As is presumably understandable for those who know me, this is the most excited I’ve been about the MLB postseason in probably my entire life. That of course leaves a lot of room for disappointment, something that’s definitely not unfamiliar to me (as I’ve written before). Nonetheless, I’m sticking with my original pick of the Cubs making it an even century between World Series wins this year. But before the playoffs begin, I’d like to reflect upon my predictions briefly as they relate to the actual standings at season’s end before making some new predictions for the playoffs.

I was pretty close on the Senior Circuit, picking 3 of the 4 playoff teams correctly. I thought Joe Torre would give the Dodgers enough of a bump to make the playoffs in a weak division, and he did—although Manny Ramirez certainly helped as well. In the Central, I had it going down to the Cubs and Brew Crew, giving the nod to the latter (probably as an attempt to overcompensate for my inherent bias). I didn’t think it possible for the Mets to blow their division for the second year in a row (and for the Phillies to be the benefactors twice in a row, too), but sure enough, that’s where we’re at.

My Junior Circuit picks were much further off. I certainly wasn’t alone in thinking that Seattle would dominate the AL West, but that just means I have plenty of company in being as far off as possible. The Angels, instead, dominated the West and ended up with the best record in all of baseball, although it’s quite inflated due to the other three horrible teams in their division (look at the large discrepancy between actual W-L record and expected W-L record). My Central division choices were almost completely upside-down, but I must say I’m really happy for my friends who are White Sox fans that their team got in—not to mention how cool it is that this is the first time since 1906 that both Chicago teams will play in the postseason, giving us the chance for an El Train Series (although I don’t think that will happen). In the East, I gave too much credit to the arrival of a new skipper in the Bronx, discredited the Red Sox with thoughts of a World Series hangover, and wrote off the Rays along with everybody else.

So I ended up with only 3 of the 8 playoff teams picked correctly, which is no better than I did in 2007. Hopefully I can repeat my redemption from last year by calling the playoffs correctly again now that we know who the participants will be. (Allow me to preemptively apologize to my two regular readers who are named Mark and root for a team called the Sox…)

NL Playoffs

• NLDS: vs.
  I honestly think that the Cubs will continue to be the cream of the crop in the National League. Despite their hot bats, the Dodgers will be facing three consecutive ace pitchers, any of whom could be the #1 starter. I don’t think the Dodgers’ bats are hot enough to handle the Cubs’ rotation (not to mention their bullpen). Conversely, I think the Cubs can out-hit the best ERA in the NL. (Cubs in 3)
• NLDS: vs.
  I think the Phillies are looking to bounce back from last year’s disappointment (as are the Cubs), and the Brewers are happy enough to have broken their 26-year postseason drought. The Brewers will win at least one game, just because they get to put C.C. Sabathia on the mound at least once more this season, but I think that’ll be about it. (Phillies in 4)
• NLCS: vs.
  This will be a matchup of the two best records in the National League, and the games should reflect it. It’ll be a back-and-forth, hard-fought series, but with no curses or flukes or jinxes or any other bullshit involved, the Cubs will win their first pennant since 1945. (Cubs in 6)

AL Playoffs

• ALDS: vs.
  Will just making their first postseason in franchise history be enough to content Tampa Bay? I think so, but I don’t think the White Sox have enough talent to spoil it for them, although they’ll put up a good fight. (Rays in 5)
• ALDS: vs.
  All streaks come to an end, and it’s probably time for Boston’s postseason dominance of the Angels to dry up. I don’t think they’ll be able to overcome injuries to Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett enough to be able to stop the best record in the American League (although, as I mentioned, I believe the Angels’ record to be artificially inflated). Just as in 2005, the Sox will bow out early in their bid to repeat as champs. (Angels in 4)
• ALCS: vs.
  This may be the least-watched LCS ever, but it might be a pretty good one. I think the average game will be about 17-14, as there’s a lot of power in these two lineups (although there’s a lot of good pitching represented by these two teams, as well—particularly Tampa—so I could be wrong on that). Experience will win out, though, and the Rays can still consider the season a resounding success even without a title, so they’ll go quietly. (Angels in 5)

World Series
vs.

In a matchup of the two best records in baseball, we should get all you could hope for from a World Series: plenty of good pitching, good fielding, and lots of offensive power. I know it’s lame to pick your own team to win, but I really think that this is going to be their year, so I’m sticking with the Cubs in a hard-fought series. I’ll allow myself to get a bit romantic and say that they’ll be able to win it at Wrigley. (Cubs in 5)

There are some great opportunities for quality matchups this postseason, not to mention some really cool would-be World Series matchups: the aforementioned all-Chicago battle; the potential for the WS to be played at the two oldest ballparks in MLB (Wrigley and Fenway); the chance for a small-market team (Milwaukee or Tampa Bay) to crash the party. Hopefully it lives up to expectations.

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I would put the over/under on Cubs games that I watch each season at about 130, and the amount that I listen to on the radio (be it via XM or MLB.TV’s audio streams) right around 25. I don’t think I’m exaggerating to put my level of team-following at 95%; I’m a pretty big fan, and don’t miss many games, especially in a year like the one they’re currently having, which is not only one of the best during my lifetime, but one of their best ever.

I used to think that being this devoted to following a team was tough while living in Champaign, an area that is not really in the Chicago market but is at least close enough to get the Chicago channels. When we decided to move to California, I somewhat erroneously thought that all I would have to do to keep up my rate of game-watching was to get the MLB Extra Innings package along with my return to DirecTV that was made a necessity due to their monopoly on the NFL Sunday Ticket offering and my unwillingness to miss Bears games.

The most unfortunate part of returning to DirecTV—indeed, the reason I did not stick with them when moving to HD in the first place—is their terrible DVR software. After using it for about 3 months now, I think it may be even worse than the Insight/Comcast DVR that I used to put up with. One of the many frustrating things about it is that it will sometimes arbitrarily decide that a game should be blacked out for me, in some cases even after I’ve watched half of it. MLB’s blackout rules are infuriating enough without needing to be made worse by an overzealous adherence to them on the part of poorly-written software.

The single worst (and most unique) example of this came yesterday. As a result of Hurrican Ike ravishing the Houston area, the Cubs’ series with the Astros was moved to a “neutral site” in Milwaukee (at the park that Cubs fans affectionately refer to as “Wrigley North”—admittedly not the most neutral of options). Before going to a Sunday afternoon movie, I verified that my MLB package would get me the rescheduled game and that my DVR was intending to record it. After returning from the movie, when attempting to view the game—I prefer to be able to fast-forward through the commercials, so I watch most games slightly after the fact—I found this:

For some reason, DirecTV and my DVR had decided that this game was a pay-per-view event (albeit with a price of $0.00). It had recorded it anyway, thankfully, or so it appeared. When attempting to watch the game, all I got was this:

Unfortunately this is something I’ve contended with multiple times this season, usually the result of the stupid blackout rules (although thankfully such occurrences are few and far between). This particular occasion was made all the more upsetting, of course, by the significance of this particular game, in which my favorite player, the ace of the Cubs pitching staff, threw his first no-hitter—something I’ve been anxiously awaiting for the past few seasons, as Carlos Zambrano has shown no-hit stuff multiple times in recent years. Could anything be more frustrating for a sports fan?

Not wanting to repeat the experience, I listened to today’s game while at work, and was almost treated to an echoing performance from Ted Lilly. Not relying on my satellite service or their DVR software at all seems like the only reliable way to not be disappointed and angered by them.

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The past month has been really busy for me at work, so I’ve gotten quite behind with the movie reviews and everything else 1000 Monkeys-related. With the NFL season finally starting, though, I find myself unable to combat the desire to take the time to lay down some predictions for the upcoming year. Last year I fared pretty poorly, so I’ve only got room to improve this year. So here are my calls for each division (teams in bold make the playoffs). Note that unlike last year, I did not take the time to actually go through and pick every game, so the win/loss totals might not exactly add up in a way that’s consistent with the overall schedule.

North	South
Pittsburgh 12-4	Indianapolis 12-4
Cleveland 10-6	Jacksonville 11-5
Baltimore 7-9	Tennessee 7-9
Cincinnati 4-12	Houston 5-11
West	East
San Diego 14-2	New England 13-3
Denver 10-6	Miami 7-9
Oakland 9-7	Buffalo 7-9
Kansas City 2-14	New York 3-13
North	South
Minnesota 11-5	New Orleans 12-4
Detroit 10-6	Carolina 7-9
Chicago 6-10	Tampa Bay 6-10
Green Bay 4-12	Atlanta 1-15
West	East
Seattle 10-6	Philadelphia 13-3
San Francisco 9-7	Dallas 11-5
Arizona 9-7	New York 9-7
Saint Louis 8-8	Washington 2-14

And here are my predictions for the playoffs (winners in bold):

Indianapolis Cleveland
	San Diego Indianapolis
		San Diego Pittsburgh
	New England Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh Jacksonville
Wild Card	Divisional Playoffs	Conference Championships		San Diego New Orleans
Minnesota Detroit
	Philadelphia Minnesota
		Philadelphia New Orleans
	New Orleans Seattle
Seattle Dallas

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Allow me to add to Mark’s rants about Fox Sports and their idiotic monopoly on Saturday daytime baseball broadcasts, and the idiocy of MLB that allows for it. Due to their agreed-upon blackout rules, I’m faced with another Saturday of not being able to watch my favorite team, despite the fact that I pay DirecTV over $200 per season in order to be able to do so.

Succinctly put on DirecTV’s explanation page, the policy goes as follows: “For every Saturday of the regular season, the FOX Television Network has the exclusive national rights to broadcast games up until 7:00pm ET (4:00pm PT).”

The reasoning behind this is pretty apparent: Fox wants to have the exclusive attention of any would-be Saturday-afternoon baseball fans, to maximize their advertising reach. I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that this alone is completely stupid; I would say that I watch commercials less than 10% of the time I spend watching TV—and I watch a lot of TV. But it gets worse when you consider that there are other games that take place before 7:00pm ET on Saturdays that Fox makes no effort to broadcast, leaving fans with no options.

For example, today the Cubs-Pirates game started at 10:05am (this is a west coast phenomenon that I’m still getting used to, by the way, but find myself liking for the most part: I can get up, watch the game—if I’m actually able to get it, that is—and then have the entire rest of the day available, which is pretty nice). The Angles-Yankees game, which Fox is going to be broadcasting nationwide, will begin at 12:55pm. This means that it is extremely likely that the Cubs game will be over before the first pitch of the Yankees game has even been thrown. And yet, the “exclusivity” agreement means that the Cubs game is blacked out for everybody outside of the Chicago and Pittsburgh markets. It’s no wonder why so many people simply subscribe to DirecTV and then lie about moving to their market of choice. Not only does it save them the money of having to purchase the MLB Extra Innings package in order to follow their favorite team in the first place, but it also avoids these stupid blackout situations altogether. (The same reasoning goes, of course, for all of the other sports as well.)

It’s worth noting that ESPN has a similar agreement with MLB for their Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts. The major difference, though, is that there are no other games on Sunday nights. It could be said that days like today are the fault of the Cubs for scheduling a day game on a day when Fox’s blackout rules will be in effect, but why should Fox be allowed to dictate the entire league’s schedules, in the name of their greedy advertising bottom line?

I don’t think there’s any point where this will become an overstated sentiment: Fox Sports sucks. I’ve complained about it before, and I’m sure I’ll do so again.

UPDATE: A decent solution that I forgot to mention is to just leave the house and listen to the game in the car, which is what I ended up doing (we had somewhere to go anyway). XM includes every Major League game, with no blackouts, as part of their standard service. It’s not the same as watching it on TV, but Pat and Ron are always enjoyable, and it’s definitely better than sitting at home cursing Fox while staring at a blank screen showing error code 727.

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In case you don’t keep up with football in general or the story of Brett Favre specifically, let me bring you up to speed on the past few years in his career

• After a terrible 2005 season (his 15th), in which he threw 20 touchdowns and 29 interceptions and ranked 31st in the NFL among QBs, speculation ran high that Favre would retire, having just spent the past year demonstrating that he no longer “had it.” The media (and by “media,” I mean “SportsCenter”) focused on the question of whether or not Favre would retire incessantly, until he ended the “suspense” (and by “suspense” I mean “annoyingly repetitive coverage of something that is a binary event and does not require updates unless its status changes”) by announcing in late April of 2006 that he would return the following year.
• After the last game of the mediocre 2006 season, in which his Packers defeated the rival Bears on New Year’s Eve in Chicago, Favre cried like a little girl on national television while reflecting on the career he’d had. Most people took this as a sign that he was intending to retire.
• During the offseason, having not yet officially announced his retirement, Favre criticized his team for failing to sign Randy Moss, who instead went to the New England Patriots and proceeded to set a single-season record for touchdown receptions in 2007. Most had assumed that Favre would be willing to come back to play for another season if his team got him a marquee receiver to throw to; since they didn’t do that, the assumption followed that he would finally retire rather than return again and have another mediocre season.
• Not one to give up easily, Favre returned to the packers for a 17th season. He proceeded to set NFL records for most career wins as a starting QB, most career TD passes, most career passing yards, most career pass completions and attempts, most career games with 3+ TD passes, and most career interceptions.
• He proceeded to lead the Packers to a resurgent 13-3 season, making it to the NFC Championship Game, which they hosted in Green Bay. This game ended with Favre throwing an interception in overtime on a retardedly risky pass attempt, thus ending his team’s season. The media tend to regard such passes as “youthful exuberance and love of the game,” whereas people who respect smart decision-making from their quarterback regard them as “idiocy.” (This can also be regarded as exhibit #43,082 in the case of Me vs. The Sports Media, in which I prove how embarrassingly biased they are in their portrayals of players; see, for instance, the contrast between “Good Rex and Bad Rex” or “Youthful Brett and His Love For the Game”—both are ways to spin what could more accurately be described as “occasionally interception-prone” or “decision challenged”).
• Finally, in March of 2008, Favre announced his retirement, crying about it yet again. Emotional, unrealistic Packers fans who didn’t realize how much he was holding their franchise back were sad, while the sports media (again, SportsCenter) took it as an excuse to create 17 different montages that they could replay constantly as filler during that boring period of the year after March Madness ends and during the first month of the baseball season. Sane people saw it as a good way to go out, ending a legendary career with a good season. I liked to focus on the fact that his career ended—fittingly—with an interception, but I realize that I’m in the minority.

You’d think that might be the end of the tale, but you’d be wrong. Poor Brett just can’t go an entire off-season without inviting some cameras into his Mississippi home for one of those somber interviews that SportsCenter loves to do, featuring that one Green Day ballad in the background and voice-overs that overstate Favre’s importance to the point where you almost find yourself believing that chucking a football around a field really is enough to dub a man “great” (but, hopefully, you catch yourself).

So now we have reports that Brett finds himself feeling “the itch,” and having the desire to unretire and play football yet again. The only problem is, the Packers have moved on. After grooming Aaron Rodgers to be the next starter for the past 3 seasons, now that Brett has retired they are ready to move ahead and hand over the reins. Favre’s idea, in response, is to request that the Packers release him so that he can play for some other team with less of an interest in building for their future and more of an interest in stroking his ego and capitalizing on selling #4 jerseys for a season so that they can get the publicity of hosting his next retirement press conference, where he will undoubtedly cry yet again.

Adding even more excuse for additional coverage of this circus, the Packers are refusing to release Favre, for fear that he’ll sign with a division rival (the Bears and Vikings have both been suggested as likely candidates) only to exact revenge on his former team on the field in 2008, resulting in more bad press for them. So what will be the outcome? Personally I’m rooting, as I’ve rooted during every off-season for the past decade and a half, for Favre’s ACL to spontaneously explode and make all of this a moot point. He’s slated to be on the cover of Madden 2009, after all, and people always need more reason to believe in “curses.”

Or maybe old Brett will just give up and go away, and spare us all from having to see him cry anymore, and end the ridiculous amount of empty, pointless coverage that his ego requires. Maybe. But don’t count on it.

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I generally make it a point to see at least one or two Cubs games every year in person (it’s hard to afford any more than that). Last year I was even fortunate enough to attend the sole playoff game at Wrigley Field. With our recent move, I’ve found myself needing to get creative in order to follow my favorite teams. DirecTV with the MLB Extra Innings package helps, although due to MLB’s stupid blackout rules it can be frustrating at times. For live game experiences, though, one of the first things I checked when we decided to move was the Cubs’ schedule, to see when they would be traveling to San Francisco to play the Giants. They had a 4-game series at the start of this month, and Megan and I were able to attend the middle two of those games.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable time visiting AT&T Park, the Giants’ home since 2000. For the first game we went to (game 2 of the series), we drove to the ballpark and paid $30 to park. While exorbitant, the price was almost worth it for the walk around McCovey Cove from the parking lot to the ballpark.

The second night, we wizened up (and I left work earlier), and we took the BART downtown, the round-trip price for both of us adding up to less than half of what we’d paid to park the night before.

Thanks to the Giants having a poor season, we found great seats for both nights on StubHub for less than face value, and got to see a game from either side of the park.

The second game we went to (game 3 of the series) was a military servicemen appreciation night, and both teams wore special American flag-inspired hats, which they would continue wearing for the next several games, joined by the rest of MLB the following day and throughout the Fourth of July weekend. As part of this event (and general Fourth of July festivities), a fireworks show was scheduled for after the game. In another of those “welcome to the Bay Area” moments that we’ve been experiencing a lot since the move, there was unfortunately too much fog over the bay that night to really enjoy the show. They went ahead with it anyway, though, and we stayed along with a decent percentage of the crowd (many of them staying despite the fact that the home team had lost the game) to see as much of the show as was visible.

Like most baseball fans, I always enjoy having the opportunity to visit different ballparks, and it’s made all the more fun when I can see my favorite team playing there. It’s also made more convenient–which also contributes to the enjoyment of the experience–when the park is only a 10-minute drive (or 20-minute train ride) from where I live. I’ll surely make the Cubs-Giants series an annual event while living in the area. I’m planning on taking a visit to the other side of the bay next month, too, to see that “other team” from back home when they come to McAfee Coliseum to play the A’s.

On the way home from the fireworks display, we realized we’d forgotten to take the obligatory “here we are at the game” pictures, so we took a picture of ourselves riding the BART instead.

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Having moved from western Michigan to the suburbs of Chicago when I was 15, I went through a not all that reluctant transition as a sports fan. It was hard to not get Bulls hysteria during the mid-90s, and I’d always been at least as much of a Bears fan as I was the Lions fan my father’d tried to raise me to be, having been a very impressionable child in 1985, not to mention the fact that we lived approximately equidistant between Soldier Field and the Silverdome, and it was a no-brainer which one would give a young NFL fan the superior experience and memories. I even decided, prior to the start of this past NHL season, to officially forsake the Red Wings in favor of the Blackhawks; I hadn’t followed the NHL since the strike and the Blackhawks have some very promising young talent that I’ll be able to follow for several years (especially now that their home games are finally being broadcast). This turned out to be humorous timing, but I found that the playoffs are at least as fun to watch when rooting against the Red Wings as when rooting for them, anyway (they’re sort of the Yankees of hockey).

Baseball was a different story, though. The fact that there are two very distinct and separate leagues makes it not a big deal to have an “AL team” and an “NL team,” and that is what I did. I have very fond memories of summer afternoons spent watching WGN as a child: The Bozo Show in the morning, a rerun of The Incredible Hulk, then a Cubs game at 1:20. The fact that watching the Cubs did not conflict with rooting for the Tigers, as I was naturally raised to do, made it all the more enjoyable. As such, the Cubs are the only team I can truly say I’ve been a fan of my entire life, and I have WGN to thank for it.

Today, June 12, 2008, marked the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of a Cubs game on WGN, and both the station and the team chose to have fun with it. Being a sucker for tradition, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

For starters, the first couple of innings of the game were broadcast in black-and-white. Both teams wore throwback uniforms, a first-ever for Wrigley Field. WGN used “1948 camera angles” during these first couple of innings, simulating an era when only a few cameras were available to televise a game (as opposed to the dozens that are now common), and wide shots were how audiences watched most of the game. Going further with the theme, during the black-and-white innings no instant replays were shown, since the technology didn’t exist yet in 1948. I don’t know if they had teletype capabilities at all back then, but WGN did their best to give everything an old-school look in the font department, too.

The Cubs’ announcers, Bob Brenley and Len Casper, played their part by dressing as reporters would have in the 40s, with pinstripe suits, swanky vests, and fedoras. Not only did the channel use an old-time logo, but notice how they even went so far as to print new banners for the announcers’ booth, too.

The Wrigley Field announcer, Wayne Messmer, got into the act as well: in addition to dressing in 1940s attire himself, he also sat in the front row right behind home plate, as the stadium announcer would’ve done at the time. Also during the black-and-white-televised innings there were (presumably simulated) typewriter noises heard in the background, imitating the sound of a pressbox from the era.

In addition to the blocky font used, even the sponsor logos (such as this Pepsi one) were old-style:

Finally, throughout the game, pieces of old-school Cubs and baseball trivia were presented, still in that old-timey blocky font:

And after all of that fun, the Cubs went on to do what this 2008 team has done so many times already: win another game with a come-from-behind victory, another one at home (bringing them to a ridiculous 29-8 in the Friendly Confines so far this season), and enjoying a start to the season that’s better than that of 1948 or any other year before or since.

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A lot of people, when there’s a movie coming out that they’re excited to see, will mark the release on their calendars. Some will even take the day off for the occassion, catching an afternoon showing to be one of the first to see the highly-anticipated film and avoid the crowds that will inevitably be a factor in the evening. I myself have done this several times. I never expected my favorite baseball team to do the same, though…

The Cubs appear to be really excited about the imminent release of the new Indy movie, and I can’t say I blame them.

(Yes, I realize everybody’s favorite baseball team appears to have done this, since it’s an MLB-wide promotion and all of their schedules have Indy on them on 5/22. It just makes it particularly amusing since the Cubs happen to have that day off.)

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With another baseball season upon us, it’s time for more predictions. Hopefully I’m a little closer this year than I was last year.

The fact that this year will mark the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won a World Series makes it pretty hard for me to be unbiased, but I like their chances this year. I also like the idea of a rematch of that 1908 Series, and think there’s a decent chance it’ll happen. It should be a fun season.

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Douchechills: noun; 1: A sense of sympathetic embarrassment 2: That feeling you get when you’re ashamed to be associated with a group of people due to their actions

Since today is the last home game of the Illini basketball season, it’s time to talk about something that’s been going on at the games this year that was hopefully only a one-year occurrence during what I can only assume is an awkward transition period: although Chief Illiniwek was retired at the end of last season, the halftime ritual has not changed except for the deletion of his performance during it.

This wasn’t such a big deal during the football season, as in that case the marching band still takes the field at halftime, and watching them perform can be quite enjoyable whether there’s a dude dancing around in the middle of their formations or not. During the basketball halftimes, though, there’s nothing going on except for the pep band playing the familiar “Three in One” in their usual spot (behind one of the baselines). And yet, the vast majority of the people in the crowd act as if the Chief is still out on the court doing his dance. They call for him before the imaginary performance begins, and chant “Chiiieeeeeeefff” after it ends. Their cheers increase–in sync–at the point where he used to increase the intensity of his dance; many members of the crowd even let out an extremely inappropriate (and very embarrassing) “cowboys and Indians”-style ululation at this point.

When the nonexistent dance is over, everybody folds their arms across their chests, as the Chief used to do at the completion of his dance, as they stoically stand in a show of faux somberness. It gives me the douchechills every time.

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