Back From the Dead

I have actually found that during my three week hiatus that someone of you are actually reading my blog and have wondered when I would be writing again. Well I'm back and in new paragraph form! The headaches can stop now Sterge.

I have spent most of the last three weeks watching basketball. Is there anything more exciting than March. As usual I spent the first two days locked in to my friend Tage's house with the occasional trip out for food and adult beverages. There are a few things that I learned from those two days. 1. 21 brackets, a player scoring pool, and a team pool is way too much-I found that every play had a positive or negative outcome, I thought my head might explode. 2. Arkansas has teen wolf playing for them- If none of you know what I'm talking about check this out ( http://deadspin.com/371021/steven-hill-is-looking-awesome ) and finally 3. We NEED to get the direct TV coverage next year- I can no longer tolerate CBS's decision making when it comes to games.

Speaking of CBS who is in charge of that nickel and dime station. They can't give us the right game and when they do Jim Nantz and Billy Packer are the announcers. At this point I would rather have Joe Buck and Tim Mccarver do the games, this is how bad its got. Billy Packer has completely lost touch with the game yet we have to hear his outlandish comments every year while Jim Nantz sits by like someone is going to taser him if he calls Packer out on anything. If you put up a poll right now on you would rather have call the game the Johnson-Elmore, Enberg-Bilas, or Lindquist-Raferty crews would Packer and Nantz receive a vote from anyone who watches basketball?

Despite the fact those two will be calling the final four, I am expecting an all time classic. Four #1's, and if there was any year it should have happened it was this one. Although having Davidson there would've been interesting. For those of you who did not see it Davidson's fans had one last hope yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBkf9dxiIe8 . Funny stuff if they had tried that with WVU their houses would probably have been burnt to the ground right now. I am not going to make any predictions on a winner because I do not want to curse any chance I may have to win in my pools although I will say this UNC, Kansas, UCLA should all win it.

I was reading an article earlier on great places to watch the final four, and I would like to enter my first nomination into the places NOT to watch the final four-any Canadian sportsbook. I'm saying anyone because I'm assuming the casino we were at this weekend (bachelor party-great time!) wasn't just exclusively ripping us off. They called themselves the OLG which I can only figure stands for Outright Loss Gaming. I could go through everything but you wouldn't even believe me, let me try. You can only bet parlays? This parlay has to be in the dollar amounts they assign on the tickets?? You can bet spreads and over/unders but they have to be separate??? You could only bet hockey or college basketball and they had to be separate???? If you actually won a bet you would not receive the amount you bet back????? and you had to wait an hour for them to verify the final????????????????????????????????????????????????? Well I understood this one after because the fine print said the house reserved the right to determine the home/visiting teams and if online info did not match up with ticket the bet was a loss?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? I would not have been surprised if they had let us bet an NBA game but told us we had to predict the final score.

Lastly I wanted to talk about some other predictions for the upcoming MLB season, oh wait it already started, three different times huh? Let's start with the NL. My sleeper team the Reds, same feeling I had last year about the Brewers a lot of young talent ready to take off. Cy young winner I can't see anyway that Johan Santana won't win the award facing a pitcher everyday instead of a DH. MVP is interesting one. I could see someone having another Jimmy Rollins type season and winning it. I would like to pick Prince Fielder but the whole vegan thing is turning me off instead I'm going to stay with the Mets theme and take David Wright. However I don't think the Mets will be going to the world series, they will lose to the Diamondbacks. I also see the Cubs and Braves making the playoffs. In the American league you will never not see me pick the Yankees so it will be the Yankees over the Tigers with the Mariners winning the West and the RedSux as the wild card. Sleeper team-the Rays, Tony Parker's wife is supposed to be unbelievable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Longoria . Cy young-Justin Verlander just a hunch really could be a few guys. MVP-People are going to think I'm a homer and I'm nuts but I see a huge year out of Bobby Abreu. I can understand why a lot of people are thinking Manny and A-Rod but he seems poised to revert back to his heyday Philly days and just seems a lot more comfortable with New York apparently I'm not the only one thinking this http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080401 . Anyway Yanks over D-backs to make 2001 the way it should have been.