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An Early Review of 2004 (Part I of III)

Part I of this classic (alright, classless) II part series about the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005.

This part is a review of my 2004 predictions. A few of them were actually right!So we enter the final month of the first year with an Olympiad in this third millennium and so much has happened.

The most surprising and least surprising events all shocked us and stunned us equally.

It was another bizarre year. Just like 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999, and 1998, and also a few before that.

It was filled with the weirdest of stuff, culminating in a one-point safety just this past Friday.

As we begin to say goodbye to 2004 and hello to 2005, let me reminisce on some of the predictions and actual results of 2004.

January

Predicted: Philadelphia will collapse in the NFC title game… again.
Actual: Philadelphia gets creamed in the NFC title game… again so that they don’t have the opportunity to collapse… again.

Predicted: The Des Moines Expos will announce the schedule for their first season in the Iowa capital.
Actual: The Des Moines people stunningly vote Kerry in the primaries, thus ending any hope of either a real presidential candidate or the Expos moving to Des Moines.

February

Predicted: The 9th-place Rangers will buy the Edmonton Oilers entire team.
Actual: The 11th-place Rangers buy the Western Conference and rights to Oh Canada in exchange for their dignity and a chance to make the playoffs.

Predicted: The Miami Heat would drop their NBA-record 50th consecutive game to start the season, leaving them 0-50 and 8 games behind the Bucks for the 8th and final spot in the East.
Actual: The New York Knicks drop to 6 games under .500, or 6th place in the East while the Heat climb to 4th despite a .500 record.

March

Predicted: Some 18-million-dollar-a-second-bumb from the MLB will complain when he is fined $10,000 for failing a drug test.
Actual:Some 17-million-dollar-a-second-bumb from the MLB complained after he was fined $10,000 for failing a drug test.

Predicted: The Rangers will play their 78th game while the rest of hockey sits of 71 and they will still be a point behind the Islanders despite a 5-0-0-0 record against their rivals.
Actual: The Rangers played their 78th game while the rest of hockey say on 78 and were still 6 points behind the 8th-place Islanders despite a 5-0-0-0 record against their rivals.

April

Predicted: The Wood Memorial will produce no viable Derby horse, yet the top 4 finishers will all be considered “The Next Secretariat” heading into the Derby by some member of the DRF.
Actual: The Wood Memorial winner, even though he clearly sucked, was hyped up as the horse that could beat Smarty by the members of the DRF.

Predicted: Phil Mickleson and Greg Norman will head to the 18th hole 53 shots ahead of the other 149 competitors on Sunday at Augusta and Mickleson will centibogey and Norman will do one shot better. They still will be beat Arnold Palmer by 2-dozen though.
Actual: And he does it! Mickleson wins the Masters!

May

Predicted: The Kentucky Derby will be won by a horse that the “experts” say has no shot of winning because he wasn’t bred to run that distance.
Actual: Read above.

Predicted: The Kentucky Derby winner will win the Preakness and all the “experts” who said he had no shot in the Derby do to breeding will say that this is the perfect horse for the race.
Actual: Read above.

June

Predicted: The Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner will lose in the stretch drive by a couple of lengths in the Belmont and all his doubters will start saying how he was not bred to run these longer distances even though he was the second best horse at a distance he was not bred to run at.
Actual: Read above.

Predicted: Some NHL team that hasn’t seen snow since a road trip to Edmonton in December will win the Stanley Cup and the “experts” will say how it is amazing that hockey survives in such a climate.
Actual: Same except Hockey failed to survive.

July

Predicted: Nobody at all will watch the MLB all-star game even though “This Time it Matters (still)”.
Actual: My quest continues to find anyone who watched the all-star game. The only reason I know the AL won was because of whom hosted the World Series.

Predicted: The Yankees will acquire the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th million-a-year players to their team do to a slump that dropped the team from a 110-win pace to a 109-win pace.
Actual: This was done in May.

August

Predicted: The dog days of August will finally knock out that pest in the NL Central who nobody expected to have a shot.
Actual: Believe it or not, the NL Central went basically to plan. The Brewers, Reds, and Pirates who all hung around .500 through the all-star break had already faded and never poised a serious threat.

Predicted: A first-round draft choice will sit out the preseason because they think their $12-million signing bonus is not fair for a punter of their stature.
Actual: I ignored this process because with the exclusion of Bryant McKinnie, few of these athletes were not offered what they deserved.

September

Predicted: A MAC team will “upset” Kansas and Temple and a SUN BELT team will “surprise” Kentucky and Arizona.
Actual: A MAC team “surprised” Kentucky, Kansas, and Temple, and a 1-AA team “nearly upset” Arizona.

Predicted: The NCAA will put some school on probation because an athlete used a phone to make a long distance call to his mother who was just in a serious accident
Actual: The NCAA did not come upon such a situation, but read my “The Wrongs of the NCAA (uncensored)” for my true opinion on the ass ociation.

October

Predicted: The Wimbledon champ retires due to injury unnoticed by Sportscenter while North Texas-Louisiana Monroe gets 30 seconds of highlights.
Actual: North Texas did not meet Louisiana-Monroe.

Predicted: After 10,000 emails of complaints that go unanswered by “Mike and Mike in the Morning”, they finally respond to congratulate me on my record for persistence even though they don’t care what the people care and how they have been alienating their long-time listeners,
Actual: I stopped emailing them back in March (still 1318 to go though…).

November

Predicted: The end of baseball season brings the week-and-a-half of freedom before the signing period begins.
Actual: This is a yearly occurrence. I wish the period were about 10 months after the season. May baseball die.

Predicted: The Dolphins will collapse after an 8-2 start to miss the playoffs.
Actual: The Dolphins collapse began in July.

December

Predicted: Notre Dame will fire Ty Willingham despite the great effort he has done.
Actual: He is expected to get one more year.

Predicted: The Miami Heat will not play on Christmas Day. Mark my word. They suck.
Actual: What a difference a year makes.

Well. That is Part I. Next up in Part II I will give you my predictions for 2005. Part III will be my awards from 2004 and disawards; my gameballs and shameballs; my MVPs (most valuable) and MVPS (most valueless); etc.

Good luck.

I hope you enjoyed (or survived) 2004.

And good luck to Dick Ebersol.

Goodnight.

By bsd987

I have written for SportsColumn.com since 2004 and was named a featured writer in 2006. I have been Co-Editor of the site since January 1, 2009. I also write for BleacherReport.com where I am a founding member of the Tennis Roundtable and one of the chief contributors to both the Tennis and Horse Racing sections.

I am "Stat Boy" for Sportscolumn.com's weekly podcast, Poor Man's PTI.

I am currently a Junior at Rice University majoring in History and Medieval Studies. My senior thesis will focus on the desegregation of football in Texas and its affect of racial relations.

Please direct all inquiries to [email protected].

Thanks,
Burton DeWitt
Co-Editor of Sportscolumn.com

3 replies on “An Early Review of 2004 (Part I of III)”

I spoke too soon By about 10 minutes.

Willingham was canned.

Note that I said “expected”.

Part II will be delayed until tommorow. I have a fever and am sick and thus I won’t be writing the article tonight.

Good luck to all and I’ll post Part II tommorow.

you are awesome i just wanted to say that your work is the best! you are what i hope to someday be.

thank you

tim moore

Thank you Thanks for your compliments. I do not think that I am the best here. If anything I’m different than the other posters and that makes me stand out. I think I’m the only mentally crazy person here. But thanks for your compliments. Good luck with your writing.

And for everyone I’ve insulted, I’m sorry. My two biggest Pet Peeves are the term “Pet Peeve” and incorrect uses of punctuation (and I’m not the best with punctuation as it is). Please don’t be offended when I correct your punctuation. I hope I have not offended anyone, but I might have before. Yet again, I’m sorry if I have.

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