Pre-season predictions. How crazy is this?

ALE: BOS, TOR, NYY, TB, BAL
ALC: CHW, CLE, MIN, DET, KC
ALW: OAK, LAA, TEX, SEA
NLE: NYM, PHI, ATL, WAS, FLA
NLC: STL, MIL, CHC, HOU, PIT, CIN
NLW: LA, SF, SD, ARI, COL
Wild cards: TOR, MIL

World Series: CWS over NYM

Let me just say, "Ouch" for Marty Peretz

Daily Kos takes the hammer to the New Republic. (NYT story.)

Georgia on my mind

35,702 families in Georgia had a member of the family who worked year-round in a full-time job and lived in poverty. I'm just saying.

Something I learned waiting to buy Cubs tickets

Saturday games sell out before Sunday games.

Oh, Tom Boswell

Why do you hate the Nationals? Is it just because their GM is an idiot?

Suspicious

My rule: if someone had a big drop in his power numbers after steroid testing began, that's my prima facie case that he's guilty of having used them in the past. (I'm using, as usual, the Merriam-Webster's definitions, not American Heritage's. Any college graduate with A-H and no other dictionary in his or her house should be embarrassed.)

Next defendant: J.T. Snow. At 37, he slugged .529. Last year, at 38, he slugged .365. Doubles dropped from 32 to 17, homers dropped from 12 to 4.

And, yes, I'm similarly inclined toward (er, against) Mike Lowell.

Prove me wrong, kids. Prove me wrong.

A life of its own

The Sons of Sam Horn have written another book. (This was the first one.)

Stupid racists, ruining everything

Honestly, how is Craigslist supposed to monitor this? I'm as opposed as I can possibly be about discrimination in housing, but asking Craigslist to monitor "the nearly two million free housing ads of unlimited length posted each month, a volume of ads greater than that received by all U.S. newspapers combined,"is impossible.

Can we go after the people who post the racist ads instead?

Good thing talk radio wasn't around in 1880

I'm concerned that Bob Ferguson didn't know how to handle his pitching staff. The fans at the old Haymakers' Grounds couldn't have been happy about that. I mean, look at this guy's managerial record! Why did the Phillies and Pirates hire him? Is it just because of his great nickname? Or because of that short-lived success in Hartford?

And why did Bill Harbidge get so little playing time? Was Bill Holbert really that much better a catcher?

I'm very upset about this story

I can't believe that 30 little league teams in Massachusetts were named the Yankees.

For the record, I don't think Needham had a team named the Yankees. I always found it a little strange, though, that my AAA team -- the Giants -- was part of the Dodgers system. And now, I will have a conversation with myself.

- Hey, Josh, remember the time you played first base during Mike Torissi's no-hitter?
- Yeah, that was great.
- You got called up to the majors after that.
- I didn't even know I was being scouted.
- Well, you were the oldest kid in AAA.
- I'm not sure that's true.
- One of the oldest.
- Yes.
- Why was that?
- They always held tryouts on Sunday mornings, and I had to be in Hebrew School. I fact, I can only remember trying out once, and I couldn't get drafted by a major-league team unless I was at tryouts.
- Wait, what about all those Catholic kids you grew up with? Mike Burke, Kevin Hallahan ... didn't they have to go to church? Why would they hold tryout on Sunday morning?
- Good question. That also reminds me: I used to think that there were as many Catholics as Protestants, because every Christian I knew was Catholic.
- I'm glad we had this talk.
- Not me. You were boring.

Guns don't kill people, people pulling triggers that fire rounds that are expelled at high speeds from guns kill people

"Ultimately I'm the guy who pulled the trigger, that fired the round that hit Harry," Cheney said in his first interview since the incident. "I'm the guy who pulled the trigger and shot my friend."

25 interesting web cams

Well, according to these guys. Safe for work, too, so I'm not sure how interesting we're talking, here.

For most of us, the story got less funny yesterday

I was thinking about removing my Daily Show transcript from the site, because this story got a lot less funny after the victim had a heart attack and returned to intensive care. I'm keeping it up because I only have this blog to keep a record of what I was thinking about at the time that I post.

And now, the President's Press Secretary:

[Scott] McClellan said he learned of Whittington's condition ''literally just before I was going out to brief" reporters at the White House yesterday. McClellan said he kept the news to himself because ''we didn't know all the facts, and I'm not a doctor." Minutes after the briefing, officials in Texas announced that Whittington was taken to intensive care.

Which is interesting, because Dana Milbank noted that he "was in fine fettle yesterday morning when he strode smiling into the briefing room and made a joke about Vice President Cheney's hunting accident."

There's no Newseum like no Newseum

Nice to see that they're still a resource for us, even when they're just a shell of building.

Via Hotline

"We got the quail-hunting accident story the way dedicated journalists have tracked down news for years -- through strong, consistent old-fashioned reporting."
-- the Corpus Christi Caller-Times (2/14)

"Ms. Armstrong called her local newspaper, The Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and informed it of the shooting."
-- the New York Times (2/14).

No. 2 With A Bullet

Jon Stewart: "I'm joined now by our own vice-presidential firearms mishap analyst, Rob Corddry. Rob, obviously a very unfortunate situation. How is the vice president handling it?

Rob Corddry: "Jon, tonight the vice president is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Wittington. According to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush.

"And while the quail turned out to be a 78-year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Whittington's face."

Jon Stewart: "But why, Rob? If he had known Mr. Whittington was not a bird, why would he still have shot him?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, in a post-9-11 world, the American people expect their leaders to be decisive. To not have shot his friend in the face would have sent a message to the quail that America is weak."

Jon Stewart: "That's horrible."

Rob Corddry: "Look, the mere fact that we're even talking about how the vice president drives up with his rich friends in cars to shoot farm-raised wingless quail-tards is letting the quail know 'how' we're hunting them. I'm sure right now those birds are laughing at us in that little 'covey' of theirs.

Jon Stewart: "I'm not sure birds can laugh, Rob."

Rob Corddry: "Well, whatever it is they do ... coo .. they're cooing at us right now, Jon, because here we are talking openly about our plans to hunt them. Jig is up. Quails one, America zero.

Jon Stewart: "Okay, well, on a purely human level, is the vice president at least sorry?"

Rob Corddry: "Jon, what difference does it make? The bullets are already in this man's face. Let's move forward across party lines as a people ... to get him some sort of mask."

Let's go, Spinners!

The Class A Lowell Spinners of the New York-Penn League say that if youth baseball leagues across New England change the name of a team from the Yankees to the Spinners, Lowell would pay for new uniforms. (AP)