Vo's All-Star break offering
Written by TiVo on July 11, 2006
OK, I'll bite.
I'm writing again for Rotogods.com, which is awful similar to having a relationship with a 6 on the Junky-Stebbones Rating Scale. She's not the greatest, but you like her fine when you're around her. She makes you laugh, but she ain't the prettiest thing to look at, or something you necessarily want to brag about. And best of all, she'll always be there whenever you want to stop by for a quick visit.
I don't know if recasting ourselves as a blog is necessary, since our content and attitude was always kind of blog-ish anyway, but you don't care about that administrative shit. So let's get on with the All-Star Break offering:
F--K A SENIOR CIRCUIT
Much was made of the AL's interleague dominance of the NL this season, and for good reason. Interleague got the Red Sox streaking, the Mariners and Twins out of the dumps and even the Royals out of the worst team in baseball distinction, which now belongs to all-star host Pittsburgh.
Paul White of USA Today writes about strong and weak second-half schedules here, but what piques my interest more is the battle for the AL wild-card. The Toronto Blue Jays (49-39) are third-place in the AL East, behind the Red Sox and Yankees, but would be leading the AL West, NL Central and NL West. The Twins, third in the AL Central, are eight games over .500 but 11 games out of first, where the Tigers (59-29) lead the Chicago White Sox by two games.
And just to show you how sick the Tigers' first-half record is, let's say they manage to play only .500 ball in the 74 games after the All-Star break. That 37-37 would give them 96 wins, a total which would have won four of the six divisions last season and at least placed them in line for a wild card.
MATRIX PEEK
The standings at the midpoint in the Rotogods' 7x5 roto baseball league:
1. Mauer Power 114 (Junky)
2. David Whore Tease 112 (Timberlake)
3. Project FoolVo 90
4. Moet Chonedon 84 (Doc)
5. Large Sack o' Turds 78.5 (Worm)
6. NYC Drunkards 77.5 (Tendah)
7. Meh Team 75.5 (Fadda)
8. I Smell Feet 74 (Ape)
9. Sucky Neau Mor 70.5 (Xach)
10. Ricky being Ricky 63
11. ____________________ 53 (Beagle)
12. ImGonnaGet U Loducah 44 (El)
I'm not sure what that's an illustration of, the fact that the team-naming skills we gave so much praise to in March have bottomed out, or that El Amin sucks quite a bit of ass, but it does answer one question.
A team can be co-owned with some success. Project FoolVo, in which I added baseball geek The Fool to the front office of my floundering Matrix franchise, topped out at 101 points in June and has held steady in the top three for a month or so after three early weeks in 12th.
Co-managing does have it's drawbacks -- the occasional trade you didn't approve, add/drop that costs your roster a player you like or late lineup change that undermines your earlier lineup change -- but not being territorial about the team has actually allowed me to check my impulses at the door and trust someone else's wisdom, even when I don't agree. And trust me, The Fool and I live to disagree.
We'll see how it pans out, but right now I'd be collecting on head-to-head bets with Worm, Xach, Beagle and El Amin. I guess I picked the right people to challenge, as three of those four are in the bottom four.
I actually think we're leading a pair of teams that are better than ours, not to mention trailing a pair. Timberlake and Junky are setting up for a nice second-half battle.
DAILY BOARD WISDOM
World Cup goat Zinedine Zidane, besides being a candidate for the Brother B All-Name team, is our topic of discussion from Monday:
Father Time: I wonder what dude said to Zidane to provoke him.
"Don't got it tonight, old man. But your wife sure got it from me last night..."
Ape: Yeah, it must've been something bad. Is Zidane a muslim? I know he's from Algeria. Maybe Materazzi insulted Alah. [sic]
In any event, seems like Zidane could have held off and then punched dude after the game, but whatever.
TiVo: That's the bottom line. Nothing would hurt dude more than beating him in the World Cup final.
There's no excuse for losing your cool, just none at that point in the game/World Cup. You absolutely have to know better, even instantaneously.
That said, dude is a known hothead, and that was one of the most effective headbutts I've ever seen, pre-staged wrestling matches included.
The video of the headbutt, courtesy of iFilm.
RECOMMENDED READING
Almost finished this offering and still bored as fuck?
I don't sit around on my ass much and read stuff on the computer, but ... Well, wait, I do, actually, but usually it's on a for-pay basis. When I am messing around reading blogs that I don't write for, Straight Bangin is quickly becoming a favorite.
And good thing I saw it today. Reminded me that the lost Chappelle's Show episodes had begun to air. There's something there for you too Fadda, entitled "And all I got was this stupid Nazr Mohammed."
I WOKE UP THIS MORNING AND ...
Allen Iverson was not on the Celtics!
WEDNESDAY HOLIDAY
I don't know if the WNBA messes it up this year or what, but I always like to acknowledge the day after the MLB All-Star Game as the lone day in American Sports with nothing meaningful and live going on. Hey, that'll be the case even if the WNBA has games!
Too easy, huh?
As for the Rotogods, we'll be around. No promises, except to say that we aren't folding.
Be cool.
Reach TiVo by e-mail at (duh) TiVo@rotogods.com. Check out his musical musings at AllThangsFunky.blogspot.com.
Coming soon: Love/Hate at the half, more wild clips on tha 'net.
