Fan of music, technology, and sports.
ESPN - Rangers’ 30 runs sets AL record in rout of Orioles - MLB: The Texas Rangers beat the Orioles 30-3 today… and that was just game 1 of a doubleheader. My god!
They also won game 2 by a measley score of 9-7 (which is still high for San Diego standards).
By contrast, the Houston Texans didn’t manage to score 30 points in a single NFL game all last season.
I’m playing in a Yahoo! Sports head-to-fead fantasy league this year. I’ve never played fantasy baseball before, except for a rotisserie league one year which was pretty boring. This league should be fun, especially since there’s some good smack talk going around. I feel pretty good about my roster:
C - Jason Kendall (Oak)
C - Jason Varitek (Bos)
1B - Todd Helton (Col)
1B - Nomar Garciaparra (LAD)
2B - Dan Uggla (Fla)
2B - Josh Barfield (Cle)
3B - Scott Rolen (StL)
3B - Morgan Ensberg (Hou)
SS - Jimmy Rollins (Phi)
OF - Carl Crawford (TB)
OF - J.D. Drew (Bos)
OF - Pat Burrell (Phi)
OF - Austin Kearns (Was)
SP - Jake Peavy (SD)
SP - Chris Young (SD)
SP - Barry Zito (SF)
SP - Ben Sheets (Mil)
SP - Kerry Wood (ChC)
SP - Ian Snell (Pit)
RP - Cla Meredith (SD)
RP - Joe Borowski (Cle)
Kerry Wood is on the DL right now, but my pitching looks pretty strong. Glad I got the hometown boys (Peavy and Young) and also Mitra’s favorite (Zito). Petco is a pitcher’s haven, so I should rack up good stats there.
My offense is lacking in the HRs/RBIs categories, but should make up for it with good hitting and speed. I just hope J.D. Drew stays healthy seeing how my OF is not very deep.
With baseball season just around the corner, it’s time to make some predictions for 2007. 
NL West: The Padres pitching is the strongest it’s ever been, though their offense remains sketch. Still, I expect my boys to 3-peat in the NL West. If the last three years are any indication, expect a lot more low-scoring games (e.g. 1-0, 2-1) at Petco this year.
The Dodgers and D-Backs will keep this division competitive. The D-Backs may very well be the sleeper team of the NL. They have young talent, good pitching, and could make a pennant run with a good deadline trade. The Giants somehow got even older this year, and the Rockies remain unimpressive.
NL Central: The Cubs may look like the most improved team in the league, but they are, after all, still the Cubs, and they will find a way to lose (apologies to all my Chicago friends, I hope I’m wrong!). The Cards have the talent and experience to take the crown again, though the Astros and Brewers will give them a good fight. This will be a fun division to watch.
NL East: This is a tough one. The Mets pitching looks fragile, but their offense is packed. It’ll be neck-and-neck between them and Philly. The Braves should get used to their new role as a mediocre team. The Marlins are still young, albeit exciting, and the Nats… well…
AL West: I have a feeling the Angels may be the run-away team this year, with the A’s close behind. (Apologies to all my A’s friends for making this call, but I still have them slotted for the wild card!)
AL Central: This is by far the toughest division to call. The way it’s gone the last couple years, I’d half expect the Royals to take the crown this year, though that’s not going to happen. For the sake of variety, I call the Indians to take it this year, though it could go in any order with those first four teams.
AL East: Any true baseball fan would pick the Sox here. Plus, the Yankees suck. 
Needless to say, those two will duke it out for most of the season while the Blue Jays, Orioles, and D-Rays will fall into their standard 3, 4, 5 slots respectively.
WC = Wild Card
NL West
San Diego Padres
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
Colorado Rockies
NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals
Houston Astros
Milwaukee Brewers
Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
Pittsburgh Pirates
NL East
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies (WC)
Atlanta Braves
Florida Marlins
Washington Nationals
AL West
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland Athletics (WC)
Texas Rangers
Seattle Mariners
AL Central
Cleveland Indians
Minnesota Twins
Detroit Tigers
Chicago White Sox
Kansas City Royals
AL East
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
32 games so far, and I picked 25 right. That’s not too bad. Plus, I’m in good shape for Round 2 since none of my Sweet Sixteen teams have been eliminated.
This tournament has some fun numbers. Since there are 63 games in all, that gives 2^63 unique brackets. That’s an incredibly large number: 9.22337204 × 10^18
Let’s assume that each of the 1st seeded teams always win their first 4 games. Given there are 4 1st seeded teams, that gives 63 - (4*4) = 47. The yields 2^47 brackets, which is still unbelievably large.
It’s fair to say that the odds of someone predicting a perfect bracket is quite slim, (10^-17)%, or 0.00000000000000001%.
On Facebook, there are 12 people who’ve correctly picked the first 32 games. That’s a pretty amazing feat. My current global ranking is #383,028 with a 78.1% accuracy rate.
A few notes so far:
I’m not much of a basketball fan, but I tend to agree with most sports fans in that the NCAA March Madness is the most exciting event in all of sports… and that’s saying something, because I really LOVE baseball. There’s just something about this tournament that intrigues me. It’s the upsets, the surprises, etc. It’s the same reason why I love going to concerts where the band plays a different set each night. You go in with a variety of expectations, but you never know what’s coming.
It’s been a couple years since I’ve entered any pools. I am really impressed with Facebook’s implementation of tournament. Users can create and join pools, fill out a bracket, etc. The grand prize is $25000, sponsored by Geico.
I’m just as ignorant as the next person when it comes to filling the bracket.
It’s hard to pick upsets, even though many will occur. Last year we saw George Mason advance to the Final Four, despite being an 11th seeded team. In fact, no 1st seeded teams advanced to the Final Four last year.
This year, I am picking my “hometown” Bruins to win it all. UCLA over Ohio St!
…just thought i’d share.
Shaun Haber
