Astros fans are used to this....Actually so are Redbirds fans

Roger Clemens gave up 2 runs in 4 and 1/3 innings and lost. Sounds like most of the 2005 season for the Astros. Actually the entire World Baseball Classic sounds familiar to Redbirds fans with the US team's miserable performance with men in scoring position.

Here's a question, is the fact that the US didn't make it to the finals of the WBC really that big of surprise? I mean the US won a bronze in the last Summer Olympics in basketball. Personally, I think this is just evidence that the USA will be accepting the successor to the Jules Rimet Cup come July.

Wal-Mart = The Slow Creeping Death of Society

Sure I shop there occasionally and I'm thankful to the company for bringing jobs and crappy Britney Spears records to rural America. However, going to Wal-Mart after dark is just plain dangerous (HT: The Phat Phree).

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!!

Enjoy yourself, eat some corned beef and cabbage or a potato. Dance a freakin' jig. Wear green. But please, please, please don't drink green beer.

Horton moves to Linebacker

I’m beginning to like Will Muschamp. After personally moaning for years about the smallish size of Auburn’s linebacking corps, Muschamp has moved former defensive end Alonzo Horton (6-2, 247) to linebacker. This is revolutionary, a linebacker that weighs more than 220 lbs. I wonder how Muschamp came to this idea. Oh yeah, it might have been the fact that Wisconsin ran all over Auburn’s defense in early January. As a previous post mentioned, Auburn has been successful in stopping the run when you take a big picture look (i.e., season-long) at the numbers. I believe that this trend has more to do with the offense’s proficiency. Because the offense is averaging nearly 30 points a game, most opponents are passing to catch up. Given an opportunity to control the game on the ground, opponents usually do fairly well against Auburn’s defense. The Wisconsin and Georgia Tech games from 2005 and the SEC Championship Game against Tennessee in 2004 are just three quick examples that come to mind. Hopefully this move is a signal that Auburn will start to recruit real linebackers instead of the converted safeties that have been playing there for the past three years.

Cal Plays Jedi Mind-Trick on USC’s Pruitt

This just goes to show you that you shouldn’t trust anything you read on the internet or, in this case, via your cellphone. Setting a player up like this is ingenious and the kids at Cal should be saluted for their creativity. Now, someone get me Jamarcus Russell’s cellphone number, I have some pictures I need to send him.

Time to Go Dancing

March Madness is upon us. Like everyone else, I will make a crude attempt to win money by insanely trying to predict the outcome of 64 games. I will get to that in a second. While a college football playoff would not yield the excitement that the first weekend of the basketball tournament does, there would still be so much interest in the determination of college football’s champion that it would make the last two weekends of the NCAA tournament look like a Boy’s Club Round Robin tourney. I know this is a ridiculous request, but please someone get me a football playoff so I can essentially waste the entire month of December breaking down the matchups and watching the games.

Okay on to the bracket…the quick hits:

1. First Round Upsets: UNC-Wilmington over George Washington, Southern Illinois over West Virginia, NC State over Cal, San Diego State over Indiana, UAB over Kentucky, Wisconsin over Arizona, Montana over Nevada and Northern Iowa over Georgetown
2. Second Round Upsets: Arkansas over Memphis, San Diego State over Gonzaga, Marquette over UCLA and Washington over Illinois
3. Sweet Sixteen Upsets: LSU over Duke and UNC over Tennessee
4. I have Texas, Kansas, Connecticut and Ohio State in the Final Four
5. The swing games for me are Michigan State/UNC and Kansas/Pittsburgh.
6. I’m interested to see how Tennessee does in this tournament. They were out early in the SEC tournament which should help them get there legs back and everyone is all over them for being a #2 seed. The strange thing is that I have them in the Sweet Sixteen, but they could just as easily lose to Winthrop in the first round.
7. If John Brady doesn’t get LSU to at least the Elite 8 this year or next, he should be fired. That team has three NBA lottery picks on the roster (Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Tyrus Thomas and Tasmin Mitchell). With that kind of talent, the expectations should be much higher than they are in Baton Rouge.

Cheater. Liar.

The news about Bonds is not shocking or revolutionary. What is interesting is that Barry decided to start his own pharmacy after he saw the accolades thrown towards McGwire and Sosa. I'm sure we will hear the line that Barry just did what he did because of jealously and he should be forgiven. The right approach would have been to leak to the press the fact that McGwire was using steroids and give names of people that could be contacted who would provide the proof and then wait for McGwire to get caught. No, Bonds decides to get on a regimen that would make a crooked horse trainer proud.

In the end, all of these guys were juiced. One has to wonder who was pure in the mid-80s to early-2000s? So how does one vote for these guys when it comes to the Hall of Fame? My personal opinion is if you vote for one, you have to vote for them all and vice-versa. So if Bonds is in, McGwire and Sosa are in too. Likewise if Big Mac and Sosa are not fit for admission, then neither is Bonds.

In the shadows is Pete Rose. If Bonds, et. al., get in to the Hall of Fame, I think Rose would have a rather solid point concerning his candidacy. Yes, he gambled on baseball and lied about it, but he never took steroids and lied about it*. Which is the greater sin?


*In all fairness no one has asked the question or provided proof. Rose seems like the type of guy that would sell his soul to win a game, so you would think he would have done whatever it takes including steroids.