Before I begin with our regularly scheduled sports column, I have a little bone to pick with the Dartmouth Mirror, the esteemed insert that I often share The Dartmouth with on Fridays. It has a little "Style" section, where they pick the week's style "Mavens" and "Mavericks." Last week, they picked Shiraz Cassim as their maverick. Now let me be clear: I have nothing against Mr. Cassim. He certainly looks very stylish in his picture. However, the evidence that the Mirror presents for his style maverick-icity (maverick-ness? Maver-ocity?) is that he wears red sneakers and a matching red backpack.
Excuse me, but I've been wearing red sneakers with a red backpack since sophomore year. You should see when I combine them with my red fleece. Just like "Right Said Fred," I become too sexy for my entire outfit.
I also submit this: my closet contains a variety of clothing items, from Banana Republic sweaters that my mom bought for me to shirts I scrounged out of the Chi Gam laundry room, from classy sport coats to T-shirts with M&Ms performing sexual acts upon one another.
I am a fashion maverick supernova. But do I get a profile in the Mirror? I think not. What is it? Is it because I'm affiliated, but not in SAE? Is there a height requirement? What's the deal?
Okay, I feel a lot better after getting that off my chest. Moving on ... there will be no football picks columns ever again. Not only was the column universally panned, but my picks (and justifications) were gawd-awful. So that's done.
The real news this week is the end of the baseball season and the start of the playoffs. So let's take a look at the Division Series, starting with the National League.
The NL is known as the "Senior Circuit" amongst us "in the know" types. While this is technically because the National League was founded in 1875, seven years before the formation of the American Association, the precursor to the American League, was founded. (A side note: I learned that in History 6, "Baseball and American Society," which is offered Sophomore Summer and is a true cornerstone of any liberal arts education.)
I like to think, however, that this is the case more because the level of play in the NL compared to the AL is analogous to that in the Senior PGA as compared to the regular PGA, or NASCAR drivers to the local senior citizens in their Volvos, who almost run you off the road on your way to WalMart. Whatever. They still have to play the games to determine who gets crushed by the AL representative.
First series is St. Louis vs. San Diego. This is the first series ever played between two teams that didn't win 90 games during the season, and it looks just like that. The Padres' "ace" went 11-14 this season with an ERA of 4.09. But they're facing a team that went 3-12 in its last fifteen, and only won 83 games, going an anemic 39-42 against the giants of the NL central. I don't care that St. Louis won the first game. Advantage, Padres.
Next up are the Dodgers and the Mets. Now, I love the Dodgers. They had a 17-1 streak once this season, they came back from a four-run deficit in a game by hitting four consecutive home runs in the bottom of the ninth and they have Greg Maddux and Nomar Garciaparra, two of my favorite players in baseball. But they also had a 1-13 streak and the Mets have been tearing up the NL this year. Maybe they lost El Duque and Pedro, but Pedro hasn't done anything since April and El Duque hasn't done anything since 1999. Advantage, Mets.
In the AL, you have the Yankees vs. the Tigers. I would really like to take the Tigers, but they collapsed in the second half, and everyone knows that Derek Jeter is the second coming of baseball Jesus. If this series even got close, the Baseball Tonight guys would poison all the Detroit players just so that they could talk about Derek for another week.
So that wraps up my Division Series preview. Enjoy the games. What? You say there's another series being played? I have no idea what you're talking about. Athletics-Twins? Lalala I can't hear you! Shut up! Shut up!
