John Kruk Stays The Course

Krukie, earlier today offering his prediction for who will win the NL Central this year:

I like the Cubs- and I've been saying this since day one.

It is day one, jackass. Or day five, I guess, if you want to be picky about those A's/Red Sox games. I guess he probably meant "since the beginning of spring training." That's still like picking a team to win the NCAA tourney when the brackets get announced, watching them beat East Bumfuck State A&M in the first round, and then reaffirming the pick as if you're going out on a limb by sticking to your guns.

In an unrelated story, it's been tough to keep holding on to this one, but I've still got Andrew W.K. as my pick for douchiest one hit wonder of the 21st century.

No Crappy Sportswriting Here

But if you want some crappy sportswriting in the near future, here's what to root for in the wide world of football this weekend. After each game listed, I'll write the hilarious angle or angles terrible journalists will take should the indicated outcome happen.

Saturday's NCAA Games:

Hawaii over Washington ("They're for real, just like Boise St. last year! Put them in the national title game, they're undefeated!" or "What a bunch of frauds! They haven't beaten anyone! They don't even belong in a bowl! BOOOOOOO!")

Missouri over Oklahoma ("What a great story! These guys are the best! Let me tell you all about them! Who cares if I couldn't name a single guy on the roster a month ago!")

Tennessee over LSU ("More proof that the SEC is the toughest conference in the country!")

LSU over Tennessee ("More proof that the SEC is the toughest conference in the country!")

Boston College over Virginia Tech ("That Matt Ryan is the second sexiest man alive! Have you ever seen this guy! He's almost hotter than Tim Tebow!")

USC over UCLA ("These guys are unstoppable! They would crush both Missouri and West Virginia right now! Put them in the national championship game! It's not like they lost to Stanford at home or anything!")

Army/Navy over Navy/Army ("This is the greatest rivalry in sports! Except when Ohio State plays Michigan and I write the exact same thing about that rivalry! Or Florida State/Florida! Or Texas/Oklahoma! Or Auburn/Alabama! Or Yankees/Red Sox!")

Moving on to Sunday/Monday's NFL Menu:

Tennessee over Houston ("I don't care that Vince Young was 9 for 24 with 120 yards and 4 interceptions! All this guy does is win! What! Tennessee has a good defense! Who cares, they've got Vince Young!")

New England over Baltimore AND New York Jets over Miami ("Let me just be the 1,000th different journalist to point out how crazy it would be if the Patriots went undefeated while at the same time the Dolphins went winless! How strange would that be! Very!")

New York Giants over Chicago ("Eli Manning is making 'the jump' right before our very eyes! He's completely matured and never makes mistakes anymore! He's ready to win some Super Bowls!")

Chicago over New York Giants ("Eli Manning is officially the worst quarterback in the league! It's time for the Giants to cut their losses and trade him to the CFL! His career is over!")

Pittsburgh over Cincinnati ("Maybe Chad Johnson should spend less time trying to do crazy celebrations and more time winning! He's an insult to the game! Even though I used to talk about how funny he was! I guess the court of public opinion just turns around like that sometimes! What are we talking about again!")

New Orleans over Tampa Bay ("The city of New Orleans is whole again! All the problems are fixed! Except for the fact that it's the murder capital of the country! But who cares! Their football team is winning, that means everything is OK! It's like the hurricane never happened!")

Fine, I'll admit I'm about a year late with that last one. I guess I'm out of material. Anyhow, hopefully about half of these happen, giving me my pick of the litter on Sunday night. Enjoy your weekend.

A Prediction

Mariotti took the day off today. The Cubs traded away Michael Barrett for Rob Bowen and Kyler Burke today.

Here's my prediction, or set of predictions if you will
1) Jay Mariotti will write a column tomorrow about the Barrett trade
2) Jay will go off on Barrett for being a clubhouse poison, using analogies and name-calling over about 3-4 paragraphs that could be summed up by saying "good riddance".
3) Carlos Zambrano will magically be absolved of any guilt for the fight, because now that Barrett's out of town, it was 100% Barrett's fault.
4) There will be maybe one sentence mentioning the players received in the trade, possibly including Bowen's current stat line, but nothing more, because Jay couldn't tell you one thing about Kyler Burke besides his position.
5) Jay will cry about how management and players are not giving their true opinions on being rid of Barrett (i.e., public figures are not being tactless enough), and I haevn't even heard anyone express their opinion yet.
6) Jay will not mention anything about why the Padres made this deal, seeing as how they have no real reason to trade for a catcher that has performed slightly worse than their starter, Josh Bard, because of Bard's sizeable advantage in OBP and Barrett's defensive follies. Bowen was playing pretty well.
7) The closing sentence will be something to the effect of, "He's your problem now, San Diego"


Of course, there is the chance that Jay just decides to do one of his usual flip-flops and bash the trade completely (even though the Cubs made off pretty good on this one...Bowen has had a knack for drawing walks so far in his major league career) but even so, I'm sticking with those seven. I just can't wait to see.....