Yankees – Fancy Boys Club

The MLB 2021 Season – A Pre Wrap-Up

August 27, 2021August 27, 2021by copperwriteLeave a Comment

A while back, toward the beginning of the baseball season when every team except the Pirates, Rockies, and Orioles thought they might have a chance to make it to the playoffs, I wrote two articles.

Article Uno was the before the season really got underway and I explained how this year might – note the word might – be one of the easiest on record to predict regarding who will make it to the World Series. I said the Yankees and the Dodgers. The Dodgers, were 5 games back as of last week and are now one-and-a-half games back, and are still the NL favorite as well as the only team sitting at a whopping 23% chance to win the whole she-bang. Oh, gross.

Let’s take a long look at that – in spite of the surprising Giants, the Dodgers are catching up quickly. Mostly it’s a strength-of-schedule issue. The Giants simply have a harder schedule down the stretch. The Giants have the desperate Padres 7x in the next month. The Padres have completely drained their ‘sure bet’ playoff appearance by completely sucking in July and August. July they went 11-14 and for August they are sitting at 8-10 with three games against the Dodgers coming up this week. I hope they pound the Dodgers but odds aren’t good. Plus, they have 3 more versus the Dodgers in September and a whopping 7 against the Giants.

They are so bad they picked up Jake Arrieta. That’s a sign things won’t be going well for them for the next 5 weeks. Naturally, Arrieta’s first game may be his only one. We all knew he’d suck, he did, and suddenly got a hamstring issue. I fixed the headline for MLB.

Of course MLB did their best to ignore my ‘fix’

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Comedy, Sports

Lace Them Up – The 2021 NHL Season Preview

January 11, 2021January 10, 2021by copperwriteLeave a Comment

Apparently the Zambonis have all been finally fixed and are able to smooth the ice so the NHL can begin their season January 13th. Luckily the 13^th is not a Friday, but it may as well be. Yeah I know, it’s not the Zambonis’ fault they haven’t started the season. It was NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s fault. Fine, it was COVID… or how best to navigate COVID. But, Bettman is such an awful commissioner he’s always the person to point at for NHL problems.

Last year, as you may recall it since the season just ended in the middle of September, the Tampa Bay Lightning took home Lord Stanley’s Cup. It’s so 2020 to have a team that never has any ice outside of its arena claim the Cup.

Yeah, I know. That was so last Fall. So who’s going to hoist the Cup this year… whenever the season ends given the specter of COVID? The season is slated for 56 games, roughly 2/3rds of a normal season. But for the NHL, 56 games is enough to determine who should make the playoffs and who shouldn’t since nearly every team makes the playoffs anyway. A full 16 out of 31 teams make the playoffs. Next year it’ll be a full 50% as the Seattle Kraken are coming. Damn it I love that name.

A side note: before we get into the deep chasms of ice and hand out predictions easier than a dirty carny hands out tainted sno-cones, we have a couple rule changes to go over.

Number 1 – Offsides is now determined to not occur until the offensive players last skate completely crosses the blue line. Ergo, if a skater’s foot is in the air, but still behind or above the line when the puck completely crosses the blue line, he is onside. I am dubbing this the “phantom foot” as I can envision a lot of extended time being allotted while the NHL replay monitors in Toronto spend minutes drinking Labatt’s and deciding if the foot was or wasn’t over as it hovers in frozen time threatening to cross it.

Number 2 – the Colorado Avalanche are allowed to play with an extra attacker the entire season.

Fine, the second one doesn’t exist. It should though. It’s only fair as their goalie situation is still as shaky as spring pond hockey. That’s the reason why they didn’t make it to the final and soundly whip that team from the south. Should I go on with my predictions? Isn’t that enough?

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Sports

The FBC live blog of the MLB’s Hell Day

September 30, 2020October 1, 2020by Michael GraceLeave a Comment

I have been looking forward to this day since it was announced. I wasn’t sure it would happen, but here we are. EIGHT PLAYOFF GAMES. It may never happen again, folks. So today, we’re going to do something stupid. A live blog from first pitch to last pitch of the eight game slate. Four teams, including two of our World Series champion picks… are on the chopping block. So, here is the plan, according to Indianapolis Coastal Time (aka Eastern time).

Game 1- Reds @ Braves 12pm
Game 2- Astros @ Twins 1pm
Game 1- Marlins @ Cubs 2pm
Game 2- White Sox @ Athletics 3pm
Game 2- Blue Jays @ Rays 4pm
Game 1- Cardinals @ Padres 5pm
Game 2- Yankees @ Indians 7pm
Game 1- Brewers @ Dodgers 10pm

And here… we… go…

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Sports, Uncategorized

The MLB’s Hot Stove League – The January Report

January 15, 2020January 12, 2020by copperwriteLeave a Comment

January’s come in with a select amount of subtlety, but in the MLB it’s been quite the wild whirling dervish of deals and free agent signings. Before I get to what individual team got and still needs, let’s take a trip around the horn and see where the big names landed like a big lake trout on a dish. Trout sounds so good right now.

Garret Cole. OK. Fine. I was wrong. Are you happy I admitted it? I thought for certain he was going to be an Angel, but neigh he decided to become a devil, AKA a Yankee. Curse you Cole!

Stephen Strasburg. I was correct, stuck with the Nationals. Bite me.

Anthony Rendon. The biggest stick in the free agent class went to the Angels. Now he’s paired with Mike Trout (which still sounds good BTW). Good golly that’ll be fun to watch!

Madison Bumgarner – I’m as giddy he didn’t go to the Twins as I am mad he went to the Diamondbacks. C’mon MadBum! Why those desert bums? Why?!

Hyu-Jin Ryu – Left baseball to start a Korean BBQ franchise called Ryu’s Ribs. OK. Fine. He signed with the Blue Jays. Canadians love Koreans, primarily due to the alliteration.

Didi Gregorius – And I was right. He went to the Phillies to re-join Joe Girardi… and to get a cheese steak.

Corey Kluber – once the ace of the Indians staff, he was traded to the Rangers for a sack of beads.

Eric Thames – not quite a huge deal as he signed a 1-year contract with the Nationals, but what’s significant is he is yet another player who doesn’t want to play for the Brew Crew… or he got tired of all that Usinger’s Sausage.

Tommy Pham – good news is the Tampa Rays traded him from a fan base whose median age is 80 to San Diego whose fan base is a youthful 77. Bad news? You have to be a Brown Shirt now, dude.

Rick Porcello – signed with the Mets. All of Boston breathed a huge sigh of relief, and ordered a pie.

Dallas Kuechel – former CY Young award winner who sat out most of last year signed with the White Sox. Fingers crossed he enjoys Sox Park, and deep dish pizza.

And who has yet to find a team?

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Sports, Uncategorized

The MLB Playoffs… and Joe Maddon is not Mike Ditka

October 2, 2019October 1, 2019by copperwriteLeave a Comment

I’m going to sprint through the baseball playoffs and sprinkle some ‘Maddon Moments’ in to explain, in my mind, what happened to Maddon and the Cubs, while using Ditka like he used Bears fans.

By the time you read this, the wild card games – October 1 and October 2 – may be over, or at least started. It doesn’t really matter much. Those four teams can douse themselves in all the champagne they want, but it’s pretty much a cheap victory. Put it this way, it’s the same kind of victory you get when you visit your elderly grandmother at her assisted living facility and win their corn hole tournament.

But before we dig into the wild card teams, let’s just take a look at the 2016-2019 Cubs vs the 1984-1987 Bears. If you look at their timelines, they are a tad similar. And you can argue both Maddon and Ditka can only deal with the hands they are dealt. True. Think of this like Texas Holdem. Ditka was holding the king and queen of hearts and staring at the ten, jack and ace of hearts face up on the table… and threw out the king ‘aka’ Wilbur Marshall. Maddon’s hand, while good, was an ace and a ten. Still a potentially winning hand, but could have been better. Cubs management bet high on a good, but ultimately bad hand.

OK, now let’s place a hand on the wild card teams – The Rays, the A’s, the Brewers, the Nats.

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