Jeff Ma, who joined Tout Wars for his first season of action, comes from ProTrade.com, which is a sports stock market website. He also happens to be the character that the movie "21" is based around. The movie "21" is based on the book, "Bringing Down the House," which is about six MIT graduates that go to Vegas and run the blackjack tables by counting cards. Kevin Spacey plays Kaiser Soze.
Next thing I hear is that Brandon Funston is actually just a robot with the supercomputer, Big Blue, telling him what to do.
By the way, here are the links to the Tout Wars standings! On these pages, you'll also find links to the rosters and transactions.Opening Day II: The Sequel After working a loooooong Opening Day that ended with Jake Peavy's excellent outing at Petco Park (seven scoreless innings, three hits, two RBI at the plate), I woke up at 8:30 this morning -- usually the time I leave for work. So I got in a little late, needless to say. I'll start you off with the predictions from a couple buddies about their teams:
Michael Fabiano used to be one of our Fantasy Football writers, now he pens columns for NFL.com. He's a Yankees fan: "While I am worried about their middle relief, the Yankees still bolster some exciting young arms and one of the top offensive attacks in baseball. I can also see the Bombers making a trade or two to improve their pitching if Ian Kennedy or Philip Hughes falter and/or Joba Chamberlain is thrust into the rotation. I'm not solid on Boston as the best team in the American League or the AL East (what Yankees fan is?) so I'll pick the Yanks to win 96 games and the division title. I'm afraid to pick them to win a postseason round based on their recent failures, but a World Championship will be in the cards if the right trades are made down the stretch."
And Reds fan Johnny Rosenstein, otherwise known as Johnny Roast-Beef, works in our newsroom: "It's really a shame my Reds have so much offense, but the pitching -- mostly middle relief -- sucks. It's nice that they added Francisco Cordero, but how will they get to him? With Kent Mercker? Pleaaaaazzze! Plus, please remind me how much of a great leader Junior is? Watching him strike out in the first inning of the opener, it was mentioned he has seven Opening Day homers -- all with the Mariners. I expect a 73-89 season, which might just keep them in the NL Central race until early September. ... I would also like to go on record that Flood (our former worker in the newsroom that made his predictions Monday) is obviously smokin' some wacky-tobackky and the Yanks will not make the playoffs."
Pros and Prose
So Ross and I were discussing some of the different baseball blogs in the known universe, and I came across this one at Humbug. (My favorite was this one from Score Bard a couple months ago.)
So here's my submission from this afternoon, about Bobby Kielty finally accepting his minor-league assignment ... Ahem ...
Bobby Kielty will now play for Pawtucket.
He thought of telling Boston to "Suck it."
Then he thought one day,
As he was swinging away,
"I'm Kielty -- I'm no Kirby Puckett!"
Dave Richard came up with a good one that I can't post too.
First Alstott retires officially, now Rocco's gone?
After hearing that the Rays declined Rocco Baldelli's option, making my favorite baseball player a free agent after this season, I said, "Maybe it's an April Fool's joke?"
To which Emack responded, "The Rays signing him to that contract in the first place was the April Fool's joke."
Then I ran over him with a car.
Fun with Links
Speaking of April Fool's jokes, Ross Devonport (my cube neighbor and workmate) has introduced me to the world of being "Rick Roll'd." For those apparently as out of the loop as myself, this is when you trick someone into clicking on a link, only to take them to a Rick Asten video, preferably of "Never Gonna Give You Up." So he got me on "Muppet Bloopers" just now, it's pretty darn good too. Please post links to some likewise good Rick Roll'd links so I can get him.
Speaking of fun links, I found this -- Playing For Peanuts -- it's a reality show that follows the South Georgia Peanuts, a minor league baseball team. They haven't shown which channels will be showing the shows yet, but you can sign up for the email list, which I did, and it'll let you know when and where it will air.