Baseball Been Berry, Berry Good to Me

Tonight, I went out to Nationals Park for the first time since Opening Night (and again I went with OSG). This was the first outing on tickets I scored at an auction that I attended last week. OSG and I have now attended two games in the new ballpark, seeing the Nationals win both games with walk off home runs in the bottom of the ninth.

With all the brouhaha that swirled about that other team in Washington, which is now playing golf, after finally removing their ice skates after an amazing series (and for the record I am very disappointed - it was very exciting to watch), I am prompted to answer the question (from no one in particular), what is my favorite sport? I will not (for now) pick a particular allegiance to any one team, although that is fairly evident to those who know me.

It's a valid question. Of the sports that are on my radar screen here they are (ranked according to height and popularity - and what's that from? - my favorite TV show) and please note this is but a very short list. There are certainly more sports out there and even some that I will watch. This just happens to be the list today and it conveniently gets me to the link I wanted to share with you (see the bottom of the post):

1. Baseball
2. Golf
3. Hockey
4. College Basketball (hey don't I get lunch because I won the pool?)
   
5. Football

So there you have it. I am not a big pro football fan of either New York team, which don't even play in New York anymore and I am too far removed from C in DCs beloved NY Team. I will usually watch the Super Bowl, but that is more about the food and the commercials than the game. But the Giants beating the Patriots last year was sweet. I will watch the occasional college game (I might tune into the bowl games around New Years and I'll always look at how Brown is doing for my mother).

When I lived in the Hudson Valley, I held season tickets for the Marist College Red Foxes. I liked the smaller intimate settings and you could really get involved in the games. I will watch (and did watch) most of the March Madness tournament and will usually root for the underdogs, because those are the teams I know. But I'm not stupid and usually do well in the pool, which is why my lunch table group is going out to lunch and I get to eat free!

I am a hockey fan by genetics. My mother was an only child and learned her love of the game from behind the chicken wire at Rhode Island Reds games. I won't even get into how my father nearly got killed when he came home one night and told my mother that someone had offered him New York Rangers tickets and he turned them down, not knowing the level of craziness exhibited by hockey fans (if you haven't seen the linked commercial, click it - it's worth it). When my mother died, my brother-in-law arranged for a floral display of carnations made into the New York Rangers logo. It was quite something.

The reason that golf sits atop hockey is that I can actually play golf (shut up, Ed). I can't skate worth a lick and I love watching hockey and will root for my Rangers until my last breath. But I can pick up a golf club and (occasionally) get a good ball down the fairway. Next weekend I will travel to a conference where a foursome of archival golfers will beat up on the little white ball. And of course we have just seen the Masters, which is the one golf tournament that I try to not miss on TV. Now if I can just get adopted by Archivalist's father and go with him on his tickets one year, I'll be all set.

So that leaves baseball. I grew up in New York, where that purple stadium was closer than the hallowed grounds of the House that Ruth Built. I went to my fair share of both Mets and Yankee games, but my heart went to the pinstripes. It's been said that's why the Yankees always win, "the other teams can't stop looking at those pinstripes." (Look a quiz question right here at the end - name that movie!). I played little league as a youngster, but didn't have what it took. Perhaps Little Brave Astronaut can do what his old dad could not - support his father in the lifestyle he would like to be accustomed to.

But I agree with the article posted here. Baseball is the best of all games. And here, from a 1961 conversation recounted in a letter (a letter, not an email, not on the phone, an actual letter) twenty years later, the American Philosopher, John Rawls, explains why he offers the six reasons why baseball is the greatest of all games.

It's the Masters!

To hear Jim Nantz talk about it . . . "it's a tradition like no other." The Masters always takes place on the first weekend in April. About 15 minutes ago, four-time Masters winner Arnold Palmer served as honorary starter for the tournament. Here's a good history of the tournament, from the Masters website.

I will be glued to the TV this weekend as the best in the game demonstrate their talents in what I refer to as the "Cathedral of Golf." I would like to see Phil Mickelson win (again - he is the defending champion).

Stay tuned.

And by the way, in case you missed it, Florida beat Ohio State for the championship in NCAA basketball. I've chosen not to report about it, as the sting of Georgetown's loss still hurts. Oh, well, better luck next year.

And after dropping their first two games of the season, the Nationals came back to win in dramatic fashion yesterday, loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth and winning the game with a walk-off single.

And the Four Shall Go to Atlanta

The Final Four have been decided. I sweated out the end of the Georgetown game, until UNC forgot how to score baskets and the Hoyas ran away in overtime. The four teams are:

• The number 1 seed from the Midwest (and overall) - Florida
• The number 2 seed from the West - UCLA
• The number 2 seed from the East (and my pick) - Georgetown
• The number 1 seed from the South - OSU

I did not have UCLA in my Final Four (having chosen Kansas) thinking that UCLA would lose to Pitt, but these things happen. So I have three of the four in my bracket left and I am still going with Georgetown over OSU and Florida over UCLA for the championship game, with the Hoyas prevailing as the new national champion!

In other sports news, I have secured tickets for Opening Day here in Washington, DC, so a week from tomorrow, I will head out to RFK to take in the Nationals as they face the Florida Marlins. I have been to the two previous Opening Day games for the Nats and am looking forward to this year, too! I might even get a season ticket package to secure my chance at seats in the new stadium.

As for hockey, with the season winding down, the New York Rangers beat the New York Islanders in overtime today to leap over Tampa Bay in the standings into sixth place. With five games to go, it will be a race to the wire for a playoff spot, with five teams in the Eastern Conference fighting for two chances to extend their season.

The Sweet Sixteen!

And we are down to 16 teams. Games will return on Thursday and Friday to determine the Elite 8. As it stands right now, I have 11 teams still alive on my bracket. I have two teams that did not survive although I had them making it to the round of 8, so I'm already 0-2 for the next round.

Here's my picks for the Sweet Sixteen with the teams remaining:

• Florida over Butler - Butler beat MD, but Florida should continue its roll to the Final Four, despite a scare from Purdue.
• UNLV over Oregon - Those runnin' rebels are not going away quietly. The Cinderella team of the tourney?
• Kansas over Southern Illinois - It will be one of the better games, but the Solukis should finally hit the wall.
• Pitt over UCLA - Quiet and determined, the boys from Steel City shouldn't fall until they meet Kansas in the next round. The West bracket is the only one where I have all four teams.
• UNC over USC - Alphabetically, N over S and the end of any teams west of the Rockies
• Georgetown over Vandy - Georgetown is still my pick for the champion.
• OSU over Tennessee - another number 1 seed, another victory for OSU
• Memphis over Texas - then again, I had Texas losing to Penn.

And the 64 Shall Become 32

End of the first round. I am still better than .500 (with twenty-two of my teams advancing and eleven heading home). You have to wonder how many people have meaningless pool sheets now, with Duke back in North Carolina. Probably just people from UMD who hate Duke more than most. Congratulations to Archivalist and his VCU team, who squeaked past Duke on a last second basket. Stunning victory. My Albany Great Danes phoned their play in, losing badly (well, not badly, they lost really well) to UVA.

A piece of archival content. It was reported to me by C in DC that this marked the first time since the field went to 64 teams that the top seeds (#1-5) all advanced out of the first round. I'll check back with a list of the "sweet sixteen" and prognostications.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I Can't Win

I have lamented here publicly about the traffic here in the DC area. This week I have been spared from the road warriors, as I have been working downtown and have been taking Metro. Today, I arrived at the station to get on the train, and found one waiting for me. Not unusual, until I realize it's not going anywhere. Cue the PA announcement. "Attention Customers, this train has been instructed to hold at this station due to a "fire situation" at Dupont Circle." The announcement continues to tell us (the train has filled up by now) that trains are holding up and down the Red Line and when they start, trains will single track through four stations around the Dupont Circle Station. (For those of you not from the DC area - you love the Metro, but ride it every day then come talk to me. And don't even get me started about the "untended luggage" at the Rockville station last night.) You can learn about all of these travel woes on the Metro here. So when we finally got moving, we did the slow crawl into the city. My normal twenty minute commute took me an hour. It's a good thing I love my job.

On another unrelated? note, today is the Ides of March, a particularly bad day for Julius Caesar. It's also proving to be a bad day for a few of my Big Dance picks. My Cinderella choices of GWU and Penn have been obliterated and I must have had a brain fade to have picked Stanford. I don't even like Tiger Woods, why would I pick his school? And with time running out, my Marquette pick ain't looking so good either. I mean, geez, it took them eight minutes to score their first basket. And Duke is having trouble with VCU, but that's not necessarily bad. Yes, I picked Duke, but that doesn't mean I like them.

It's March Madness

According to a professor at the Yale School of Management, betting the seeds in the March Madness Pool will yield a 56% success rate. Of course, that makes you no money in odds, but perhaps some money in the office pool. Two other professors, from the math and computer science department of St. Louis University, adopt a different approach, creating a model that picks the teams that others don't pick and found that to be as important as selecting the winners, especially in larger pools.

That being said, here's my picks for the first round. I won't make any more predictions for the moment, but I will go out on a limb right now and say that I'm picking Georgetown to win it all. My Final Four are Florida, Georgetown, Kansas, and Ohio State. Feel free to kibbitz.

Midwest Region:

• Florida over Jackson State - Florida is the defending champ. They will be hard to beat in every round and might not.
• Arizona over Purdue
• Butler over Old Dominion
• Maryland over Davidson - fear the turtle, until they meet Florida.
• Notre Dame over Winthrop - C'mon, it's St. Patty's day, you got to pick the Fightin' Irish.
• Oregon over Miami (OH) - Can't afford to keep the Archives of the Archives listserve, can't play basketball (only archivists and readers of the new archives list will get this inside joke).
• UNLV over Georgia Tech - Best Friend went to University of Georgia, so it's anyone over Tech.
• Wisconsin over Texas A&M

West Region:

• Kansas over Niagara - I would like to see Niagara win, but I don't think it will happen.
• Villanova over Kentucky - possibly the best matchup of the first round, two teams that are both called the Wildcats.
• VA Tech over Illinois
• So. Illinois over Holy Cross - it would set up the matchup of Ill. vs. So. Ill. if Illinois can beat VA Tech.
• Duke over VCU - for now . . .
• Pitt over Wright St. - just for you, Ed!
• Gonzaga over Indiana - love those screamin' Eagles
• UCLA over Weber State - that one's for Cheryl and the fact that they're really, really good at this game.

East Region:

• UNC over E. Kentucky
• Marquette over Michigan State
• USC over Arkansas - the Razorbacks are not the team they used to be.
• Texas over New Mexico State - "Don't Mess With Texas" until they meet the Trojans.
• GW over Vanderbilt - The new DC Cinderella story, replacing last year's George Mason
• Washington State over Oral Roberts - not even He can help ORU in this one
• Boston College over Texas Tech - Maybe Bobby will throw some more chairs if he loses.
• Georgetown over Belmont - Belmont is only good for horse racing

South Region:

• Ohio State over Central Connecticut - the Buckeyes are no match for the not-Huskies
• Xavier over BYU
• Tennessee over Long Beach State - Long Beach, long shot
• Albany over Virginia - My alma mater! Go Great Danes!
• Stanford over Louisville - the wheels come off the bus with this pick
• Penn over Texas A&M - gotta root for the Ivy League
• Nevada over Creighton
• Memphis over N. Texas