FWP: I’ll Take A Crack At This

Fearless Weekend Predictions is a weekly column running on Friday afternoons where our resident soothsayer (or whoever we can get) locks down what will transpire in the coming 72 hours. It’s better to get these out before the 7-year is open.  The crystal ball gets cloudy.

Well it’s been about a month since the last FWP.  Keeneland has come and gone, baseball has started, and the Pudge Cup is off to a rousing start (unless you shot over 110 the first two weeks).  It’s about time we looked into the magic ball and gave you fine folks some visions.  Pudge will assist on this one.

The Derby will come and go and no animals will be harmed during the filming. That’s right, no horses are going down this year.  With all the bad press following horse racing the last couple of years by the animal activist people expect trainers and event staff to play it safe this year.  No horses will be running with a bum leg and I don’t think the jockeys will push as hard.  Then again, who am I to predict that, it’s Derby time and all Hell is likely to break loose.  If you venture into that wretched mess this weekend enjoy the scenery and take your umbrella.

The A’s will be back near .500 at the end of the weekend. Hey, it’s just a hunch but I think they’ll take at least two from the Mariners on the road.  Dana Eveland will take his bearded self in tonight and throw a good game to start off the series.  After that, it’ll be a war but the division leading Mariners are due to flub one up.  Plus the A’s need some good news some time this week.

Ricky Hatton will own a small Phillipino in the ring. We don’t blog about boxing nearly as much as we wish we could on this site but this is the biggest fight of the year.  Pacquiao has been good in the past but he just doesn’t seem as hungry as he was in the past.  Hatton will throw with anyone and I’m predicting Hatton will lay the lumber on Mah-Mah-Manny on Saturday.

The Celtics will win game 7 in 4 overtimes at home. Are you serious with this series?  I stop by TGC’s last night after softball thinking I can watch 7 minutes of basketball and go home.  Wrong!  This series has seen about 93 overtimes in 6 games and game 7 shouldn’t disappoint.  Give me the Celtics in the Garden in a big game 7 any day.  That is unless Salmons goes off again.  In that case give me the Celts in 6 overtimes.

Billy Gillispie will hang around Lexington long after his time is over and still attempt to sleep with your girlfriend. Rumors of Billy sightings are almost more rampant than when he was initially hired around Lexington right now.  People see him at Two Keys for God’s sake!  Where next Billy?  Perhaps you’ll stop in at McArthy’s for a Guiness?  Maybe a little trip to the Tin Roof?  The man may be on stage at the Penguin this weekend, who knows?  All you do know is that Coach Cal better keep his daughter far away from this man.

That’s all this week folks.  SmoothRon is gearing up for Keeneland tomorrow for Derby, TGC is on the road to K-Town for a celebration, and 2SL is celebrating life as usual.  You should do the same and have a fantastic Derby weekend.

Monday Poll: That special time of year

APIAS Road Trips – Summer 2009, part I

The air is warming up, the fairways are turning green, the snow is gone (finally), and baseball is around the corner. All of this can mean only one thing. Pounding the pavement.

I want to take a minute to outline the (ever-changing) APIAS Summer Road Tour 2009 schedule.  You’ll remember past tours to Detriot (again), Bristol, and of course Keeneland.  This year’s tour will include venues old and new.

And down the stairs he falls!

Not to take away from the preview Smoothron will no doubt write next week, but the first order of business once you switch your thermostat from heat to A/C is, of course, Keeneland in Lexington, KY.  The final few stages of Kentucky Derby prep racing take place April 3-24.  The majors of this meet are the $750K Blue Grass Stakes on April 11, and the $350K Lexington Stakes on April 18.  Burgoo, spirits, short dresses, big hats, bo… sorry, Smooth will get you the preview at a later date.

Gotta love the 2 block walk to the stadium.

The next order of business will be back to the land of Leyland.  Fuzzybuzz and myself will be jetsetting (read: Dodge Durang0) to Michigan for the Yankees-Tigers series April 27-30.  I don’t care if the Greektown Casino did file bankruptcy, they should better mark their Roulette tables.

I know there's a Jimmy John's around here somewhere...

Soon after that, on May 2, the whole crew can be found on 4th street in Louisville under the Twin Spires.  It’ll be this cowboy’s first time to the Derby, but not the first beer on 4th Street.  Hell, I might even catch a concert or two.  Maybe a nice balcony bike ride.  No promises or apologies either day.  (Race you to York?)

See you there.

Other potential stops include Richmond, VA, Atlanta, GA, Austin, TX, San Diego, CA, Omaha, NE, Cincinnati, OH and Knoxville, TN.  Feel free to weigh in.

Afternoon Wake Up Call

Afternoon Wake Up Call is our way of recapping the day’s action.  This is for all the assholes (college kids) who get to sleep all day or for folks like us that are stuck at work all day and need some updates.  It likely won’t be daily (until Spring weather permits back porch posting on a daily basis), but someone will bring you the day’s recap in a way only APIAS can.

Well lots of things happening in the sports world.  First off, there’s the race for the SEC East, or race to see who can’t finish first, however you want to look at it.  If you didn’t see TGC’s recap of the Wild East, I suggest you look at it.  It’s as comprehensive as it gets for the scenarios.  From a Cats standpoint, anything less than taking care of Georgia at home and winning in Gainesville leaves them scrambling for an SEC tournament championship.  Tennessee can probably afford one more loss and a good tournament run and still make the NCAA tourney based on their solid strength of schedule and their amazing RPI. 

On the racing front, Dale Jr. got off the schnide with his first top ten of the year.  Vegas was good to Jr. as a few late breaks, culminating in Carl’s blown engine, allowed Dale to sneak in at number ten.  Hopefully that will change the guy’s luck going into the front stretch of the year.  He’s made some bad breaks for himself this year.  Here’s to hoping he races clean, well, and gets a few more breaks this season.

Baseball is heating up.  Only 35 days ’til the Fightin’ Elephants kick off.  The A’s and Tigers are both looking to improve on last year’s records.  The Tigs were a bit of a dissapointment but I doubt the Marlboro Man will allow that to happen two years in a row.  Oakland was rebuilding last year and it showed in their second straight under .500 year.  Offseason acquistions of Matt Holliday and the homecoming of Jason Giambi has the Green and Gold primed to recover from a league worst offense in 2008.  A healthy Eric Chavez and a revamped set of mechanics for Bobby Crosby have the A’s set up to have possibly the best lineup in the AL West.

Well that’s about it for today’s recap.  Our maiden voyage was more of a statement of things to come.  In the future look forward to updates on SEC basketball, MLB baseball, NASCAR, boxing, and anything else we can slip in that day.  Also, arrested athletes will likely make an appearance.  You never know.

Great American Race: Open Thread

Tony’s in a new ride, one he owns.  Jeff won a dual.  Casey Mears and Clint Bowyer basically swapped cars. And the pre-race intro is a rap song.  Must be the 51st Daytona 500. 

Sweet.

FWP: All-Star Edition

Fearless Weekend Predictions is a weekly column running on Friday afternoons where our resident soothsayer (or whoever we can get) locks down what will transpire in the coming 72 hours. It’s better to get these out before the 7-year is open.  The crystal ball gets cloudy.

Who doesn’t love the NBA’s All-Star Weekend?  Friday night gives us the “Celebrity Game.”  The word ‘celebrity’ should be used VERY liberally with the likes of James Denton (Desperate Housewives), Zach Levi (Chuck, the show which I still claim that 2SL is the only person in America who watches) and Rick Fox (LA Lakers legend).  Now, I don’t usually throw around the word ‘legend’ like that, especially when it concerns Rick Fox.  NBA.com did that for me!  When I think of the Lakers, it usually goes: Chamberlain, Jerry West, Kareem, Magic and after about 1,200 other players, I might think of Rick Fox.  Are they serious with that?  Friday also features the Rookie vs. Sophomore game, which is a glorified playground game.  Saturday night has the skills competition, dunk contest, 3-point contest and the new addition, HORSE.  HORSE should be awesome, unless the NBA finds a way to screw it all up.  And then on Sunday, the actual game.  I love the All-Star game, mainly because the 4th quarter of the game is the best basketball you can watch all year long.  There’s plenty of other stuff going on: college hoops, a Valentine’s Day tradition has its 5th birthday and NASCAR returns.

• Jimmie Johnson will win the Daytona 500.  Hell, why wouldn’t he?  The guy is absolutely dominating his sport, so he may as well win the biggest race of the year.  Also, am I the only one who thinks it’s dumb that NASCAR has its biggest race of the season first?  Shouldn’t the racing season gear up to the biggest event and now ramp down from it?  Just a thought… here’s another thought, Chandra Johnson is hot.  How did a tool like Jimmie bag her? 
• Jason Kapono will win his third straight 3-point contest.  Larry Bird is not walking through that door!  Seriously, this isn’t exactly a murderer’s row of shooters we have lined up for Saturday night: Kapono, Daequan Cook, Mike Bibby, Danny Granger, Rashard Lewis and Roger Mason.  Yeah, I’ll take the guy who’s won it two years in a row.
• Big Beezy will dominate the Commodores, Vols will dominate the Commodores.  Come on people, there is still room on the Brian Williams bandwagon.  EDay showed us the other day what he could if he got more minutes.  Vanderbilt isn’t very good, so the Vols should continue their winning ways.  Vols 73 Vandy 59.
• No one in America will watch Wisconsin/Ohio State.  ESPN isn’t dumb.  There’s a reason they chose to go to the Big 10 game the same night as All-Star Saturday.  Wisconsin 13 Ohio State 10.
• Dwyane Wade will start making plans to move to NYC in 2010.  Yeah, nice work Miami, bringing in Jermaine O’Neal is definitely going to entice him to stay.  Wade definitley wants to play with a lazy, always injured center who’s past his prime.  LeBron and Wade to the Knicks, mark it down.
• Friday the 13th will be a box office hit.  Why not?  It deserves its day, doesn’t it?  I’m not really into horror movies, but I do love the hot chicks that are in them.  In this instance, my new love is Julianna Guill.  HELLO!  I guess I should try and get her number so we can start dating.  Eh, I’ll wait until after All-Star weekend.
• Rudy Fernandez will win the Dunk Contest.  I thought I was picking a dark horse when I picked Rudy, then someone told me he has almost half the votes on the NBA.com poll.  Well, there goes my underdog scenario.  Here’s why he will win: Nate Robinson won’t get the opportunity to try dunks 48 times before actually putting the ball in the basket.  Dwight Howard won’t be able to just do lay-ups this year.  JR Smith isn’t smart enough.  Also, did you see Fernandez’s dunk in the Gold Medal game in August?

• Baseball will keep inching closer.  I, for one, am ready.  This FWP is going to be damn near all basketball… not that that’s a bad thing.  I do love predicting a Mets’ sweep over a weekend then watching them lose and lose and lose.  Yay baseball!
• Kevin Durant will win HORSE.  I love watching KD play and just feel like he’s going to win.  NBA.com also doesn’t have the list of the other participants and I am sick of looking around on the internet.
• Billy Gillispie will beat your basketball team and sleep with your girlfriend.  I’m talking to you Razorback fan.  Picture this… You get a big Valentine’s Day planned for you and your special lady.  You make her breakfast in bed, and surprise her with tickets to the big game against UK.  Dinner and romance are scheduled for after the game.  Sadly, your seats are just too good.  Billy G eyes your girlfriend the whole game and all of a sudden she’s “sick” and has to take a rain-check on the rest of VDay.  Whoops!  Add that to the fact that Jodie Meeks just dropped 43 on your team and that’s a rough day.  Also, your coach looks like 2SL.  Guess you shouldn’t have chosen to spend your college years in Fayetteville, Arkansas.  UK 78 Suuuueeeeeey 61.

Hey, don’t spend all weekend drinking beer and watching basketball, take care of your special lady as well.  Valentine’s 09 makes for the 5th year in a row one or part of the APIAS crew will be bowling with some unsuspecting whores.  It’s a great tradition.  Drink up!

1 Burgoo and 1 Bud Light, please

In honor of my impending premier Fall trip to the Land of Keene this Saturday, filled with tailgating, tie-wearing, and Tagmat! gambling, I wanted to share this gem with all of you.

But since WordPress is all douchey about Flash, you’ll have to click on over.  Enjoy this obviously produced-by-the-track look at Keeneland tailgating anyway.

“We like to sit on the outside of the track, it’s really, really convenient” translates to “Beer out of my cooler is way cheaper than beer from Loraine at gate 12.” But one must always venture in to meet Tubby-Smith-Hair window clerk, place a wager or 3, and enjoy your choice of a $3 beer or a $5 Julep. Must.

And if you don’t know what Burgoo is, you have no one to blame but yourself.

TAGMAT!: Watch Out Weekend!

TAGMAT (They are giving money away today!) is a weekly column done every week by APIAS.net’s resident gambling addict, Smoothron.  This site in no way advocates gambling, especially excessively.  Smoothron’s degenerate friend, who will refer to as Casino Bobby also gives you his picks for the week.  If we can tell you anything, bet against both of them and you should be able to retire within the first month of the season.

Of course, like every other prediction I make, when I said last weekend’s college football wouldn’t be up to par you should have known it would turn the whole landscape upside down.  Although, you really should have known about USC, that was about the only thing I have picked right all year.  Last weekend is gone, so let’s look forward to this weekend.  This weekend begins one of the greatest gambling months of the year.  If you are so lucky to live in APIAS headquarters, you know that Keeneland opens on Friday.  The greatness of Keeneland has been discussed on this site many times, so if you don’t know yet about it, I guess we’ll just never reach you.  There’s just something special about being able to sit in the clubhouse at the racetrack, betting on horses, calling in bets to the football games you’re watching and getting absolutely hammered.  There’s really only one thing that can sum that up: God Bless America.

Let’s turn our attention back to college football, though.  Two games have totally jumped off the page at me: WVU (-8) @ ECU a few weeks back and Wisconsin (-6) @ Michigan last weekend.  Obviously, being a Michigan fan, I didn’t touch that game, but pretty much everyone I talked to thought the Badgers were the lock of last weekend.  What does this mean?  It means that the people making the lines are getting smarter, which is not good for the casual bettor.  There was no reason West Virginia shouldn’t have gone into ECU and worked the Pirates.  Hell, I probably would have given double-digits in that game with WVU, but Vegas knows a hell of a lot more than most and that’s why they have more money than us.  The same thing happened with Wisconsin last weekend.  Shouldn’t they have beaten Michigan last weekend?  Absolutely, but someone knew something more than the public.  So, if I can say one thing, if a line looks too good to be true… it probably is.

On with the weekend.  This is the weekend we make it all back! 

FWP: The ‘Whoops!’ Edition

Fearless Weekend Predictions is a weekly column running on Friday afternoons where our resident soothsayer (or whoever we can get) locks down what will transpire in the coming 72 hours. It’s better to get these out before the 7-year is open.  The crystal ball gets cloudy.

Yes, friends, “Whoops!”  The word has so many meanings, for so many situations.  Perhaps you stayed out in the sun too long, whoops!  Perhaps you stayed in too long (everyone’s been there before), WHOOPS!  Or, maybe you botched your un-retirement so poorly that you are now stuck playing for the Jets, whoops!  Today, we salute you, “Whoops!” for always being there for us.  Slow week around these parts.  You know the old adage, “When TGC’s away, the rest of the morons just won’t write.”  Well, that was about what happened.  Sorry for the lack of content, but you know we’re just building up all our good ideas for the beginning of college football which is just around the corner.  We do have baseball, road racing and the Olympics to kill the time until then.  Liftoff…

• No one in their right mind will be able to figure out what the hell the Mets are doing on the baseball diamond.  Win some, lose some… who cares?  The only thing known for sure is that Billy Wagner won’t be pitching and the make-shift bullpen will.  Yay for not doing jackshit at the trade deadline!  The Phillies (first place in respective division) just made a trade with the Cubs (first place in respective division), but the Mets are fine to sit pretty.  It’s like this is the same franchise that fired their manager at 3AM.
• Tony Gordon will win the race at Watkins Glen.  You know Tony Gordon right?  He’s the guy who has won 8 of the last 11 races at WG, but hasn’t won all year and desperately needs a win?  Wait, hold on, someone is telling me something.  Oh, it’s two different people: Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon.  So sorry, well good luck boys.  Because, you know, you need it.  Hotter wife status goes to Gordon, so here’s a picture of the beautiful Ingrid Vandebosch.
• The Chinese government will do something insane.  Does this really need to be said?  They have like 20% of the world in one country, dictate everything anyone can do, but they get to host the most watched television program of all time?  I see no way this can go wrong.
• You will get your Daily Dicky and love every second of it.  After his diatribe about dreaming about Matt Stafford at SEC Media Days, UK has decided to capitalize on their mildly insane WR (and EDayStat’s favorite Cat of all-time) by putting a video of him up every day.  You can find the DD right here.  This will surely not backfire in UK’s face.
• Josh Smith will fade into Bolivian.  Thanks, Iron Mike for the quote.  Seriously J-Smoove?  Memphis?  The same place as the Grizzlies?  Enjoy!  Also, without their two Joshes (Smith and Childress) next year, the Hawks should be about as competitive in the NBA as our rec league team would be.
• You will go see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and be surprised.  No, don’t get me wrong, it still sucks very much as a movie.  But, (yes, I went) I totally thought I would go and fawn over the lovely Blake Lively the entire time.  However, Alexis Bledel truly caught my eye.  She’s not Rory from Gilmore Girls anymore!  Oh, you’ve not seen that either, huh?  Well, she’s hot and her IMDB Trivia says she loves the World Equestrian Games.  They are in Lexington in less than two years, this may be meant to be.
• Brett Favre will hate city life.  Why?  Hmm… if he thought Rachel Nichols hung around too much, wait until the NY media is following him around like that even when this charade isn’t going on.   How about the fact that he’s playing for the Jets?  The Jets.  Gosh, they really suck.  Also, NYC smells like shit.
• The US Olympic Basketball team will kick China’s ass.  That is something I look forward to.  Waking up Sunday morning, brushing off that hangover while watching Kobe put his nuts in Yao’s face.  And then maybe he’ll dunk on him, too!  Also, I will refuse to ever call them, “The Redeem Team.”  EVER.
• Your live-blogging needs will be filled.  For our lack of writing this week, EDay and I will be live from the Back Porch tonight giving our thoughts on the Mets, A’s, Tigers, Cubs and any-and-everything else you could want to know.  Stay tuned.
• Billy Gillispie will laugh at engagement rumors and then sleep with your girlfriend.  I’m talking to you, John Mayer.  Sure, Room for Squares was a pretty good album.  But, then you went all electronic and got way too show-offy.  Also, the faces you make when you play are just uncomfortable.  Even still, you’ve managed to bang a lot of hot chicks in Hollywood and Jennifer Aniston is no exception.  But, as we all know, Billy G laughs in the face of relationships and sleeps with whomever he damn well pleases and I’m sure your girlfriend is no exception.  If I were you, I would head on down to city hall, because Coach BCG is not into breaking up marriages.

That’s all for this week.  It was unexpected, shorter than I thought it would be and not that good (obligatory…), but that’s what you’ve got.  Also, I would have mentioned the PGA Championship, but who even knew that was going on through all this Favre drama?  Sergio wins.  Peace!

 

(Ed Note from eDayStat:  Sorry to jack the bottom of your thread SmoothRon, but everyone stay tuned for a new, ongoing project starting on Monday.  It is sure to be a train wreck (much like the A’s season blog) but surely it should be good for a few laughs.)

FWP: All Is Quiet In The World

Fearless Weekend Predictions is a weekly column running on Friday afternoons where our resident soothsayer (or whoever we can get) locks down what will transpire in the coming 72 hours. It’s better to get these out before the 7-year is open.  The crystal ball gets cloudy.

Well, it’s 9:37 on the Friday night and no FWP yet?  Something must be wrong.  No SmoothRon this week, no TGC, so I’ll take a shot at this thing.  Everyone hold on tight ’cause it could get ugly.

Oakland will continue the death spiral.  So the boys are 7-12 in July.  That’s not good friends.  3-7 in the last 10 is even worse and now there’s a four game set at home against Texas and we all know how good the A’s are in 4 game sets.  Not very.  The glass-half-full guys would say a four gamer against Tejas at home is a good way to turn things around.  Personally, I just see us getting outhit in at least 2 of 4 if not more.  Good times, they keep a rollin’!

Jeff Gordon will kiss the bricks.  Yeah, it’s not really going out on a limb to guess Gordon will win.  He won the inagural Brickyard and he’s won 4 total.  Really, I’m just a Junior fan who hopes the FWP curse on Nascar drivers will hold up.

Another college football player in the state of Kenutcky will have legal problems.  The University of Louisville’s current problems are well published around the Internets but now news out of Lexington says Curtis Pulley is having problems of his own.  Guess Mike Hartline just became the leader for the position, no matter what Rich is saying at the SEC circus.

You will be so bored that you’ll actually watch soccer.  True story, TGC, 2SL, and I were shootin’ pool last night and there was so little sports action on TV that we watched a significant portion of the MLS All-Stars versus West Ham.  The soccer wasn’t bad and it was nice to see the MLS show that they can play with the 10th best team in English soccer.  Oh yeah David, it’s soccer here.  Get used to it you limey bastard.  Football is played by oversized men in pads and helmets who slap each other on the butt and reach into one another’s groin to receive the ball.  Soccer is so gay isn’t it?

College football continues to approach.  With the recent release of NCAA ’09 everyone is getting hyped for the coming season.  EDSBS has the count down at 34 days folks.  That’s barely over a month.  Prepare thyselves.

Billy Gillispie has already taken your girlfriend to Vegas and is currently sleeping with her.  Billy Boy has been out in Vegas checking out the AAU tournament scene.  Lots of good stuff going on out there as B.C.G. continues to scour the globe for talent.

Well that’s it for this week sports fans.  Short but simple and both are largely due to my deficiencies.  Sincerest of apologies.  Now get out there and have a few drinks and enjoy some baseball.  That’s about all you get this weekend!