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Baseball is finally back! For the 25% of us out there it's a big deal, for the rest of you, you may not care so much. I want to make you care. There will be plenty of drama throughout the 162 game season that will get people interested. I want to get you ready for it now. That is why I bring to you my 2010 MLB Team Predictions. Favre Dollar Footlongs style.
The predictions:
Arizona Diamondbacks - John McCain will be selected to throw out the first pitch on opening day, but because he can't lift his arms over his head, McCain will comment that the ball will probably sail far right. To no one's surprise it's right down the middle of the plate.
Atlanta Braves - Bobby Cox, being the senile manager that he is, will get ejected during the first inning of the last game of the season. Because he doesn't want to retire on that note, he will come back, telling everyone he didn't remember saying he'd retire. We will also find out that Jason Heyward is actually Barry Bonds after many plastic surgeries.
Baltimore Orioles - The Orioles will finish as one of the bottom tier teams in the AL East again, which will make them push for realignment. After a surprising move by Bud Selig, the Orioles and Nationals will be sequestered to their own division to establish a nearby rivalry that will battle it out for last place of the league.
Boston Red Sox - Newly acquired pitcher, John Lackey, will find out his beautiful wife Krista Lackey was having affairs with many kept men. Unlike Tiger Woods, people will forgive her immediately. Not because she's a woman, but because John Lackey is so ugly.
Chicago Cubs - The Cubs got rid of team cancer Milton Bradley to hopefully form cohesiveness. After two months and not having a winning record, Ted Lilly will fill Milton's role and start berating Lou Piniella publicly. Quote from Ted Lilly, "Ted do what Ted do and don't do what Lou do."
Chicago White Sox - Ozzie Guillen's Twitter experience will take a wild turn after he is thrown out of the game for tweeting expletives to the umpires Twitter accounts in between innings. To get back at them he will take TwitPic's of them in the shower and broadcast for all to see. He will then be fired because of this.
Cincinnati Reds - To try and bring back some of the glory days in Cincinnati, Jay Bruce will fashion Chris Sabo glasses throughout the season. After seeing Bruce have early success, Scott Rolen will try to bring back some past magic by sporting a Marge Schott mustache.
Cleveland Indians - To try and reverse the trend, the Indians will trade for Cy Young winners instead of shipping them out. Unfortunately for fans in Cleveland the Cy Young players they obtain will be Barry Zito and Eric Gagne in the bullpen, Orel Hershiser and Rick Sutcliffe in the broadcast booth, and Doc Gooden's drug habit.
Colorado Rockies - Todd Helton and Jason Giambi will have one the biggest position battles we've ever seen in a clubhouse. Not for who starts first base, but for who has the best facial hair on the team.
Detroit Tigers - After clubhouse favorite Johnny Damon joins the team, Miguel Cabrera will give up his sobreity plege and start drinking again. Jim Leyland will start smoking in the dugout again and Justin Verlander will go back to being a good pitcher.
Florida Marlins - After complaining last year about not being able to wear jewlery on the field, Hanley Ramirez will complain this year about not being able to wear an iPod. Ownership will give in to his demands, but since they can't understand what he's saying they will buy him an iPad necklace to wear around his neck.
Houston Astros - Opposing Braves player Jason Heyward will hit a bomb that will damage the train tracks at Minute Maid Park. Not knowing, the train will attempt to go around the stadium on the next Astros homerun causing the train to plummet out of the stadium and the game postponed. Fans will start asking the question with the nursery rhyme, "If the train goes off the track, do I get my money back?"
Kansas City Royals - Royals center fielder Rick Ankiel will return to form and start heaving wild throws from the outfield. This time the balls will fly backwards over the wall into the fountains causing fans to injure themselves while they dive into the H2O geysers.
Los Angeles Angels - After hearing about Hideki Matsui's massive porn collection, Torii Hunter will take Matsui to the Voyeur Club. After Hideki's first introduction there, his wife nor any of us will ever hear from him again.
Los Angeles Dodgers - During the all star break, hysteria will ensue after Matt Kemp Chris Brown's his girlfriend Rhianna. When asked about the incident Manny Ramirez replies, "It's just Matty being Matty."
Milwaukee Brewers - Prince Fielder will finally reconcile all of his differences with his father Cecil. A week later the break up will start again after Cecil ends up taking the last piece of pizza from the box.
Minnesota Twins - Joe Mauer will try to buy himself a personality with his $184 million contract. After failing to do so he decides to do the next best thing and just buys himself a bunch of friends.
New York Mets - To help Carlos Beltran continue his knee recovery, David Wright offers to put Beltran on his off season workout that consists of blood, sweat, and a whole lot of HGH. Jason Bay still won't be sure why he ever came to the Mets.
New York Yankees - After having the perfect team chemistry last year, newly acquired Curtis Granderson will get into a dispute with Nick Swisher over who the best clubhouse person is causing an uproar throughout. Alex Rodriguez will step in between the two to separate them. Not to break up the fight, but to get to the mirror so he can make kiss poses to himself.
Oakland Athletics - After analyzing the LIPS, DIPS, PERA, and VORP, Billy Beane will fire all of the Athletics players. Through sabermetrics, he will learn that having 14 year olds is a much better statistical solution and will build a squad of all prepubescent teenagers.
Philadelphia Phillies - Philadelphia will continuously try to trade Ryan Howard for Albert Pujols to no avail. After throwing in his free unlimited pass to Subway the trade is agreed upon. When asked why he made the trade now LaRussa replies, "Subway is great drunk food."
Pittsburgh Pirates - The Pittsburgh Pirates will not only go .500, but also make the playoffs this year. Andrew McCutchen will be traded immediately upon the commence of the season for two prospect pitchers and an 18th round draft pick. Pirates will go on another 17 year playoff hiatus.
San Diego Padres - The Padres will continue with their fashion faux pas camoflauge jerseys. The disgust from all Americans will cause the military to change from fatigues to actual Padres jerseys.
San Francisco Giants - Tim Lincecum will be found late at night taking slide rides through the massive Coca Cola bottle. They will find out he was just stoned and wanted to live out his Honey I Shrunk the Kids fantasy.
Seattle Mariners - Milton Bradley will claim that God hates him and that's the only reason why it's raining every day now that he moved to Seattle. He is correct about one part of that sentence.
St. Louis Cardinals - In a weird twist of fate, Mark McGwire will return to first base, Albert Pujols will get a DUI, and Tony LaRussa will be caught taking steroids. After the Cardinals fail to make the playoffs Tony will comment, "I'm not here to talk about the past."
Tampa Bay Rays - The Rays will be in first place throughout the whole season and fans still won't show up. Dick Vitale will claim it's an Outrage with a capital O and start talking about a fundraising campaign on every interview he does to try and get the non-Ray fans out of Tampa Bay.
Texas Rangers - Josh Hamilton and Ron Washington will both write tell all books that hit the New York Times bestseller. Both biopics will be the same, discussing the great times the two had snorting lines together.
Toronto Blue Jays - The Blue Jays will end up with the worst record in the entire major leagues. Since MLB has a rule that each organization must have a representative at the all star game, the Blue Jays will send their all star ball boy and give him his moment to shine.
Washington Nationals - The city of Washington D.C. will end up taxing all contributing citizens to enforce a free ticket admission policy to every Nationals game. Free admissions won't go into effect for four years and you can't opt out if you don't plan on attending any games. After a public outcry and a clear disapproval of the bill the city still pushes it through.
Last week, my friends at 18to88.com sent out an email discussing their unique idea to fix the NBA draft. This caused some discussion that may or may not caused some people to catch some feelings, but either way it turned into a great debate amongst all of us at Bloguin. We had people analyzing every argument and giving their own take. Multiple other solutions came out of the original idea as well. It was a really unique conversation that we wanted to bring to all the readers of our sites. We decided the best way was to turn the topic into the second NBA Bloguin Roundtable.
Participating in the 2nd NBA roundtable are some of the best writers and greatest thinkers on Bloguin. The participants consisted of the demiurgic threadstarters Demond & Deshawn (18 to 88), the gift of gab Zach Harper (TalkHoops.net), Mr. Howl of a Good Time Dave Kelsey (Twolves Blog), and your favorite blogger's favorite blogger Gene Zarnick (Favre Dollar Footlongs).
18 to 88
http://18to88.com/2010-
Favre Dollar Footlongs
I like the idea, but I don't think it could work.
It hurts the abysmal teams. But do we really want the best young stars going to a team so poorly run that it wins just 10 games? When a team is a bad off as the Nets, I don't mind if they are penalized. They need to get better at a lot of front office stuff before they come close to knowing how to handle a Jon Wall.
Favre Dollar Footlongs
Yes we want the young stars going to poor teams. What happens then is they can improve and then a team can build around them. Hence, LeBron James. Dwayne Wade in Miami. Even, Carmelo Anthony in Denver. None of these teams were doing great at the time, especially the Cavs.
1. The worst teams still have the best chance to get the picks. They just have to try. They'll have more opportunity to post wins by virtue of being eliminated first. It's better than rewarding them for losing on purpose.
Trying and doing is a way different thing. The Nets are the first team eliminated this year. They are not winning enough games no matter what to get the 1st pick then. Do you think they aren't trying? They don't want to be stuck in single digits. They just suck that's the problem. You can't have a system like this because it is totally variable from year to year.
The conference thing is a major problem. 3-4 games could mean 5 draft spots. I don't think either of us knows the exact numbers. I think it's a really unique and thoughtful theory, I just don't think it would work.
If you really want to show the credibility of it then you need to take the numbers from this year and even previous years and show how draft pick order would be sequestered compared to how it actually went.
18 to 88
The problem is you're failing to accurately evaluate the Nets in this situation. They are having a close to historically bad season but they aren't built to be historically bad. This roster was good enough to win 20 games this year but they had some shitty luck. It's not like the Cavs in 2003 when they specifically built a bad team to try and get LeBron. The Nets aren't as bad as their record. They have a good young core. Two All-Star caliber players are on that team.
This idea is fine in theory (also don't think it's new) but it's unrealistic at this point. The lottery is designed to level the playing field and give the bad teams a good chance to get better. You're doing the opposite of that. If you're concern is to eliminate tanking then the only realistic solution is to give all of the lottery teams the same odds to win the lottery. They used to do this but decided to change it to help the competitive balance even out. There are plenty of situations in which the bad teams draft good young players and actually get better.
Favre Dollar Footlongs
The other thing I forgot to mention, why would some of the players want to play for a draft pick? Do you really think they are going to be out of contention and they are going to bust their ass and risk injury so the team can draft a better player who will make more money then them and take their spot?
Maybe a solidified vet on the team, but not younger guys.
Twolves Blog
TalkHoops.net
That's an excellent point. NBA guys don't care about draft picks. It's not like the entire Pacers roster is clamoring to go out and win the rights to John Wall. You think TJ Ford would try extra hard for that right now?
One more thing, there's this misnomer that tanking begins in January, which is just false. Typically, teams don't start tanking until around mid-to-late March. There are occasions in which the Celtics held out Paul Pierce or the Heat held out Dwyane Wade earlier in the season because they "didn't want to risk injury to them on bad teams" (aka tank-a-palooza) but for the most part, it's mainly a handful of games at the end of the season when they start letting guys like Mark Madsen jack up threes in a game.
If you didn't turn into WWE's Monday Night Raw last night for Shawn Michaels retirement speech you should have. I don't care if you are a wrestling fan or not. To see a legend retire from the occupation that he loves is a special moment that everyone can appreciate.
Appreciation is the key word.
I'm not a huge wrestling fan. I'm not rocking an Undertaker shirt on the weekend or buying a replica spinner belt, but I'll still tune in to catch a glimpse each week. There's just something unique about it that captures the eye. I think the fans are what make wrestling unique.
Sport. Entertainment. Sports Entertainment. It doesn't really matter what you refer to it as. Wrestling is just wrestling to me. I think most of us have known for a long time that the outcomes were staged, but that doesn't really matter. These wrestlers still put their bodies on the line for over 300 days a year to do one thing; entertain the fans.
For some reason fans of other sports don't get that. I know the competitiveness of the WWE is less serious than that of NFL, but the difference between wrestling fans and fans of other major sports is that they don't respect all the athletes involved. Wrestling fans have a quality about them that they understand that there always has to be one good guy and always has to be one bad guy. It doesn't matter what side you are rooting for, if one of the wrestler performs and amazes you, you appreciate it.
Fans of other major sports don't understand that even in their respective sports that they love, one team you are going to root for and one team you will root against, but still the athletes are there to do one thing; entertain us. Some athletes may only be there for a paycheck and some may not ultimately care about the fans, but the ones that do, we should care about as well.
If you watched last night you saw fans that adored Shawn Michaels. Fans that appreciated all the hard work, blood, sweat, and painful days that he endured during his career. Fans that respected him. Fans that cheered him. Fans that cared about him. The most amazing thing about the fans is that the entire arena was only a 1,000th of the fans that were also doing the same at home.
Shawn reciprocated the love. He thanked the fans as the fans thanked him and told them how much of a part of his life they were.
That's why wrestler’s farewells are the best. It's not about retiring with the best stats and getting into the Hall of Fame. It's not about who won a ring and who didn't. It's not about one special moment that made the fans love you. To be a legend in wrestling means giving it your all every time you are out there. That's what Shawn Michaels did.
So farewell to one of the greatest wrestlers to ever grace the globe. He will be missed by many fans, but appreciated by all. The best part about it is that when the next legend has to hang up the boots and step into the squared circle one last time that he will also get the same recognition just like everyone who came before him.
The Tiger Woods Mistress Slots Contest went better than anyone could've expected. What started as a small raffle turned into an
overwhelming contest after the game was featured on Sport Illustrated's Hot Clicks. After receiving 22,000 hits and a little over 800 entries, I changed the prize from one shirt to a shirt for every 75 entries. I am very happy to be giving away ten shirts to the winners listed below and I appreciate greatly everyone who participated. If you didn't win don't worry. Favre Dollar Footlongs will be running contests frequently, including soon to be appearing contests for the opening month of baseball, the World Cup, and a suicide pool for the college football and the NFL. Keep checking out the site frequently to see what is in store.
If you would like a shirt even quicker than check out the new Favre Dollar Footlongs Store.
Tiger Woods Mistress Slots Contest Winners
1. Paul Hook
2. James Sorenson
3. James Bickmore
4. Jake Crosetto
5. Kent Chisler
6. Edward Lamorey
7. Tom Denne
8. Jay Lucas
9. Nick Hanson
10. David Campbell
All the winners should have received an email stating that they had won yesterday, but if not then please email me: gene@favredollarfootlongs.com with your address and shirt size. Your email must be from the same account you sent your entry from.
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