Yep, many folks say this three day stretch surrounding the MLB All-Star Game is the most boring sports time of the year, and it's hard to argue with them. In fact, the only thing that seems to occur this time of year is repeated bashing of baseball's mid-summer classic, for a myriad of reasons (pick one appy and one entree please):*Every team has to have one rep (Hi Dmitri!)
*The All Star managers play favorites (you think?)
*Bud's infamous tie in Milwaukee (and no, I don't mean the condom one I let him borrow)
*Interleague play has removed all the novelty of AL vs. NL
*And, of course, the asinine fact the winner now gets home field advantage in the World Series.
But, guess what, those complaints aside, I still love the damn thing. The MLB All-Star Game is the only pro sports all-star game that remotely resembles the product on the field the rest of the season. Admittedly, I am a huge baseball fan who can honestly sit through an entire Orioles/Devil Rays game for a full nine innings, so I understand my love of this game is not shared by many out there. Still, come 8:30pm tonight, I'll be tuned in to watch the game that brought me pre-Baseball Tonight Kruk vs. Big Unit, Torii Hunter robbing Satan's child Barry Bonds, the "he can't really be letting this thing be a tie" tie (it was so ridiculous it gets to be in the good and bad columns) and most memorably Bo Jackson's obscene athleticism in the leadoff spot. But I guess if you're really that bored and hate the game that much, you can always turn to the Arena Football playoff game on espn2.
*****
OK, sentimentality aside, this post was originally meant to simply serve as a quick look at three ongoing G:TB bets, given this All-Star break breather. They are:
A-Rod vs. the Nats
New York's favorite villain rides into the All-Star break with 30 homers. He leads the majors. He's having a tremendous season. Yet a large chunk of Yankee fans and the entire NY press corps hate him. Simmer down folks. Anyway, we were very close to this race being tied, but a Nats surge (for them, 2 wins in a row is most certainly a surge) means the Nats now have 36 wins and lead A-Rod by 6. I assure you this will be a close race all year long.
The Nats losing 100 games (and me winning two cases of beer)
Ah yes, I was sure I was in the driver's seat when the Natty's dropped three of four to the Cubs over the Fourth holiday, but then, amazingly, they come back to take two of three from the Brew Crew (behind Simontacchi and Tim Redding of all pitchers). Impossible to figure these guys out. Right now, I believe they are on pace for 92 or so losses, but I have hope the July 31st trade deadline will once again set the Nats on the 100 loss path. Buh bye Da Meat Hook, Ronnie Belliard and The Chief, at the minimum. Of course, this means I am putting faith in Jim Bowden to properly trade his valuable commodities, and I think we all know how I feel about that asshat doing anything right.
Wake vs. Rocket
You know what, Rob created a nice spreadsheet for this, so for now, let's just say this race is neck and neck until I crunch the numbers. I'll be back this afternoon. Or not.
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31 comments:
Chris Matthews and Hardball are setting up to film outside my building right now, which is an extremely bold call given the heat and humidity today.
Hey, if they opted for the air conditioning, they'd call it Easyball.
I think they want to counter Al Gore's Saturday sweat stains.
This is way out of left field (no pun intended), but have any of you been watching Flight of the Conchords? It's hilarious.
Do yourselves a favor and go to this page:
http://www.hbo.com/conchords/video/index.html
Click on "Episode 3: Mugged" on the right, and then click on the video for Hip-Hopopotamus vs. The Rhymenocerous.
What is this I keep hearing about Whit censoring the comments on Gheorghe? That's extremely un-Gheorghe like... Apparently Whit likes to hear dissent about as much as he does Kelly Clarkson.
Or you and Ms. Estefan.
You keep hearing it? Like at the water cooler, on sports talk radio, and on the metro?
Doc Walker won't shut up about it.
That's 'cause I deleted the 2500 words he wrote on why Cornelius Griffin is the best linebacker in the game today.
Nope--just two accusations from two people saying you were deleting posts that poked fun at you boys.
We occasionally edit comments for content, it's true. G:TB recently got a link from another blog mentioning racism because of a couple of comments made here. We won't name names because the accusation was a bit of a stretch, and because we like the Wheelhouse guys.
As one of the G:TB founders quipped upon this discovery, "Gheorghe doesn't do that. Heightism, hairism, elitism, fatism, yes. Racism, no."
Oh, and we also run the automated random comment deleter once every 6 to 9 days. Keeps it tidy here.
no, I was talking about you deleting Swint's comment yesterday about how he misses the youtube clips. It's odd--you are pretty bright but you keep missing the point on this one.
Me likey YouTube...me likey YouTube...
Speaking of the Wheelhouse, they have a mighty good competition going on over there today.
And speaking of competitions, I came in late on this dandy, but I heartily endorse it.
As I told Mr. Swint today, if that's the first of his comments that we managed to weed out here, it's a minor miracle.
He replied simply, "Weed." Now that's a keeper.
And if you're going to carry on this high-horse routine about me and my high-horse, please take it back to the Racehouse.
Stop the book burning....and I'll stop the southern church burning--deal?
Weed out...high horse...good times.
Anything to broker a little peace between the peoples of this planet.
And I actually deleted my own comment because I'd written "peoples of this plant," which really only serves to confuse folks. I hope that's acceptable.
Although TJ would've gotten it.
I have serious plant work to do before OBFT...
One more bet Whit wants to throw out there:
Will the Nats hit 100 HRs?
They currently have 54 through 88 games, on pace to hit 99.4. Fewer than 100 hasn't happened in a full season since the 1994 Marlins (when Sheff hit 27 and the other 24 guys hit 67).
Um, Teej, the 1994 season wasn't a full season...
Talk to Whit about that...I just copy and paste.
Sorry, that'd be the 1993 Marlins. Expansion team. Very bad.
When Orestes "Development" Destrade led the team with 20.
The simple mention of Orestes makes me laugh...a lot.
I remember when the Marlins were just getting started, Conine and Destrade were the only two players anybody had ever heard of (Bryan Harvey too, maybe, its been awhile)and, consequently, were prominently featured on all types of promotional materials. Slurpee Cups, T-Shirts, etc. The fact that Destrade was so prominently involved in the promotion of a major leage baseball team always killed me.
When 45-year-old Charlie Hough is your young team's ace, you're starting a few paces back.
Charlie Hough pitching in teal is a memory I'll always treasure.
Alex Rodriguez is not having the best of All-Star games...
Just for the record, at least in part, the outcome of the All-Star game (and therefore home-field advantage for the World Series) was determined by the strange carom one fly ball took off a part of the wall shielded by a superfluous banner that MLB hung on an outfield wall?
At this point, I guess that makes sense.
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