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PREDICTIONS, PREDICTIONS, PREDICTIONS!
So there was no strike. Did anyone really care this time? The more important question is “how did your fantasy football draft go?” Who’s going to win the U.S. Open, the Super Bowl and will the Mets home losing streak end before the A’s winning streak does. Those questions and many more will be answered in this week’s column.
BASEBALL (Or the NY Yankees Invitational)
The A’s are for real! I for one am seriously hoping that this year they can complete the task and eliminate the Yankees. Great pitching, timely hitting and those cool yet hideous gold and green shoes equal a fun team to watch and a more likely underdog to prevail over the Evil Empire run by Joe “Darth” Torre. As we all know, every Darth has a evil mentor who they must answer to. Can’t you just see George “Emperor” Steinbrenner sitting in the Death Star down in Tampa choking one of his minions with his mind for not signing Miguel Tejada from the A’s?
My only concern about the A’s is that they may be peaking too soon. I hope not. I’m not ready to jump on the Tejada bandwagon and declare him the AL MVP, but I will say he should be ranked ahead of Derek Jeter as the third best shortstop in baseball. I’m sorry but Jeter is there simply because he has 4 rings, this year his numbers simply do not stack up next to Tejada and always paled in comparison to A-Rod and Nomar Garciaparra. It says here that Oakland, Minnesota, Seattle and NY will make the playoffs with Oakland beating the Yanks in 6 to go to the World Series.
In the National League, LA, Arizona, St. Louis and Atlanta will make the playoffs. The Braves will choke as usual, and either LA or Arizona will play Oakland in the WS. Only if Houston makes it over St. Louis will the Braves advance pass the first round. The Mets will win tonight and Oakland will win 21 straight before suffering a loss. Think about this, the Mets had both Billy Beane and Steve Phillips in their organization as minor leaguers. Guess which one left the organization to become a great GM and which one runs the Mets?
U.S. OPEN (Or the William Sisters Invitational)
Venus will win the U.S. Open if she stops feeling bad about beating Serena. Serena has no qualms about kicking her big-sister’s ass all over the court. Capriati talks way too much trash for someone who hasn’t beaten a Williams sister in over a year. As much as I hate to admit it, I see Lleyton Hewitt winning again to repeat as champion. Doesn’t Hewitt just look like a dick? If you removed the possibly racial incident from the equation, he looks like a snot nosed frat-boy leader who picked on smaller kids at school. The only person who can beat him would be Andy Roddick, but he’s not ready yet. If not Roddick then it has to be Andre Agassi if he is on his game. Pete Sampras is done. Nice comeback story, but he does not have the stamina or will power to compete against the younger faster players like Roddick or Hewitt. I would be greatly surprised if he advances past Roddick in the next round.
I don’t mind seeing the William sisters dominate the tour. I didn’t mind when Monica Seles dominated or when Steffi Graf kicked ass, so why would I complain now. I also didn’t hear so many tennis people bitch and moan about how bad it was for the game when Graf or Seles would advance to the finals in every major, or when it was just Martina N. vs. Chris Everett. Anyway, on to the next topic.
SUPER BOWL PREDICTIONS (Or the St. Louis Rams Track Meet)
Everyone will be picking the Rams to make the Bowl so I can’t just choose them. I know I just picked the consensual favorites for the U.S. Open, but that’s different. Tennis is more predictable: there is not variation on who wins the major tournaments each year. Now back to the Bowl predictions, I see the Eagles losing to the Jets, okay maybe not the Jets, how about . . . . The Colts! Okay yeah The Colts get it together and make it all the way. There you go, Philly over the Colts for SB 37 (Fuck those Roman Numerals).
NFC Division winners: Rams, Eagles, Tampa Bay and Green Bay, Wildcards: Chicago and 49’ers.
AFC Division Winners: Jets, Indy, Pittsburgh, and Oakland, Wildcards: Chiefs, Miami. I know Indy’s defense is horrible, but I think Dungy can get them to be decent, and the rest is up to Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison and Peyton. Besides I think Qadry Ismail may actually be a good luck charm. Can’t have too many Syracuse Orangemen on your team.
World University Games (Or the Race for the Silver Medal)
Now I get to rant. I don’t get it. First, the media makes a big stink about how the Dream Team idea is old and boring. Second, everyone agrees that the USA doesn’t have its best team on the floor, yet the media goes on and on about how the World is catching up to the U.S. and how the talent gap is shrinking. Last time I checked, the USA was still beating teams by 20 or more points every night. Let me get this straight, the USA is supposed to beat every team by 50 points without their best players, but if they only win by 20 and the opponent has the audacity to have the lead for a quarter or a half, then that proves the USA is no longer a dominate force.
Vlade Divac opened his mouth once to often. I admit I like him when he plays for the Kings, but he claimed Yugoslavia would beat the USA yet his team is in danger of not even making it to the medal round. Vlade shut the f**k up and play ball. I’ve watched every game so far and I’ve noticed a pattern. Every other World team, like New Zealand, have only one legitimate NBA player, while the USA goes 15 deep in skilled players. If you are winning by 20 with your second or third best team, how is that a failure and how does it prove the gap is shrinking? All it means is that now the NBA can’t send a team of scrubs and blow away the competition from the opening whistle?
The media seems to overlook the fact that the original Dream Team was a once in a lifetime team with some of the greatest ball players in NBA history. Of course they were going to win by 50 and 60 every night. You mean to tell me that if Shaq was playing the other World teams would have a player to stop him? Or Kobe, or AI? Come on. All that’s happening is that the media guys are bored with the Dream Team concept and want to bitch about something. They want to see the USA lose so that they have an interesting angle to sell their newspapers and magazines. I can see the headlines now “What Went Wrong With the Dream Team? Nothing is wrong, just let the guys play without the comparison to the original.
Final Thoughts (Or signing Off)
With everything else that’s going on; College Football, WNBA finals, U.S. Open, Pro Football, World University Games, who cares about baseball’s regular season? A lot of people still do despite the speeches otherwise. Its like I wrote last time, fans are jealous of ballplayers just like sports reporters are. And I will say this too: Fans need to shut the Fuck Up about baseball player’s salaries. So what they earn more than most people do in a year. Liz Hurley and Matthew Perry earn a lot of money to make movies, yet no one complains when they put out shit like “Serving Sara”. The players don’t owe the fans squat. I don’t remember hearing a peep out of any Seinfeld fans when the cast threatened to sit out the season while seeking a pay raise. Ball players are entertainers just like Perry and the others, nothing more, nothing less.
Knowing this, why do people continue to hold up signs that say: “Play for the Love of the Game,” Play for wha? I bet the fan that held that sign up does not work for the love of whatever field she works in, so why must an athlete play for free? Apparently athletes are supposed to suffer broken bones and disabling injuries for the love of the game. What a bunch of crap. Goodbye!
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