What If...Major League Baseball Was Like The English Premier League?

Major League Baseball (MLB) has just started it's spring training. The season will not end until November. The season including the play-offs last close to seven months now. So the marathon has begun. Aside from the advent of the league championship series and the wildcard format, the format for the season and how the champion is crowned has not changed for 1,000,000 years. I am proposing a way to switch things up.

The English Primer League (EPL) is arguably the most competitive soccer league in the world. The Serie A in Italy and the Bundseliga in Germany are close rivals of the EPL. The EPL season starts in late August and ends in late May. So it is a lengthy eight month season so it is a horrendous marathon comparable to the MLB. Like the MLB, the EPL has the Big Four teams who spend the most money and are always close to the top. Those teams in the EPL are Arsenal, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Chelsea. Right now, these teams have the highest four salaries and are respectively are 1st through 4th in the standings. This where most of the comparisons between the two leagues end. The EPL has no divisions or conferences. The EPL has twenty teams and every team plays the other team twice in the regular season (one at home and one away). There are no play-offs to determine the champion of the EPL. The champion is decided by the best team in the league after the regular season is completed. The top five teams in the EPL are promoted to Champions League play where they compete on their own continent against other countries top soccer clubs in a tournament to crown a European Champion (a highly coveted trophy). All of the EPL teams play with all the other professional clubs in the "minors" in a tournament to crown the F.A. Cup as the best team in England (the highest coveted trophy in English football). The bottom three teams in the EPL are regulated down to the minor leagues while the top three clubs in the minors are promoted to the EPL.

So let's apply the EPL format to baseball in the States. The first thing that I would do is lower the number of games from 162 to 118. This would cause each team in MLB to play every other team in MLB a two game home and away series each season. So, for example Atlanta would play Baltimore two games at home and two games on the road every season. Each team plays every other team in the league four times. Now, before anyone complains they are short changed 42 games I'll explain how to resolve that issue in a minute. By playing all the teams at least four times each every year this eliminates the whole strength of schedule argument. Fans will be guaranteed to see every other team in MLB at home at least twice a year. Using EPL tables to the 2007 MLB regular season standings reveals the following:

1. Boston 96 wins (+210 run differential)
2. Cleveland 96 wins (+107 run differential)
3. New York Yankees 94 wins (+191 run differential)
4. Los Angeles Angels 94 wins (+91 run differential)
5. Colorado 90 wins (+102 run differential)
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6. Arizona 90 wins (-20 run differential)

The top five teams (place was separated by run differential which is the same as the goal differential in the EPL) would qualify for the Champions League title with the top teams in the top leagues in the Northern Hemisphere. The championship series could be called the "true" World Series (I know, that is a stretch but a small one). By the way, the winter leagues do this already. The MLB Champion would be Boston as they had the most wins and the tie breaker of having the best run differential. As you can see the championship race between the top teams would have been extremely close. Very exciting all the way to the end of the season. The bottom five of MLB baseball reveals the following:

25. San Francisco 71 wins (-37 run differential)
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26. Florida 71 wins (-101 run differential)
27. Baltimore 69 wins
28. Kansas City 69 wins
29. Pittsburgh 68 wins
30. Tampa Bay 66 wins

The bottom five teams would be relegated to Triple AAA status (I choose five as it is a larger league). Now, who hasn't wanted to kick out these five teams over the last five seasons or more? These franchises have not cared about winning for years and since there is no punishment for losing in the current format, the EPL format offers relegation for those teams who don't compete to get out of the relegation zone. Again, very exciting (in a weird way) all the way to the end. On the Triple AAA side, five teams would be promoted to the MLB. If we applied last years win totals in Triple AAA for last season the following teams would make the promotion: Nashville, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Sacramento, Toledo, and Durham. How exciting would it be for these cities to have a shot at playing in MLB for at least a season? Imagine the home series between the NY Yankees and the Durham Bulls? It could happen in this format. One major way to make this work better in baseball under this format is to eliminate the minor league affiliations and make every team independent of each other. Players would not make it to the majors unless they were moved in the transfer window (traded) or their team gets promoted to the majors. Now to make up some of the games the MLB fans would lose during the regular season in this format I would propose a major trophy be given to the best professional baseball team after a tournament that would involve every professional team playing each other in three-game series (seven for the finals) until the best team is decided. This could add a significant number of games throughout the season. After each round (just for giggles) put each remaining team in a lottery and pick the match-ups through a ball drop lottery.

Am I crazy or would this work?

I'm Not Convinced

I am sitting here on a Sunday night still dealing with the plague. I have not died, yet. The Oscar Awards show has just started it's marathon run through this medication induced hallucinogenic haze of a night. I forgot that I was on-call for emergency services tonight and was surprised at 5:00 p.m. when my phone rang telling me that "Hey, You're it!!!" I am thrilled. You can tell right under the bags under my eyes from fighting the plague for the last two nights how thrilled I truly am. Of course, my rant tonight is not about the Oscars or about being on-call. It has something else entirely. I am talking about the Phoenix Suns.

I am not convinced about the new Suns. I watched the Suns play the Detroit Pistons this afternoon (or at least as much as I could tolerate as it was a truly awful game.) I was looking forward to the game all weekend. I wanted to see Shaq and the Suns face off against the grind-it-out bore fest that are the Pistons. I wanted to see if the Suns were truly any better with Shaq than they were without him. Initially, when I heard that Shaq was going to be sent from the dungeon that is the Miami Heat I was skeptical. Shaq has not been his truly powerful omnipresent self in close to five years. The Diesel had been re-called for major repairs every year for the last 100. His tires were worn bald. His motor had lost multiple cylinders. His motivation to win has been missing since he and Dwayne Wade won the title on South Beach several eons ago (or so it seems now.) You remember that NBA Finals series right? The Mavs were up by two games and were skating their way to giving the NBA's favorite megalomaniac Mark Cuban his first title. Personally, if the Mavs had won I would have quit watching the NBA for the next fifteen years (or at least until Cuban sold the team to the Disney Corporation or to Bill Gates, emperor of the World). Luckily for me, the Heat behind the last consistent streak of effort by Shaq won the title. Now here we are in 2008, we only see Wade in commercials with Barkley as the Heat are the worst team in the league. This is absolutely shocking when you think of it because last year the Hawks and the Celtics were the worst teams in the league. The Celtics today are on top of the Eastern Conference. The Hawks? Uh, well they're...forget it...they are still bad even with Mike Bibby. I am not convinced after watching the disaster of the Suns-Pistons game this afternoon that the Suns are better now with Shaq. I heard commentators on ABC try to convince me that the Suns are now the 2nd best team in the Western Conference next to the Lakers. This statement is an absolute slap in the face to the Spurs who are still the champions until someone knocks them off. They are the NBA's version of the Indianapolis Colts. That was before the game. I wonder what they are thinking now after the Pistons slaughtered the Suns by thirty on their home court. Shaq has averaged 8 points and 13 rebounds in his three games. In those three games, all at home, the Suns are 1-2. The Suns have slowed down. They now play their offense while Shaq is on the court with four people against five as the Diesel is unable to make it up the court in time to battle on the offensive boards after Nash launches one of patented long range jumpers or runs around in circles all with the worst haircuts in the history of the NBA. Their chemistry is scattered with Shaq on the court. Shaq is an offensive liability at the very least. Shaq is clearly not in game shape enough to play the Suns style of play. Should the Suns change their offensive strategy that has worked well for them for a lumbering mass of liability? Shaq may have been one of the very few choices available to the Suns at the trade deadline, but he was the worst choice for the high octane Suns. When Shaq eventually breaks down during the Suns next road trip and is out for three weeks will anyone say the Suns are better than the Spurs, Rockets, Warriors, Nuggets, and Mavs? I doubt it. I am not convinced that the Suns are any better with a broken down Diesel with bald tires and missing engine parts. I am convinced that it is likely possible that the Suns are now worse. A team that got substantially better by adding a big man up front was one of Shaq's former teams, the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers grabbed Pau Gasol from NBA purgatory at a time where he is still effective enough and healthy enough to make a difference. The addition of Gasol did not dramatically change the Lakers chemistry. It did not change their strategy on the court. Gasol gave them a viable usable weapon on both sides of the court. He is not a liability to the Lakers. He is a big addition. An addition that makes the Lakers nearly on par with the Spurs. The Lakers now have a chance to come out of the West and possibly give Kobe a title he dearly craves to win without Shaq. I'm not ready to hand the Lakers anything, but I am convinced that they are way better off now with Gasol than the Suns are with Shaq. I am convinced that the Suns made their move as a knee-jerk reaction to the Lakers move. This is never ever a good sign. Good franchises do not make knee-jerk moves when a rival makes a big move. The Suns did it. I am not convinced that this was the best move for their franchise and this move may result in an early play-off exit for Shaq so that he can return to his duties as internet cop.

Another Vapid Running Diary

I have decided that since I am coming down with the bubonic plague and that there is some sort of ice event coming that I would watch TV and feel worse than I already feel. I figure I should go ahead and write a running diary of the events on TV (thanks to the magic of digital cable and the little mouse that is running our power generator in the basement/dungeon). Here is what I saw:

7:57 p.m.: Just saw an ad for the movie American Gangster now out on DVD. I am convinced that I really like it when Denzel Washington plays a bad guy as opposed to a good guy. I mean when he played the jaded cop on Training Day I was so enthralled by the character that I wanted to go L.A. myself and become a rogue cop who gets blown away by gangsters paid off by the Russians. I gotta see Gangster. I am sure I will want to become a big time heroin dealer and smack hookers around in New York after watching it. Who says that movies are influential?

8:02 p.m.: I have mentioned before that I think The First 48 is one of the best shows on TV. I am watching an older episode where a seventy something year old retired landscaper got whacked in his apartment in Memphis. I wonder why they picked Memphis anyways? Does that city have high murder rate? More juicy murders? Maybe this show should go to someplace like Lexington, Virginia or better yet Bath County, Virginia (pop. 4,500). I am sure there would be plenty of things to investigate in those places..like all the murders that happen in Hot Springs that never get recorded.

8:05 p.m.: The detectives are interviewing a potential suspect who obvious is high on crack. Special. That's how I want my murder collar to go down. I'd be all high on NyQuil and HGH and telling the officers where I hid the gun.

8:18 p.m.: Major blow-out with twelve year old daughter who believes that she should have the same privileges as a fifteen year old. I need help. I am standing my ground because doing anything else would be stupid and irresponsible. I would be asking for her to be arrested or pregnant at thirteen or both.

8:21 p.m.: Police detectives talking again with the cracked out witness. I just realized that she looks like Oprah if she got all coked up and landed in a death trap apartment complex in Memphis. The cops push her hard and then put her in jail for the murder. The next morning they get her from the jail and feed her and push her some more. She still looks like a coked out Oprah in a jail uniform.

8:25 p.m.: Coked out Oprah fingers the real murder suspect out of a picture of six other thugs. I knew that Oprah couldn't have committed no murder. She is just too nice and everything. I mean there is no way she'd actually do a murder. Now hiring several thugs and paying them off with Omni Hotel food vouchers would not entirely be out of the question.

8:33 p.m.: I was thinking that I had heard on the news this evening that John McCain may be in some hot water over a relationship with a influential lobbyist. The relationship between him and this lobbyist was rumored to be romantic in some way. Now, does anyone imagine him in any love tryst with anyone? I can't. Unless he was chemically enhanced in some way. This relationship may at the very least had been unethical in some way. Like I said before, no one who has been in Congress for as long as he has is honest. None of them. I repeat. None of them. By osmosis, Congressmen get caught up with the "dark side" of Washington politics and eventually they get turned. When this happens they have to feed off lobbyists like blood and as a result they'll give up everything to remain in office. This is why I would want a Congressperson to run my favorite NFL team's front office. They would get so crazy that they would pay out large sums of money to high ticket free agents and hide it from being counting against the cap. They'd let players run amok in Vegas and bail them out when they got arrested. They would let them take all the HGH they wanted. He would have hookers and Brian McNamee in the locker room after games. It would be great.

8:47 p.m.: Just talked to the wife about said 12 year old child going on 36. She promised reinforcements and cold medicines. Yay!!!

8:48 p.m.: The suspect in Memphis is named "Little Homey." I need a new name. Can someone give me some recommendations? Maybe I should try out "Big Moody" or "Little Sanity Left" or "Large Debt Boy."
I don't know. I am open for suggestions. Looks like "Little Homey" is going to confess. However, he started his statement by saying: "I am telling you the truth." Ooops.

8:53 p.m.: I switched to the Norte Dame-Pittsburgh basketball game. ND is leading by eight with less than a minute left in the game. Then it hits me. I don't care. Next!

8:54 p.m.: The NFL Network is showing a re-play of the Super Bowl--last year. You remember that one right? Right? Remember it was Peyton Manning in his first Bowl. They were playing against...who was it...who was it now?? Good thing we have these re-play shows so we can remember who lost the Bowl last year. Of course, the Evil Empire became the most famous losers of a Super Bowl in history by being outplayed and outlasted by the Giants. I have never been a fan of the Giants. In fact, for years I also rooted against them. I rooted against them in Green Bay in the NFC Championship because I wanted a Favre vs. Zoolander match-up. But, I was a fan of the Giants for one night and one night only. For those of you struggling to remember who lost last year's Bowl--it was the Bears.

9:01 p.m.: One thing about last year's Super Bowl was that it was the only Bowl that I am aware of that played significant parts of the game in a driving rainstorm. That's why you have to love Miami in February (or March, or May, or September). You could have a fun little rain storm anytime!!! It may last two minutes or two hours. I really think one year they should play the Bowl in Montana or, better yet, India. I bet the weather would not be a factor in those games. I'll suggest the idea to the league. How about Bombay in 2011?

9:18 p.m.: I am now sweating to death after taking 400 Advil. I can take Advil with high blood pressure apparently. I looked all over the house for cold and flu medication and found that all of them have warning labels that say that with a low sodium diet and high blood pressure I can't take it. To put it simply I can't take any decongestant that comes in pill form. If I do I might have some sort of cardiac incident and my wife would not have anyone to yell at anymore. What can I take? Every high schoolers dream cold medicine: Coricidin!!! Yay, Coricidin!!! I wonder if I should take this medicine with a Jack chaser or two? Would it be like doing an 8-ball?

9:45 p.m.: Police detectives in Miami on the First 48 are looking for a suspect named "Fluke." Does "Fluke" have a brother named "Flake"? I wonder these silly things when I am high on Advil. I am still looking for names to use on the street. I am going to need one if I am going to get any street cred in Bath County, Virginia (pop. 4,500). I am still open for suggestions from anyone out there in the ether.

9:56 p.m.: Speaking of ether. Did you all catch that big three team trade between Seattle, Cleveland, and Chicago in the NBA right at the trade deadline? Everyone has been screaming for years to get King James some help in Cleveland to actually give them a legitimate chance to win the title as opposed to getting swept by whoever the Western Conference champion is. This year is no exception. The top Western teams all improved themselves. The Lakers got Gasol. The Suns got Shaq. The Mavs got Kidd. The Spurs got Thomas. Cleveland had to do something to give them a chance. So they went out and got Ben Wallace (who has never been the same since leaving Detroit), Wally Szczerbiak (who has not been the same since leaving Minnesota and has not played more than 50 games a season since 04-05), Joe Smith (who has not been the same since leaving Golden State ten years ago), and Delonte West (who has not been the same since leaving St. Joe's three years ago). Given what they received it looks on the surface that they got the best end of the deal. Cleveland was ready to be rid of Larry Hughes. Chicago had buyers remorse over picking up a uninspired Wallace. Perfect. Cleveland is improved by making this move. If they can get some inspiration and chemistry together in the next few weeks then they have a chance against a sputtering Celtics squad for the East. However, an Eastern team beating the Western team in the Finals is as probable as Amy Winehouse putting down the pipe for a few days. Hmmmm....it's about time to meet up with Denzel in L.A. so I can become the true hoodlum that he plays so well on the big screen. Trust me, if he puts a gun to my head to smoke some crack: I'm doing it.

Baseball's Axis Of Evil

I grew up with baseball as a child. It was the first sport I fell in love with. I was living as an eight year old living in Atlanta, Georgia in 1980. The Braves did not have a great year that season, but to me it did not matter. I went to my first baseball game at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium in downtown. They played the Dodgers that day and lost 8-7. Phil Niekro pitched that day and for years I tried to throw his signature knuckle ball. Eventually, in high school I mastered it (or maybe it mastered me). I saw Dale Murphy play in person that day and knew he was something special. A natural talent. Nothing fake. Nothing enhanced. At least that is what I still want to believe 28 years later. Needless to say, I was hooked on baseball for life. In 1980, Pete Rose was playing first base for the Phillies. He was know as a master singles hitter and his nickname "Charlie Hustle" fit him perfectly. He was on pace to eclipse Ty Cobb's all-time hits record. In September 1985, he broke the record by hitting...a single. Rose retired as the all-time hits leader and at the time he was celebrated and cheered for his longevity, stamina, and love for the game. A few years later, Pete Rose was banned from baseball for reportedly betting on at least 52 Cincinnati Reds games while he was their manager in 1987. He never admitted at the time that he engaged in any wrong doing and he became a baseball pariah.

Fast forwarding to 2008, two other major figures in baseball are now baseball pariahs in rapid succession. The first is the specter of Barry Bonds. In 2001, he broke the single season home run record by hitting 73 home runs. Last season, he eclipsed Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. In '01, Bonds was celebrated and cheered for his feats despite the fact that his onerous personality towards the media and the fans made him a polarizing figure. A few years later, the whispers abut his growing head and expanding upper torso turned into shouts as allegations of steroid use rang from every rooftop. Bonds turned it into a racial issue. He turned it into a "Nobody Likes Me Because I Am A Big Jerk With An Expanding Head" issue. Bonds claimed that he did not know what he was using when faced with the mountain of largely circumstantial evidence was weighed against him. By the way, murderer's get the chair for less evidence than what has been levied against Bonds. In what only can be said as an embarrassment, Bonds chase for the all-time record was jeered and largely ignored. Once it was over. The story was over (except for the indictments). We what we do know is that irregardless of how much Bonds cheated he is still one of the greatest home run hitters to step on the field.

Last week, we saw a highly legendary figure begin a rapid decent (like Brittany Spear's career!!) into hell. I watched as Roger Clemens sit in front of the U.S. Congress trying to make his case that he did not use HGH and steroids to extend his career. It was a complete farce. It was absurd comedy. I do not know who was more phony McNamee, Clemons, or the illustrious Congressmen who asked questions like: "What uniform will you wear to the Hall of Fame?" The hearing should have never happened. It did not illuminate anything of note. It was a waste of taxpayer money of Biblical proportions. I do not want my taxes withheld again for grandstanding Congressmen calling McNamee a "liar" and a "drug dealer." Not that I don't agree with those statements, but I could have done without the show. Nonetheless, Clemens himself looked like a fool. He did not know what he was talking about most of the time. He also tried in vain to disprove another mountain of circumstantial evidence against him. However, his numbers (as well as Bonds) that showed improvement in his mid to late thirties makes no rational sense. It does not take a law degree to look at the numbers and conclude that Clemens must have done something to his body unnaturally to prolong his career when most people at that age begin to break down after years of strain and over use. The same can be said of Bonds as well. So for Clemens to deny and cloud the argument insults my and our collective intelligence. We did not need a Congressional hearing to prove this. All we needed was the common sense of a hormone addled twelve year old girl.

Rose, Clemens, and Bonds before their fall from grace were all shoe-in first ballot Hall of Famers. Now, thanks to these three crooked liars, the game that I fell in love with has the biggest black eye in nearly 90 years. A black eye that the game will not recover from (if at all) for another generation. It dawned on me during my heart attack of a work out on Thursday, that the game's greatest hitter, greatest home run slugger, and the best pitcher of my generation will likely not make the Hall of Fame. For the game of baseball, the game I am trying hard not to divorce for cheating, lying, greed, and gluttony, this is incredibly sad. Baseball now is the second rated national pastime (to pro football). NASCAR is third. I expect that baseball will fall to third in a few years. We all have Rose, Clemens, and Bonds to thank for part of this decline. We should also thank the Yankees, A-Rod, and Bob Selig for the rest of it. However, the part that the Axis of Evil has is the worst part. Each stained irreparably the integrity of the game. That integrity that led us all to believe that what was happening on the field of dreams was true, real, and natural is now gone. Anytime someone gets close to a record the question will cross our minds: Is this for real? Or is it something else?

Buyers Remorse

The Potomac Primaries are tomorrow. My twelve year old does not have a cell phone anymore. She was the victim of overindulgent text message use. Do these things have anything in common? Yes, each issue has caused me much frustration in the last two hours. My frustration over the phone has pretty obvious causes. The cause? 2 billion text messages in the last 24 hours. This was the count after the text messaging was blocked. I found out that the text messaging was not actually blocked after all. In reality the package of text messaging was canceled in a manner that I hope befalls the TV show Moonlight (truly the worst TV show that I have seen and forced by my significant other to watch) after the writer's strike ends. However, canceling the package does not actually stop the texting. So 2 billion texts and more charges than the GDP of Romania later I find that texts were still flowing the ether of the internet like Colt 45 being poured on the coffin of a gang leader. I must say that I am having buyers remorse over the purchasing of my child's phone and service plan. I am ready to call in a favor from a "made" family member with "connections" to find a way to do away with the phone and the plans that went with it--at no cost to me, of course. I am also worried that I will have buyers remorse after I go to a falling down elementary school gym/cafeteria tomorrow morning to make my selection in the Virginia primary. I am afraid that whoever I pick will disappointment me in the end to the point that I regret that I ever casted a vote for them in the first place. Each of the four candidates that are my final list are all untrustworthy in their own very special way. Clinton is indeed a Clinton. In other words, does a tiger ever change it's stripes? No. Hillary is preaching from the same choir book as her husband in 1992. She only wants to win the election. She does not appear to me to be genuine. She appears packaged. Packaged like an overly priced NY Strip Steak. She'll do and say anything to win. Obama is young, energetic, passionate and that is exactly what the package is supposed to look like. I am still not clear what the substance behind his talk of change for the future. He is wrapped in a pretty bow made by Oprah. Perfect. McCain has been in Congress too long to be believable. He has alienated his own party (which I think is great, by the way) and somehow out of no where is now the likely GOP nominee. He is the nominee because the rest of the field on his side of the aisle basically is worse than the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins combined. Huckabee is basically out of his mind. He has no idea what he is talking about and appears so out of touch with reality that it makes Moonlight look realistic. Just to let you know if you don't already know about Moonlight. The show involves a vampire who is loved by a pretty blond who is stereotypically naive and stupid. The writers of that show should have never gone on strike because they are not really writers--they are stoned Goth high school juniors in their basements. OK, back on topic. I am sitting in my kitchen with my daughter's phone in the blender and I don't know who I am going to vote for tomorrow for fear that my candidate will also end up in the blender, too.

Regarding my political picks. I am 3-1 going into tomorrow. Obama is 4-0. He has won 20 out of 31 states. On some counts (again, this is ridiculous how there are different delegate counts for the Democrats as they have "Super Delegates") Obama has a lead. He has more money right now. He has all the momentum. It is hard to pick against him.

On another note, Richard Zednik of the Florida Panthers needed five pints of blood and emergency surgery after being cut in the neck by a teammates skate on the ice. I have two questions. First, why does this not happen more often? Second, will this increase NHL TV ratings if people know that in any minute someone might get their head cut off on the ice?

Momentum Is A Bitch

Momentum is a wonderful thing. Momentum is huge in sports. The Giants had all the energy and momentum headed into the Super Bowl against a skidding, but still winning Patriots squad. Who ended up on top? The Giants. The Giants were the underdogs from the very beginning of the season. No one expected to land in the Big Bowl. People were speculating as to the firing of their head coach and the leadership of their quarterback. Their key running back retired and at the end of the season they lost their star tight end. It didn't matter. They built on momentum on what was thought of at the time minor victories and even a "moral victory" loss. In a sport where there supposedly is no such thing as a moral victory, the Giants had that when they lost to the heavily favored Patriots team by three points after leading mid-way in the fourth quarter. They found their voice and their direction and rode it all the way to victory in Arizona.

Momentum is also playing itself out in the Democratic race for the nomination. Whitewater Hillary started the campaign season as the front runner. She had many other candidates that were looking up at her popular name recognition and ammunition of a large war chest of money and saw a nearly unbeatable opponent. Oprah Obama shocked the world by beating Clinton in Iowa. However, Clinton began her climb as the front runner. She initially trounced her competition. Then, her victory margins began to shrink. Oprah Obama Winfrey began to catch up and post his own victories. Clinton began to tank loads of money into Super Tuesday as Obama started surging and shrinking the gap in the polls. On Super Tuesday, instead of Whitewater Hillary finishing off Oprah Obama, it was Obama who won 13 states to Clinton's eight. It was Obama who was gaining speed. It was Obama who held a 36-13 million dollar edge over Clinton in the last month in contributions. Obama has been energizing his base of supporters and using his voice that speaks of change and hope for the future. This was what Clinton was hoping to be doing at this time in the campaign. Instead she is reeling and skidding trying to keep the campaign from sinking below the water line. She is still ahead overall in delegates, but as she and Obama head into a very critical five day stretch that lead is shrinking. More importantly, the momentum is now on Oprah Obama Winfrey's side. It should not be a surprise if they are at a dead heat in delegate count after next Tuesday.

My picks:
Louisiana primary (Saturday): Obama
Louisiana's population is made up of thirty-two percent African-Americans. Clinton's husband was popular with the African-American vote during his run and Hillary was hoping for more of the same. However, the results have shown Obama getting the majority of the African-American vote. Hillary has not visited Louisiana during the campaign. Obama has visited once. Enough for a small edge.

Nebraska caucus (Saturday): Obama
Clinton has virtually ignored this state as her daughter has been campaigning there by herself. Obama has roots in near-by Kansas. Most of the papers in Nebraska favor Obama.

Washington caucus (Saturday): Clinton
Most people are picking Oprah Obama in this one as he is leading in the polls with women voters and the fact that it is a caucus state. I am not convinced that he will win in a state that Clinton has made more appearances and paid more attention to it's 96 delegate bounty.

Maine caucus (Sunday): Obama
Barack may shock the world in a state that Clinton should win with an easy margin. Polls put Clinton in the lead and her established credit make it an easy win for her. I am not convinced that she can win a caucus without Latino voters.

Washington, D.C. primary (Tuesday): Obama
This is way too easy to pick. Think about it.

Maryland primary (Tuesday): Obama
This one is also almost too easy. Maryland has wealthy suburbanites, liberals, and college students that are Oprah Obama's base. Maryland also has a significant base of African-American voters.

Virginia primary (Tuesday): Obama
Both Whitewater and Obama Winfrey are pushing this state hard. There will be a lot of money dumped into TV ads and running all over the state to pick off many of the 101 delegates that are up for grabs. The governor has put his hat with Obama. Clinton will be strong in everywhere except Northern Virginia, Richmond, and Tidewater, which unfortunately is the heaviest voting block in the state. Despite her connections and money, without the Golden Crescent vote in her favor, Whitewater Hillary will lose in a close vote.

Why is Oprah Obama Winfrey Smiling?

If you had asked me two weeks ago what the races for the Democratic and Republican nomination would look like this morning after what I was figuring would be a dramatic Super Tuesday, I would have told you that the Democratic race would be over and the Republican race would be too close to call. I would have stated with some glumness that Whitewater Hillary would be running away with the nomination and that the Big Three shysters of McCain, Romney, and Huckabee in a close race (with Huckabee nearing the end of the line). Instead, we wake up to find that Whitewater Hillary and Obama Winfrey preparing for a drawn out and expensive race. Oprah Obama won 13 states to Hillary's eight. The delegate count (a convoluted sinkhole of a system) extremely close. I had expected that Mrs. Clinton would break-away from Obama and go on a money and time cruise control. It did not happen. Now, Whitewater has had to dip into her own personal slush fund ($5 million) to assist her campaign slush fund. Nothing wrong with this move, but it signals trouble for her as she has cruised with money only from her campaign fund raising up to now. Clinton only raised $13 million this past month to Oprah Obama Winfrey's $32 million. When your opponent is raising more than twice as much money as you then you are sinking (or at least on the verge). Obama is surging now. His message is becoming clearer, more energizing, and more distinct from Hillary's. Obama is appealing to the true core of the Democratic party. He is showing himself as a semi-liberal Democrat and his opposite of the US position in Iraq resonates with his party. His message of the need for change is louder and clearer than Whitewater's murky centrist message that her husband rode so success in the last decade. The message is the key. Obama truly represents the prospect of a new order. Clinton's message is conveying an old message from 1992 as opposed to a much needed message for 2008. Her campaign tactics are the same as her husband's in 1992. I will expect a major change in her campaign team in the coming weeks when her desperate attempt to get $3 million in the next three days from her supporters fails.

You have to admire the political resiliency of John McCain. After a disaster of a campaign in 2000 and predictions of total humiliating failure in 2008 he is well on his way to the GOP nomination. Reports indicate that it will be impossible for Shyster Romney and Father Shyster Huckabee to catch him. I am not even sure McCain himself would have predicted this to happen. McCain is benefiting from what I will further call the Asterisk Effect. This phenomena occurs when the President has pissed everyone in his own party off (as well as everybody else in the country) to the point that any candidate that reminds the party of the President will be rolled by anyone who can sufficiently separate themselves from them. This is what is occurring for McCain now. He has positioned himself as a centrist moderate Republican versus the nearly insanely conservative candidates Romney and Huckabee. The party masses alienated by President Asterisk and not willing to jump party affiliation see McCain has a hew hope and are aligning with him. I am still not clear as to what Huckabee stands for beyond giving AK-47 rifles to the severely emotionally disturbed children who will never receive services under his reign in front of a schoolhouse. He appears as a "Joe Six Pack" Republican that was appealing when Asterisk was running in 2000. It appears to be working to a point...except when you look at the numbers. Huckabee won four states. One of them was West Virginia. He won that state with only 571 votes. Hardly a ringing victory. I actually feel a little sorry for Shyster Romney. Mitt was a centrist moderate Republican governor in the Mass. He then flip-flopped to look like a ultra conservative Republican just like Asterisk. I wonder if he had just stayed true to himself where he would be now. He has dumped $20 million of his own fortune to make himself look like a TV anchor talking head Republican only to see that his old message being rung by McCain to an easy victory for the GOP nomination. Harsh expensive lesson, but he really deserves it for not being true to his own political chops.

We have the home stretch coming up. Shyster McCain on cruise control and Oprah Obama surging and political gambling degenerates like myself are licking their wounds.

THE EVIL EMPIRE HAS FALLEN!!!!!!!!!

THE GIANTS WIN THE BOWL!!!
THE GIANTS WIN THE BOWL!!!
THE GIANTS WIN THE BOWL!!!
THE GIANTS WIN THE BOWL!!!

The Giants have shocked the world by coming back against the Evil Empire and winning the Super Bowl!!!!
Zoolander couldn't get it done when dynasty called and stripped to her panties. Peyton's little brother now has a name. How would have believed that Eli would win the Super Bowl (and be the MVP) let alone throw the game winning touchdown pass with less than a minute left. The Giants had a plan. The plan was to hold on to the ball as long as possible. Score when they could. Hit Zoolander consistently and hard. Don't give them the big play down field. Play perfectly. The Giants did not play perfectly, but well enough. I have never seen a team so able to execute their game plan against the Evil Empire so effectively in the last seven years let alone in the Bowl. Yet, the Giants did it. They did it well enough to clinch their fourth straight upset in the playoffs and winning probably the best Super Bowl in history. This is why the Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year. It was proven tonight. This is why they play the game. The team led by a coach that is lucky to still have his job after last season and the first two games of this season. The coach who looks like he has been on a bender for four years and now has alcohol related dementia is now holding the trophy that the Evil Empire believed that it was their destiny to hold. Coach Hoodie cemented himself in my mind and heart forever and forever as completely evil beyond the bar set by Satan by walking on to the field with one second left and walked into the tunnel with the rest of his drones before the game was officially over. The Patriots did not have enough people on defense initially to allow the Giants to run the kneel down. Pure classless. And people ask me why I hate the Patriots. The dream of the perfect season died tonight. I did not believe it would happen. I will admit that I did not believe that they could do it. I predicted a blow-out of Redskins-Broncos 56-10 proportions. I don't care. I am excited. Even giddy (which for me is incredible) that the dream is dead. The Dolphins can have their champagne and Mercury can do some more blow off a South Beach hooker's ass. I wish I was there just see it all. Though I imagine that an ambulance would need to be called to get the defibrillator out to revive half the team. Either way. Big party in New York and Miami. Chaos and doom in Boston. The world at least for one night is in order.

I Was About To Order A Cease Fire, But!!!!

I do not know what I will be writing about after tomorrow night. In more than twenty four hours the pro football season will be over and a new champion will be crowned. All season we have watched the schizotypal personality (or lack there of) of Coach Darth Hoodie. I have ranted endlessly taking shot after shot at Tom "Zoolander" Brady. We have witnessed the Patriots blow out teams on fast tracks throughout the fall and find ways to win games they should lose in the winter. We have endured the Evil Empire spying on their opponents and getting caught doing it. The only negative word we heard from and about Randy Moss was right before the conference championship game and it was a non-story in the end. The Patriots set record after record for offensive explosiveness. We have watched them accumulate a perfect record and a chance at history. We have never seen anything like it in NFL history. In the salary cap age, we have a team that has made all the right moves at all the right times in regards to who to sign, who to pay, who to let go, and who to play. We have seen a coach that everyone on the team appears to believe in no matter how insane he looks. He has made all the right moves and I do not believe that he has cheated every single game. Regardless of advantages the Patriots may have had they still have had to execute the plays on the field. They have gotten lucky on calls (even though I still think the refs were paid off by the Empire in Baltimore). It has been astonishing to watch. I do not think we will see anything like it again in any of our lifetimes. Let me be clear that I have disliked the Patriots since they won their first Super Bowl against the Rams. I have ranted on Tom Brady ever since he became a male model. This vinegar is not new. People have accused me of being jealous of Zoolander and the Empire and their success. No one can argue that four Bowl appearances in this decade makes the Patriots a modern day dynasty. My teams during the decade have fallen completely apart. The Falcons are now the worst NFL franchise. The Raiders are run by a man who has been literally dead for the last ten years. The 49ers spent themselves into oblivion like the Russians in the arms race during the Cold War. The situations with these teams leave very little room for hope that they can be turned around in the near future. As a fan of Atlanta city sports franchises I see things going down hill and years and years of futility ahead to go with the years of futility and heartbreak since 1995 (the Braves lone World Series in Atlanta). The Hawks are young and hopeless. The Thrashers are young and hopeless. The Braves are getting younger and more hopeless. So I do have reason to be bitter. However, this bitterness is based not on the futility of my teams. It is based on the futility of all the other teams to stop the Patriots and their drive towards dynasty status and possibly in 24 hours immortality. A teacher told me that you can not be angry at something that you do not care about. That is true in my anger towards the Patriots. They have rolled along giving their middle finger to the rest of sports and now they have done the close to impossible. I respect them, but that does not mean I have to like the Empire and not want them to fall. They could make history tomorrow and there is a part of me that actually was willing to call a truce with the Patriots for the sake of history. I was ready to write a post declaring a cease fire and supporting the Patriots going 19-0. I was really ready to do it. Then one thing happened: Bootgate.

Earlier during the paparazzi stage of the hype towards Sunday's crowning of the Evil Empire as immortal gods, we saw Tom Brady in a removable boot walking around New York City to his underwear modeling eating disordered girlfriend's apartment on TMZ. Then we saw more video with no boot. Then reports stating that Zoolander was hobbling, then reports of him walking with no issues. The Evil Empire acted exactly like their Cold War Reagan namesake, the Soviet Union, and provided us with propaganda and cloak and dagger antics in response to Tom's ankle, his being away from practices, and shaving. Then I remembered that the Patriots have listed Brady as questionable for the entire season. If Brady was "questionable" with injuries then Brittany is actually the better parent rather than K-Fed. This is what I expect from Coach Darth Hoodie who has done nothing but gives lies, half-lies, mini-lies, big lies, and white lies the entire season when questioned about anything. It is a closed fiefdom like North Korea, Cuba, China, and Russia. And that is what I can't deal with. With Bootgate I was reminded that the Patriots and their entire organization is ironically--Un-American. That is why I have to pull for their opponents because they must fall just like the Iron Curtain nearly twenty years ago.

My picks:
Patriots (-12) over Giants
The Patriots will be on a similar track as they were in the early fall and under the same weather conditions. One has to remember that all throughout the first part of the season when the Patriots were playing in good passing weather on fast turf they killed everybody by throwing the ball all over the field and they took no mercy on anyone. Now, they are playing after an extra week to prepare on a fast track and in ideal weather conditions. The Patriots also want to prove that their game at the end of the regular season was a fluke by destroying the Giants in front of the world. The Giants defensive line will not be able to pressure Zoolander consistently enough to throw him off his game. The Giants offense will likely be able to move the ball on the Patriots but will not consistently score enough touchdowns to keep pace. The game starts around 6:30 p.m. Eastern time and it will be over by around 8:00.
Over (57 points)
The Patriots on a fast track will score at least 38 points on the Giants secondary. They will throw the ball all over the field to all of it's weapons. The Giants might be able to shut down Moss, but they will not be able to shut down everyone else for the entire game. Too many weapons. The Giants have enough weapons to keep it interesting for the first hour and will get some cheap points after the game is well decided. I expect they will score at least twenty points.
Fox4NX Under (-130/85 blood pressure)
There will be no drama as the game comes down to the wire. It will be boring for the last two hours after Tom Petty loses a hip on stage at the halftime show. Not enough to get too excited about. Besides, I am on a ton of medication and pee every two hours. Not enough to beat the blood pressure spread.