World Series preview

My World Series preview is up over at ACB. The short version: Yankees in 7

Another anniversary

Thanks to waxpaperbeercup for the reminder - 6 years ago today was the Bartman game, where the Cubs were 6 outs away from their first WS appearance since 1945 before coughing up a 3 run lead in the 8th inning. I've always thought that this game was the one that changed the fanbase, and wpbc agrees. He hit the nail on the head with this statement:

The days of the ever-optimistic Cubs fans have gone away. Many Cub fans now feel as if they are owed something because of what happened that night.

That's pretty much it. Many of us (myself included too) now feel like we are somehow owed a successful team, since victory was snatched from our grasp in such an excruciating fashion. I know I wasn't all-in as a Cubs fan until after that postseason. I was pretty devastated, though I didn't realize it for weeks later when my now-wife pointed it out to me.

In some sense, it is a good thing, as it put pressure on the Trib to actually spend money on the team - for example spending money on Lee, Soriano, and Maddux and keeping Ramirez and Z around when the old TribCo would have let them go, Greg Maddux-1993-style. But man, at times it makes it very hard to interact with other Cubs fans. At times we're just as bad as the Red Sox fans that I roundly despise.

It still sucks, 6 years later. FWIW I don't blame Bartman for anything, and when the Cubs are back in the NLCS, I hope he throws out the game ball for the next game 6 (or in the WS!)

Random thoughts on Iowa-Wisconsin

Wisconsin plays Iowa this week in Camp Randall, a huge game for both teams.

For the Badgers, they really need a bounceback win after last week's loss at Ohio State. That was an incredibly frustrating game. I don't think I've ever seen a game where the final score and the state sheet were so far apart - Wisconsin really dominated that game (especially the defense).

For the Hawkeyes, this might be their toughest game of the entire season (excepting maybe a bowl game). After watching UW's defense completely shut down OSU's offense and seeing Iowa's defense (especially their D-Line) shut down Penn State, Iowa should run roughshod over the Buckeyes, in Colombus or not. They're a really good football team.

I'm kind of torn here. Of course I want to root for the Badgers. But I also think that Iowa is easily the best team in the Big Ten, and they need to go undefeated to have a shot at making the National Championship game (which they've already been hosed out of playing in once - I forget the year). Having the Big Ten win something for once would be huge for the conference in general. Ohio State will never be a championship team with Pryor at QB, and they don't have Beanie Wells to bail out the offense anymore either. So I guess I'm just going to root for a great game and see what happens.

NLDS Previews

Can be found here and here. I'm too lazy/busy to do any of the ALDS ones - this was a rough week. I might bang something out for those, but I'll probably just wait for the Championship Serieses (sp?) to write those

2009 Playoffs mini-post

I'm pretty swamped with work/job applications/my thesis right now, but I'm going to write some stuff over on ACB soon previewing the various playoff series, which I'll link to when I write them. I'm rooting for the Phillies in the NL and the Yankees in the AL.

How about that Tigers-Twins game last night? What a game!

Offseason plans

Aside from writing my thesis and applying for jobs, I have a few ideas for some baseball-related stuff to do this offseason. The two biggest ones are

1. Finally get around to reading The Book and make posts/do some work in keeping with the content of each chapter as I go. It's a tough read - you can only do it a chapter at a time anyway so it should make for some good blag posts.

2. Attempt to make a comprehensive glossary of the various stats and projections we use over at ACB. shawndgoldman and I talked about doing this offseason series awhile ago and it should be fun, not the least of which because I don't know a lot of the details about where some of the formulas come from myself

And of course, the usual run-down of roster signings, stumping for free agents, hair pulling at stupid signings, and predictions of doom-and-gloom for the 2010 Cubs.