NL East: NY Mets
Reason: Citibank paid $20 million a year for the naming rights to the Mets' new stadium, Citifield, to be opened in 2009. At least these people will have a nice pretty banner to look at when it opens ... If Atlanta is feeling bad about paying Mike Hampton $121 million to get injured, it should soothe them when Mark Redman's 80-mph garbage trots to the mound every fifth day. ... Seriously, Charlie Manuel is crazy ... The Cardinals' 83-win World Series was more legit than both Marlins World Serieseseseses combined ... Who's worse: The Washington Nationals or the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
NL Central:
Seriously. This is the year. Screw the rest of the division, here is why the Brewers do the damn thing.
10. Tony Gwynn, Jr. is not as good a hitter as his Hall of Fame father, but he’s also not as morbidly obese. That’s what Vegas calls a push.
9. My roommate has a book called “Christ the Center” sitting out on our coffee table. Shockingly, it makes only 625 references to Bill Hall.
8. The names “Yovani Gallardo” and “Ryan Braun” will pucker the starfruit of most major leaguers by mid-July.
7. Jeff Suppan was the World Series MVP last year. He’s the worst player since Scott Brosius (1998) to do so, which takes some talent. (EDIT: He was the NLCS MVP. Thanks for looking out, dude. I suppose I would remember who my favorite team's postseason MVP was if I wasn't -1 the last time they were in the playoffs.)
6. Brewers catcher Johnny Estrada is a switch-hitter. A switch-hitting catcher? Next thing you know, women will have the right to vote.
5. Claudio Vargas was expected to be a marginal fifth starter, but in his first three games, he has struck out 22 in 13 innings. That's a lot of baseballs being shoved up anuses for a marginal fifth starter.
4. Whoever taught Craig Counsell his batting stance should have their oversized manager pants taken away. That’s not really a positive reason, but look at this guy.
3. While his older brothers solved mysteries, Brewers shortstop J.J. Hardy got into the fielding business.
2. Prince Fielder once ate 100 eggs in one sitting.
"My boy says he can eat 100 eggs, he can eat 100 eggs."
1. Tony LaRussa wears Ned Yost underpants.
NL West: San Diego
Reasons: I think it would be fun to hang out with the Giles brothers, like they would just go get a couple 40s of malt liquor and play MarioKart for Nintendo 64 ... Arizona's one year away from being totally bad ass ... Los Angeles refuses to play Matt Kemp frequently, but hey, Luis Gonzalez is a cool guy ... Colorado only wins when Dante Bichette's restaurant is open (seriously, there's a faded building in Denver that you can tell used to be Bichette's restaurant. Walt Weiss still hangs out on the sidewalk outside, it's effed up) ... If Barry Bonds charges a flyball and Omar Vizquel is going out after it and they are both running really fast, the theory of general relativity states that Vizquel will end up orbiting Bonds until he's absorbed into his massive chest. How funny would that be?
NLDS:Mets over D-Backs (wild-card), Padres over Brewers (baby steps)
NLCS:Mets over Padres
World Series:Mets over Angels
Oh, and apparently the best basketball players in the world have some sort of playoff system going on starting this weekend. Might be interesting to check out.
