Brave New World

"The Braves are younger than the Mets and Phillies, deeper in most respects than the Mets and Phillies and have a better farm system to mine for reinforcements than the Mets and Phillies."

-Jason Stark, ESPN, in his column predicting the Braves to win the World Series.

Click here for the full-text.

I'll give my rundown this week sometime... But here's a quickie:

NL - Braves (East), Cubs (Central), Dodgers (West), Phillies (Wildcard)
AL - Red Sox (East), Tigers (Central), Angels (West), Indians (Wildcard)

World Series - Braves over Tigers in six.

Sweet Goodness

So I'm losing to my wife in our brackets, but not by much. But here's my Sweet 16 picks:

Tar Heels over Washington State (in a close game by Tar Heel standards)
Louisville over Volun-tears (and the Vols still have never been to the Elite 8)

Kansas over 'Nova (though I'd love to see the upset here)
Wisconsin over Stephen Curry (Eventually somebody's gonna guard him)

Michigan State over Memphis (in my real bracket I've got Memphis winning, but I've got a feeling with this one)
Hook'em Horns over Stanford (Only because Stanford is cocky enough to name themselves The Cardinal... Who does that? What about the Cardinals? Are they The cardinal? Kinda like The Ohio State University... Makes me sick...)

UCLA over WKU (Haven't you seen the commercials? There are no cinderellas)
Xavier over West Virginia (Bob Huggins can only take the Mountaineers so far)

*Side Note: I only had 9 of the 16 teams correct in my bracket... I certainly didn't pick all these matchups correctly coming in. That's what happens when you've got teams like Davidson and the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in the mix. Or are they The Hilltopper?

The Daily News

I read this today on FoxNews.com and thought it was good enough to share...

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"Man Claims to Speak 'Austrailian' After Allegedly Being Raped by Wombat.

SYDNEY — A New Zealand man has been sentenced to community service after telling police he was raped by a wombat and the experience had made him speak "Australian".

Arthur Ross Cradock, 48, from the South Island town of Motueka, called police on February 11 and told them he was being raped at his home by the wombat and he needed help, The Nelson Mail newspaper reported.

The orchard worker later called back and said: "Apart from speaking Australian now, I'm pretty all right, you know."

Cradock pleaded guilty in the local court to using a phone for a fictitious purpose. He was sentenced to 75 hours' community work.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court alcohol played a large role in Cradock's life.
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Those New Zealanders are funny...

Bracket Bulldogs

Anybody else got Georgia facing North Carolina in the NCAA Finals?

Baseball is Beautiful

In honor of my fantasy baseball league, and because I just can't wait...

Mock Bubbles

I'm hoping to keep this quick this week... But there's two things that are completely useless in the world of sports (Unless your name is Joe Lunardi or Todd McShay or Mel Kiper, Jr. - The ESPNians who make there living off of the following...):

Mock Drafts and The Bubble Watch.

The NFL Draft is April 26 and 27, and on April 28th Kiper will have his 2009 Mock Draft already posted on the web. And it'll get updated about once a week between then and April 27, 2009.

Is this guy really making a living off of guessing over and over and over again about who's going to draft whom? Are you serious?

And then there's Joe Lunardi's Bracketology and Bubble Watch. Like we're all sitting on the edge of our seats waiting to see who the 12th seed will be. Has a 12th seed ever done anything worth mentioning?

I don't understand how these guys get paid big bucks to "project" who really will be in the NCAA tourney or when Matt Stafford will get drafted and by what team next spring. With everything that can happen between now and then, what are the chances that Kiper ever gets it right? I'd like to see some stats on this, people.

I don't understand how there's a market for this.

And then I do. And I think of the third thing that's completely useless in the world of sports... People obsessed with Bracketology and Mock Drafts.