Well my bracket is in shreds

Gotta say, ESPN's "Who's Now" competition really surprised me. My bracket is in total shreds. I mean, goodness, only three of the four #1 seeds made the final four, and the other one was Shaq of all people. And Federer losing to Tony Parker? Who saw that coming. I mean it isn't like Tony Parker is a vastly overrated, ESPN created personality. But it could be worse, Tony could have beaten the greatest tennis player alive in the first round. Err



But really, I am just shocked that Tiger Woods got to the finals of this thing. I mean seriously, an ESPN moderated popularity contest where TIGER WOODS finished strong? What is this, verisimilitude land? I mean seriously, I could never have predicted any of these match-ups to go the way they did. Well, except for all of them. If I really had made a bracket, I would be undefeated right now.



Anyway, the time is for talking about baseball. Why? Because Aaron hasn't read my blog in a while, and the excuse he gives is fallacious. So in order to avoid making a liar out of Aaron "so hot it" Burns (no, I didn't make that up), I need to talk baseball for the first time in a while, so that his excuse ("You only write about baseball") makes some semblance of sense.



What to talk about? How about those wonderful Bronx Bombers. Yeah, them. The ones who have hit 21, 17 and 16 runs in individual games, but still managed to get shut out by the freaking Orioles. Paaaaaaathetic. Nevertheless, they are only 3 games out of the wildcard, because, well, the Indians have scored two runs or fewer in six of their last eight games. Funny how teams tend to go as their offenses go, even those with supposed great pitching.



Of course, the Yankees made a move at the trade deadline. A reliever was involved, because obviously the Yankees need bullpen help--their arms are worn out and even if they hadn't been mismanaged to a gruesome early death by the visage of vampire that is Joe Torre, they were never that good in the first place, so clearly trading for another bullpen arm was--



Wait, what? They traded AWAY Scott Procter?! They now have LESS arms in the bullpen than before? Yes, I officially quit on understanding this team. They make moves so boneheaded that one has to believe Brian Cashman is just sitting in a room with Torre somewhere, having this conversation:



Cashman: Joe, wake up, the game's over!



Torre: Hunh? What? Oh, right. Calm down, we need to tak this one game at a time, don't get too high or too low, stop worrying about whether or not you are playing well at the moment, just --



Cashman: Would you shut up? We're not having a team meeting after a seven game losing streak, we're talking trades.



Torre: Oh, right. Well, we need bullpen help and lots of it. Maybe a fifth starter also. But really, was just need to avoid doing anything dumb.



Cashman: I agree. So what do you say we trade part of our bullpen for a completely unnecessary infielder (we already have six of them) batting .231?



Torre: What? .231? Doesn't that mean that he gets hits every once in a while?



Of course, I'm not sure if that conversation could ever actually happen because Torre might not even know what "batting average" is. Really, I wonder if he has ever said anything other than "warm Proctor/Farnsworth/Viscaino up" in the fourth inning of a perfect game where Wang has only thrown 28 pitches.



A-Rod, meanwhile, needs to hit 500 quickly. He hasn't a hit since 499. Then again, I would have been a bit screwed up by the whole "going back in time for a suspended game thing" also, but seriously, he has done this 499 times before, you wouldn't think he'd find it so difficult.



Until the next boneheaded Yankees move (that won't be long...)



~The Sports Maunderer~