The Race For the PC Is Pushed to the Brink!
LA/St. Louis begins tonight at 5:30. Detroit/Boston starts Sat at 5pm. I would REALLY like to release everyone’s picks in the next thread but I can’t do that unless you send me picks for BOTH of these series. But the only one you are required to send me is the pick for today. Remember, they play 7 game series from here on out. Please factor that into your prediction for “# of games won in”. There are 4 points up for grabs in these 2 championship series….
The Standings (and if I missed someone, let me know):
Salty: 8 points
ChiPower: 8 points
Rooster: 7 points
BirdDog: 6 points
Denny: 5 points
MacDog: 5 points
BoxHead: 4 points
UncaChuck: 4 points
SportsDude: 4 points
WesfromRoseville(!): 3 points
WilcoJoe: 3points:
Kevin: 3 points
AllyKat: 3 points
Manny: 2 points
Pawlie: 2 points
Winder: 2 points
Blade: 2 points
Flavor: 2 points
SanDiggityDawg: 1 point
Snarkk: 1 point
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
i think rooster is tied with chi. and i think that birddog also has 6. i could be wrong but you might check.
Thanks, left the Dodger fan out for some reason 🙂 and you were also correct about BirdDog
Rooster: 6 points: Tigers in 4
A sampling of Cardinals fans finest :
https://twitter.com/BestFansStLouis
Fukin’ A, my picks were so bad, I didn’t even make the list; but I did get POTD… 😉
My interest in these playoffs went WAY down. Dogs ans Tards? Fuck ’em both. The A’s are my last hope of giving a shit at all.
Funny, I’m in Corvallis Ore, for a couple days and I’m standing in line at Safeway. I see this kid with a Pirates hat in, and start talking about baseball. He;s getting some beer before the game starts, and we’re talking about them and he asks who I’m rooting for, and I said I’d love to see the Pirates win but I just want to see the Dodgers go down cuz I’m a Giants fan. The guy behind him says “Exactly!” He lights up and says he grew up in Mt View and was at Game 3 in ’89. So, we had about 2 minutes in line talking Giants baseball . . . Never woulda picked him out as a Giants fan as he was wearing a blue jacket.
Giants fans are everywhere…
And some wear blue jackets. 😉 Hell, even I have a blue North Face fleece.
You just KNOW I can relate to your story. Oh yeah.
Even if you guys are not hockey fans, and I’m not much of one, this vid of the Shark’s new kid from last night is still great stuff. This has to be one of the coolest moves on ice since the pouring of some 1800s Scotch (sorry SanDawg, just a tiny bit of ice)…
http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?hdpid=49&id=454955&lang=en
Duly noted!
That was an incredible move. On the opposite end, did you see this one from Rangers-Kings?
http://video.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=2013020036-530-h
Yeah that kid Hertl (sp?) is something else.
First NHL goal I believe was on a breakaway forty five seconds into the game.Welcome to the NHL!!!
Kid has six goals already leading the NHL.
Need that energy and spark,since they still have some old guys,like Thorton,Marleau,Boyle who will need extra breathers this year. Go Sharks!
I love hockey. To do what these guys do, on ice, while the other team is trying to take your head off…I just think hockey players are some of the most amazing athletes.
I was watching that game the other night…what a bad ass play! Not only between the legs, but the placement (top corner). Had that goalie lookin’ like a fool…
This isn’t going so well for me. If the Tigers win, I will have incorrectly picked all 4 of the current series. That’s not easy to do. I feel like I should get a boobie prize of some sort if that comes to pass. Maybe a used USB cable??
On the other hand, if the A’s win, then 4 of my 5 most disliked teams in all of baseball will be the remaining teams in the playoffs— which really bums me out. At least the Angels didn’t make it in.
Hear you, Dawg. I always look forward to any time a Boston team is eliminated from any sport, hockey included. NL is already unwatchable regardless of who celebrates what.
Re: Snarkk’s late comment about STL back in. Really, the elite of the NL stayed almost intact from last year. Reds won 97 last year, 90 this year, Braves and Nats flip flopped, Cards won 88 last year, LA 86.
According to Pythagoras, Giants should have won 88, LA and AZ 86 each last year. This year LA up to 89, AZ 80 SF 74. Giants at home last year 48-33, this year 42-40. Ugh.
Reds have already changed mgr., Braves have decisions on McCann/Hudson, Pirates have decisions to make on waiver pick ups, Was will have new mgr., yada yada. I still think one solid SP addition can make all the difference for SF and they can return to elite position in the division and league.
Yeah, I am SO not ready to have Bandwagon RedSox Nation come out of hibernation if they win it all again. I know we have plenty of bandwagon fans ourselves, but nothing like the Red Sox bandwagon caravan.
Very rare that I ever pull for the alleged ‘Greatest Baseball Fans/CIty in America” (Zumie has had some great takes on this in the past), but it is “Go Redbirds!!!!” in the San Dawg household these days.
Add a SP…does that include them signing Tim? Not signing Tim? I also think the bullpen needs some tweaking. Mijares needs to go, and I think they need to re-sign Lopez.
with all the back and forth about what we need most, i think that there isn’t enough talk about the reality as to where the most improvement can really be obtained. again- we have 7 positions set- trading sandoval is more a wish for some, not a likely happening. the question about pablo is more about what they’ll do after 2014 than what they’ll do before 2014. he’s very likely to be here in 2014. there just isn’t going to be a major overhaul of the offense. if they sign abreu, they ‘could’ move belt to left, sign a utility player- and there’s your overhaul. thanks for coming.. or they could sign abreu, trade belt in a package for a top of line starting pitcher, add another rotation piece and maybe a reliever or two in free agency. left field, the subject of much fear and loathing, would probably be manned by belt , a bargain basement gamble, or a new platoon manned by internal options. so while we can all have fun air gm-ing, and it *is* fun, and propose drastic make overs of the offense, there are just not as many ways that the offense may realistically be dramatically improved as there is with the pitching staff.
imo.
Great days to celebrate b-days of some of my jazz heroes: yesterday Art Blakey, today Thelonious Monk. Also today latin conga player Francisco Aguabella who lived and performed in bay area up til his passing 2-3 years ago.
I enjoy latin jazz quite a bit, listen to it at work (5 CD player in the store), and joke about setting up congas or timbales in the store so I could do something beside hand drum on the counter to Tito Puente, Los Van Van or Mongo Santamaria. Maybe I’ll have to wait til I get in the old folks home, where hopefully I could pound away in clave time to the music and no one would hear it.
the red sox nation sure made the rest of ‘baseball nation’ sick of them in a hurry. it took about 5 minutes after the last out of the 2004 world series for america’s cuddle bunnies turn into the fat boors who came to dinner, ate all the cake, stole the silverware, pissed on the philodendron…suddenly cowboy fans seemed the epitome of grace and class… well, almost..
Well at least I am not following in the steps of my Fantasy Baseball ways. So far anyway. ha ha ha
I’m sick of the thinking of moving a good first baseman to LF. Bullshit. I’m sick of thinking of moving our catcher to another position. Bullshit.
Don’t sugar-coat it, Sundance…tell us how you REALLY feel.
My A’s fan buddy (The Boney One) is pulling a Billy beane– he’s too nervous to go to the game tonight. He gave me the ticket. I can’t go so I just gave it to my buddy at work who’s a big A’s fan (free) and I thought he was gonna start crying. MVP infield, row 9.
I looked the seat up online, it’s awesome. Even if I wasn’t busy I don’t think I would have gone tonight, lol
After the Pirates lost, I was driving last night and heard Freddy Coleman on ESPN Radio. He’s one of the more affable guys on that network. He made a good point. He said, I’m happy for the Bucs and their fans and their city that they had a winning season and got at least this far, but don’t expect success as automatic or as something that has its own momentum. No one has to tell US that. A Rangers fan in Texas chimed in. No mention of the Giants, which perturbed me. But, yeah, it’s a papery thin line, very thin, between success and failure. Then there’s that enigmatic line from Bob Dylan: “There’s no success like failure. And [that] failure’s no success at all.”
even though some of you may think you’re out of it- even those with only a point or two can still win one of the prizes;
a new pc with all the ‘fixin’s’- wireless keyboard and mouse, wireless usb network adapter, stereo headhones, card reader, webcam. the pc itself- sleek small-form shuttle case, 4 gb ram, 80 gb sata hard drive + 250 gb external hard drive, intel 3600 integrated graphics, etc..
second prize- ion ttusb05 digital conversion turntable
as per flavor, everyone is in for the prizes. if you will not be competing for one of the prizes, contact me by e-mail
twinfan1@hotmail.com
Twin, thanks again for your generosity. And Fkavor for running things. The contest has made watching the playoffs a lot more interesting. I’ve found myself conflicted throughout between wanting to be right and wanting to see teams like Stl or Bstn lose.
But no such conflict tonight. I’ve no love for the A’s.
Super pumped up that the A’s took my advice(yeah right) and going with the Football Mustache guy Sonny Gray.
The “Football Mustache” look is 11 on each side.Go Rock Verlander tonight!
Fuck those whiny bitches from Detroit!!
i’m surprised that i didn’t see this- the bums stole our mojo. wilson gets the win in the division clincher? uribe blasts the game winner? they even had dirty in the farm system ready to conk any pcl prospects who might get a september call up and help a playoff opponent. donnie dunderhead does everything a man can do to lose the series and uribe says- ‘not on my watch, donnie, not on my watch’….yep, our mojo got stolen and in fact it must be said- THE GIANTS WON THE LDS, THE GIANTS WON THE LDS!!!!
“it is “Go Redbirds!!!!” in the San Dawg household these days.”
One of the great truths that Sun Tzu says in his great book “The Art Of War” is that we have to fight the battle we are in, not the battle we WISH we were in.
It’s an appalling situation to have to pull for the Cardinals but….
A. The Dodgers must lose
and
B. My severe dislike of the Cardinals was somewhat lessened by the Giants exterminating them in the playoffs last season. That felt like some nice payback last season.
But having said that…..it still will be a tough pill watching those self-satisfied red-clad Midwestern fascists in the seats celebrate their robotic conformity.
Sportdude A’s in 6?
Winder A’s in…..
Good Stuff gentlemen.
I want what there drinking or smoking.
Flappers/Contestants: I just found out the NLCS starts tomorrow. While I would like you to send me both your picks (with # of games won in) before the Dodger game tomorrow I recognize that you might want to ruminate a bit on the ALCS after it is decided who will play Boston in a couple of hours.
Anyway, email me at least the Dodger pick and preferably both–but I won’t release the ALCS picks until they’re all in.
ok, i’m not in my contest, but i’m still picking-
a’s tonight- i love leyland, but i just can’t root for a team whose fans torch, loot, and commit assault, battery, and general mayhem- WHEN THEIR GUYS WIN!!
and a kid named sonny who really looks like a ‘sonny’ just has to win. and reddick lost the duck dynasty beard-
a’s 3 to 2…
bums/cards sorry- bums in 6. like i said earlier- donnie knucklehead gave it a herculean effort but he just couldn’t blow the nlds. they just might be this year’s ‘team of destiny’, with god on their side…look, when you can win a series with all the guys giving 43 percent, it just might be your year..
donnie’s explanation for pitching kershaw on 3 days rest- ‘all my other guys take 3 out of every 4 days off, it just seemed fair..’
I am EXTREMELY excited that I will hit the exacta in this series if the A’s win and will thus pull ahead of Snarkk in the race to avoid the cellar. It will also pull me dead even with Blade, nipping at the heels of Big Flavor himself. Watch your backs motherfuckers! Go Swinging A’s!
Detroit all the way! To heck with Oakland.
Verlander sure is a much better postseason pitcher on that side of the bay.
just a quickie unofficial update of the leaders going into the league championship series’-
salty 8
chi 8
rooster 7
birddog 6
denny 5
macdog 5
night, fellas..
Bleeeech. Drove by the masoleum on my way home from the airport tonight. Too bad.
Like I told Flav in my email picks. I always pick with my heart and not my head. The only one I went against was the Sox and Rays. And of course that’s the only one I got right.
As a baseball fan, that was a good game to appreciate tonight. You could tell early on that Verlander was on it, and the A’s were in deep doo doo. You can’t fault the A’s much, Verlander was dominant, I thought I might see a no hitter, but Cespedes wrecked that. I would say, though, that Verlander has owned the A’s now for something like 30 innings. They should have tried something different, anything different, to try to break through. They took too many strikes, trying to work the count. Doesn’t work against that guy. Giants aggressiveness against him worked. A’s should have tried that…
Felt weird at the O.Commode surrounded by all that green and gold. When I’ve gone before, its usually been like a ghost town in there. Pretty much full tonight, with a few thousand sprinkled empties on the ends of the upper deck. If you like the Latina ladies, there’s lots of good talent and you’re diggin’ it. BTW, the O.Commode is an absolute dump. And, the food is bad. At least the beers are 1.50 or $2 less than ATT…
I’ll pay the higher beer prices…and the babes at 24 Willie Mays Plaza are bombing…
At the O.Commode, very dfferent vibe, more blue collar fans, lots of inked and sketchy dudes AND chicks, compared to ATT. Breaking Bad SPOILER: In the west side stadium Bar and Grill, which looks like a bowling alley, at the bar I saw Badger, Skinny Pete and … Pinkman …
Twin – just wanted to say thanks again for providing the prizes. As Salt said…it has made watching the playoffs that much more entertaining. And thanks to Flavor for two things…creating and keeping this Flapdom alive, and for coordinating and keeping tabs on the contest. You guys kick ass.
note- rooster has 7 points…
chi- you are very welcome. it gives me pleasure to provide them. maybe a *little* less if our feathered friend from the south prevails- maybe i’ll install ‘random fart’ on the pc if he wins 😉
Yes, I’ll also chime in to say thanks again twin for providing the prizes, and to both you and BF for running the contest and adding excitement to this postseason. Oh, and also thanks for keeping BF on his toes.
Send him a carton of eggs instead.
You should have entered the contest Nip – who knows, you might be the one out front.
And don’t think for a second I’ll win this thing – I don’t win these things – but fun to try!
ALL CONTESTANTS- KEEP TRACK OF YOUR POINTS. craig does a great job of handling the standings, but mistakes happen.
Lock and Load! My picks are in…Let’s Get Ready to Rumble!!!
I haven’t sent mine in yet – who did you take ???
capon- twice i have corrected your totals- do you realize what that means? i am the lowest form of life in norcal- a dodger sympathizer..
Niners over the Cards, laying 11.
Raiders plus 9.5 against the Chefs.
Rooster has 7, Twin is correct.
Yes, twin, well, you always did stand out among your peers – for better or worse…
Outstanding in his field, or out standing in his field . . .
Well if he’s out standing in his field with his underwear down,then you have to call it a “Field Dump”
kat, see the lever to the right?? ok, jerk it downward, hard… the kitchen’s a long way… ok. good… lunch time!!!
ok. i was just going to install ‘random fart’, now you guys get ‘random technicolor yawn’ on your machines. rule of thumb- don’t insult the chef *before* dinner and don’t insult your system builder- *ever*. wait a minute- i’m both .. such power. i’m mad with it-stark raving insane…………………………………………………
whew- i’m ok now. i had a snickers bar.
So take the 28 points and bet on Jax? or give the points and take Denver???
Give the points. It’s in Denver. I see 42-3.
Who’s the second string Denver QB? He should get ready to play a little…
Better then Jax’s Starting QB im sure.
Yeah blowout…49-10
‘Raiders plus 9.5 against the Chefs.’
bobby flay at te, alice waters at qb, jacques pepin at wr…. uh, take the points.
If they moved Jacksonville to LA, then logic says re-alignment would put St. Louis out of the NFC West. There’s not much to the Niner-Rams “rivalvry” anymore…
I’ll post a new thread with everyone’s picks when I get home tonight. I think I’ve got everyone’s. There might be a couple of guys who are so far out of it they aren’t sending picks in. We’ll see, game time/deadline at 5:30
Flav, I forgot your email as it wasn’t showing up in my phones memory so I sent my picks to Twin this morning…give me the Cards and Tigers in 7.
joe-i send him your picks as you asked, he’s confirmed he has them.
Gonna wear my WilcoJoe flap shirt to the Wilco show in Austin tonight…Thanks again Snarkk!
I had to give this serious thought…It’s a major concert fashion no-no to where the same band shirt to their own show….Unless the band shirt is from a tour of at least two decades prior and YOU actually attended said show. Those pathetic re-produced Rolling Stone and Led Zepplin shirts they sell at Target, have really tarnished the coolness of collecting band tour tees.
De Nada.
Say hello to 6th Street for me.
Last time I was there, I was in a blues bar with an associate that worked for me in Houston, he was an accountant from Israel. One of the UT kids there thought I was a law professor, struck up a conversation at the bar, I ran with the misconception. For 2 hours I was a visiting international comparative tax law prof from Berkeley, and my associate was my research assistant from Israel. One of the kids thought he smelled a rat, he was Jewish from NY, and started rattling off some Hebrew to my “assistant” Yousef to test us. Yousef responded in kind. The doubting Thomas was impressed, and I consequently continued to get free Kamikazes from these kids as I laid out a bunch of stories from whole cloth, mixed in with my actual knowledge of the subject and Berkeley. Later, I asked Yousef, my staff guy, what he said to the doubter. Yousef said that he told the kid in Hebrew that his New York Hebrew was so bad he should be ashamed. All in all, the ruse was fun, stretched my imagination, got me and my staff guy free Kamikazes, and plenty of laughs after we left the place. After a while, I thought maybe I should apply to actually be a prof there. Crap, if they kept electing Dubya governor, why not me and my tweed jacket as a UT prof?…
Snarkk—did you send your pics in? I did. I think its important that we see this thing through and settle the Race to the Bottom.
…and I believe the Bronco backup quarterback is Craig Penrose from Woodland High. (Woodland High has cranked out some decent college QBs over the years: Penrose (SDSU), Chris Vargas (Reno), Paul Pinegar (Fresno St) and Mike Gimenez (Colorado St) Take that Pali!!!!
..and speaking of high school football, my son Trevor did not need surgery on his broken leg (though it is a possibility down the road) and is more comfortable and adjusting better to life in a cast. Thanks to all for your positive thoughts and posts when that all went down.
@Wilco–rocking the Flap Wilco shirt at the Wilco show is awesome.
Yep, my picks are in. I fully intend to see this to the bitter end…
Nope. Brock Osweiler of AZ i think.
The pisser to me is the regluarity with which the Cards keep making the playoffs. They’ve been in them 6 of the last 8 years, including their 2 WS wins. Fuck ’em. But I hate the Dodgers as well.
Go Boston? Detroit? I guess I can live with Detroit winning it all.
And along with the year to year success, the Cards farm system is ranked #1 now or thereabouts by most ranking services/writers, while the Giants system is in the ’20s. They get rid of Pujols, lose Carpenter all this year — but just reload and they’re still in the NLCS with the best record in the NL. All with payroll at $117M. It’s called good management…
they have a very good farm system and they have a quite few homegown players ( as the giants do), but without beltran, holliday, freese,wainwright, and mujica, they’re a 70 win team.
Freese was horrible this year and Mujica finally lost his job in sept (I think).
The point is that not only do the Cards have a top ranked system but they make good free agent decisions too (and good no-signs as Pujols is proving).
As much as I hate the Cardinals it’s impossible to not tip your cap at every phase of their system year in and year out
they have a very good farm system, that’s common knowledge.i don’t dispute that and i don’t dispute that they’re a well run team. i tire of the unending trashing (by one commenter ) of the giant’s front office because of 2013’s failure. we still have a solid core either home grown or acquired in exchange for home grown talent.
Facts about a well run organization year in and year out can be tiresome I suppose…
repeated ad nauseum is tiresome. if we suck, get used to it because the core of this team is either home grown or acquired for hg talent.
Yes, the Cardinals have a very good all-around organization, there is no disputing that. What irks me is their so-called “best fans in baseball”. Look, ALL teams have their fair share of knowledgeable, hard-core fans – St Louis , although they like to pretend they do, does not have a monopoly on them.
new thread up with all the picks