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MLB

2009 MLB predictions

With opening day of the 2009 Major League Baseball season just around the corner, it’s time for every credible sports journalist to lay their reputations on the line and give their predictions for how the year will play out. Well, despite lacking credibility (or accreditation for that matter), I’ve decided to give it a whirl too. And since most of the supposed “expert” predictions in the media turn out to be horribly wrong, I’ve decided to just shoot from the hip with the first thing that came to mind. So here it is, my completely inane list of 2009 MLB predictions.

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MLB

Secluded Scout Who Found Ryan, Sutton, Pujols Dead at 86

You probably don’t know the story of Edgar Willard, not unless you knew the man. He did not want you to know him; he did not want you to know his story. Sure, people tried. What a funny word, tried. Could you really have tried when the odds of success going in were zero?

Yet, I knew Edgar Willard, lived next door to him for eight years. Shot hoops in the backyard and when I missed, the ball would roll into his yard. He’d pick it up and toss it back. Not a word.

One day I asked him why he kept silent, why he had no visitors, why he was so aloof, and he told me. He told me everything.

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College Basketball

How’d it get so sunny in Philadelphia?

I used to (and still do) daydream about what would have happened if Joe Carter doesn’t hit that home run, if Ronde Barber doesn’t intercept that pass, if Robert Horry doesn’t make that three in game 2 of the 2001 Finals, if Scott Stevens doesn’t leave Lindros in a crumpled heap on the ice.  I daydream because I can only hope for those things not to have happened in a (better) alternate universe.

But now things are different.  I think about the wicked line drive off the bat of Zobrist that hangs just enough to settle easily into Jayson Werth’s glove.  In my nightmares, that line drive gets past Werth for extra bases.  I think about Levance Fields’ desperation 75 foot heave that clangs off the  backboard and  ricochets harmlessly to the floor.  In my nightmares, that ball goes straight into the hoop.

It’s so much better to imagine the worse case scenario knowing that in reality, the good guys win. As some wise man once said (on this site, no less), it’s easier to write joy and anger.

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College Basketball

April is the Cruelest Month

By Ryan McGowan

If, as T.S. Eliot once wrote in The Waste Land, “April is the cruelest month,” then March is the second cruelest, but only if you happen to hate basketball.

(Which, since basketball was invented in Springfield, Mass., makes you un-American and probably a Communist.)

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Golf

Tiger!

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MLB

Grainy Issue Remains for MLB Bat Makers

By Diane M. Grassi

Upon the release of new and unprecedented regulations and mandates prescribed for all Major League Baseball (MLB) certified bat manufacturers on December 15, 2008, no attention was garnered by the mainstream media at the time. As such, a disservice was done to these unheralded craftsmen who largely for the past decade have been trying to compete with the behemoth Hillerich & Bradsby Company, the manufacturer of the renowned Louisville Slugger.

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General Sports

March 26 2009 episode of Poor Man’s PTI

We discuss the top news stories of the week along with a breakdown of the NCAA tourney. You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 60 mins) or subscribe to the feed.

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • Ryan Moats and the worst officer in Texas
  • The Wonder Years
  • Charlie Villanueva’s in game twittering
  • brackets brackets brackets
Categories
Horse Racing

Print Media to Blame for Horse Racing’s Irrelevance

Everyone has his theory as to why horse racing has become irrelevant: it does not transplant well to television; it’s a sport for degenerates; it’s too dangerous; the tracks are poorly managed.

And you know what, each theory has a bit of truth.

But it is not the real problem.

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MLB

The Game Abides: An In Depth Preview of the American League East, plus complete predictions league wide

Of rhythmic strings and a bleeding syringe, baseball is often a paradox. The basic game is regulated chaos, carefully confined performance art often disguised in metaphor by swooning scribes drowning in reverie*. This is a show, a worthwhile exhibition, unrehearsed and unpredictable human drama preferably played out under a blazing sun. If our overall perspective were more precise, the importance of this particular athletic endeavor would be properly measured within a rational context, damn good entertainment, and nothing more. Alas… there are heroes to deify and villains to crucify, a snap response to the unavoidable entwinement of sports and reality. And while newspaper columnists breathe fire from a disintegrating perch, our heads are left spinning. There is a point they are missing, subtle and beyond their indignation, except we ourselves are unable to articulate it. All we know is… as they instruct us to wallow in pointless anger and meaningless disgust; the grief never touches the game. And that is the point.

It’s the game.

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General Sports

March 19 2009 episode of Poor Man’s PTI

Ryan and Vin quickly run through this week’s top news stories because the tourney is on! You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 60 mins) or subscribe to the feed.

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • Lots of NCAA tournament talk
  • Obama vs Coach K and why Duke sucks
  • Bobby Bowden vs the NCAA
  • Jay Cutler vs Josh McDaniels
  • Oh and did we mention Duke sucks?