As the Knicks' spent all of April channeling their innermost Billy Joel and crashing their season away, my attention turned not to spring football, which I don't really care about, but to the prospects of another summer of baseball. But thanks to the continued intellect of Bud Selig and the gigantic fucking wankfest that was the World Baseball Classic, it seems as though it's harder than ever to get jacked about the season. Well, I'm jacked.

And for those of you scoring at home we will once again be at Barrett's Barleycorn for opening day games, and you all should come out. Support the Royals, Cubs, Astros, Twins, etc.

A few predictions to whet your appetite for 162 games of great times.

NL

NL West-Dodgers over DBacks
NL Central-Cubs over Cardinals
NL East-Mets over Phillies
Wild Card: Phillies

NL Champ: Mets over Phillies
MVP: David Wright
Cy Young: Carlos Zambrano (or Johan Santana)

AL

AL East-DRays over Yankees
AL Central-Twins over Indians (then Royals, Tigers, White Sox)
Al West-Angels over A's
Wild Card-Yankees
NL Champ: Angels over DRays
MVP-Evan Longoria
Cy Young: CC Sabathia

World Series: Mets over DRays

Random Predictions:

1. Mark DeRosa, one of my five favorite players in the league, will really piss me off now that he's with the Indians.

2. Carlos Zambrano will be suspended for an incident this year but win the Cy Young anyway.

3. Mike "Little Babe Ruth" Fontenot will not mash like last year but will still OPS .900.

4. The Cubs fans will not like the Milton Bradley signing in August.

5. A. Peterson will spring for a Farnsworth jersey despite his hatred.

6. The Royals will be within 10 games of first place by August 1.

7. The Twins will win the division despite Joe Mauer never being fully healthy.

8. The Twins will have the best defensive outfield in baseball...despite having Delmon Young there.

9. Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker, and Franchise Liriano will combine to win 45 games.

10. The Astros will fucking blow, despite Mayfield telling me in earnest last week they were going to win the division.

11. The Fukudome signing will set Japanese-American relations back farther than Pokemon and Hello Kitty combined.

12. The White Sox will battle it out with the Tigers for last place.

13. The Tigers will literally have less than 5,000 fans at a game this year.

14. Brian Duensing will not stay with the Twins all season.

15. The Nebraska baseball team is and will continue to have its "7 and 7" year followed by Mike Anderson starting next year fighting for his job.

16. I will purchase the baseball package and enjoy the holy hell out of it while saving money from not going to the bar every third day in the process.

Enjoy it, everyone.

Labels: Barrett's Barleycorn, baseball, Minnesota Twins, Nebraska Baseball

(bad times)


Anyway, before we get into the nuts and bolts of why the Huskers are dominating this year, let's first talk about Spitz sunflower seeds. To the Spitz company: fuck you. These seeds are garbage. I picked some up at a QT because that's all they carry for some damn reason, and I must have gotten the Cascade or Dawn flavour, because they tasted like soap at first, then didn't taste like anything. Jesus. I know better now. Although I do feel bad about this, because their website is really earnest and they appear to be nice people. Sorry about your shitty product, nice people.

Here are acceptable seed brands:

1. Herman's Nut House (biggest seeds, locally operated, no gimmicks)

2. Giants seeds (the official seed of the Minnesota Twins)

3. Jim Beam (for obvious reasons)

4. David (becuase sometimes the above brands can be scarce, and these are better than Fisher or Frito Lay)

Anyway, back to baseball. Here are the keys to the Husker season as I see it:

1. Johnny Dorn has been a guaranteed win on Fridays. I didn't see his resurgence coming. Thank god HGH is in good supply in Grand Island due to the horse industry.

2. Nick Sullivan and the Two Jakes have anchored a solid, unspectacular lineup.

3. Thad Weber's knuckle curve and mind-numbing accuracy. Plus he's from Friend, NE.

4. Solid defense, for the most part. With the exception of the Sunday game in Austin.

While there is still a ton of baseball to be played, this team would have to really fuck up to not host a regional. Congrats to the team and Coach A for having a kick ass first half, and let's go get em the rest of the way!

Labels: Co, Coach Mike Anderson, Domination of the Big 12, Nebraska Baseball, Shitty sunflower seeds

So Hales and I (special shout to MIB and Deuce, they were there, just not during the discussion) were trying to figure out when the last time Nebraska basketball beat two ranked opponents in a week (a feat they accomplished after beating Texas A&M Saturday 65-59).

Hales and I both figured there was a good chance that the last time this feat was accomplished, FDR was still in the White House. However--and for whatever reason, this is no longer in the story linked above, although it was this morning--it was just 9 years ago the last time this happened. It was the same year, 1999, the last time Nebrasketball beat a ranked opponent in a true road game (at #24 Kansas in 1999).

All in all, a great week for Nebraska. A once-in-a-decade performance from the basketball team (although I firmly believe this will be a common occurance as long as Doc is around), and a nice start for the baseball team. Hell, the baseball season starting is good enough reason to be excited, let alone seeing G.I. Johnny Dorn throw a hell of a game against Stanford Saturday night.

Labels: Doc Sadler, Kickin' Ass, Nebraska Baseball, Nebraska basketball