Friday October 31, 2003
 

BLOG SPOTTING

NFL “EXPERTS” PICKS

VIKINGS THOUGHTS
 

SCARY THOUGHTS!

It’s Halloween! I hate Halloween! Is there a dumber “holiday” than Halloween? If so, please tell me because I need to know. Maybe I just don’t get it.

To celebrate the day, I thought I’d come up with a few Scary Thoughts. I hope you enjoy! If you have some “Scary Thoughts” of your own, be sure to send them to me, and maybe I’ll post them on Monday.

SETH’S SCARY THOUGHTS - Volume 1 (Entertainment)

1.)     Life without FRIENDS.  What will we do at the end of the year when Joey, Ross, Chandler, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel split up and leave us to find another Thursday night show. Sure, we’ll still get to see Joey, probably at the same time, but it will all be so different. After ten years together, it is scary to think of life after FRIENDS.

2.)     Is there anything on TV more scary than the acting on the Fox show, The OC? Sure, the ladies are attractive, so I’ll watch it. But, I just don’t know if I’ve ever seen a show with worse acting.

3.)     You want scary?  You should be the woman on Average Joe, a reality TV show with a twist, that premieres on NBC on Monday night. The woman gets to hang out with some men, but they are certainly not a fully attractive group of men. That poor lady. She has to be mad at NBC!

4.)     What would happen if Nelly and Nelly Furtado got married?  Would he take her last name?

SETH’S SCARY THOUGHTS - Volume 2 (SPORTS)

1.)     Twins Sign Manny Ramirez - OK, that’s not even funny and is too scary to even joke about! I’m sure you’ve read that the Boston Red Sox put All-Star OF Manny Ramirez on Irrevocable Waivers, meaning that if a team chooses to claim him, they get him, and the 5 years and $100 million remaining on his contract. Now, I’ve made my thoughts on Manny Ramirez known here a few times, but what could Ramirez do to the Twins? Provide the right-handed power hitter the Twins have needed. Be an intimidating force in the middle of the lineup. OR. Be a clubhouse cancer. Sulk. Play lackadaisically and bring down the whole team. My thoughts, the Twins need that type of hitter. Ramirez signed his excessive contract when the market was high. Free agents are getting less and less money now. Maybe the Twins could get Vlad Guerrero for 6 years for the $100 million. OK, I’m dreaming, but that’s fun! Much more fun than thinking about Manny Ramirez as a Twin!

2.)     The Twins have Scott Ullger as their hitting coach for another year. Scary, and very unfortunate. I was hoping they’d get rid of him and hire Paul Molitor, but that won’t happen. Last night the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that Paul Molitor was hired as the hitting coach of the Seattle Mariners. I’m sure he’ll do great with a veteran team there!

3.)     I hope that Denver Nuggets forward Nikoloz Tskitishvili doesn’t become a star. Thinking about needing to spell his name any more than I have to is very scary. That is even worse than Mark Grudzielanek, and most of the NHL players.

4.)     Scary for the players in the NBA - What if the NBA enforced a No-New-Tattoo rule!?

5.)     LEBRON JAMES - It is scary to think of just how good Lebron James will become! Last night, James and the Cavs visited the Phoenix Suns for the second game in two days. Coming off his debut performance the night before, James did not disappoint. Sure, the Cavaliers lost again, 95-86 to the Suns, but James played pretty well. James played 34 minutes, shot 8-17 from the field, 21 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists. Almost a triple-double! The only negative was his 7 turnovers. Carmelo Anthony will be pretty scarily good too. Last night, he played 37 minutes in the Nuggets 17 point loss to the Houston Rockets. He shot 5-14 from the field, scored 18 points and had 9 rebounds. He had 8 turnovers.

BLOG SPOTTING

I have been referenced by so many others on their web sites. I’d like to take a little time and mention a few other sites that I would encourage everyone to check out today, bookmark and check out every day. There are so many great baseball sites out there. I appreciate you stopping by my site today and hope you will continue to visit daily. But be sure to check out the below links as well as those on the left of this screen…

Alex Belth over at Bronx Banter, had a terrific posting yesterday where he was able to interview Pat Jordon. It is really great and entertaining, and I would recommend reading it to anyone (although, I should mention that their are some expletives in it). Here is the paragraph

Pat Jordan is from the Old School. He is not politically correct. He drinks booze and calls women broads, and frankly, doesn't care if you like it or not. He also writes in a clean, succinct style that is clearly old fashioned (God bless him). That may explain why you mainly see his work in The New York Times Magazine. Jordan was a bonus baby in the Braves organization in the late 1950’s. He was a promising young pitcher but never made it even close to the Majors. He later became a journalist, and a decade after his playing career ended, Jordan released “A False Spring,” a memoir about his baseball life (and death). “A False Spring” went on to become a minor classic. Less than ten years ago, Jordan wrote a follow-up memoir, “A Nice Tuesday,” in which he continued to examine what went wrong with his career as a jock. Jordan has also written several other sports books, as well as a thriller series, that according to the author, “isn’t so thrilling, but there is lots of sex and violence.”

Just to give you a few ideas of what you will find in the interview, he discusses a number of his books, a couple of which are baseball related. He discusses his jobs and some articles he wrote for Sports Illustrated. His step-daughter is Meg Ryan, so there is some talk about her. He has a great story of playing minor league ball with Joe Torre. He talks a lot, and very candidly about the Yankees current roster. He isn’t all positive either. His honesty is refreshing. It’s fun to read someone who isn’t afraid to badmouth a few players that never get badmouthed. Again, I just think it’s a great read.

Michael Labuda is in our Expert FB Panel. He has returned to posting over at ChiSox Daily. He hadn’t posted for almost two weeks. He had a pretty good excuse for not writing… his wife delivered their first child last week. He came back with a great post regarding Frank Thomas deciding to pick up his $6 million option for next season. The way Michael discusses it really puts it into the right light. I think Thomas is smart to pick up his option. The total value of his option for next season, and then another option for the following season is probably equal to, if not more than, what he would get on the open market.

Will Carroll writes this today, something I’m sure all Twins fans hope to be truth:

Pardon me for gloating today, but by Frank re-upping with the Sox it virtually guarantees that they'll be non-contenders again in '04.

A site that I just recently became aware of is now one of my favorites. Wait ‘Til Next Year is a site written by Bryan Smith. Bryan has now started a series of postings that he calls “Organizational Meetings.” As baseball writers/bloggers, our ‘job’ is to speculate on our favorite teams or players. In these postings, he asks 8-10 questions, relevant to a specific team, and has a blogger or two who writes about that team answer them in detail. Then he writes his thoughts on the same question. Thusfar, he has had “meetings” with bloggers of the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees. That’s just two out of 30 organizations, so this is a site I will be visiting the entire offseason, and would encourage you to as well!

The best Twins-related site in my mind is Aaron’s Baseball Blog. Aaron Gleeman, another member of our FB Picking Panel, does a great job finding and analyzing some incredible and fascinating statistics, and then is a very good writer and presents all of this information in a clear, entertaining way. Today, Aaron writes about the Manny Ramirez situation in Boston. Yesterday, he discussed some 6-year minor league free agents that could provide some positives to the right major league team, at a minimal salary.

Manny Ramirez to the Devil Rays?  Check out the posting by another FB Pick Panelist, Ben Jacobs at the Universal Baseball Blog site. He details exactly why this may not be such a far-fetched idea. Definitely worth the read!

Another great Twins site is the Twins Geek. He too discusses the Manny Ramirez situation. While you’re there, be sure to also check out the Wolves Geek, where you’ll find a preview of tonight’s game against the New Jersey Nets on ESPN, and the newly developed Vikes Geek site, where you will find a preview of Sunday night’s Packers game, also on ESPN.

MANNY RAMIREZ SITUATION - Quickly, here are my thoughts on Manny Ramirez being put on Irrevocable Waivers by the Red Sox. I’m no fan of Manny Ramirez. I acknowledge that he is a great hitter. But, he has proven to be a bad outfielder and a bad clubhouse guy. If he wasn’t, the Red Sox would not be essentially letting him go for nothing. That said, no one will claim him before tonight’s midnight deadline (in my opinion), and he will remain with the Sox, for now. There was some early speculation that the Yankees might claim him. Why would they at this point?  That would be dumb. First, he is no better than either Gary Sheffield or Vladmir Guerrero, and they are free agents and will be cheaper than Manny Ramirez, and the Yankees will get one of them. I think Theo Epstein is brilliant for doing this though. What if the Yankees or Mets or another team claim Manny? Now the Red Sox have $100 million (over the next 5 years) to work with, and Epstein will be able to do a lot of good with it. Maybe they will be the team that will then sign Sheffield or Guerrero to replace him. The downside? Well, what if no one claims him, and then Theo is unable to trade him. Now you’ve got an even worse clubhouse situation next season.
 

NFL “EXPERT” PICKS

Week 9. With the completion of this week’s games, we will be past the one-half point in the season. Ben Jacobs has taken the lead so far among our experts, but Aaron Gleeman is on his heels. Here are our picks. Again, be sure to check back over the weekend and see how well we do. Be sure to check out the links to these people’s sites. They’re all good.

Summarization of our picks:

New Orleans @ Tampa Bay - Buccs 9-0

Jacksonville @ Baltimore - Baltimore 9-0

Carolina @ Houston - Panthers 9-0

San Diego @ Chicago - Bears 5-4

Washington @ Dallas - Cowboys 8-1

Oakland @ Detroit - Raiders 9-0

Indianapolis @ Miami - Dolphins 6-3

NY Giants @ NY Jets - Giants 6-3

Cincinnati @ Arizona - Bengals 8-1 (I never thoughts I’d type that!)

Pittsburgh @ Seattle - Seahawks 9-0

St. Louis @ San Francisco - Rams 8-1

Philadelphia @ Atlanta - Eagles 8-1

Green Bay @ Minnesota - Vikings 8-1

New England @ Denver - Patriots 5-4

Performers -

Top QB - Daunte Culpepper (3)

Top RB - Stephen Davis (4)

Top WR - Randy Moss, Marvin Harrison, Chad Johnson (2)
 

VIKINGS THOUGHTS

First things first, be sure to check out Tommy Kramer’s daughter, Cassie. She’s in the voting for Sports Illustrated Fresh Faces.

Sunday night prediction - Vikings 34, Packers 24.

Michael Bennett will be back. Mike Tice is claiming he will just get two or three carries for the game. My thought is that, if that’s all the carries he’ll get anyway, why not keep him inactive for one more week? Give him one additional week to heel and then bring him back. Oh well, it’ll be good to see him on the field again.

By the way, if you’re looking for a great site for great statistical analysis similar to those at Baseball Primer (but for football), be sure to check out Football Outsiders. It’s got everything you need!

Well, that is it for today. Here is the Minnesota athletics schedule for the weekend:

Vikings - at home vs. Green Bay, Sunday night, 7:30, ESPN

Wolves - Tonight, at New Jersey, 7:00, ESPN - Saturday night, home vs. Toronto, 7:00

Gopher Hockey - Tonight and Tomorrow nights, 7:05, at Mariucci vs Denver.

Gopher Football - They’re 7-2 so I won’t even mention that they’re 7-0 against really bad teams and 0-2 against good teams. Saturday, they play at 1 at home against Indiana, a really bad team, so they should win again.

Wild - Saturday night, 7:05, Home vs the Washington Capitals. My favorite name, Pascal Dupois is back!

E-mail me your thoughts on any of the above, or any questions or comments you would have for me. Thanks and have a great weekend. And yes, Happy Halloween!

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