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  Tuesday, October 07, 2003


Stupid Seer

I missed one of the great comebacks on all of football history a few years ago.  The Jets were down by something like 35 points, and it was a Monday night game, and it was late, and why the hell should I stay up to watch a blowout, anyway?

That's pretty much how I felt last night when I saw that the Buccaneers were up 28-7 over the Colts.  We all know the Colts can score, but the Bucs, with their great D and a huge lead?  Fugettaboutit.  I mentally began tallying a column on why the Bucs are, in fact, still the best team around, seeing as how their only loss was to a very good Carolina team, and it was a game that by all rights they should have won. 

That column will never see the light of day.  Maybe I should write about the Colts instead?  For the record, the Seer predicted that the Colts would beat the 4.5 point spread, and so now the Seer stands at 31-24, good for a 56.4% clip.  Suddenly, 58% seems downright attainable.  I need an 800 number!

But at least I missed the game for good reason, to watch the Oakland A's fold for a 9th consecutive game when they had a chance to advance in the postseason with a win.  I personally have attended two of those games.  I belong to a Twins message board that has an ongoing debate about the merits of Billy Beane's philosophies regarding plate discipline.  I think Beane's ideas are smart and necessary, and really they aren't even Beane's ideas so much as Earl Weaver's ideas. 

But there are a few people on the board who like to point at Oakland's lack of postseason success as an invalidation of Beane's methods.  These people will also somehow claim that the "old school" or "small ball" approach taken by the Twins is proven to be superior, because after all, the Twins beat the A's last year. 

Well, whatever.  I don't see Oakland's losses as anything more than a run of bad performance, bad luck, and well...bad luck.  Sometimes you lose the big games.  That's how it is.  Billy Beane's philosophy sure didn't have anything to do with Derek Lowe throwing two nasty pitches to strike out Adam Melhuse and Terrence Long last night. 

Now I'm in the position of having to root for the Red Sox to beat the Yankees, which is easy enough to do.  In the NL, I would normall root for the Cubs, given who is left, but this Marlins team has caught my fancy, and I'll be hoping to watch Dontrelle Willis in Fenway Park in the World Series.


9:31:13 AM    Say what?[]


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