Fenway617

Bridge To Victory

2011-11-18T15:10:00.002-05:00

Congrats to “Sagamore Squad” for not just winning the week but nailing the tie breaker score on the button. “Tony C” tied him in wins but was 4 points off on the total. The win vaulted “Sagamore Squad” up 5 spots into sole passion of 1^st place. Poor “Tony C” with the same 12 win total he did jump 25 spots moving him all the way up to 79^th place. What does that tell us? Well it tells me that “Sagaomore Squad” has had a pretty good season ( in the season top 15 since week 4) and that “Tony C” (First time out of triple digits since week one) has sucked all season. But he did come within a FG of winning the week so he can hang his hat on that but he still sucks.

It was a unusual week, we are in the midst of the “bye” weeks but for some reason no team had a bye this past week. In weeks 5,6,7,8,9 teams had byes, no byes in week 10 then this weekend teams have the bye again. I wonder why? Actually I really don’t care. But .. This number may shock you but there are only 120 games left this NFL season! That counts playoffs (but not the all-star game err Probowl) One Hundred -Twenty-One games left… seems like yester … you get the pun … ! I have no research on this but I’d bet that if anyone in the top 5 right now goes at worst 60-60 the rest of the way would finish in a top 15 money spot!

In my lifetime I have had the pleasure doing a shitload of travel. I’ve been all over the country and visited many cities. The one city I have never liked is Philly .. we all know where this is gong but stay with me and let me vent on behalf of the 18 other people who hate Philly this week as well. Every time I have to Philly I dread it, when I am there I hate it, the only time I smile is when I get to leave. The people are rude, the chicks are ugly, the city is disgusting and the sports teams all suck. Their biggest claim to sports fame is Rocky who isn’t even a real person but everyone in Philly thinks he is. The fans talk about how great their teams are and shit yet in the last 28 season they have won ONE title, which is one less than the Florida Marlins! Their “dream team” football team employees a convicted dog killer and all the fans cheer for him and not that their season is going down the crapper they are all making excuses. So as I am watching the game Sunday and seeing my Survivor dreams come crashing down along with 18 other players I took solace in knowing the entire city of Philly was also suffering the loss. Really, never in the history of the Survivor has a team single handily committed genocide in one week like what we saw Sunday. How bad was it, there are just 5 players left last season at the time there were 23 players left. If Philly would have won Sunday guess how many players would still be alive? Yup, 23! That is how much Philly screwed up the normal set of events. So fuck Philly, Fuck Vick, Fuck Andy Reid and Fuck the Liberty Bell!

The Thursday night games are always an odd thing. Each week since the Thursday games started the number of players who have the favorite is always above 70%. I don’t have any data to back up my theory but I’d bet eh reason is people forget to get their picks in by Wednesday so they get stuck with the favorite. Last night %78 took the JETS despite the face they played Sunday night I NY, had only a days in a half of practice, had to fly across the country, play in high-altitude and were giving 4.5 points. It is easy to say now but I was very happy taking the points and climbing up a few spots higher in the top 15.

Right now is about as good as a time as ever to take a look at how the top end-of-season top 15 players from last year are doing this season (as of Wednesday)… here is a hint, all but one player sucks this season. “Ed O” (7^th last season, 2^nd tight now) is the only top 15 player from last season ranked higher than 29^th. “dflogue” who finished 12^th last season is 2^nd to last this season.

(*through November 16)

2010	Name	*2011
1st	Ghastly	44th
2nd	EdO	7th
3rd	The Dirty 712	88th
4th	The Highlanders	95th
5th	Clay Davis	63rd
6th	WVU PETE	43rd
7th	Drew	46th
8th	Emmado	Not Playing
9th	Bob W	81st
10th	Mike S	39th
11th	Gravy Train	29th
12th	dflogue	125th
13th	gigi	57th
14th	Bolt Fever	93rd
15th	Darby	66th

Other Tidbits

“frenchy” currently has a dubious honor, he is the worst player at picking the Monday Night winner (3-8) and also last place to the tiebreaker average (13.30).

Like past seasons the magic number each week for wins to achieve is 8, if you average 8 wins a week you are guaranteed a money spot. The current season leader, “Sagamore Squad” is averaging 8.09 wins a week. The current 15^th player, “Kasmire” is averaging 7.27 wins per week. The point, if you only half-suck each week you will win money!

In week 8, just 2-weeks ago we did not lose one player from the Survivor pool. The number of players alive stood at 36. Today that number is 5.

Can someone explain what the “Pool Experts” page is? I have no idea what the fuck it even means. It says at the bottom the pool experts are 28-98 for the season, 22% ?? Experts? In what? I’m on the list and I have no idea why.

Today’s random fact of the week

Tim Tebow’s game winning TD run Thursday was the longest game winning TD run by a QB in the last minute of the 4^th quarter in NFL history.

HE BE HUSTLIN'

2011-11-09T13:48:00.000-05:00

Congrats to "I.B.HUSTLIN" for a solid 12 win week which is hard to pull off when we are in the bye week of the season. He jumped 27th spots into 15th place. That was not the biggest jump of th week though, "Mustang" jumped 35 spots but he went from really shitty 86th place to just shitty 51st place. Three other places jumped up into the top ten, "wtrman","Thadalicious", "EdO". "Rayfab" leaped 5 spots to take over the top spot. The last place spot still belongs to "G.O" who at 50-80 has a lock on the basement. It is beating a dead horse but if "G.O" took the exact opposite of his picks this season he would be in first-place.

One of the best things about writing this is I can make fun of people without an worry of getting beat up. I mean, I know who knows who i am in the pool so the people who where I live I will go easy on the rest I don't care about. But The tough part is I also play in the pool, two spots in fact "05"and "-fenway617" so when I make fun of you idiots for fucking up I have to worry that I may also fuck up the same way throughout the season. For example, I like to make fun of those people who fail to make ether picks either in the Survivor pool or Regular Pool. Really, who is that stupid to pay for the season and not have the time to submit your picks. I also like to make fun of the idiots who do really-really bad each week. Like the dope "Dai-ma" who pulled the first ever O-fer. This takes us to Sunday, 4:30pm . As I am tallying up my record for the early games I pull out my "-Fenway617"sheet and start to circle the games I won - and I circled exactly 0 games. 7 games 7 losses. Panic! Fortunately I did get a few wins in the later games but it was a few hours of me trying to decided how I like my crow.

In the land of Survivor 11 people took their final bows this week. KC, OAK, PIT and PHI screwed those poor soles. We are down to 26 players, 4 with no losses. Last year at this time we had 29 players left, 9 with no losses so we are in the same area. This week we will see more people go away, with just two games that have more than a 7pt spread the total number of players should drop into the teens. Around this time, the mid-way point you can start to forecast playoff teams. Not this year. Look at the AFC alone, the East 3 teams with 5-3 records, the JETS who has a horrible offence, the PATRIOTS who couldn't stop a running nose and the BILLS who are as unstable as a Kardashian marriage. The North, Cincy, BAl and PIT al with 6 wins, The west, thee teams at 4-4 and Denver a game back at 3-5. Go ahead, pick the 4 AFC division winners and 2 wild card teams right now? I bet you ask 20 people you get 20 different answers.

My picks -

EAST (NE, after Sunday they have an easy schedule and should finish 13-3 or 12-4)

NORTH (BAL, tough but they have the head to head on Pit and Cincy can't keep this going -can they)

SOUTH (HOU. by default)

WEST (SD, flip a coin but of the 4 teams they are prob the best of the worst)

WILDCARDS (PIT, NYJ)

Speaking of Survivor, I went 9 days without power - NINE DAYS! I knew it was a bad sign on day 6 when Governor Deval Patrick was walking wround my neighborhood with National Grid people. Being without power, TV, internet for 9 days has to be harder than being on Survivor? Right?

Random NFL fact of the day … IF an NFL game every has to be forfeited the official score will be 2-0? Why 2? A Safety (2 points) is the only type of score that doesn’t get credited to any player.

Limited Resources, Not So Lucky!

2011-11-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

Sorry folks but this one will be quick with no pictures. I live in Western, Mass and have not had power since Saturday night. No one in the area had power until mid-week, homes or buisness (aka bars) so I spent football Sunday watching the scores on my Blackberry. I am in Panera catching up on things and have a little bit of time to get this post up.

Congrats to "luckyone", getting the win outright - he didn't need no stinking tiebreaker score. I followed up my dynasty building weekly win with a shitty 5 win week this week. That dropped me 6 spots overall. "Luckyone" jumped 19 spots into 8th place with his big week.

This week was the old 1/2 point screw job. Ya know. When you win (or lose) a game by a mere half a point. Four games were decided ATS by a 1/2 point this week. Only four players were on the winning side of all four games: "Boom Roasted", "Roy", "Sleeve of Wizard", and "tabaccy" all were loving the 1/2 point screw job everyone else got.

In Survivor land we have now gone three weeks I a row with everyone making a pick - serious stuff. Two players suffered their first loss and we said good bye to no one.

Random fact of the week I uncovered - in 2009 Indy was 14-0 going into week 16. They did not need to win either of the last two games, their spot was secure as the top seed. So they didn't try to win either game and lost both. Since that 14-0 start they have gone 10-16 in the regular season.

Om Twitter @fenway617 if I ever get power I'll be there too,

A Dynasty is Born ...

2011-10-26T15:15:00.007-04:00

DUH Winning!

While watching the final minutes of the Monday night game and it became obvious I would win the week I was bursting at the seems and couldn’t wait to get this newsletter up. Not just because I won but so much happened in the pool this weekend I could not wait. I even went so far as to text Ed at 1am Tuesday morning to check an unbelievable pool fact which I’ll talk about later….

First about this weeks winner ... me! And the start of my dynasty that will be as unstoppable as the 2007 Patriots. I started to explain to my fiancee before the Monday night game what I needed the result to be in order to win the week. She doesn’t know a lot about football spreads, over/under, tiebreaker scores etc .. I explained to her that two things had to happen; I needed the combined score to be less than 37; AND I needed Jacksonville to either win or not lost by more than 7 points. For example I said "a final score of 20-14 would be great". She doesn’t get the whole point spread concept and thinks the spread is included in the over/under total. Our conversation got more complex until I just started agreeing with everything she said and went upstairs to watch the game alone.

As the time ticked away and it became clear that I would win the week I was exited, did a celebratory shot of Zambuka (don't judge me) and for some reason she was excited too. A little too excited. She asked how much we won. When I said $125 her dreams of shoe shopping quickly faded and she lost interest. Sensing a chance to pile it on I further explained that I really only won $15 because the pool fee was $110. Then I took it a step deeper explaining I really didn’t win anything because I played two spots this season at $110 each so I am still in the hole overall. By then her attitude was indifferent and didn't understand why I was so excited about winning but whatever, girls are dumb.

The Monday night game was a horrible game to watch. If I didn’t have the weekly win riding on it I would have preferred to watch a Lifetime movie while drinking tea and hanging pictures. I kept thinking about the two poor saps in the Survivor pool that took Baltimore (Vamp & Pickle). The game looked like a gimmie on paper then they had to suffer though all this:

Baltimore had no first downs in the 1^st half
Baltimore had 1 net passing yards in 1^st half
Joe Flaco completed a pass for negative -8 yards to HIMSELF
There were 6 official fumbles and at least 2 others that were not called fumbles
Jacksonville’s kicker Josh Scobee made 3 FG’s of 50+ yards ( a side note, a few years ago when I was single I had a one night stand with a local DJ who’s on-air name was "DJ Scooby" so I knew this was a good sign when he nailed that 3^rd FG)
At one point Baltimore had 3^rd down and 25 at their own 30 yard line, they gained 12 yards but got called for holding. Jacksonville could have declined the penalty making it 4^th and 13 and made Baltimore punt BUT they had so little fear of Baltimore’s offense they took the risk and accepted the penalty making it 3^rd and 35 for Baltimore.

Ugly sure ... but not for me it was a beautiful game.

About that unbelievable fact I had to text Ed about.... as I was looking through the final weekly standings one thing jumped right out at me, you know besides seeing “05” with the word “WINNER” next to it, was all the way at the bottom – last place for the week “Dai-ma” 0-13 … zero and thirteen H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T.. I immediately sent Ed a text to confirm what I thought was true. Since this pool started back in 1997 no one has ever pulled an 0-fer for a week in the regular season? EVER! And Ed confirmed it was true. Not only did “Dai-ma” not win a single game he also took 52 (the highest [no pun intended but intended] of the week) as the tiebreaker score for a game that had a over/under line at 37! The 0-13 week dropped him from 14^th place all the way to 73^rd place, a 59 point drop! Smoke up my friend, puff the magic dragon ...

That takes us to poor old “Grampy”. When I looked at all the Survivor picks Sunday morning the teams that I figured I’d see I did. Dallas and New Orleans. One pick looked like it didn’t belong; Miami! “Grampy” picked Miami. My first reaction was "idiot". Then I thought, hmm maybe - genius? They are playing Denver who sucks. So this could be a brilliant pick. He can burn a non-playoff team which you have to do in order to last to the end and get a cheap win. But "Grampy" already had one loss so this was a life or death pick risk. Further muddying the waters is Miami sucks, especially at home. They went 1-7 at home last season, they were 0-2 this season. Their coach sucks, their QB sucks, their fans suck and inexplicably it was Tim Tebow day at the stadium. Who in case you didn’t know is the QB of the team they were facing in that very game! Miami was honoring a QB that they are about to face for his college career in their home stadium, in the shadows of the U of Miami, despite the fact he played his college football 6 hours and 350 miles away at a rival college! What is next? UConn having Marcus Camby day?

BUT … Grampy’s faith almost paid off - almost! .. Lets dig in but this game too was atrocious so I’ll just jump to the end ….. Miami was up 15-0 with 2:44 left. In order for Denver to win all the following things had to happen in the final 2:44 or Miami wins…

Denver had to complete a 4^th down play
Denver had to score a TD
Denver had to make the extra point
Denver had to do an onside kick
Denver had to recover the onside kick
Denver had to score a TD
Denver had to complete the 2 point conversion

Check - Check - Check - Check - Check - Check - Check

But Miami still had a chance in OT, but two possessions 0 points. Denver drove the ball past midfield then called upon their FG kicker, a guy who had missed two FGs of about 40 yards earlier in the game to make a 52 yard FG in OT - he nailed it - game over! Denver wins on Tim Tebow day in Miami! Mercy!

Overall the top three in the season pool remained unchanged and I ... “05” jumped up 14 spots into 6^th place. The bottom three also remained unchanged.

Today’s random fact of the week…
In St. Louis, if you go watch a Rams game the cost is $9 for a 12 oz. draft beer, the most expensive in the NFL... And

I won the week! In case you haven't heard!

Yes, this is a picture of me in my softball shirt

An Appetizer or Meal

2011-10-20T17:06:00.004-04:00

The only thing I enjoy more than winning a week myself is when someone else wins with a username I can work with. And lets face it I can count on one finger the number of weeks I have won in the past five seasons so when a usable names win it is an treat. This week "Riblet" took home the ~~bacon~~ ... ribs with a 10 win week. It was a vanilla, nothing all that great week, not so bad week for most people our little pool. Of the 126 players 87 players had between 7-10 wins so almost 75% of us were withing 3 games of winning. If you started the week in the top 9 you finished the week in the top 9. The only player who dropped out of the top 10 was "uncle billy" which is just a really creepy nickname to use in this pool. Last seasons overall biggest loser and season last place "winner" "Tabaccy" continues his impressive turn around, he is up 2 spots into 8th place. This begs the question, if "Tabaccy" finishes the season in the top 10 after being dead last a year ago is that the greatest accomplishment ever in this pool? Last season he said he was trying to lose and he did and now he is trying to win and he is. I need a ruling on this and I need it now!

Meanwhile the "Suck for Luck" campaign is going strong. Three teams win no losses, five teams with one win so I can leave my shoes on and count,eight teams have a combined 5 wins and we are at the 40% point of the season.

In Survivor last night the said farewell to SPOILER ALERT 22 year-old "Mikayla Wingle" and you probably don't get why this is important. Besides the fact she has a really cool name Mikayla plays for the Tampa Breeze of the Lingerie Football League? Has been in playboy and was the hottest girl on the island where you have nothing to do but talk and look at each other. If I was sent to an island and could bring three things with me Mikayla would be one of the items. And they vote her off. Barbaric!

But I'm not on a island I am here playing in our Survivor version. Once again this week we lost three players who choose not to make a pick. But what is worse, not making a pick or picking a team twice which is what "BGW" did which gave him loss #2 and an early shower. Really, at least the three people who didn't make a pick could have an excuse but what excuse do you have for actual picking a team that you just picked two-weeks ago. Loser! But we still have 40 players left, 8 with no losses.

Random fact of the week, Tom Brady has not lost a home regular season game since November 12, 2006. Think about that - 2006. Yea sure he is 2-2 at home in the playoffs in that same time frame so save your facts they don't work for my point.

This is a rudimentary list of things that happened in 2006:

The Celtics sucked, so did the Bruins ... Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby and was still alive .. so was Anna Nicole Smith (they both died the same day in 2007). GW Bush was president, Tony Blair was PM. Curt Gowdy, Don Knotts, James Brown, Red Auerbach, Ed Bradley, Kirby Puckett, Gerald Ford, Aaron Spelling all died in 2006. Steve "the Crocodile Hunter" Irwin took on and lost a battle with a sting ray and died in 2006. Raiders owner Al Davis who also died but no one realized it until this week. In 2006 our little NFL pool had 68 players, Drew took home the top spot and won a cool $1,100. I ... yes me .. won the Survivor Poll and became the first and until last season only sole winner of the Survivor pool. I clinch it in week 13 when Chicago beat Tampa Bay in OT. And Finally in 2006... Giselle was still banging Leonard DiCaprio and Brady was tagging Bridget Moynahan and not yet a father.

On twitter @fenway617

Where Has The Time Gone

2011-10-13T20:58:00.001-04:00

My plan was to do one post each-week but at the start of the season it is too vanilla. It woudl take me days to pour over everything and quite frankly I was working on my thesis so my time was limited. As you probably guessed or hoped my thesis is not in English, literature and any discipline close to any of them. I am still working on it, almost done. So between that, getting engaged and work something had to go and this blog was cut for a while. Now that the season is past the quarter pole and the survivor pool has gone to shit I figured I'd chime in. Unlike last season there will be no post blog Nomar final words, I think you now understand why he is the greatest SS in Red Sox history so no need to drive the point home any more.

Speaking of the team formally known as the Red Sox. On the day they were knocked out of the playoffs I received my playoff tickets in the mail. One could argue they were knocked out of the playoffs on September 1st but lets keep it official here.

I am playing this season under two user-names "05" and "-Fenway617" why the -(dash) in front of the user-name? With "05" being at the top of the list I was hoping the added - woudl make "Fenway617" up there as well. The hope was on Sunday's when I print my pick sheet I just had to pring one page but that plan failed. -Fenway617 is on page two! Ed made a foolish bet with me this baseball season, we each took 4 players and the person with the most total HR's won so he is now covering 25% of my entry fee so why not play two spots. By the way I won the bet 100 - 58. He was doomed from the get-go when I saw he took JD Drew.

I am not faithful to this NFL pool, I do play in another survivor only pool as well. That one is single elimination. I was knocked out of that pool this week with the shitty Giants screwing me. I wasn't alone. The ironic part is in that pool only 8 players remain, in our survivor pool only 8 players have no losses! How succinct. 42 people took the NY Giants this week! Crazy! 44 players remain, 8 have no losses. I got a feeling this isn't lasting to the playoffs this season. We also continued the streak going of at least one player no making a pick thus getting a loss.

The odd fact I uncovered is last season's survivor pool winner ~~Boston Rob~~ - "Angry Mike" who took home a cool $1,070 was eliminated in week two. And to add to the more bizarre part he was eliminated after he failed to make a pick in week two! So his title defense lasted two-weeks!

While trying to come up with content for the regular pool I thought it woudl be a good time to look at last years final money winners and the spot they finished and the spot they are in after week 5.

So I present in order how the top 15 finished last season with their current stand on the left. Note that there are 126 people playing this season!

1st : Ghastly 96th Place
2nd: EdO 23rd Place
3rd: The Dirty 712 106th Place
4th: The Highlanders 24th Place
5th: Clay Davis 95th Place
6th: WVU PETE 26th Place
7th: Drew 68th Place
8th: Emmado (not playing or under a new username)
9th: Bob W 70th Place
10th: Mike S 29th Place
11th: Gravy Train 42nd Place
12th: dflogue 126th Place (DEAD LAST) but he is in a money spot at least.
13th: gigi 37th Place
14th: Bolt Fever 98th place
15th: Darby 51th Place

Not one player in the top 20, only player in the "money" is the last place "dflogue". Last years final dead last spot went to "Tabaccy" who claimed last year he was "trying" to lose, now this season he sits in 10th place. Guess he is now "trying" to win.

My point? I don't have one, it is early still. But there is a 24 win spread between the #1 spot and the last spot and with the NFL in the bye week part of the schedule there are less games each week so no time like the present to start collecting wins and moving up. Now please let me be, it is beer, chicken and video game time - Terry said it was OK!

As far as today's random fact .... Green Bay lost 6 games last season but they never trailed by more than 7 points in any of the 20 games they played!

HaHa August 17 Preseason Blog

2011-08-17T03:09:00.001-04:00

Follow me on Twitter (@fenway617)

It had to start somewhere this season . Why not at 2:20am on 8/17/2011 after I have has 4 pops of zambuca which helped me wash down an Ambien. Don't worry, I am OK. Or if I am not this blog post will be worth money tomorrow. This is what is great of just being my own boss here. Do what I want to do. Of course I don't get paid shit. But that's OK, it is fun. And I didn't really booze with Ambien, it just sounded so Hollywood to say it. Other big events to happened on August 17th.

2008 Michael Phelps wins 8 Gold Medals in 2008 Olympics
2000 The Democratic party nominates Al Gore to run for president
1998 President Bill Clinton testifies before a grand jury investigating his conduct and admits an 'inappropriate relationship' with Monica Lewinsk
1980 George Brett goes 4-for-4, raising his batting average to .401

If you followed me last year you know I am a Nomar fan. I still feel he is one of the best Red Sox players ever, I'm not going to argue that here though. But I do wear #5 in softball for him. But I can announce that I will not end this or any future blogs with a Nomar quote like last year. Nomar sent me and asked me to stop so I always listen to my god. So I need a new idea this year to end this silly thing.

This blog has evolved a great deal. I find awesome is people actually read it despite my butchering of the English language. If readership ever drops I thought about posting a nude picture of Brady's kid to grab some attention but someone beat me to that.

Does anyone care about the preseason? I thought I did, really I did. Patriots 1st preseason game last Thursday. I was actuallty looking forward to it. So the game comes on, 5 min later my girlfriend screams from the shower "Only cold water" I knew what that meant, we ran out of oil. My fault, I knew it was very low. I was watching the stock markets and oil prices all week and hedging my bet for a bigger drop in oil prices.. opppps. It was now 10pm, she is col. I really want sex so I need to spring into action. Off to the gas station I go, 6 gallons of diesel in the container. Heading back home. Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug, Chug, the tank has the six gallons. It fires up slow, I bleed the lines and we are good to go. I feel so gettto but hey we got hot water. The next day I had the tank filled.

So back to the preseason, I saw one play before the oil went dry so I DVR the game. By the timegot to watch it later that night I completely lot interest. Did I really want to FF trough 2nd and 3rd string players. I stood there looking at it until I finally clicked "delete" & "yes"to confirm".. and it was gone. I feel like I missed nothing.

As far as this blog goes. I will be around more. I will be writing a lot about folks in the pool but I'll mix in random stuff as well. I am wrapping up grad school so my thesis will be done soon. Anyone out there hiring? I'll need a job after my thesis and my MS in IT. Follow me on Twitter to see when this thing is updated.

Down The Stretch They Come ....

2011-01-28T18:43:00.003-05:00

After 266 games for a handful it comes down to one game, a game that can be the difference between a few hundred dollars for some or nothing at all. Heading down the final furlong we have 17 players vying for the 15 money spots. For “Ghastly” it is simply smooth sailing, he clinched first place last week. What is more impressive; “Ghastly” with a 6 game lead into the final weekend or “tabaccy” with an umm… 10 game lead on last place? I know I have beaten the “tabaccy” sucks at picks all season but it is noteworthy for me. She (it can’t be a guy can it?) has spent 14 straight weeks in last place or second to last place and 12 straight weeks in last place. The highest season rank she was at is 89^th place.

In the spirit of transparency, I am writing this on a Friday late afternoon after maybe 3 or 5, 6 Captain & Cokes (with a lime) drinking home alone well I am with my dog “Fenway” so I am not really alone, I have “Fenway” and the Captain with me… the moral of the story, if the facts following this are wrong, blame the Captain.

For many, so much is at stake in the Super Bowl, a closer look at the current standings what is at stake for each player. The Super Bowl will be big for players, in terms of picking the winner AND picking a tiebreaker score.

- "EdO" Can clinch first place with a win OR a loss by "The Dirty 712" ... "EdO's" tiebreaker score is worse than "The Dirty 712" so he will likely need to finish a game up to seal 2nd place.

- "The Dirty 712" has to look behind him at "The Highlanders" and "Clay Davis", both just are just a game back. "The Dirty 712" can finish anywhere from 2nd place to 6th place, just a difference of $550 in the money standings, no biggie ...

- "The Highlanders" and "Clay Davis" are both battling for 3rd place, both have 150 wins.

- Then there is "WVU Pete" with 149 wins who with a lot of help can move up to 4th place or finish as low as 9th.

- "Drew", "Bob W", "Emmado" all have 148 wins and can finish anywhere from 6th to 12th place.

- "Mike S", "Gravy Train", "dflogue" sit at 147 wins are all are looking at a finish between 7th and 12th place.

The 13th - 15th spots are where it gets interesting, five players going after three money spots.

- The current 13th spot "Darby" seems to be in real good shape to finish in the money, with 145 wins and a great tiebreaker average (11.5) even with a loss in the Super Bowl that should be enough to stick in the top 15.

- "gigi" owns the 14th spot now with 145 wins and with a a so-so tiebreaker of 12.8, all "gigi" and "Darby" have to do is pick the winner in the Super Bowl and they clinch a money spot. Even if both lose they are in good shape based on the tie breaker average to stay in the top 15.

The 15th spot is where it gets interesting, "Bolt Fever" owns it now and can clinch it with a win OR a loss by "rhonda b" and "Muffin Tops". It would be prudent for "Bolt Fever" to just win because should he lose and either "rhonda b" and "Muffin Tops" (or both) win "Bolt Fever" will be SOL because of his horrible tiebreaker score of 14.8 he would almost certainly lost if it came to that.

That is where things stand, 17 players for 15 spots. The moral of this for next season, the tiebreaker is just as good as a win so taking it serious each week can be a huge difference in the standings.

And speaking of the 16th player "rhonda b", talk about a weak bullpen closing things out, we are talking John “Way Back” Wasdin stuff with her … from week 3 to 13 she was in the season top 10 each week except in week 9 when she fell to 13th. After back to back weeks 10 and 11 in 9th place the floor caved in, dropping in consecutive weeks in the season rankings starting with week 14: 21th place, 26^th place, 29th place to finish the regular season. Yikes! Now she is just fighting to finish 15^th place.

Over in the middleman prize, as you know the player who finishes in 62nd place wins money as well and the current 62nd place person is ... NO ONE! Yup, the standings look like this:

60 Smacky               135 131   0   50.8    16.6   20     266     63      + 3
61 Irishman74           134 132   0   50.4    11.7   20     266     58      - 3
61 Underdog             134 132   0   50.4    11.7   20     266     52      - 9
63 TMac                  134 132    0   50.4    11.9   20     266     59      - 4
64 05Nomar              134 132   0   50.4    12.3   20     266     65      + 1

I'll say no more! Ok I will, there is a 3^rd tiebreaker, I know this because I helped write the rules so “Underdog” is 62^nd. But even though I hate this prize … hellfire, save matches, fuck a duck and see what hatches, I’d love to win it. But I don’t know how?

My English major girlfriend is hovering around, she wants to proof this before I post it .. WTF, go away and get me another drink. She hasn’t proofed one thing I wrote all season all season and not we are at the end she wants to get involved.. …. chicks!

Super Bowl Prediction. I hate Pitt, I liked them last week because I hate the Jets more so I rooted for them, then promptly took a hot shower and scrubbed myself until there was blood. Plus I have been to Wisconsin many times, I spent many of weekends at Lake Geneva, WI and there isn’t much besides drinking and football so Go packers.

GB 30

Pitt 27

And those of you who do win, and even if you don’t make sure you tip the pool commish. He busts his ass and pays out of pocket for server and hosting fees. He’d never ask but I am .. tip you bastards.

Nomar Fact of the Week

Nomar wore the #5 in the major leagues except for his first 3 months with the A's when he wore #1 (which is fitting) . Matt Holliday already had #5 but was traded in the summer so Nomar took #5 back.

Take a Knee Ghastly Becuase...

2011-01-20T14:14:00.003-05:00

It's over .. "Ghastly" has won the 2010/11 NFLPOOL championship. With a five game lead and only three games left he can coast his way to a higher tax bracket. How impressive was his season, look at these numbers:

He spent the last 8 weeks in the top spot
The lowest he was this season was 8th
He spent 14 of the 19 weeks in the top 3
He had 6, 10+ win weeks
He only had 2 weeks when he was under .500

His weekly average win total was 8.21 which I said at the start of the season is where you needed to be to have a shot at the money spots.

The rest of look like this: Edo has clinched a top 5 spot and The Dirty 712, Clay Davis, The Highlanders, Bob W, and WVU Pete have all clinched a money spot. The rest, from 8th place to 15th place is still up in the air. Spots 8 - 13 have 146 or 145 wins each while spots 14 and 15 have 144 and 143 wins. That 15th and final money spot will be fun to watch, Currently JoeF defied the odds (my odds) and climbed 15 spots in two weeks from 30th place to 15th place after a 3-1 finish this week following his 4-0 finish last week. His tiebreaker score is a good 12.6 and the players tied with him in wins all have weaker scores but lurking win behind is Lone Wolf (pun intended) with an outstanding 10.6 tiebreaker. A 2-0 weekend by Lone Wolf would put great pressure on JoeF because there is no way JoeF wins a tiebreaker shootout with him. ENZO is also sitting there with Lone Wolf at 142 wins but with a 14.0 tiebreaker ENZO needs a miracle finish to leap into the top 15.

As far as me and the middle man prize (62nd), I went 1-3 this week and dropped to 65th place, Stella who went 2-2 now occupies 62nd place - whatever.

My playoff predictions last week here went 3-1, I whiffed on the NE/NYJ game but who didn't. This week I'll nail both of them!

GB 31

CHI 13

NYJ 14

PIT 24

(if I were NY I'd be really scared of kicker Nick Folk this week)

And as a Patriots fan the AFC CG is a tough one to pick a side to root, I can't say either team I like but the way I see it is IF one of those teams has to win the Super Bowl who would I rather have it be? It has to be Pitt because most Jets fans are Yankees fans and the Yankees are douches just like their fans. Rooting for a team in this game is like rooting for a casino in Blackjack but I have to root for someone or I can't watch. Plus if Pitt wins that will make back to back years the Jets made it that far and lost which will start the rumblings that they are a bridesmaid team. But anyway .. I am rooting for GB to win the super bowl. So Pit and GB this week and GB in two weeks (with Chi as the alternate team).

Nomar Fact of the week

Nomar is the first player ever to hit three home runs over two consecutive innings as he did so in the first two frames of a Red Sox 22-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on July 23, 2002 (Also tied a major league record for most home runs over two days with five as he had hit two against the New York Yankees the previous day)

There's No Place Like Home ... Unless ..

2011-01-14T14:17:00.001-05:00

....You were the home team last weekend .. four games, four road wins!

Throughout the season I usually lead this with a congrats to the weekly winner but in the playoffs with so few games you won't get credit for winning a week here however it was amazing that only one player went undefeated this week, "JoeF". I'd thought I'd chalk that up to the Seattle effect and no one taking them but more people took Seattle (35) than took the Jets (31) and KC (26).

The big congrats goes to "Angry Mike" who won the Survivor pool and has now joined elite company (me) as we are now the only two players to ever win the Survivor pool solely! I'd like to point out that when I won it a few year's ago (under the name 22) I locked it up in week 13 but "Angry Mike" was equally impressive when you consider that not only did he win it he still had 2 of the 8 playoffs teams alive available to pick (NE and GB) so if he had to he could have made a pick this week. Congrats young man and don't forget to claim your winnings with the IRS!

The regular pool with seven games left only two money spots have been clinched, "Ghastly" is assured of at least a top 5 finish and "tabaccy" has clinched last place. Outside of that the rest of the top 15 is still in flux. After this weekend things will settle down for sure and we will have a good idea of who will make up the top 10 spots at least. The last money spot, 15th place has 142 wins (Bolt Fever) but "Bolt" has a terrible tiebreaker score (15.2) so that spot is shaky at best. Especially with four players sitting behind him with 141 wins and all four have superior tiebreaker scores to "Bolt". After that we have two players with 140 wins and five with 139 wins. Those five will need help, like go undefeated this week and hope the players above them go 0-4 or 1-3 to have a chance at a money spot. Last week I boldly predicted that if a player was not in the top 26 they were SOL, well "JoeF" took it personal and went 4-0 and jumped 10 spots from 30th place to 20th place, he is one of the 140 win players alive. "JoeF" does have a shot at a money spot, he has a decent enough tiebreaker (12.7) and if he follows up last weeks 4-0 with a another 4-0 he could jump into the top 15. A 10 spot jump is rare in the playoffs.

One money spot I have not mentioned all season because as I talked about a lot last season I hate is the "Middle Man Prize" basically it is like playing the lottery, there is no strategy involved. The dead middle is 62nd place this season. Basically you could go 4-0 and be screwed or go 0-4 and be OK. I fought to have that prize eliminated and use the prize money elsewhere but it fell on deaf ears. With that said, if the season ended today the player in the 62nd spot is .. well .. me! Karma, maybe? I have no idea how to maintain that spot, do I try to lose? Do I try to win? Do I not make a pick? I kind of wish I didn't look and see me in 62nd place, there are eight players with the same amount as wins as me (131) I just have the 62nd spot because my tiebreaker score is 4th best of those 8 players !!! Pray for me.

Seven games left this season ...

My weekend predictions to fill more space ...

BAL 16
PIT 20

GB 21
ATL 20

SEA 17
CHI 27

NYJ 17
NE 38

Nomar Fact of the Week
Nomar's career playoff batting average is .321

The Strike is Over - I'm Back!

2011-01-06T14:20:00.002-05:00

After a five-week work stoppage in which my pay was held from me we pulled an all- night negotiating session, the money and vacation issue was resolved so I am back at work writing for you. The NFLPOOLONLINE company were being cheap pricks but I stood my ground and they caved to my demands. Lucky you!

Since we last spoke, December 5, 2010 many things have happened.... a quick summary...

Week 13 "Fresh" won with a 13-3 record.

Week 14 "Atgel" won with a 13-3 record. Week 14 also brought us the biggest backdoor cover we have seen in a long-long time. The Thursday night game, Indy (-2.5) up 30-21 with 4-seconds left, Tenn has the ball on the Indy 3 yard line, it is 4th down ... and Tenn gets the TD as time expires making the game 30-27, Tenn trots out the special teams unit to tack on the meaningless extra point giving Indy (-2.5) a 30-28 win. In the end it really wasn't a big deal in the pool, only 9 players had Tenn but if you were betting this game and had Indy .. yikes!.

Week 15 "Scoop" took home the prize with a 12-4 record.

Week 16 "ChadchadChad" the player with three-names (because just "chad" isn't enough) won with a 12-4 record

Week 17 "EdO" won with a 12-4 record. This week also saw the 1/2 point screw job again with two teams losing (or winning) depending on what side you were on by a 1/2 point. Min +6.5 losses by 7 and the Giants -3.5 winning by 3.

Overall "Ghastly" leads the season standings with 151 wins, five ahead of the next closest player. I mentioned in one of the first newsletters this season that all you needed to do with be in the 8.5 win per week range and that would be good enough to land you in a money spot and "Ghastly" has averaged 8.8 wins a week, the current 15th player and final money spot "Drew" has 139 wins for a 8.1 weekly average hence 8.5 would land you a few schillings. With just 11 games in the NFL season "Ghastly" has already clinched a money spot, he is assured of a top 15th finish. "tabacey" has also all but clinched last place which is even more amazing, he /she is 11 games behind the second to last player with 11 games left. "tabacey" has been in last place for 9 straight weeks. Congrats on being a real big loser. With his 154 losses had he took the exact opposite teams this season and bet money on every game he would have tuned a profit.

10 of the 17 weeks this season had the full slate of 16 games, the other 7 weeks featured less games because of bye weeks. Focusing on those 10 weeks of 16 games the overall weekly win totals of the winner broke down this way:

14-2 Once
13-3 Four-times
12-4 Five-times

The top 15 win money this season up from the top 12 last season. As the standing are today if you are not in the top 26 you are pretty much SOL to finish in the money. The 15th spot has 139 wins, in fact there are 6 players with 139 wins, two sit in the 14th and 15th spots while the other four fall behind them because of a weaker tiebreaker score. Spot 20 has 138 wins and spots 21-26 each have 137 wins. Ge the picture? If you are in spots 27 or lower with 136 wins or less the chances of making up that many games to get into the top 15 with just 11 left to play is slim - very slim. There are just too many players to jump over at this point? I'd be shocked if the end of season top 15 are not made up of these 26 players:

As of 1/7/2011

1 Ghastly 151 Wins
2 EdO 146 Wins
3 The Highlanders 146 Wins
4 The Dirty712 145 Wins
5 Clay Davis 144 Wins
6 Bob W 143 Wins
7 WVU PETE 143 Wins
8 Gravy Train 143 Wins
9 Mike S 142 Wins
10 Emmado 142 Wins
11 Darby 141 Wins
12 Bolt Fever 140 Wins
13 dflogue 140 Wins
14 Lone Wolf 139 Wins
15 Drew 139 Wins
16 gigi 139 Wins
17 rhonda b 139 Wins
18 Muffin Tops 139 Wins
19 Deano Mite 139 Wins
20 Roy 138 Wins
21 Diamond Jim 137 Wins
22 Asianmommy 137 Wins
23 WATERBOY 137 Wins
24 ENZO 137 Wins
24 G.O. 137 Wins
26 LIZ 137 Wins

Over in the Survivor pool only two remain, "Angry Mike" and "joe e". Heading in week 16 we still had 11 players alive but all 11 lost and for 8 of them it was off with their heads, in week 17 another poor soul left us and now we are left with two. With 12 teams in the playoffs both players needed to and did hold on to a few playoff teams, "Angry Mike" still has NE, Bal and GB left to pick while "joe e" has NYJ, Chi and Phi left to pick. Chances are this thing could end this weekend and it will end if they both make their picks in the GB-Phi game. If for some reason both are still around next weekend you have to like "Angry Mike" to win it all, he will have NE to pick from and NE has not lost a home game this season. But my prediction is this thing ends by Sunday night.

So there you have it, The longest newsletter ever, that is what you get when I start getting paid more ... actually as you probably know there was no strike and no negotiating. I don't get paid shit to do this. Truth is I ran out of Nomar facts so I had to take a break ... but really, with grad school, a ill dog and the holidays I simply ran out of free time. But even though I sucked in the pool this season I did not suck in the classroom, Fall semester, three class A, A, B+ .... and that B+ was only because the professor didn't like me - really!

Onto the playoffs, see you all next week ..... maybe!

PS
If you were looking to read a column about a writer coming out of the closet, you came to the wrong place. I'm neither gay nor a writer.

Nomar Fact of the week
Nomar won back to back batting titles in 1999-2000, the last right-handed hitter to win back-to-back batting titles was Joe DiMaggio, in 1939 and 1940.

Sonny Love the 3rd - Part Dos

2010-12-02T23:53:00.000-05:00

Congrats to "Sonny Love III", he became the second player this season to win two weeks. Money goes to money. But give the man his due, he nailed 12 out of 16 games AND picked the tiebreaker score exactly. He also jumped 17 spots in the standings.

Elsewhere "The Dirty 712" jumped 10 spots into 5th place which is an accomplishment, the top 5 spots have stayed pretty much the same five players the past few weeks. Since week 3 "Bob W" has not been below 3rd place, "Clay Davis" has been in either 1st or 2nd place every week since week 7 and "Ghastly" has been in the top 8 all season. The season still has a long way to go but the time is NOW to make a move, I am speaking for myself and to my fellow players who are at or near .500, if you are within 10-12 games of 12th place you can still move into the money BUT you have to move up spots each week. There is no room for error, no more weeks dropping spots in the season standings. Come Tuesday you need to have a + under the "Change" column if you hope to move into the money spots.

Elsewhere, "tabacey" remains in last place by a solid 6 games, not sure how he is doing it, he has a 70-106 record, if he picked the exact opposite teams this season he would be in first place. "Richardson" did something you don't see very often this late in the season, he had a huge drop in the standings, 38 spots after a 3-13 week.

In the Survivor Pool 13 players had Cleveland a game that Carolina seemingly had won, they were lined up for the game winning 30 yard FG with seconds remained but channeled their inner Boise State and muffed the kick handing Cleveland a gift win and 13 players here another life. Fr the first time all season we did not lose a player in the Survivor pool this week. Only one player took a loss, "Gaveskills" got his first L with Oakland.

PSA ... there may not be a blog next week, I am in grad school and finals are next week so my time will be limited but if a player with a really fun, cool name wins I'll do my best to get something posted and of course if I win the week you known I'll post something. But if you don't hear from me next week I can be found at the Amherst, MA "Barnes and Noble" with my head buried in a book and I will make it up the follow week to all my faithful readers. 57 unique visitors to this blog this week so far and 89 unique visitors last week so thanks for reading my poor grammar garbage.

Nomar Fact of the Week

In Nomar's first four seasons he averaged 28 home runs and 105 RBI, batting .337.

Where's the Beef?

2010-11-27T11:33:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to "wend-e" for winning week 11. When writing this blog my rule of thumb is assume every player is a guy unless the user-name is so obvious it is a female ... or if I know the person is in fact a female. Sexist for sure but I guess I feel guys usually win each week but this week I think the winner is a female, does "wend-e" translate to "Wendy" I say it does. So SHE had a great week 11, SHE was 13-1 going into the Monday night game and for the 4th week in a row a player had the week clinched Sunday night. Her only loss prior to Monday was an OT loss so she was on the cusp of looking at an undefeated week heading into Monday night. And for those 11 players who are already 3-0 in week 12, win the next 13 and double your money.

This blog is very tardy, it wasn't really the holiday that caused it to be late at first. I had planned on doing it first thing Tuesday morning but my dog "Fenway" got sick Monday night and I had to rush him to the ER, after a few tense days I am happy to report he seems to be doing great, but for a few days it was scary so many things in my life got pushed aside. The good news is he seems to be back to normal so I can now get back to making fun of people here.

Unfortunately because I am jumping into this so late and three games in week 12 have already been played and those results are already factored into the season stats it is hard to sum up week 11. I know the top 5 or 6 sports pretty much remained the same and I have been shitting the bed the last few weeks and dreams of winning money for my ski vacation in February is fading quick. "tabaccy" is still clinging to the bottom spot and is determined to be the biggest lose.

A quick random fact from week 11,three of the starting 32 QB's in week 11 were Boston College alums (Atl, Sea, Car) amazing, BC AKA "QB University".

Over in the survivor pool we had what is now a trend where someone fails to make a pick, this week filling that role was "Emmado" and we said bye to "Gravy Train" who was eliminated when Cincy failed to hold a 100 point lead at home vs. Buffalo. 21 remain, 5 with no loses. Looks like this is going to head for the playoffs. Make sure you hold back a few playoffs teams that will be playing in the first week. You don't want to get that far and lose because you have no teams left to pick.

Nomar Fact of the Week

Nomar was originally drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 5th round of the 1991 draft, but did not sign so he could attend Georgia Tech

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Walks His Way to Victory ....

2010-11-17T12:55:00.005-05:00

In what turned out to be a wild week of games "Spider" won week 10 with a 12-2 record, this marked the second straight week a player clinch the weekly top spot on Sunday, congrats to you! The complete opposite was "Tony and Bill 2" who mirrored "Spider" and went 2-12. The biggest jump this week were "Slaughter" up 33 spots and "Fresh" who jumped 34 spots, the weekly winning "Spider" jumped 25 spots into 9th place overall. Only two teams received less than 30% of the picks, Carolina 33 players (27%) and Denver 31 players (25%), Denver pounded KC who seems to be fading just as I predicted they would do in this blog a few weeks ago.

Four games this week stand out to me that had bettors across the land screaming for joy or screaming for murder.

Baltimore +1.5 @ Atlanta, Baltimore up 21-17 with less than 40 seconds left, then inexplicably Roddy White is allowed to blatantly commit offensive pass interference, knocking the DB to the ground to get open by 15 feet and scored the game-wining touchdown.

Jets @ Cleveland +3.5, 85% of OT games are decided by a field-goal so those 52 players who took Cleveland+3.5 had to feel good when the game went into OT and really had to feel good when the game was tied with less than 2-minutes left and Cleveland had the ball. Problem was Cleveland had the ball inside their own 5-yard line so instead of playing not to lose AKA play for the tie Eric Mangini plays to win and the rest is of course history.

Houston +1.5 @ Jacksonville, another game that was heading for OT until Doug Flutie snuck onto the field and tossed a Hail Mary that was answered and those 67 players who had Houston and hoped they had a chance in OT were instead handed a big fat L.

Detroit +2.5 @ Buffalo, Buffalo up 14-6, less than a minute left, those 66 players who took Buffalo all rooting for Detroit not to score, then Detroit scores making it 14-12, now those 66 players rooting for Detroit to convert the 2-point conversion so the game goes to OT ..... well you guessed it, 2-point conversion fail, Buffalo wins by 2, spread was 2.5.

I lost all four of those games but at least I still had the Survivor pool to fall back on.. right?

"Our lives changed like the weather But a legend never dies"

Captain Tony

Just as Jimmy Buffett sings in that song your lives have changed, this week it was lights-out for me (literally) as the Giants couldn't play with the lights on or off and lost. Dallas basically fucked me this season, they lost when I picked them to beat Jacksonville at home then won when I picked them to lose @ NY Giants. I should have listened to my own advice last week and took Buffalo. Or just took Tampa Bay like it seems everyone else did. But nope .. so along with 7 others who took the Giants and "Stateman" who didn't make a pick we are O-U-T of your lives and out of the running. 22 are left, 8 have no losses. But as Buffett says "a legend never dies" so I will still make my Survivor pick here the rest of the season with the rules in place that I can't take a team I picked this season. Why? Because I can and I want to still play! Just leave me alone and let me make a pick. My pick this week: Baltimore!
PS... The old dude to the right is the "legend" Captain Tony Jimmy Buffett wrote that song about.

Fins up ...^

Nomar fact of the week...
On May 10, 1999 Nomar had 3 HR including 2 Grand Slams and 10 RBI vs. Seattle.

Peace and LOVE .. Peace and LOVE

2010-11-10T13:46:00.009-05:00

A pretty boring week 9 in the pool, the week was clinched on Sunday by "Sonnylove III" so Monday's game meant nothing in the small scale. But congrats to "Sonnylove III" for taking home the bacon with an 11-2 record. Over all the top two season standing remained the same with "Clay Davis" and "Bob W" holding the 1-2 spots. The biggest jump of the week was from the aforementioned "Sonnylove III" who jumped 28 spots. The biggest loser this week, "Baker1919" down 34 spots.

Put this into the category as being blinded by your favorite team, only 16 players (13%) took Cleveland to cover vs. the Patriots and cover they did, they covered the shit out of the Patriots on defence, offense, special teams, coaching, water-boarding, the Buffet line..... The line for that game looked surprisingly low but that is why Vegas does what it does. This week Cleveland plays the Jets and once again it is a low point spread (Jets -3) something tells me we will see more than 16 players picking Cleveland this week. The half-a-point bug bit again this week with Indy +2.5 losing 26-24. I had Indy and as one of those Patriots fans this was a perfect result, Indy lost but covered.

This week also starts the Thursday night games which for some, like me sucks because my cable provider doesn't offer the NFL Network so my options are go to a bar or watch the online-nfl.com Red Zone coverage which is awful. They cut in and out of the game with 3 studio hosts who are just terrible.

Random fact, in total counting regular season and playoffs there are 267 NFL games (256 regular season games, 11 playoff games) 130 games have been played this season, we are just about at the mid-way point. If you are one of the players at or near the bottom 20 or so spots now is the time to get hot, it is not an easy task this late into the season to jump many spots. Just look at this week only 10 players out of 124 jumped more than 15 spots. For some, like 6 that have occupied the bottom spots most of the season: "who dey", "Johnny Law", "mustang", "tammy", "ruby eiseman" and "tabaccy" you are as good stuck in a Chilean mine, hope is lost, loved ones have given up, there is no capsule on the way with help, just keep losing and hope you can be the biggest loser of the season.

Mirroring the regular pool the Survivor Pool was equaly boring this week. Sure two players were knocked out but one was for stupidity "Frenchy" picking Minn for the second time this season and "ONEMORBET" who is one of the few players I know so I'll go easy on him but he did not even bother to make a pick O those plumbers. ... I was a bit surprised to see that no one took New England this week, I figured someone would have jumped all over them but as I said last week there are no dominate teams this season and looks like most people agree. Picking teams in the Survivor pool this season is just like being at a brothel, you pick and you pray you survive. 29 are left, 9 with no losses. This week if I was one of the 9 with no losses I really would consider taking Buffalo at home vs. Detroit. It is such a risky pick for a player with 1 loss but if those 9 players are looking for a high risk that could have a huge payoff look at Buffalo. The scary part about this pool, if Buf could have won two-weeks ago at Bal and last week @ KC (they lost both in OT) and Det could have held onto that 10 point 4th quarter lead this week at the NYJ (Det lost in OT) 20 of the 29 remaining players would be gone including 7 of the 9 players who currently have no losses. That could be the difference this season between this pool going into the playoffs or ending weeks before.

Nomar Fact of the Week
Nomar has the highest single season batting average for a right-handed Batter, in the Post WW II Era (minimum 400 at-bats) with a .372 average in 2000.

It's All About The Color System ...

2010-11-04T12:19:00.011-04:00

From Wikipedia:

"In colorimetry, the Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity)."

This is who won the pool this week, a fancy term for a color swatch chart.Wonderful!

Congrats to "Munsell" winning this week with 11 wins, the week came down to a tie in wins between "Munsell" and "The Highlanders" they both finished with 11 wins, "Munsell" had the better tie breaker thus they are now $125 richer.

Over all "Bob W" finally had an off-week (by his standards) going 6-7, ... and is no longer in the #1 spot, "Clay Davis" and "Bob W" each have 71 wins but "Clay Davis" has the better tiebreaker they occupy the top spot. With 71 wins the average wins per week for the top spot is 8.8, is around the historically end of season average.

I fully admit I mailed in last weeks blog, I could not see a thing, the eye problem is still there, I am getting my new contact lenses at 12:30pm today, I'm not very happy about it because those fucking plastic things make my eyes so bloodshot it looks like I walked off the set of a Cheech and Chong movie but at least I will be able to see better. So this blog will try to have all sorts of random useless info to make up for last week. With the shitty grammar you have all come to expect.

Some facts from this past week: every home team was favored, noone scored more than 40 points, the most points scored by any team was Tampa Bay with 38, six teams scored 10 or fewer points, the NFC West is on pace to have the division winner with a .500 record or worse, every team except New England has at least 2 losses, 29 of the 32 teams have at least 2 wins, Denver started 6-0 last season, since then they have gone 4-14.

The NFL Pool pick favorite this past week was New England 100 (81%) players took them, if you were one of the few who took Buffalo 39 players (31%) or Detroit 45 players (36%) you were rewarded handsomely as both teams covered. And over the past 3 weeks player; "1", "Clay Davis", "The Highlanders" and " Zeus" have been the 4 hottest players with 27 wins each in that stretch.

Over to Survivor land we go... First, I feel bad, not because I suffered my first loss (more on that later) but last week I chastised "Sagamore Squad" because he stupidly made his Survivor pick using the "comments" section of the pick page which wasn't recorded then cried about it when he was not given proper credit and an exception was made for him. I called him out and ridiculed him because well I can ridicule anyone without fear of being confronted in person, and those of you who know me, I think I can run faster than you anyway. If I thought "Sagamore Squad" knew were I lived I would never called him a Ritard, I hide behind my keyboard, I admit it.. So this week what does Sagamore Squad" do? He takes KC.... AGAIN, 2-weeks in a row he had to know this wasn't allowed - right? Part of me thinks he did this because he really is dumb and didn't understand the rules but part of me thinks he did it because he felt bad after last week, he knew he was called out here and decided to quit rather than risk any more humiliation. If this is why he made a duplicate pick I really feel bad but happy to have one less person around.

We started have 31 players left, 9 with no losses. Everyone jumped onto KC this week, 21 players took them and once again Buffalo tried to shake the earth with an upset @ KC and like last week in Baltimore they got into OT but fell short. I took my first loss with Dallas (did I mention I couldn't see well last week), it was bitter sweet because I hate Dallas but I also hate losing. My pick was between Dallas and Washington, both lost so I wasn't too pissed off for taking Dallas. I was going on the "new QB, Dallas isn't THAT bad" theory ... Fuck me! Now going forward is there really a dominate teams this season. New England.. I wish, they are 6-1 but since the moss trade they have had 35 offensive drives, only 3 have been 10 plays or more... 2010 Patriots meet the 2009 Broncos, hey I am a Patriots fan but I am a realist. Are there really and safe picks anymore? New England @ Cleveland this week seems to be safe but Clevelnd won in New Orleans in their last game. I preach taking chances early in the season and save the good teams for post October but now at the midway point there are no real great "Lock" teams. It is starting to look like this thing may end in a few short weeks which will be good for me because I could use the money for Christmas.

Until next time ...

Nomar Fact of the week
On October 12, 2005 Nomar Garciaparra rescued two women who had fallen into Boston Harbor. He was with his uncle in his Charlestown condominium at about 10 p.m. when they heard a scream and a splash. A witness said "It was crazy. Nomar was like jumping over walls to get to the girls and the other guy leaped off the balcony. It was unbelievable."

Is there anything Nomar can't do?

Like Deja Vu All Over Again ....

2010-10-26T15:01:00.002-04:00

We had our first two-time winner this week as "Bob W" threatens to turn this pool into a laughter. He is picking winners at a 62.5% success rate meaning if he was betting all his picks he would be up a nice profit even with the vig factored in. I just wish he had a better nickname, "Bob W" is boring and not much to work with image wise.

I just returned from my first ever trip to the eye doctor and I can hardly see a thing, they used a series of drops in my eyes to run some test and it takes a few hours for the drops to desolve so I am stuck with blurred vision for the next few hours. I am tied up the rest of the week so I need to do this today so I am typing this while seeing triple what is on the screen. And after the visit I do need glasses so I am back at it again next Monday to get them and my contacts. Sucks getting old but I still have my looks at least. Moral of this story, isf there are any screw-ups regarding facts today it can be blamed on my poor vision.

After seeing only a mild separated in weeks 6 and 7 this week we saw major movement, 10 wins separate # 1 and # 28. Last week that number was at 50. As we approach the mid-way point of the season things start to take shape, if you are in the bottom 10 chances are you won't get much better in the second half. Historically speaking if you are not in the top 70 by mid-season it may be time to start looking at your 2011 March Madness bracket.

The biggest jump of the week was "D' Man", up 32 spots but even with that big jump he still sits at 37th place. "Bean Pie Specials" finally picked a Monday Night winner Yippie!. The most popular pick was KC with an outstanding 108 (87%) players picking them over Jax and KC paid off their faith with a nice win.

Onto the people who don't understand how to follow the rules, yes you "Sagamore Squad", WTF, you have played in this pool for year's and you make your Survivor pick in the "comments" section instead of using the drop down option that everyone else used. Then you whine about it and of course latched onto my KC pick so this season while we all are allowed just two losses you get a break. Personally I would have told you to eff-off and not allowed you to get your pick in, rules are rules and the rules clearly say once the games start the picks are locked so you need to review them on Sunday AM and if they are incorrect let the Admin know. Read the rules (1c), print it and staple it to your forehead. You should do the right thing and take Buffalo this week as a punishment.

This past weekend I was able to finally watch SD as they played my Patriots and now I understand why that team has been a Survivor pool cancer, holy shit are they a bad team, not talent wise but coaching. They can't get out of their own way, players not playing to the whistle, false starts, turnovers - no wonder they suck. As predicted most jumped all over NO and Bal this week and wow I was hoping the Bills drove the ball down-field in OT to win it but it was fine settling for a Saints loss and a nice surprise to see so many jump onto Denver and lose. If you listened to me and took KC you were sitting pretty, that game was never really close. After the weekend we said bye to 13 more players, 12 at least got their pick, one player decided it was too much to pick and gave up and of course poor "Sagamore Squad" being a ritard. We started with 108, we have 35 left, 11 with no losses. This weekend it is not easy, there are no high reward risks this week except maybe SD at home vs. Cin but at this point SD is a kamikaze pick at best. There are not real locks either, the biggest spread is KC at home vs. Buffalo. Ind looks good at home vs. Hou and NE at home vs. Minn could be a safe pick but I get the feeling this may be one of those weeks when the Survivor picks are all over the board.

Sorry this newsletter sucked, I'll make it up next week when I can see better.

Nomar Fact of the week
"Nomar was at SS in 1996 when Roger Clemens stuck-out a record tying 20 batters in a game @ Detroit"-Nomar was a September call-up that year.

Like Steve McQueen Underneath Your Radar Screen...

2010-10-19T13:19:00.007-04:00

Fuck all the head-shot injuries this week, this was the week of the dreaded half-a-point screwing! 3 games this week were determined by a 1/2 a point. Houston won by 4, they were giving 4.5; Baltimore lost by 3, they were getting 2.5; Indy won by 3, they were giving 3.5; If you were on the losing end of any of those games, man it sucks, if you were on the losing end off all three of those it really, really sucks. Trust me on this, I know, I lost all three of those games and the vinegar in the wound for me is I finished tied for first with 10 wins for the week, meaning I came within a combined 1.5 points of a 13-1 record. God dammit! Lets just move on.

This week 6 players finished with 10-4 records including me and yes I am bitter about those two Jacksonville turnovers deep in Tenn territory last night, if those two possessions were converted into 10 points, not an unreasonably expectation I would have won the week based on my tie breaker score so fuck you Jack Del Rio. But more about me later. "MCQ" beat out "MuffinTops" after having to use the third tiebreaker, they both tied for wins and had identical tiebreaker scores so we have to dust off the rules and use rule 2.0-2a to get our winner. I was hoping "MuffinTops" would win a week this season just so I could use that picture but because it was a tie I figured I'd use it anyway. Congrats to "MCQ', the win moved him up 27 spots into 28th place. The biggest mover of the week was "MuffinTops", up 37 spots into 61st place. We still have one poor sap that is winless on Monday Night Football, "Bean Pie Specials" is 0-6, I have a radical idea for you, next week who ever you think you want to pick, take the opposite, just try it. The 5 hottest players over the past 3 weeks are JoeF, Krs10, crkob, WATERBOY and Zeus and I think at least 2 of them are chicks which shows that even though chicks can't drive a car for shit some can hang with the boys when it comes to picking NFL winners. Again this week a few teams that saw limited action covered the spread, Seattle who was picked by just 20% (25) players beat Chicago outright leaving Pete Carroll pumped and jacked and Washington picked by 31% (38) players covered vs. Indy.

Week 6 in the books and the separation in the standings is slowly happening. Last week 10 games separated the #1 and #56th spot in the season standings, this week that number is at 50. Overall the NFL is getting what they designed their system to do, create parity. There are no undefeated teams, only 3 of the 32 teams have one loss and every single team in the NFC has 2 losses or more. In back to back weeks a team that has zero wins picked up their first win (DET & SF) and despite being 1-5 SF is just 2 games out of first place.

Over to my baby, the Survivor Pool 48 remain, 18 have 0 losses. In the history of the Survivor Pool has there ever been an easier pick than Pit over Clev? Pit had zero chance of losing that game so it wasn't a shock to see 23 players take the easy road and pick Pitt. 14 other players hitched their pick to the Giants over Detroit, I thought that was a fools gold pick going in and it almost was, Detroit hung around in that game for a longtime and could have easily won but in the end those 14 players gutted out a win. After my lecture last week I was disappointed to see so many players take the easy road with Pit and the NYG but happy to see a handful of others listen to me and started to really play, 8 took the win-less SF 49ers over Oak, a risk pick for sure esp. considering Oak just beat down SD the week prior and SF was an unusually high 7 point favorite (one of those if it is too good to be true it probably is things but the points don't matter here but it was odd to see Vegas think they were that much better than Oakland) but the risk/reward was there and for those 8 players the risk paid off. Of course I was one of those 8 players and along with "daveydfla" we both took Det last week and SF this week. But "daveydfla" has to be the stud so far in this pool, he already has a loss from week 2 so the last 2 weeks he has pinned his survival hopes on two teams who had 0 wins going into the game. I did the same thing but I have the safety net of no losses, he does not have that luxury. 4 of the other players that took SF this week also had one loss coming into this weekend. Be proud!

I could get into anther sermon how the 37 players that took PIT and NYG are pussies and just thinking of the week at hand and not long term but why bother, next week I am sure the board will be full of those same players taking Bal and NO in week 7 so I'll save my fingers from more typing abuse. But please everyone, for your own safety stop picking SD, they knocked out 3 more players this week and have been an absolute disaster pick all season. When I say take a risk pick once in a while I don't mean a team like SD, that is not a risk that is suicide.

To my fellow students of this pool who now must wonder if week 7 should be a spot where you take another risk or play it safe.... tough call. My rule is I only take a risk on a team playing at home, that team has to have a poor record but have played well and lost games because a few bad plays or calls (i.e. Det and SF the last two weeks) and they have to be playing a team that is not as good as they look on paper. This coming week looking quick there is one game that falls into that category, KC @ home vs. Jax who may have lost their starting QB and could have to go with Trent Edwards who was cut by the win-less Bills after week 2. KC is one of those "are they as good as their record says?" teams, they have a decent record but .....Hmmmm..... I am not sure if I'll go with them or play it safe, KC could be one of those teams to pick now while they are playing well, to me they remind me allot of last year's Denver team that started off well then tanked the 2nd half so buying high now may be a wise pick in week 7. That is the luxury a handful of us and I have, we took some chances so in the weeks when it is iffy we can take the safe road if we want and go with Bal or NO. Finally while looking for shit to put in here of random facts for the season I stumbled upon this regarding my favorite topic, myself. Through 6 weeks in the Survivor pool I have picked all NFC teams including every team in the NFC North!

Until Next Week, Stay Thirsty My Friends!

Random Nomar Fact of the Week

"On September 1, 1996 Nomar hit his first major league home run in Oakland off John Wasdin"
(yes, that John "WAY BACK-WAY BACK" Wasdin!)

A Ghastly Weekend ....

2010-10-12T13:56:00.008-04:00

Some of you may be familiar with the term "back-doored" when it comes to betting. What it basically means is when the game is close and ritard play happens that changes the outcome of the game (gambling wise) and makes one set of people happy and another set furious. This can be a garbage time TD or FG that covers the spread or pushed the over/under or as we saw last night a pick-6 in the final minute that took a win ATS away from Minn and the 60 people who took them and gave the 64 people who took the Jets a cheap win. I could hear the screaming, both joyous and anger from the Vegas sports book all the way in my Massachusetts basement. With Farve anything is possible so it should not have been a huge surprise but for me and the 59 others who took Minn and checked this game as a win it still sucked.

Congratulations to "Ghastley", he had quite the weekend winning the week and moving up to #1 in the overall standings. The biggest jump of the week was "Kris10", up 45 spots to 24th overall and came very close to winning for the second time this season, in-between a last place finish. We are still about 2 or 3 weeks away before we start seeing some separation in the overall standings. Currently the top 56 are only separated by 10 games, usually by week 8 we start seeing that number widen more and more.

Four players really have a case of the Monday's, "Bean Pie Specials", "ENZO", "Nacho chowda" and "Ease It In" have yet to win a Monday night game this season, yup 0-5 this season. Ask them how they feel about Brett Farve today!

This season has seen a big trend in upsets, and these upsets are having a major impact on the pool, this week alone only 30 people took Arizona (vs. NO), 29 took Washington (vs. GB) and 35 took Oakland (vs. SD) and all three won, and only 8 players took all three teams.

Now over to the Survivor Pool, we started with 107, 56 remain, 19 have no losses. I think many of you need to learn how this thing works before we go any further, too many of you are either too dumb or are not thinking ahead. First it is a double elimination pool not a single elimination, why does this matter? Well in a double elimination you need to take chances, because it is almost a certainty the pool will last into the playoffs so if you hope to be in it until the end you will have to pick 17-21 different teams and only 12 teams make the playoffs so you better be sure to hold onto a few of the top teams so you have teams to pick come January. Sure each week you can go with the safe pick like many of you cowards did with IND, they were the best bet of the week no question about it but Ind will be a playoff team so why burn that pick when there were other options involving teams that won't be in the playoffs that were low risk and ripe for the picking. The best time to take a chance is always between weeks 5-7, this is when you start seeing weaker teams playing the best football, come the second half of the season shit teams are too unpredictable. This week prior to making my pick I narrowed it down to 3 teams I deemed a low risk but a good risk, DET, JAX and SF. DET was my best bet, they have played very well this season, they were at home vs. St. Louis who is terrible. It was a no brainier. Jax I gave a look but after their big win last week and going on the road a letdown was a concern I felt they were the 2nd best bet, SF it seemed many of the experts loved this week, they seemed to be a good pick with all the injuries Philly has but with Philly losing last week Andy Reid would have them ready and SF is still coached by the clueless Mike Singletary and QB by Alex Smith not two people I felt good about putting my pick in their hands. So Detroit was my selection and they won 44-6, Jax also won and SF lost. Honestly I thought I would be the only one picking them, I didn't think anyone else in this pool got how this is played but I wasn't alone, 4 other players took Detroit as well and I welcome you 4 (Sonylove III, Davey Kleinfeld, Daveydfla and Smooooth) to the top of the class and which ever one of you finishes in 2nd place behind me I'll be happy to have you as my runner-up, hopefully all 4 of you can share 2nd place. For the rest of you who took NO, SD, CIN, BAL, IND shame on you, you are cowards, scared to take a risk, we are playing chess while you are playing checkers. And come week 15, 16, 17 and beyond ...IF you are still around and you are stuck having to pick Cleveland, Buffalo, St. Louis while us early season risk takers still have IND, BAL, NE, NO, NYJ in our pockets we will be laughing at you. Now, those of you who already had a loss coming into this weekend I can't fault you for taking a safe pick, you have to stay in it but the rest of you who took the easy road, your an embarrassment to yourself. And yes I can speak as an authority, I am still the only player in the Survivor pool history to win the pool alone and outright, every other season the pool ended in a tie so I am a living legend here. You should be honored I just gave you this lesson, it must have felt like watching Picasso picking up his chisel. Why am I giving you this advice and risking you using it to beat me? You are all to stupid to take these tips so I am not worried.

Nomar Fact of the Week
"On August 31, Nomar made his major league debut at The Coliseum in Oakland against the A's, entering the game as a defensive replacement at second base"

Not Your Average Joe as Week 4 Goes to the Dogs!

2010-10-07T14:10:00.000-04:00

Week 4 was the week the dogs were let out early, the first 8 games the underdogs were 7-1 ATS, that vaulted "JoeR" to a lead that he never looked back from. It also launched him up 13 spots in the season standings to 2nd place overall. In case you are wonder if you have heard the name 'JoeR" before here you have, he is the genius that could not figure out the Survivor Pool rules and picked SD in week one (loss) and again in week two thus he was eliminated for being stupid. Yet some how he amassed enough brain power to win week 4, I am at a loss to explain it. But congrats.

The week of the underdogs allowed many players to move up and many more to move down but the biggest jump up was "Sagamore Squad" who rose 69 spots in the standings ( I really couldn't wait to type 69) yes I am 5. The underdogs won 9 of the 14 games played and another NE was an underdog by the time the game started, that is usually a indication that most players will be around the .500 mark and many were between 7-9 and 9-7 but more than handful, 13 total had double digit win for the week which tells me those players came to play this season, they are not the weekend warriors who just go with the favorites, nope - they do research and leave no stone unturned in their goal to finish in second place this season (behind me). And yes, that is a picture of my dog.

Over in Survivor land we said bye to 11 players, all but one (Pickle) actually made a pick, I guess "Pickle" just wanted out and gave up. Of course "Pickle" got burned by SD last week so he may well have still been in shock. He could have still followed the lead of "JoeR" and picked SD again this week. The biggest assassinas this week were IND, Ten and Cin which helped knock out the other 10 players and leave many others with their first loss. GB and NO tried so very hard to cause chaos in the Survivor pool but both pulled their head out of their asses in time.

Onto week Cinco -- 5 -- NOMAR!

Nomar Fact of the week
"The other player the Red Sox traded to the Cubs with Nomar in 2004, Matt Murton broke the Japansees record for most hits in a single season last week."

What About Bob?

2010-09-30T14:42:00.004-04:00

I come back home after a nice relaxing vacation where I enjoyed temps in the 80's to a complete monsoon outside, 4-6 inches of rain and wind is expected on top of the 2 inches we already got and just for kicks we sat through an 8 hour tornado watch on Tuesday. But it's great to be back ..... And happy birthday to me, I turned 21 again!

Funny thing about writing this, I don't look ahead of time and plot out what I will write, not a ton of research is done leading up to this and this should be obvious to anyone who reads this that 99% of the time is is just pointless dribble. Generally I'll look over the weekly and season standings, see if anyone really tanked this week (you know, focus on the bad) then look over the Survivor pool, jot down some notes then start typing away. When I finish I do a quick Google spellcheck, one proof-read and post the blog, sure I have typos everywhere but I don't call them typos or improper grammar I call them creative writing. In total it takes me about 30 minutes to put together this masterpiece, Picasso I am not.

Today I thought for sure I'd look at the Survivor Pool and see double digit people with losses on SD, I was shocked to see only player (Pickle) pick them. SD, at home vs. the rebuilding Seahawks I would have thought we'd see more action there but nope, most pinned their hopes on the overrated Redskins, 7 players took a loss with them. But that is not as bad as the 5 losers who failed to make a pick! Really, into week 4 of the season you still could not get your pick in! My fellow Survivors and and I thank you for your service and wish you all the best. 20 players are now gone from the Survivor Pool in the first 4 weeks, they along with (SPOILER ALERT -- Jimmy Johnson) can now head home, shave and get some food in them.

Onto the original pool, "Bob w" took it this week, he jumped out to a 7-2 start in the early games then coasted to the finish. Bringing up the rear was "Kris10" who after winning week one with a 13-3 mark decided to taste last place this week going 2-14. I'll have to do research and see if a player has ever won a week only to finish last so quick. (truthfully I won't do any research I'll just say this was a first). The overall season leader is last week's winner "Rotten 1" with 31 wins which if you are an avid reader of this you would know that I told you a few weeks ago all you need to do is average 8.5 wins a week and you will make the top 10 at the end of the season, with 31 wins through 4 weeks "Rotten 1" is averaging 7.75 wins so at this pace and with the bye weeks coming up we are looking at a slightly below average season in terms of overall wins. This week two games really helped out players, Chicago and St. Louis, too bad not many people picked these two games. 26 players (20%) took St. Louis to cover and they did and 28 players (22%) took Chicago to cover (@home) and they did, those players saw a huge jump in the standing and the 12 players who took BOTH Chicago and St. Louis really climbed in the standing - of course I was one of those 12 players.

Looking at the basement of the season standings if the bottom players HighSteppnSeafood 33 losses, mustang 32 losses, PATSAGAIN 31 losses and DK 31 losses all picked the exact opposite teams this season they would make up the top 4 players this season.... and don't sleep on "Vamp" (with 30 losses already), I have been told by him (if he existed) that he always starts slow and he finishes strong maybe if the games were played at midnight he would do better.

And that's a wrap.. now I need to go find my rubbers before going out into the rain....

Nomar Fact of the Week
"Nomar finished second in MVP voting in 1998"

So Late and So Rotten ….

2010-09-25T14:22:00.000-04:00

Cue the Kokomo melody … Yup! This is later that usually, I am not going to apologize though, I had much better things going on this week. A few days on the island followed by a few days on the cap, just living the dream for the rest of you. As I write this my feet are up, sun shining down with cocktail in hand. My current view:

Now onto the reason we are all here, in week one “joef” threw his hop behind the Chargers who of course lost then in week two he smartened up and took .. wait for it … the Chargers! So now “joef” joins 10 other soles who are too dead on arrival, think about that, 11 people could not pick a team to win at all this season. Is it parity or stupidity?

But don’t feel bad for “joef” he is only ½ dumb, he was able to pick enough winners in the regular pool to finish in 2nd place. He was second only to “Rotten1”, nice name dude … but a 13 win week was good enough to get the smelly one some cash in his pocket and his name in lights for the week. Nearly ¾’s of the othe players fell between 7-9 wins The only real pick that shook the standings was SF, only a handful of players took them to cover the 4.5 spread and of course I was one of those handful so those us saw a jump in the standings Monday night.

Sorry to cut this short but there are skirts to chase and thongs scope but first I need a refill, my glass is empty ….

Now onto the Nomar fact of the week …

“In 2000 Nomar won the batting title with a .372 batting average, the highest average for a right handed hitter since 1939”

Chicks and Football, Please Pass the Dip .....

2010-09-16T13:51:00.004-04:00

Great, a chick won the pool this week. I love it when that happens. You know girls, they make their selections using one of two systems; (1) by if like to vacation in that city or (2) if that team has a cute mascot and once in a while this strategy works – bravo. The rest of real game players know how the system works, we know that you don’t have to win a week to finish in the money, just average 8.5 wins a week and in the end that will get you into the end of season money spots. No need to blow your load the first week, let the chicks do that, pace yourselves, it‘s a marathon not a sprint. But congrats to “Kris10” someone had to win week one and I really wasn’t in the mood to win myself.

A little know fact, the pool started way-way back in 1997 in the security office inside Filene’s in Chestnut Hill. Instead of chasing shoplifters a few of us put together a football pool all done with pen and paper each week. The first year there were 7 players, $10 was the fee, first place for the season won $60 last place won $10, and there were no weekly prizes. Why is this important, because even back then, the dreaded 1/2 point difference in a spread would still screw people over? You should know what I am talking about, esp. those of you who took Minnesota this week. You lose a game by a mere half a point ATS! Sometimes you can live with it, like when you are getting 3.5 and your team loses 21-17, it sucks but it wasn’t like your team left points on the board by missing an extra point they just got 2Td's and a FG so be it. But lets revist last Thursday, what a way to start the season for those 27 players who took Minnesota getting 4.5 points, a mere 21% of players who could have started the season off with a leg up but instead they are left mumbling to themselves that a missed extra point cost them a win when Minnesota lost 14-9. You could have been like the rest of us and done..well ...–nothing- you would have been assigned the Saints and won but nope, you had to be different and try to be clever. And believe me, I know who you all are and come the end of the season when people are jockeying for position in the money spots some of you will be wishing you just left well enough alone.

As far as the Survivor pool where the cool people hang out Jimmy Johnson survived another week but sadly several of you hung your hopes one two teams trying to win on the road, never an easy thing unless your Baltimore playing at the Jets but I digress... for those 8 players who took those aforementioned SD and Dallas that is strike 1 or strike 1.5. But don’t feel too bad because 2 players bought into the Hard Knocks hype and actually took the Jets Huh!, I'm going to guess you were the two fans at that game with those brown bags over your head. But as bad as that was you still were not the loser of the week, that title goes to those 5 players who never bothered to make a pick, they probably figured they had too many teams to pick from and couldn't make a decision. Nice job - Thanks for your $10 …. And while we are there all you fuckers better pay this season, no deadbeats, if you signed up and made picks you are in the pool so don’t be a retard and screw the rest of us honest folks over. I'll expose you here, at your work, school, church, I'll canvas your whole neighborhood letting everyone know you are a deadbeat.

And now a new feature this season I like to call ....

"Nomar Fact of the week"
“Nomar Garciaparra's 30-game hitting streak in his 1997 rookie season is an American League record.”

Another Season, Another Reason For Hope

2010-09-08T14:14:00.006-04:00

Hope for some ... but for most you just donated $100 to my ski vacation fund. With that said, we are back and new season is here. The newsletter looks a bit different, it is now blog style which makes it easier to update because I now have a lot of shit going on in my life and don't have time to do a fancy web page like last year. I no longer live in the basement just waiting to write for you every week, so I had to streamline the process of getting my biblical words posted in a timely manner. It also allows you DB's to leave comments instead of sending me your whinny emails, they are open for anyone so have at it, you can even leave them anonymously.

So..... how will this newsletter be different than last year? Probably in format only, and maybe a few less pictures but I'll try to post pictures of people when they win but lets face it I plan on winning every week so get used to seeing the picture below.. And I still will only at most skim over my words before posting the newsletter so there will be plenty of typos, if you don't like it then tell the pool commish to give me a budget to hire a copy editor until that happens I don't give a shit about typos and will rely on Google spell check to correct any misspellings. As far as grammar, if you want a well written piece read the NY Times.

My predictions for this season because you have all been waiting for them - the Super Bowl will be Baltimore vs. Dallas ... as far as the winner, who cares ask me in January....

.....and no ... stop asking me ... I don't play fantasy football or fantasy sports at all, I am an athlete who PLAYS sports not some tool who creates fake teams and gets excited every-time my fake team QB has a 10 yard pass or my fake team RB scores a TD. I have plenty of fantasy's but they don't involve sports.

As of now there are 118 people in this pool and you all better pay, no deadbeats this season or you will be exposed here with your name, address, email and phone number posted for everyone to see.

Until next week, keep the letters to the Red Sox coming to get Nomar's number 5 retired ....
-05