While sitting around reading up the news of the day, we can’t help but notice how some sports fans get bent out of shape on how their team owners spend their money.

So we got to thinking: what if the marketing mavens at Anheuser-Busch composed a little diddy for Bud Light’s “Real Men of Genius” campaign?  It’ll go something like this:

Real Men of Geniussssssssss….

Today we salute you, Mr. Super-Serious-Baseball-Fan…

Your favorite team is owned by a cheapskate and you go to games while dropping a $100 and what you get? Sub-par baseball…

Dang, he missed the cutoff

But not you — you demand he throws money at any free agent that has more than one syllable or eats up innings with finesse pitches and a religious bent…

Forget balan-cing the checkbook

You want more than a sinkhole with stagnant water outside the stadium? Well, move to Pittsburgh…

So crack open an ice cold Bud Light, Mr. Super-Serious-Baseball-Fan because you, sir, deserve what you pay for: a perennial pennant contender….

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Ah, the beauty of predictions: they’re completely worthless to utter, yet so tempting to try and look like a friggin’ genius by picking the winner.

If you’re a regular reader of this site (and who is…really?), you’ll know that throughout the playoffs, we made attempts at being experts by selecting winners for each series.

More after the jump »

The Buried Lead’s resident college football expert ND Range brings us his top ten in college football after week 9.

1. Ohio State

As the other teams ranked ahead of them earlier in the season begin to pile up losses and the Buckeyes continue to win impressively, the #1 ranking becomes more and more justifiable each week.

2. LSU

While I don’t think they are head and shoulders better than the competition, like was believed early on, they are a great team in a tough conference. It’s looking like whoever they play in the SEC Championship game will have at least three losses.

3. Arizona State

Both the offense and the defense look like a solid group, a lot of speed and they still have a tough schedule down the stretch that could give Arizona State an edge in the rankings. IF ASU, LSU, and Ohio State all win out, there is at least a chance that LSU could be on the outside looking in after the computers factor themselves into the mix, not to mention, ASU will look very good in the pollsters eyes if they finish the last month of the season with wins over Oregon and USC.

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Last time around, we patted ourselves on the back for getting all four of the division series correct.

Well payback is a b-i-t-c-h: we completely erred in stating that the Diamondbacks would win in seven games and the Indians would take the Red Sox to seven games and capture the ALCS against the Red Sox.

You’d think we learned our lesson and not dip our toe into the waters of predicting the World Series, right?

Wrong. We’ve chosen to embarrass ourselves again and break down the 2007 Fall Classic.

More after the jump »

Give a nice warm welcome to contributor NDRange, our resident college football expert.  Periodically, he’ll be writing “Two Point Conversions”,  focusing on college football previews, recaps and other insights on the games that matter. His first effort follows.

#2 South Florida at Rutgers
Time: Tonight, 7:30 PM
TV: ESPN

After big early season wins against Auburn and West Virginia, paired with a chaotic series of events in the top 10, the South Florida Bulls (6-0) find themselves ranked #2 in the newly-released BCS standings and in position to play in the BCS title game.

Before the Bulls can start thinking about a trip to New Orleans, they’ll need to get past their first big conference road game tonight as they travel to Piscataway, NJ to take on a talented Rutgers (4-2) team led by running back Ray Rice.

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Stop if you’ve heard this before…

One team is a media darling and a behemoth, having a high payroll and filled with All-Stars at nearly every position.  The other is the David to the other’s Goliath, playing in a smallish media market and a payroll that roughly equals the rotation pricetag of the team they’re playing.

If you guessed the media monoliths as being the Boston Red Sox and the budgetary bravehearts the Cleveland Indians, you might want to keep reading this scintillating analysis.  If not, read it anyway: we can use the traffic.

Before we move on to breaking this thing down, we’d like to point out — again — we did awfully well with our division series predictions, nailing all four of them (the duration of each series doesn’t count!).

With that, a series that features the likely top two finishers in the AL Cy Young voting going in Game 1…

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Two teams have made it to the National League Championship Series and they’re both squads that no one thought would reach it this far: the Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Rockies swept the NL East champion Philadelphia Fightin’ Phillies in three games, continuing their unbelievable stretch of winning 17 of their 18 games.  The Diamondbacks took out the NL Central “champion” (we use that term loosely, like sorta saying you’re the world’s tallest midget) Chicago Cubs in three games, extending the Cubs post-season futility to its 99th consecutive season.

Before we move on to breaking this thing down, we’d like to point out we did awfully well with our division series predictions, nailing all four of them (the duration of each series doesn’t count!).

With that, let’s get crackin’!

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Major League Baseball’s post-season kicks off Wednesday with their Division Series and we couldn’t be any happier.

Outside of the WNBA’s playoffs, there’s nothing more exciting than Division Series baseball. Of course, we come across as a little bit bitter that our favorite team, the St. Louis Cardinals, crapped the bed a bit this season amid a myriad of problems and that might have dampened are mood.

In any case, it’s time to just go through a quick hit list of predictions for the first round Division Series’ (Serieses? Serieie?)

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

In a bit of poor planning, the NHL begins anew on the first night of Major League Baseball’s division playoff series.

Yeah, we know they fired up the regular season schedule in London, England over the weekend but did anyone get to watch any of it?

Nevertheless, we’re fired up that hockey’s back and we have a team that’s slowly — but surely — gaining steam and making positive steps in attaining the ultimate goal: Lord Stanley’s Cup.

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Now for something completely different…

You’re an earlier adopter and just got to have an iPhone because it’s just so darn freakin’ cool.  You decide to take it to Europe because you can — and it’s on a GSM network, so you can use it anyway.

Once you get there, you barely use the damn thing and think everything is great because, hey, you got the freakin’ iPhone.

Then you get home after a nice trip filled with tales of drunken debauchery, sight seeing and coffeerdness (That last one is an ode to Peter King of SI, in my attempt to make this sports-related) and get around to opening your bills.

This is where the fun stops, as the New York Times points out.

More after the jump »

(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

Being fans of the Birds on Bat, we sure would love to believe that there is nothing to the Rick Ankiel story that broke late last night via The New York Daily News. Of course, there very well might be nothing to the story than being a familiar name caught by the press on a list of professional athletes that received shipment of human growth hormone (HGH) back in 2004.

Then this little passage opened up our eyes and harkened us back to the Mark McGwire steroid storm of the past.

According to records obtained by The News and sources close to the controversy surrounding anti-aging clinics that dispense illegal prescription drugs, Ankiel received eight shipments of HGH from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando from January to December 2004, including the brand-name injectable drugs Saizen and Genotropin. Signature is the pharmacy at the forefront of Albany District Attorney David Soares’ two-year investigation into illegal Internet prescription drug sales, which has brought 22 indictments and nine convictions.

We’d love to believe that one of our very own would be innocent of such evil deeds, given that a doctor prescribed the HGH. But in today’s sports world that is filled with cynicism, skepticism and innuendo, that can — and will not — be the case.

More after the jump »

Appalachian State downs Michigan (YouTube)

With every great upset game — in this case Appalachian State over fifth-ranked Michigan — comes a great call by the winner’s broadcasting team.

Excitement reigns in this audio version put to stills on YouTube.

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(From time to time, we’ll post a short blog entry regarding a current topic or something else that catches our fancy. It might be something trivial or something that really makes us wonder what the hell is going on.)

On Wednesday, the Texas Rangers put up some monster numbers in their 30-3 white-washing of the Baltimore Orioles. While culling the boxscore earlier Thursday for a bit, we’ve run across some interesting facts that you may — or might not have — heard.

• It’s the second-most runs all-time as the Chicago Colts (now the Cubs) scored 36 against the Louisville Colonels on June 29, 1897.
• The 30 runs given up by the Baltimore Orioles was the first time a Baltimore-area team had given up 30 in a score since the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens gave up 42 points to the Cincinnati Bengals in week 12 of the — wait for it – the 2005 season. (Source: Pro-Football-Reference.com)

There’s more facts where those came from…after the jump

More after the jump »

All-time Gold Glove team named (AP/ESPN/Rawlings)

Hitting the way back machine, we wrote up a small blog post announcing a Rawlings Sporting Goods’ contest that would culminate with the winners of their “All Time Gold Glove Team” being selected by combination of experts and fans.

Rawlings established the Rawlings Gold Glove Award® in 1957 to recognize excellence and performance in the field.

The Rawlings Gold Glove Award has since been the measuring stick, the benchmark, the high bar of great defense.

Since 1957, more than 250 major leaguers have won Rawlings Gold Glove Awards, and more the 150 have won multiple awards.

We also listed whom we thought was deserving of the award, so after the jump, we’ll list our picks with in one column and the actual selections in the other.

More after the jump »

Well folks, we’re going to be away for some R&R over the next five days.  We’ll do our best to have our usual morning stories for all six of you to peruse (’HTS’, ‘TMA’ and a perhaps a story or three) while you roll out of bed or kill time at the cubicle waiting for that first conference call of the day.

Since we have your attention: we’ll hopefully be making some changes over these next few days as well.

Our crack staff of techies will be updating/tweaking/adjusting things around here, like updating the site’s software and other goodies. We can’t make any promises other than to tell you the site may be down for a time or two along the way, so be patient as things progress forward.

With that, we leave you with a moment that sums up everything:

[youtube QShSmpI0r9k]

Schreiber: For ESPN, what next? (ESPN)

Earlier this year, we noted that ESPN had hired a new ombudsman named Le Anne Schreiber to overlook the store and provide critiques on how “The Worldwide Teaser” handled stories they were covering.

As with anything related to the network, we met the move with some skepticism as the prior ombudsman, George Solomon, provided analysis that seemed to lack a bit of bite most times. But not so with Ms. Schreiber.

In her most current piece, Ms. Schreiber takes “The Teaser” to task over the much-maligned “Who’s Now?” production of letting assembled panels of “experts” weigh the merits what athlete is currently the “nowiest.”  What made it even funnier is those same panelists got to debate the final match-up of LeBron James and Tiger Woods, only to be told by “moderator” Stuart Scott that their voiced opinions didn’t matter as it was the fans that would decide who would win.  In a landslide, Tiger Woods downed LeBron.

More after the jump »