do Not Call list. I should have accepted the call from "Your Credit Card Company".  It's possible my credit card company merely wanted me to accept an all-expenses vacation. Or a new jacuzzi. They've been known to be generous from time to time, after all. Just ask Chris Dodd.

Call me back. I'll be home all morning.

AIG and Manny

Could there be a better sponsor for Manny?

The Most Trusted Man in ...

No, no Bill, it wasn't Monica. Believe me.

I'm Coming Teddy

I'm looking out my door right now at this shady establishment, about a shank 8-iron away and I'm about to walk across the street and kick some Alcor ass.

No Contest

Given recent events, the IOC made the easy choice:

This...

not this...