Avoiding Work With Gage - 9/29

- Big news of the day: Pedro Martinez is out until next season. Well goddamn. I generally loathe New York teams with gigantic payrolls but this is dissapointing on a few levels. First, I've always been an NL guy and it just blows nuts that now there's not one single team worth a damn out there. Can we get commissioner Skeletor to just call off the NL playoffs all together? Plus, love him or hate him, Pedro is both really good and really entertaining. There's only a select few players who actually give good quote instead of "it was a hard fought game and I'm just proud to be a part of it."

- I just realized while typing that last paragraph that I have no team to root for in the playoffs. Jeeze, maybe I'll get on the A's bandwagon. I like the fact that I don't know enough about them to hate them.

- I think I believe TO's story. Almost.

- For those of you not paying attention, which should be most of you, the Reds are still only 2.5 games out of the NL central. There is no way that they win the thing but this is so typical of a really bizarre season. Mathematical elimination probably won't happen until the last day or two of the year thus keeping me hanging by a thread for an entire summer. Of course, if there was some miracle and they did get in I would probably have a stroke. Not sure which way to root.

- I'm starting to feel pretty good about the Reds chances next year. Harang and Arroyo are solid and inning eaters. Milton seems to give them a QS two-thirds of the time and Bailey coming up in June and be a complete stud seems more likely than not. Obviously the bullpen is still a nightmare, but when they have to pitch 4-5 innings a game that will happen. Grrrr I shouldn't even be saying this. Jinx jinx jinx.

- Two big football games this weekend. First, Purdue @ Notre Dame. God I would love to win this one. There's nothing quite like seeing the looks of dissapointment on ND fans faces. A group that consists of east-coast rich kids, catholics and bandwagon jerkoffs who don't know any better. Look, nobody thinks the Boilers (4-0, by the way) can compete. And they almost certainly have inferior talent, but there are two things in their favor:
1) The "nobody saw it coming" game. Pundits talked all preseason about how tough the Irish's September schedule was while always managing to forget to mention Purdue. We all know these players watch SportsCenter (lord knows they don't study) and don't like being treated like patsies. This might be their biggest game of the season.
2) The "letdown game." The Irish know they shouldn't have won that game last week. MSU decided to give it away and Christmas came early to South Bend. It hardly seems possible that they are going to be able to get completely hyped for this game.
That said, before the 2004 game (one of my favorite games ever) the Boilermakers hadn't won in South Bend in something like 30 years. Not an easy place to play.

- Then there's the Patriots @ Bengals game. Frankly, this one makes me real nervous. The Patriots are still the kind of team whow knows how to get enough done during the season to make the playoffs. And with the Bengals coming off a bigtime road victory last week they could come in and steal one. I'm not sure if Palmer was trying to lull the Steelers into a false sense of security with the 10 sacks and multiple fumbles last week, but I don't know if that's the best strategy for winning games. Oh yeah and SI put them on the cover. Fuckwads. I still like the Bengals to win, but I'd guess the Pats have a good chance of covering.

- Finally, I will be present at the Bengals game again this week, and I would like to solicit comments to yell at the the New England players. I could be really vile towards Corey Dillon, but I'd like to avoid the jerk line if at all possible. It would be nice to be humorous so that the people around me don't get upset. So, I beg of yee all five regular readers, suggest any outbursts in the comments section. Together we might just have an impact on the game.