Have at it.

Can we discuss 2007 instead?

That would be a good idea.

Predictions:

AL West: Angels
AL Central: Twins
AL East: Yankees
AL WC: Tigers

NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Central: Brewers
NL East: Mets
NL WC: Cardinals

Wow... Rays send Jorge Cantu down to Durham, and Cubs send Mark Prior to Iowa (among others). I didn't expect them two to be sent down, no matter how disappointing their numbers or injury prone they are.

Predictions:
AL East: NY Yankees
AL Centra: Minnesota
AL West: Los Angeles
Wild Card: Boston

NL East: Philadelphia
NL Central: Chicago (ballsy pick)
NL West: Los Angeles
Wild Card: NY Mets


I don't think the Mets have a chance to win the division after looking over their rotation and bullpen. Two 40+ starters and a bunch of rookies and Oliver Perez means lots of question marks, and the bullpen lost a lot of it's depth. Also, the Central is tough to pick. The Cardinals rotation is shit (looper? Wells?), and the Cubs and Brewers both improved. Only one team has no chance in hell of winning the division.


Personal prediction: Rays go 75-87 this season.

You'd think ESPN being a sports network could actually air games without the quality sucking dick. The game tonight has been littered with production errors and the sound cutting out. It always fucking happens with ESPN baseball games. Me thinks they don't give a shit.

My predictions:
AL East: Boston Red Sox
AL Centra: Detroit Tigers
AL West: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Wild Card: New York Yankees

NL East: Philadelphia Phillies
NL Central: St. Louis Cardinals
NL West: Arizona Diamondbacks
Wild Card: New York Mets

And man, did that game suck balls. Joe Morgan sounds like he's...well, sucking balls the whole game. I hate that guy.

CHOATE!!!!

I hate Joe Morgan. He says some of the dumbest shit during games. "He's a great RBI guy." Oh fucking really? Isn't that totally dependent on other players getting on base and not something the actual "RBI guy" is doing?

I think my favorite part of Joe Morgan tonight was this:

"Tom Glavine likes to pitch inside. He tried to pitch inside there. You can see that it was kind of inside but wasn't all the way inside where he'd normally put it. Glavine likes to pitch inside."

Ya fuckin' think?

I think I remember that and my head almost exploding with rage at how stupid it was. Though tonight showed me that ESPN doesn't give a shit about baseball anymore. I mean come on... on ESPN2 in favor of shitty women's basketball that no one gives a shit about on the main channel. PC bullshit if you ask me.

I'm agreeing. One of my friends actually told me he was watching that instead of the Cardinals. I'm going to kill him with a shotgun tomorrow, so it evens out.

Let Kido rape the corpse afterwards too.

Now that's what I missed about this place. The necrophilia.

Wait... WOMEN'S BASKETBALL was on ESPN? What, the AFL didn't have a game scheduled tonight? Or how about Hillbilly NASCAR?

ESPN's AFL coverage also sucks dick. At least half the games they'll air this season will be Philly games so they can just focus on Bon Jovi for the whole game.

Hey, there's nothing quite like watching a game that's all about the fundamentals and have even the fundamentals suck.

ESPN is a cespool of suck. What the fuck is with their coverage of NASCAR all of a sudden?

And how many more times are they going to verbally fingerbang Michelle Wie for being so great, even though all the highlights they show are her tanking vs. men, or being pretty damn average against her own kind... women, not chinks.

You see ESPN used to look down on NASCAR and the fans. Then NASCAR became popular and suddenly ESPN can't get enough of it. See also Rome, Jim.

Is he the Rome is Burning guy? It's hard to keep up with all of ESPN's Fuck-stains. The only guy I consistantly like is Stephen A. Smith.

Joe Morgan is a lumpy scrotum nowadays. But he cut one of the Greatest Promos in NL History when he was with Houston in the 60's. As chronicled in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four", a reporter asked Morgan, post-game, about the pitch he struck out on. The reporter said that it looked like a curveball. Without raising his voice or getting coarse, Morgan said "actually, that was a Mother Fucker Curve", then went on to politely explain the difference between the Regular Curve and the Mother Fucker Curve.

BTW, I highly recommend "Ball Four" to everyone around here.

Jim Rome is more of a radio personality. Used to listen to his show a lot but he got a big head and really arrogant as time went on so I gave up on his show. This was also around the same time that he started on ESPN.

Oh, I'm so stealing that for future references. (the mother fucker curve thing)

Rome kicked ass until about 2000. He would bring up some very relevant points and had some great comedy bits. Vlade Divac the Marlboro Man, Beavis Bichette, the Horse (WNBA) Family, the Rat Family... just some hilarious stuff. My favorite was when he nicknamed Jim Kelly "Old Keller", since, like Old Yeller, his best days were behind him and he needed to be taken out back and shot. His baseball "takes" were usually second to none.

But he started getting more sponsors and making real money. As a result, instead of interviewing guys like Rex Hudler or Marvin Freeman, he was now interviewing guys like Troy Aikman or Roger Clemens. So he couldn't goof around as much. Plus, he grew up a little bit and matured. I think he was in his 20's when Jim Everett went over the table after him in early 1994.

Alot of "clones" point to 2002 as the "jump the shark" point for Rome. Around October 2002, he interviewed Richard Petty and suddenly became a NASCAR supporter. I remember listening to it on my lunchbreak and couldn't believe it. For years, he'd been slamming NASCAR , the 'left-turn only circuit" and it was always the butt of his jokes. That killed alot of the fun and made it seem like he'd suck anyone's dick. Which he's continued to do. To some extent I'm glad he's become successful, but it's almost like he's just readig a script and saying "I love that guy" after every interview.

I used to listen to him daily from 1995-2000. Now I listen maybe once or twice a year. He's had some good moments since. Like when Jay Mohr took over for a show and kept making TiVO and lesbian references on every segment. Or when they went off on Tommy Lee's dad for a bit. But it's become sterilized, with 90% of the show resembling any other sports talk show.

Hmm..and who would that team be?!!

YOU GO TO HELL!! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!!!

There was an article in the fishwrap this morning about "six teams that could be the next Tigers". Umm..who cares about being the Tigers.. I wanna' be the Cardinals, the team that actually WON the whole friggin' thing.

AL West: Oakland
AL Central: Cleveland
AL East: New York
AL WC: Angels

NL West: Dodgers
NL Central: Chicago
NL East: Philadelphia
NL WC: New York

And...everytime somebody picks Cleveland they completely suck.

You know, I think late 2001 was when I finally gave up on him for good. Some of the same reasons you'd mention. He'd bash the shit out of a guy for months but then kiss his ass the second he got an interview with him. Plus he started to do less with the callers and they really did carry a lot of the funny stuff for his show.

I think if he loves Jose Reyes so much, he should probably just marry him.

:lol:

Well, I guess the Reds have shit for chance, too, considering their severe cases of streaky-ness. The Cubs and Brewers have the best chance, the Cardinals have a shot if their rotation doesn't bomb, and the Astros... okay, so three teams are pretty much fucked. Oswalt can't carry a 5-man rotation by himself.

Makes sense to me.

For the record....

Carl Crawford > Jose Reyes. Give him the lineup protection Reyes has, and he'd have a billion runs scored, too.

Carl Crawford is the anchor of many of my fantasy teams to come.

He's on most of mine every year, too.

Speaking of the Rays, wow, thanks to them being in NY, they get an entire hour of Baseball Tonight devoted to them just about. This is, like, more than their entire 2006 coverage on ESPN combined.

First FSN blooper...

The Yankees defense screen, and it lists BRIAN GILES making his 3rd start of season in right. Must be a late April Fools joke.

A-Rod misses a pop fly for an error on his first play and strikes out in his first at bat of the season.

He's fucked already.

I switched from ESPN to WGN to watch the Reds-Cubs. World of difference in the quality of the coverage.

ESPN = Half-assed "get it out of the way" banter about a certain subject.

The REAL team coverage sounds like they at least give a shit. (watching Rays/Yanks on FSN Florida)

Joe Magrane > Anyone on ESPN, except maybe Jon Miller.

Dunn was a fucking beast today as he hit two homers.

Memo to Jon Miller... you are WHITE. This means you should pronounce the names of Latin American players like a normal gringo. No droping into an accent and trying to spice up a name like "Jose Bautista". That's phony, stupid and borderline racist.

Imagine how much heat he'd get if he suddenly dropped into an Eubonics voice when announcing a black player.

I'm white, and I pronounce hispanic names that way.

Of course, I was told to by Mexicans when I worked at Cracker Barrel. So I have a reason

It's not a white guy saying "Rammer-ez" for "Ramirez", but I think it's even phonier when Miller puts that accent on it. May as well say "ah-so..most honowable Ichy-woo Soo-zoo-Kai"

Guess who's in first place in the NL Central after beating Houston IN Houston?! Worth mentioning, cuz' they were 0-6 there last year and something like 2-35 overall.