Baseball, Football & Gambling

I don't do this often enough, but if you can't be bothered to turn your eyes slightly to the right, allow me to offer up a link to m'man Tom Daniels' recent work. He's taken on the Herculean task of following his New York Mets (and their execrable bullpen) all week long in their quest for a postseason berth. Sure, we all know how this'll end (either this week or next), but if you're looking for something other than Blogger Cynicism™, Tom's doing a kick ass job.

Also, make sure you check out his Week #3 wrap-up of NFL picks. Tom absolutely tears apart the handsome Raiders fan who made quite the compelling case for Oakland failing to cover in Buffalo last Sunday. Unfortunately, the Raiders did cover. Whoops.

Finally, I received my annual invitation to the Internet Superstars Postseason Pool of Baseball Pickin'. Last year, I walked away with the bronze medal and 10% of the $200 pot. I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here [Confidential to That Movie Guy: Let me know if I am…], but all you need is $10 and a Paypal account to enter. I've done it for two or three postseasons, it's all on the up and up and there are girls involved. Free money! If you're interested shoot me an email (see my profile page if you don't have it) and I'll send you the link to the homepage.

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THE SCORING

It works like this: you pick two teams, two position players, and two pitchers. You get points based on the performances of those teams and those players.

Team points come from wins:
each game won = 3 pts.
games won by blow-out (5 runs or more) = 2 pt.
games won in extra innings = 2 pt.

division series = 6 pts.
championship series = 10 pts.
World Series = 15 pts.

sweep/division = 2 pts.
sweep/championship = 5 pts.
sweep/World Series = 8 pts.

Player points come from RBI:
each RBI = 1 pt.
each home run = 1 pt.
walk-off hit = 3 pts.

Pitcher points come from strikeouts and/or other extraordinary performance:
each K = 1 pt.
throws a complete game = 3 pts.
throws a no-no/perfect game = 10 pts.

"Can both my teams be in the same league?" Yes.
"Do my players and pitchers have to be on one of the teams I picked?" No.
"Do my players and pitchers have to be on the same team as each other?" No.
"Can I duplicate other people's picks?" Yes. Pick whomever you like; you won't see everyone else's picks until all the picks are in. We didn't have any dupes the last two years.
"Can I play a half slate for half the money?" No. Too complicated.
"Can I play more than one slate?" You can play two slates; no more than that. Each slate is $10.
"Can I forward this to my friend/co-worker?" Sure! If s/he's got the ten clams, s/he's welcome to play. The more the merrier.
"What if the walkoff 'hit' is actually a hit-by-pitch or something?" Still counts. Ask Mookie Wilson.