Kevin Forgot to Title His Post

Originally posted on “Is It Sports?” by Kevin. Kevin revisits his pre-season predictions, looks ahead to the all star team, and links to a Jim Rome post that I can’t find anymore.

After a brief retirement stint, and getting suspended a month for writing stupid articles, if you are reading this it means I’m back in business with Is It Sports. Baseball, being my favorite sport, is always on my mind, probably more than it should be. It’s time to share with you my random and genius thoughts to sum up the first half of the baseball season.

1. Is It Sports Baseball Preview
Probably the first thing that caught my eye as I scanned over the now almost three month old preview, was Steve’s NL Manager of the Year prediction: Dave Miley. Of all 15 NL managers Steve could have picked, he went with the first one to get fired this season! I’m not sure if Steve remembers that, but he will now. Although my pick of Bob Melvin hasn’t exactly come to form yet, I can still get a chuckle out of Steve’s pick. Steve, you and Harold Reynolds gave the big red machine a little too much credit.

The next thing I noticed was how bad some of my picks were. The Giants? The Mariners? Bonds as MVP? I’m still sticking to my original World Series prediction of Arizona vs. Seattle, because as we saw with the Astros last year, anything can happen in the second half. I’m glad I picked the White Sox to win the division, and I’m sure Steve is even happier with his pick where the Sox take the division and the Twins win the wild card. Ryan, on the other hand, was listening too much to Reynolds and his roommate Kellen, when he picked the Sox to finish fourth. Although I am sure Ryan will contend the Sox will still finish fourth, I don’t see it happening.

Finally, I’ve got to give myself a little props picking the Nats to finish 3rd. In that crazy division, they very well may finish in 5th, but I’m liking the credit I gave them at seasons start. With that said, enough about the preview, because we still have 3 more months to go.

2. The All Star Game
This years All Star game is to be player in the beautiful city of Detroit, at wonderful Comerica Park (sorry Steve, but I’m being sarcastic about the beauty). That’s the last time I’m going to mention the games host, because the talk will be more about the players. With two days left in the balloting, things are coming back down to earth. St. Louis Cardinals Eckstein and Grudzielanek aren’t leading their positions anymore. Larry Walker, Reggie Sanders, and Yadier Molina aren’t close to contention. However, some things still disturb me when it comes to fan voting. Tino Martinez? No way should he be leading the AL at first base. Michael Teixeira obviously deserves to start, with even Konerko being a better vote than Tino. Stupid Yankees fans. The rest of the AL looks right to me, with possibly the exception that I’d rather have Damon starting instead of Manny. Now to the NL: injury prone Scott Rolen should not be starting. LoDuca before Piazza. Finally, 12 year old Miguel Cabrera deserves a start over Carlos Beltran, no matter how much money he makes. Here’s my all star starters, who ironically and hypocritical enough, isn’t quite who I voted for:

AL:
C- Jason Varitek
1B-Mark Teixeira
2B-Brian Roberts
3B-Alex Rodriguez
OF-Ichiro Suzuki
OF-Vlad Guerrero
OF-Johnny Damon
DH-Papi Ortiz
SP-Roy Halliday

NL:
C- Paul LoDuca
1B-Albert Pujols
2B-Jeff Kent
3B-Troy Glaus
OF-Miguel Cabrera
OF-Bobby Abreu
OF-Pat Burrell
DH-Derek Lee
SP-Dontrelle Willis

3. Juicers
Does anyone else notice the comparison between Brian Roberts and Brady Anderson? Both leadoff hitters. Both on the Orioles. Both have ridiculous home run seasons where they well exceed their career average of 4 a season. I seriously call shenanigans. Speaking of steroids, how about notorious slow starter Derek Lee. Living in Wrigleyville, I have to deal with these Cubs fans. When Sosa was on their team, nobody could call him a juicer, yet they would point fingers at Bonds, Giambi, etc. Now that Sosa’s off the team, they admit he’s a juicer. What about Derek Lee? “He’s obviously playing like a mad man because of pure talent, not performance enhancing drugs.” Ask them what they think about a player like Brian Roberts or Adrian Beltre? Juicer, they say. I may be wrong, but if we are going to lump all these overachievers in the steroids category, Derek Lee deserves to be there too.

4. Jim Rome
To end things, this may be the funniest thing I’ve ever seen: “Jim Rome is Burning”. Scroll to the bottom and read an article about the King of Smack himself. “Ridiculous. I am out.”