We are on the home stretch people, only three more divisions to go. Today we give you the NL East where both Anthony and I agree there will be a battle for first place. Which teams will duke it out this season? Who will be brining up the rear? Well, you’re just going to have to read on to find out.
Tony: I usually like to snipe at the NL East, both because its fun to call it the “NL Least” and because it’s a regular hobby of Yankees’ fans (of which I am one). Unfortunately for myself, the Yankees Fan, the NL East looks capable of putting out at minimum 2 contending teams in the Mets and the Phillies, with the Braves a possible challenger depending on how the cards fall. Let’s start at the other end of the Eastern universe in Florida and D.C. for some analysis on two of baseball’s worst teams.
We are back sports fans with our rousing Major League previews. We’ve been going division by division and after today’s AL Central preview we have only three more to go. So for those of you that have hung with us this long worry not, we are half way there and this gimic has almost run it’s course. Again Anthony and I generally agree on the standings for this season, but Anthony has some questions as to whether or not the Detroit Tigers will really compete for a championship this season.
Tony: James, I think for the first time in maybe three seasons, the AL Central has thinned out and is no longer a division that can be won by 3 or 4 different teams. Gone from contention status are the White Sox and Twins, leaving only the Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers as Central Champ hopefuls.
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After much delay we are back with our baseball preview. So without further ado, here’s Anthony to get things started.
Tony: I think the NL Central is a great microcosm of MLB on the whole. There are the rich teams (Cubs), the young homebred teams (Brewers), the up-and-comers (Reds), the corporate douche bags (Cardinals), the stubborn old guard (The Astros) and the hapless, clueless, winless wonders (Pirates).
If my hypothesis above holds true, it should come to pass that the team to beat is the rich spender, Chicago, followed by the young homebred, Milwaukee. The Reds will keep it interesting though, for well longer than most expect, because I think they will improve from mediocre to not bad this season because of call-ups Joey Votto and eventually Johnny Cueto. Also Homer Bailey will have a better second season.
I do want to get into Milwaukee and Chicago, because those teams have lots of interesting stories and players around going into ‘08, but I want you to start from the basement Jim and tell me why Pirates’ fans an feel hope that they won’t end up in last.
Based on David Paterson’s recent admissions of marijuana and cocaine use, along with admissions of marital infidelities, its clear that the media has no interest in taking down New York’s first black governor, who is legally blind and generally well-liked, not on the heels of inundating Eliot Spitzer from office with a barrage of controversy stories. The man is seemingly teflon right now when it comes to past skeletons in the closet.
What seems to be going on here is that the media has fallen in love with the David Paterson story and views it as the perfect conclusion to the Eliot Spitzer/Ashley Amber Dupre News Cycle. Why not portray Paterson’s past failings as more obstacles that the current governor has overcome on his way to a successful political career?
I’m not an enemy of David Paterson or think that Eliot Spitzer got a raw deal by the media’s coverage of his scandal, I just think that the reporting on David Paterson’s past typifies manipulative story making by the media. These stories have been shaped into the Eliot Spitzer story in order to round out the tale; to give this story a compelling conclusion to rival its beginning and rising action.
Considering that other public figures have been killed off by the media for far less than admitted past cocaine use and extramarital relationships, its clear once again that the media cares far more about selling neatly packaged, ready for market stories than actually reporting on current events with any real complexity.
Believe it or not, the 2008 Major League Baseball Season begins today, with the Boston Red Sox playing the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome in Japan. Supposedly, beginning the new season in Japan is good for the sports international relations, but I personally think it trivializes the start of the baseball season during a busy time in the sports calendar.
How so? Well, for example, look at the NFL opener. Generally, its a Thursday night game, shown in prime time, featuring two of the previous season’s best teams. Everyone watches it and some even turn it into a kickoff party event.
In contrast, a baseball opening day in Japan is aired at 6:30 AM EST, meaning that at best, the fan could watch a few innings while drinking his coffee and eating his danish. And thats if he remembers to alter his morning routine and not immediately put on an AM News program to get the traffic, weather and the headlines.
Equally important is the fact that an opening day that no one will watch is covered as a non-evet by the sports media, so while the NFL opener will get 15 minutes on Sportscenter, a baseball game that no one will watch (can watch?) will get 5 minutes if MLB is lucky.
Lastly, the opener in Japan kills pomp and circumstance of a proper opening day, where a dozen or more games are going on beginning early in the afternoon and stretching deep into the night.
Thus, in reaching out to the Japanese baseball fan, MLB hurts its base stateside, as Joe Sportsfan disregards these early morning contests instead to look at previews of this weekends NCAA tournaments games.
Usher’ latest single makes a simple statement: “I wanna make love in this club”. Clearly, given the right circumstances, a few drinks, the right dancing partner and the music (and of course a prophylactic!), the desire to make love in the club comes over everyone from time to time.
My question is, in the standard club, where can one make love? I understand the rules are somewhat different for Usher, but assuming his song is being written and sung from the perspective of Usher the man and not Usher the A-Lister, finding a place to make physical lovin’ in any particular club is difficult and risky.
I think its a far more interesting song if its interpreted as a song about a desire that can’t be fulfilled. That is, Usher is saying, I really do want to fornicate in this club right now, but I can’t because you can’t make whoopie in the club. Even when Young Jeezy jumps in and asks the listening female “have you ever made love with a thug in this club..(he lists a variety of apparel items and then details places in the club where love could be made)?” its possible that the answer is “No, but the impossibility of making love with such a fine fellow is so frustrating that I question my existence.”
If you haven’t noticed, there has been a slowdown in TheBocker.com content over the past couple days. Recently, we have begun investigating and planning our blogs move from blogger to wordpress. For those that don’t mess with blogging, we are looking at switching the community that hosts our blog so that we can get more traffic to The Bocker, and WordPress has a more appropriately community for our content.
Consequently, time has been taken from posting and been spent on this. We apologize for this but will soon be in our new community, with a slightly different look. The names, faces and addresses (TheBocker.com) will all remain the same.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this, or any other post. Email us at editor@thebocker.com
It’s that time of year again when it seems like every website has a baseball preview. We here at The Bocker have always been followers and so naturally we have a preview of our own. The difference between our preview and everyone else’s is that ours comes with a money back guarantee and an 85% probability that our prognostications are correct. We start off our first installment by looking at the AL West. The format is as follows: Anthony will start off the festivities with an introduction and analysis on a division and then I will respond and we go into a back and forth for each topic. I don’t know who started this idea of “analysis by email” but we are not above utilizing this gimic. (more…)
I couldn’t figure why when I first heard that Gnarls Barkley’s first video off of their upcoming album, The Odd Couple, was initially banned for airplay in the US and UK. I had heard the song, Run, plenty of times already and couldn’t think what kind of profane sex/violent ridden montage Dangermouse and Cee-Lo could dream up based on the song itself. Then I heard that it initially failed most visual tests used to determine if a video sequence will induce SEIZURES! Without trivializing any seizure-related ailments, I think this video is tight. FYI, the seizure inducing moments have nothing to do with the Justin Timberlake-cameo as the host of the fictional City Vibin’. If you are only watching to try get a seizure, fast forward roughly the 2:00 mark and watch on from there. I do recommend the whole video however.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this, or any other post. Email us at editor@thebocker.com
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