Life is complicated enough right now. COVID is nowhere near slowing down, mostly thanks to the minions who believe it’s a hoax. There are more than 150,000 people who would love to debate those residents of Idiocracy if they could but they can’t, as they died.
Now we have sports making a comeback… of sorts. In a quick breeze let’s rush through what’s up before we get into the nitty gritty dirt band of details for the NHL playoff system.
Sitting in her log cabin and throwing another log on the fire (although it’s June), a quarantined Taylor Swift looks out her window and sees, chiseled in stone, the all too famous monument which is the Mount Rushmore of current pop music. Swift sees her own face, and why wouldn’t she? She smiles as she thinks about all of her amazing accomplishments. Sure, her fans would say she may not have as many Grammys as she should, but the proof is in the proverbial pudding: Taylor Swift sells records.
As she looks at the other faces carved into rock, Swift cannot help but think of her relationship with every member on the mount. Next to her is Beyoncé, the undeniable queen of this century. Yet, the relationship between Taylor and the true Child of Destiny has never been contentious; truly, game has recognized game. To Beyoncé’s right is Drake, a person who has had a similar career arc to Swift. Each dominated their original genre until pop music had no choice but to give them the respect they deserved. Next to Drake is an interesting situation, as construction crews are fervently dynamiting Kanye West’s face off this hallowed monument.
Taylor allows herself a brief smile before turning away from her window, heading to her music room where her piano and guitar sat, and began to get to work.
There seems to be a prerequisite in Major League Baseball, where the commisioner needs to be worse than the previous man in charge. Peter Ueberroth colluded with owners (notably White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf) to suppress the amount of money players could get in free agency. Bart Giammati died 154 days into his tenure (the William Henry Harrison of baseball). Fay Vincent let the owners lock out the players. Bud Selig made All Star games count (not in a good way), let noted skin flint Jeffrey Loria ruin baseball in Montreal, get paid for the honor, only to see him buy the Marlins and do it all over again. He also helped ruin baseball for years with the 1994 strike and then turned a blind eye to steroid abuse when the money started flowing again.
It was a lazy July evening, one not without the typical musings and trappings of summers gone by. The fireflies were gesticulating their way to an early grave. The yearly rite of this year’s asphalt patches melting, then oozing down gravity’s rainbow. I had received a letter from a reader who wished to remain anonymous. She then slipped up and signed Agnes Cartwright at the bottom. The letter contained a vision she had been blessed with earlier in the week, shortly after elderly and compromised immunity shopping hours. The lady Cartwright believed she had seen star of stage and screen Greg Kinnear shopping for groceries. Central Indiana’s favorite investigative reporter was on the case.
I don’t know how young the readership is for our site. Sometimes I slip into a realm of understanding that everyone alive has experienced the things that I have, and I could not be further from fact. Around the turn of the century, the late Regis Philbin was the hostof Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, a quiz show that was such a phenomenon that it seemed to permeate everyday life. In the year of our lord 1999, the only thing bigger than Millionaire was the impending apocalypse when the new year arrived. The reason the show was the cultural touchstone that it became was because of the stakes, the production of the show, and most of all, its charismatic host. We lost Regis, a true icon of Millennial adolescence, on Saturday at the age of 88.
Every year, around late-March, I write up my postseason predictions for MLB on a legal pad and tape it to my cubicle wall. I did it this year, too. Then, well, you know. For like 8 years, I guessed that the Nationals would win it all, because frankly it made sense. Then I stopped doing that and believed too much in a Cubs resurgence. Then the Nationals won the Series. So lets just put as much value as possible into what I’m about to predict. If I’m right, I will spend the rest of my life angry that I didn’t put money on this result.
We have come to the end of the regular season predictions. Monday, I predicted the Easts. Yesterday, I went after the Centrals. If one thing is clear, its that these are for Houston and Los Angeles to lose. In a normal year, they should probably have their divisions wrapped up by mid-September. Much like the other four, these two will go into the last few games with titles and playoff spots on the line.
Yesterday, I started the pandemic season preview with the easiest divisions- the East. I feel very comfortable with those picks. As for today’s task, well, it won’t be as easy. Sure, I could pencil in the Twins and Cardinals and call it a day. But that’s boring. What about the old guard Cubs and Indians? Or the upstart Reds and White Sox? Or the pesky Brewers? There are other teams, I’m sure, because I have to predict ten. We’ll see who they are after the jump.
Last week, right before their team fell into a sexual harassment fueled chaos, the Washington professional football team announced they would be changing their team name. Owner and noted C.H.U.D. Daniel Snyder said that a group within the organization had determined that was the best thing for the organization. This is, of course, radioactive bullshit. They are changing the name because the team wants a new stadium on the site of the old RFK Stadium in Washington, DC proper. That stadium is considered a historical site, and the city wouldn’t give it to him to build a new stadium unless he changed the team name. There’s always a reason assholes try to make themselves look “not so assholey.” This will not be the only time the government has had to step in to make this team do the right thing. More on that in a minute.
So let’s just suppose that the MLB season actually happens. All 30 teams play all 60 games and there’s a postseason and everything. While I may be skeptical that we will get all the way to a World Series, it’s fun to think about something beyond the existential terror of everyday life in 2020. So, for now, let’s talk baseball.
We start with the two Eastern Divisions, which include the two most recent World Series champions, Boston (’18) and Washington (’19). Due to limitations in travel, these teams will not leave their Eastern bubble until the postseason- 40 games against in-division opponents, 20 games against opponents from the same division in the other league. Remember as you read my predictions, that no matter how much I know about baseball, this will be wrong.
Fancy Boys Club 