first of all…HAPPY OPENING DAY! these good wishes extend to everyone, including liberals and democrats, as long as we can all embrace the unifying force that is major league baseball. so let’s start the predictions. feel free to add to my list.
2006 MLB predictions:
- the cubs will not win the world series.
- barry bonds will continue not to answer questions about steroids.
- yankees fans will still be rude and obnoxious to fans of other teams.
- george steinbrenner will threaten to fire joe torre and brian cashman.
- the yankees will still win the al east.
- the red sox will make some excuse why that happened (other than their weak starting pitching).
- tom glavine will show that the braves still own him.
- victor zambrano (mets), danny graves(indians), and kris benson(o’s) will completely suck.
- pedro martinez will miss significant time due to injury.
- a team other than the mets will win the nl east. 🙁
- roger clemens will almost hit a batter in the head.
- all divisions except the nl central will have competitive races for the top spot.
that’s what i think, and i reserve the right to change any of this at any time in the future. for those who were able to get the day off, enjoy all those baseball games. as for me, i’m off to work.
tags: MLB, opening day, yankees, red sox
I’m usually not very good with predictions, but I’ll make a few.
–I’m a Cardinal fan, so I’m going to pick the Cards to win the NL Central and the NL and onto another World Series.
–As a Cardinal fan that means I hate the Cubs. I’ll pick them finishing second to last again in the NL Central, with most of their pitching staff on the DL for most of the year.
–Pujols will hit 50+ homers this year and come oh so close to winning the triple crown.
–As much as I hate to say this, I’ll pick the Yankees winning the AL.
I wouldn’t mind seeing a Cardinals/Yankees World Series, just as long as the Redbirds take it home.
Really gutsy pick there. Way to go out on a limb. 😛 I do tend to agree that the Cardinals will make the WS, and that the Cubs pitching staff will spend significant time on the DL. I like Mark Prior a lot and I think, if he could even keep himself off of the DL, that he’s got the makeup to be a HOF type pitcher. But the ship may have sailed on that expectation. Kerry Wood, on the other hand, has never impressed me that much. I think it’s because he doesn’t have the mental game down. In any case, Zambrano will have to win too many games for the Cubs to contend at all. I just don’t see it happening. But I don’t hate the Cubs. They are too pathetic to hate, aren’t they?I’m not particularly good at picking World Series winners. I picked the Astros last year. I underestimated the Cardinals and White Sox. Based on their recent playoff history, it made total sense to write them off.
Here are the teams I like: Mets, Indians, Red Sox, and any other team that beats the Yankees. I hope we are both wrong about the Yankees, because I like watching the fireworks that go off between the Boss and his team during long losing streaks. But yeah…I think the Yankees are clear favorites so far to win the AL. The White Sox might just be a one-year wonder. That is TBD, of course.
Yeah, I’m not real good a making picks. Usually if I pick a team it ruins my chances. Plus I’m supersticious, big time.
I do hate the Cubs, though. Cub and Cardinal fans don’t get along.
The teams I like: Cardinals, sorta White Sox and that’s it. But I do like baseball in general. The atmosphere at baseball games is the best. It feels so American! 🙂
How did you become a Cards fan? I am apathetic about the White Sox, which is why I didn’t watch most of the WS last year. I’m from NE Ohio, so I’ve been following the Tribe since ’95. They had some great years, and now they are getting back to contention. I started watching the Mets back in ’99 during the Bobby V “fake mustache” era. That was a fun time…and they almost won the WS in 2000. (Poor Al Leiter…lol)Do you follow minor league ball at all? I live pretty close to the Charlotte Knights ballpark. I’m determined to get to a few games this year.
I live about two hours southeast of StL and it’s by far the closest MLB team around. Even though I live in Illinois it’s deep south Illinois, on the Kentucky border (about 6-7 hours south of Chicago). The vast majority of people in this area, including 99% of my family, are Cardinals fans. So I’ve been a Cardinals fan since before birth 🙂
My dad is from Chicago and a Sox fan. Growing up he would always watch Sox games, so I do like the ChiSox, but I don’t consider myself that much of a fan per se. And the good thing about ChiSox fans is that they hate the Cubs as well.
As far as minor league goes, I don’t follow it that much. Though the town I live in is currently building a minor league stadium to host a Cardinals AA affiliate. First pitch is scheduled for spring ’07. I can’t wait!
If I follow any minor league it is the Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals AAA team). I’m about two hours from Memphis also, so occassionaly I’ll make a game or two.
I live in a really peculiar area. We don’t consider ourselves from Illinois at all. We say Southern Illinois. I was born in Kentucky but raised in Southern Illinois. It’s more of the upper south, but just don’t dare tell us we’re from the north 🙂
Since you are from Ohio, it would be like people from southern Ohio, who have much more in common with Kentucky than Ohio. Plus, Southern Illinois is farther south than 90% of the state of Kentucky and on the same parallel as North Carolina. I’m actually closer to Atlanta than Chicago.
Well, sorry to bore you and sorry for the geography lesson 🙂
The Braves are the closest team to me. I’m about 3+ hours from ATL…which is why it makes much more sense to watch the minor league team practically next door to me. Besides that…I’m a Mets fan and the Braves are our natural enemies, sort of like Cubs/Cards, although I don’t think it’s quite as intense. Mets/Yankees is much more heated at this point. I used to live about an hour from Cleveland, and I got to see several games at Jacobs Field. It was fun, but not as fun as the All-Star game in ’96 at Turner Field.
(Can you tell I’m a baseball junkie??? Fortunately, there is no cure.)
I would have to agree that Southern Ohio is way different from Northeast Ohio. The further north you go in Ohio, the more Democrats you find, and Ohio is home to some of the true nutcases…like Dennis Kucinich (our proud tin-foil hat guy). I still say I’m from Ohio when anyone asks, because even though SC is a red state, it still doesn’t impress me much in other areas. But at least everything doesn’t shut down at ten, as it did in Tulsa ,while I was at ORU.
You don’t bore me. My guess is that you are probably more interesting than you will admit online. (Did that make sense at all?)
The further south in Ohio you go, the further behind in time they are. Cincinnati is stuck in the 1950s. Sad.
Go Reds.
I wouldn’t know. I’ve only been to Cinci a couple times, so I guess I will have to take your word for it. Good luck to your Reds. 🙂
I’ve only been to Ohio one time. It was to visit a friend in Canton. I’ve been to Louisville a couple times, but northern Kentucky is a messed up place.
I do love baseball too. I can’t wait to get to the new Busch Stadium.
Interestingly, because you mention party affiliation, Southern Illinois is highly Democratic. But in presidential elections it’s very Republican. This is because it is a very conservative, Southern Democratic area. It’s old time Democratic. I’m talking Stephen Douglas Democrats and not FDR Democrats– it goes back a long ways. Lincoln didn’t win a single county in Southern Illinois in ’60 or ’64.
Yeah, I think I just convinced myself that I am boring 🙂
NO WAY!!!! I grew up in Canton…it was a wonderful Republican town. 🙂 Then I moved to Akron with the family after high school. I went to ORU in Tulsa for a year(long story), then came back and graduated from the University of Akron.
Wow. Stephen Douglas Democrats. I didn’t know they still existed. Is that the kind of Democrat that you would consider yourself? I’m not that familiar with Stephen Douglas’ political philosophy. Is there a current Democrat who is similar in philosophy to Douglas?
Your Cards look good. My Mets could be 2-0 if it weren’t for our stupid bullpen. 🙁
I’m not sure the people in the area where I live consider themselves Douglas Democrats any more. What I was meaning by that was that people in this area have been voting Democrat for a long time. Most people who follow politics assume that FDR laid the tradition of Democratic voters. It’s very true that FDR did in many parts of the country, but where I live they were voting Democrat long before FDR came around.
Stephen Douglas was the pro-slavery Democrat who Lincoln debated and ran against for the senate and presidency. I don’t consider myself in the same political ideology as that at all. Though I think some in the South might border along those lines still 🙂
I consider myself to be center to slightly left of center on most issues. I was raised pentecostal, against abortion, pro gun, but I’m against the death penalty (for the most part), for civil unions and currently I find myself in much more agreement with the Republicans on immigration.
I’m not sure if all that balances out, but I do like to consider myself rather moderate 🙂
I’m not that fond of FDR. I blame him for the creation of the welfare state. While I’m sure some provisions of the New Deal were necessary at the time, I think that a bad precedent was set there of creating government programs for everything that ails the country. I’m also not sure exactly why he was re-elected so many times.
I did know that Douglas was pro-slavery, but I guess I didn’t initially understand what you were trying to say there. I agree with you that prejudice still exists in the South. I have heard bigoted statements from people who I thought would know better than that. It made me cringe. I tried to give them a chance to change what they said but it didn’t happen. 🙁
The death penalty is a hard question for me. I am inclined to be for it, especially for terrorists and sex offenders. I’m not sure that life in prison is a sufficient punishment for people like this. But the idea of the state killing people does seem wrong on some level.
As far as civil unions, if that means a step toward legalizing same-sex marriage…there’s no way I would support them. I do think that there are legal ways that same-sex partners can make decisions about medical care, etc, like some kind of power of attorney or something. That kind of thing is done all the time.
This immigration problem, I will admit, doesn’t seem to have a simple solution. I am still undecided on that.
I think we agree on quite a bit, but I wouldn’t consider myself a moderate at all, and my guess is…neither would you. Ok…so now this thread has gotten way OT…. 🙂