Things I made while offline: Athletes Playing Poker

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: An ink & color pencil drawing of various professional athletes playing poker 

Week Eight Picks: FAIL No More

At the end of last season, the St. Louis Rams had been the best team in my "Power Rankings" over the course of the two years I'd been tracking my picks in the confidence pool(s). They were the only team I had never picked to win a single game.

That streak continued almost halfway into this third season of tracking picks here on BMC, but at long last, it appears the week has finally arrived when I indeed actually select the perennially lowly Rams to actually emerge victorious. It's been a long time coming, I suppose, but when you consider St. Louis has already won as many games only seven games into this year as they had won combined in the previous two, it's about time I cave in.

Besides, they're currently 25th in the Power Rankings this year, so it appears the reliability of ending up in the positive by picking against them every single time has finally worn off.

When this is how I'm leading into my picks this week, it's surely a sign the Bears have an off-week. That, or the Brett Favre pecker story has finally, um, gone limp.

Zzzzzzzzz: Another fantasy update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no?

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.

Week Seven Power Rankings: I guess I should doubt myself more often

As usual, I was working Sunday afternoon and my momentary glimpses of the television screens only allowed me to catch scores where it appeared that most games wouldn't be going my way. Since the hometown Bears were the main attraction, DeAngelo Hall's Hall of Fame performance what I had to go on.

Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to learn I was in the lead in both confidence pools heading into Monday night, but unfortunately, I was going to need a Dallas victory—despite the fact that I had a point on the Giants—to secure a first place finish.

And then, of course, this happened.

So, the 75 points I earned last week with my picks ultimately made my fretting look somewhat silly.

2010 World Series Pick: The lesser of two mehs

I suppose that on the one hand, it was incredibly satisfying to see the Yankees get thumped by Texas in the ALCS because it's always fun to watch the Yankees lose. Considering that it feels as though they end up winning, you know, every other year, it's important to take a little joy in those rare occasions when they get flat-out embarrassed.

So now the final series of the 2010 Major League Baseball season is a matchup that I'm fairly certain absolutely nobody had penned in when the first pitch was thrown out on Opening Day. And that's certainly refreshing to get something other than the widely expected New York-Philadelphia World Series that had been a pretty popular expectation coming into October.

There's been some fairly entertaining moments so far this postseason, and I'm willing to bet that we could be in store for a solid final chapter to this 2010 season—even if the television ratings reflect a record number of viewers. I can't say, however, I'm terribly passionate about either team really winning. For me, it's more of a case of holding old grudges.

2010-11 NBA Predictions: Three's Company

I guess it's only appropriate that here in my third year of predictions for the NBA on this blog, all the talk this off-season has focused on the likelihood of either another Lakers three-peat or the "Big Three" in Miami. I fully expect those two teams to dominate a majority of the news cycle throughout this year's basketball season and that Finals matchup to be hyped every chance that the Mother Ship gets. Take one look at all the variety in their staff's picks for which team will be champions this year (or just look at the West), and you'll see what I mean.

Of course, here on BMC, this could also be the third time I forecast a Lakers-Celtics Finals. First year I did it, Boston didn't end up making it that far. Last year, I had hoped that maybe picking Hell-A would jinx their chances, but instead I proved to be right about the outcome—although off by a game for how long the series would go.

So really, who am I crapping about nobody going against the status quo here? While there's murmurs about contraction in the league with too many teams, you could probably count the number of legitimate title contenders on one hand this season. And you might not even have to use your thumb, depending on how close you want to get to that Oklahoma City bandwagon that's been gathering a little steam.

Anyway, while this season doesn't seem as wide-open as, say, the National Football League felt when it kicked off a few months ago, then that almost certainly means I'll improve on my 16/30 correct spots from last year, right?

You're right, Kobe, I won't get overconfident.

Things I made while offline: Abstraction

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: An abstract ink design

Week Seven Picks: Uneasy Rider

Procrastination could've been a double-major for me in college, and what else is there to say about this week's slate of games other than I don't feel terribly confident about a single one of them too many of them. So could you blame me for waiting until the very last minute to submit this week's picks? I could just as easily see me going 2-12 this week—and even that might be lucky.

Then again, maybe that's a fine sign that in the batshit craziness of this NFL season thus far, I might end up getting lucky. Anything's possible, I suppose, but this week's lineup features a number of pretty interesting matchups that is sure to cause a pretty good amount of variety in everybody's picks.

And all of that said, now watch everybody in both pools have the exact same picks.

Week Six Power Rankings: Absorbing a few more hard hits

"Funny" would be the wrong word to use, but here we are again one year after Malcolm Gladwell had an article published in the New Yorker asking, "How different are dogfighting and football?" And now that the NFL is talking about stricter penalties for devastating hits "flagrant and egregious violations" of current rules after a weekend in which those types of hits most of us have come to love football precisely for garnered an awful lot of attention, the Gladwell piece seems even more relevant.

Of course, I consider myself to be one of the more fortunate ones who never played the sport on any competitive level other than pick-up games and my experience with the sport has never placed me any closer to it than being on the sidelines for covering high school games. I suppose that might make me less of a man to the more macho types, but I've seen Alzheimer's and thanks, but I'd rather avoid anything that seems more likely to cause my brain to take on those characteristics.

Of course, you wouldn't know how healthy my brain is by some of my picks this year. Actually, looking back on how I was faring at this point in the season last year, the 71 points I earned with my picks last week brings me to a total that is nearly 100 points behind what I had back then. My brain cites this season being more unpredictable than last, obviously.

Things I made while offline: Dee's Disease jersey

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: An ink and marker design of a jersey for the Dee's Disease fantasy basketball team

Week Six Picks: Shaking it off

After last week's results felt something like a kick in the groin, this gif—starring everyone's least favorite QB—couldn't be more appropriate to accompany this week's picks. Let's all hope somebody can finish the week over .500—and by "somebody," I of course mean myself.

I'm guessing the four highest bets in the confidence pools will be pretty similar this week, but everything after that might be pretty up in the air. So it could be a weekend for some pretty drastic rises or falls depending on who does how well, but I'll probably continue to err on the side of caution until I've amassed a comfortable enough lead to take risks. All of this is not to mention that after last week's poor showing from most every other prognosticator, we've still got a number of games where an upset wouldn't surprise me.

Our beloved Bears get to host a Seattle team that hardly anybody is giving a chance to emerge victorious on Sunday. The game of the week would either have to be Baltimore going in to New England with both teams only having suffered one loss so far this season, or the battle of disappointments between the Cowboys and Vikings in Minneapolis where one team will get only its second win of the year and the other will drop to 1-4 and be subject to extreme criticism for the entire week. Should be fun.

League Championship Series Predictions: Who do I actually root for?

Looking back at last year's postseason predictions, I forgot that ESPN doesn't maintain a consistent set of experts throughout the postseason for predicting each series on a round-by-round basis. So after just one round of baseball predictions, it appears I'm already going to lose a significant number of the experts I'd anticipated comparing my own picks to. And actually, of the four people they've got predictions for the outcome of the ALCS, not one of them was included last round. Nice job, Mother Ship.

But hey! Yahoo's keeping up, so we'll scratch ESPN's panel from the standings and keep this a five-horse race, I guess—not that's it really going to be all that much of a race, of course. There's only two matchups this round and one last one after that, so maybe I'll remember next year not to bother trying to do this ... although I'm almost certainly going to forget again.

So what, who cares: Another fantasy update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no?

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.

Final Thoughts on 2010 Atlanta Braves: Long Live No. 6

There's the temptation to grumble about any one of the missed calls from umpires that didn't go the Braves' way in a number of games in their Division Series, but the ultimate truth remains that a beat-up squad got beaten down even further by their own fielding. And so it seemed that just as soon as Atlanta fans could celebrate their first post-season berth since 2005—clinched on the final day of the season—the whole thing came to an end on Monday night when the Braves lost their final game. Fittingly enough, every single game of their first-round series with the San Francisco Giants was decided by just a single run.

While the team was unable to bring Bobby Cox one last chance at a World Series title before his retirement, the 2010 season will be remembered as one in which the legendary manager once again got the absolute best out of his roster—one that was ultimately decimated by injuries.

Week Five Power Rankings: Fugly as sin

It only seems fitting that the fine folks over at GIF-A-Day had this one running as their most recent post, since it pretty much represents how this past weekend's NFL picks ended up being. This must be what they're talking about with that whole "parity" thing in the National Football League.

My picks last weekend were worth an embarrassingly pitiful 47 points, which might be a total that represents an all-time low in my three years of tracking this confidence pool business. I'd be angrier about the whole thing if I were alone in the piss-poor performance, but as you'll see in looking over how others fared with prognosticating last weekend, upsets reigned for Week Five.

Perhaps the only comfort I can take is that I did not, somehow, end up finishing in last place.

Things I made while offline: The letter D

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: An ink design with different fonts of the letter D

Week Five Picks: Sans any penis shots

This face from Mike Martz probably best exemplifies my own reaction when the recent Brett Favre photos were published—although it could just easily been my reaction to everything relating to that prima donna over the past three or four years of on-again/off-again retirement too. I'm reluctant to republish the now infamous dong shot here or even over at the Tumblr (although linking to Photoshop fun had with it is different, obviously)—and not just because this week's post is being typed up from the public library, thanks to a lack of home internet connection until Tuesday.

As though the return of Randy Moss to the Vikes didn't make Monday night's contest compelling enough, now we'll get to enjoy the many ways in which ESPN is certain to make their broadcasters avoid touching that subject. Of course, my own head's still spinning from last night's thrill in a different sport. While the fancy little helmet graphics for this week's table will have to wait until I'm back on my own computer, here's what else is happening in the NFL this weekend outside of the world of some grandfather's genitalia:

The Bears' First Quarter: Better than expected

I debated whether or not I should really do quarterly updates for the Bears, seeing as the football team plays the least number of games of any of my Four Bs. It's not entirely unrealistic that in a 16-game season, the Monsters of the Midway could go a four-game span where a win or loss might not be applicable. Still, I figured if I take the time for the other three teams, the Bears should get their special little graphic too.

And for a while there, it certainly appeared like this first quarter of the 2010 season would be quite a glorious little update. In the midst of a winless preseason, I'd said that there was a very real possibility the Bears could finish last in the NFC North. Instead, the team came out and won its first three games—two of which defied many expert's predictions. And while all three of those wins could have just as easily been losses, you have to give the team credit in the sense that they're winning close games—sometimes against teams not playing their best—rather than losing these games that they could have won.

Of course, that last game for this first quarter of the season was a little discouraging, and the team's getting ready to trot out backup QBs to begin the next quarter of the season. Still, as a fan, it's hard to complain about what the Bears did to start their 2010 campaign: 

The Braves' Fourth Quarter: Staying Alive

Well, one last division title may have eluded Bobby Cox, but the good part has to be that indeed the Braves will be headed back into the postseason for one final shot at another World Series win. And when you consider the loss not only of Chipper Jones, but the additional injury suffered by Martin Prado—not to mention nagging setbacks suffered on the pitching staff, most notably to Jair Jurrjens—Atlanta certainly lived up to that "suspense" part of the title I had used last quarter.

It wasn't until that very last day of the season that the Braves managed to squeak into the playoffs via a Wild Card berth. Sure, it's a little disappointing to watch the East slip away after holding on to the lead for so much of the season, but still playing baseball in October—whatever title it is that got you there—is a helluva lot better than not qualifying at all. And while the depleted roster and a hot second-half opponent has pretty much made most experts think San Francisco's going to walk right into the NLCS, I do like the two points Gondee made over at Talking Chop: The Giants have lost to a Wild Card team each of the last four times they've qualified for the postseason, and three of those four teams went on to win the World Series. So I'll take any reason for optimism I can find:

2010-11 NHL Predictions: Where's the love?

Wow, well wasn't that a way to start the baseball postseason yesterday? I mean, I know the Braves don't play until tonight and—oh, what's that? The puck drops tonight too?

Indeed, it sure does. But we've still got a few days before the U.C. opens its doors and there's a little redecorating to be done. And speaking of redecorating, that could apply to this year's Blackhawks roster, which is wildly different from last year's. For those of us who have been following the team for a while now, such moves were imminent. But this being Chicago and all, a lot of the late arrivals to the bandwagon are still failing to understand why so many players had to be shipped elsewhere. I've already had two such friends say "they never really got into the hockey thing anyway." And if you look around at some of the other predictions for this season elsewhere on the internet (ESPN, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo, CBS Sports, and Puck Daddy's East & West picks), nobody likes Chicago's chances for a repeat. Of course, why should they? No team's successfully defended the Cup since the Red Wings did it back when a different Democrat was president.

So will my obvious bias send me out on a limb to support my hometown team?

Division Series Predictions: Allow me some wishful thinking

I guess I did technically improve my regular-season prognosticating for Major League Baseball this past season, getting 10 of the 30 teams' final places in the standings correct. And while half of the eight teams about to play in the post-season are indeed clubs I had said would be there, only one is going in as the division winner I thought they'd be. I guess it was a down year for a lot of people though.

So I'm quite inclined to support Thomas Boswell's belief that making predictions about MLB's playoffs is "folly." And considering that my beloved Braves are limping into this postseason without Chipper Jones, Martin Prado, and probably not Jair Jurrjens either, hardly an expert out there is picking Atlanta to do much of anything in these October games.

But predictions are, of course, something of the norm here on BMC, and with the first pitch of the postseason only a few hours away, it's time to add some more wrongheaded logic to what I've already displayed so far this baseball season. (And just so I won't feel alone, we'll include a couple "experts" too.)

Week Four Power Rankings: Staying true to my word

With my favorite baseball team having just clinched their first post-season berth in half a decade and my favorite football team playing that night on national television, there I was wearing that Browns sweatshirt you see there to the left. Why? Well, because that's what I promised I'd do if Cleveland delivered in my one real upset in my picks last weekend.

And while that did indeed happen, it's hard to boast too much about that call since two of those other three upsets I said I was debating picking (Washington and St. Louis) but chickened out of going with happened as well. I guess the bright side would be that Houston didn't fail me, and that was the possible upset I had placed the most points on.

Still, the end result was a pretty pathetic 68 points for the week. And really, I don't think wearing any Bears apparel would've helped my Chicago team anyway with the way their offensive line was watching Giants run right by them and force the Bears to bring in their third-string QB.

But hey, maybe the trauma inflicted this past weekend on Jay Cutler's brain will give me a new item to wear in coming weeks, no?

Things I made while offline: Waylon Mercy

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: An ink & color pencil sketch of the professional wrestler Waylon Mercy

Week Four Picks: Keeping with the fashion intangible

Seeing as how well things worked out for me with last week's picks, I'm trying to incorporate a lot of that logic into my predictions for Week Four. And there's no shortage of games for me this week where I can be oh-so-tempted to pick upsets.

Of course, I have no special jersey belief to center this week's post around, so instead it seems like a good week to once again refer to this Cleveland Browns sweatshirt that always pops up every year since that one memorable weekend I overpaid for the item.

And that said, I should point out that I'll of course be at work when the Battle of Ohio is occurring—and then presumably watching the Bears play later that evening. So will I really be busting out this piece of personal nostalgia this weekend?

I'll make my pledge here that indeed I will wear this fine piece of NFL apparel out to wherever it is I watch Sunday evening's contest if—and only if—the Browns emerge victorious over their rival Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. I know, I know ... that's far from being as committed as I sounded last week to my belief about the Dolphins, but I didn't say anything about wearing that Ricky Williams jersey to support that team either.

Of course, the Fins lost last weekend too—but the important part was that I won the PoolHost confidence pool, so let's keep our priorities straight here.

Yawn: A fantasy update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no? 

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.