Syntax of Things

Rounding Third

I don't particularly like squirrels, especially the ones that took out my bird feeder last spring but, man, you have to be impressed by this guy.

Woops

Here's my favorite story from college football's first week:

Duke officials were a bit surprised when, at 6 p.m. Saturday, about an hour before the scheduled kickoff of their game against James Madison, two men parachuted into Wallace Wade Stadium and landed with a game ball.

Problem was, the Blue Devils -- who were warming up on the field along with their guests from Virginia -- weren't expecting it.

"All we know is, they must have missed their jump site," a team official said.

And they did -- because the jump site was meant to be about eight miles away.

North Carolina was scheduled to receive the game ball for its contest against McNeese State via an aerial team at about that time in Chapel Hill.

According to UNC assistant athletic director for promotions Michael Beale, the plane was in the air but the jumpers from Virginia-based Aerial Adventures opted to cancel the leap into Kenan Stadium because of weather.

Evidently, when the clouds eventually opened, the pilot thought they were over the correct stadium, and the skydivers jumped -- realizing only when they landed in Wallace Wade that they were in the wrong place.

Go Gay!

You may have heard that a new ("wind"-aided) 100-meter record was set yesterday at the U.S. Olympic trials.  The guy who broke the record is named Tyson Gay.  Well, guess what happens when his last name meets the robots at a Christian fundie site. 

I wonder what happens when their robots get ahold of this guy's name.

{via}

The Basement Is Crowded

Remember all of the gnashing of teeth last year over litblogs?  I know, hard to forget.  Well, imagine if n+1 had a television show on HBO.  Check out this footage from last night's Bob Costas show in which he tackled, among other things, the scourge of sports blogging.  And watch as a guy name Buzz gets apoplectic over the decline of civilization caused by blogging in general and takes it out on Will Leitch's Deadspin.  {via}

The NIT of Proofreading

At least they spelled NIT right.  However, this begs the question:  what is west of virgina?

So This Is What All the Fuss Is About?

I'm sitting here in my too quiet house, the wife and wee one having departed for a week at the grandparents leaving me with my loneliness and the dogs (and cat), and I've decided that it might be worth my time to actually turn on a college basketball game in an effort to see what all the fuss is about.  Normally, I don't pay any attention to basketball until March or so and even then it's minimal, but now that I'm living on Tobacco Road, well, when in Rome I suppose.  Anyway, tonight is the much ballyhooed rivalry game between Duke and Carolina (North, that is) and with nothing better to do I'm giving it a spin.  And it's nice.  Lots of blue. 

But really, a person who doesn't know much about the rivalry probably has no business trying to explain the intensity.  In fact, I wondered earlier this evening what Tar Heel fanatic Will Blythe was thinking and if he had anything resembling a fingernail left.  Well, Mr. Blythe is nervous.  He said so over at Deadspin:

I've got a bad feeling about this one. So does my mother, but then, as the Oswald Spengler of North Carolina basketball, she always has a bad feeling. We could be playing Iona, and my mother would have a bad feeling. If only Donald Rumsfeld shared her capacity for divining disaster

Me, I'm different. I don't usually have a bad feeling and when I do, it's usually a ruse to mislead the gods, to go humbly into the victory store and like a neatly-dressed shoplifter, sneak out with a win stuffed under my parka. Why the gods care that much about placating my bad feeling, I don't know. But sometimes they do. At other times my bad feeling functions as a prophylactic -- an attempt to protect my fragile psyche from suffering the worst (Carolina loss to Duke) by rehearsing that defeat for hours ahead of time. But not this time. This time I've got a real bad feeling.

Bear with Me

Since it is Halloween and because I'm feeling more gutted than the two pumpkins sitting on my front porch, I thought I would give you the most frightening thing I've spotted over the course of the year.  Ladies and gents, the man you see above is a true, unadulterated fanatic, Mr. Nathan Davis, formerly of Dothan, Alabama, now of Fort Collins, Colorado.  For those of you not schooled in the ways of Deep South college football, that image on his back happens to be Paul "Bear" Bryant, the legendary coach of the University of Alabama and distant relative of yours truly.  And it's not just the tat that gives Mr. Davis that frightening to the point of terrifying appeal.  That happens when he explains his love of Alabama football and the Bear.  A few select quotes:

"My co-workers and people at the gym are like, 'Why would you put a picture of another man on your body?'," Davis says. "And I'm like, 'That is not just another man. He is a disciple to me.' People don't understand. It's a religion."

"They showed a picture of Bear Bryant, and my grandfather said, `That's one of the greatest men to ever walk this earth beside Jesus Christ and General (Robert E.) Lee," Davis recalls. "Then I heard the coach talk, and I fell in love. I'll never forget it."

"I got divorced, and I would say 50 percent of that was because of my love of football," he says. "She couldn't take Alabama; she couldn't take football. And it is my life."

"One of these local Colorado men asked me, 'What has UA ever done for you?'," he says. "I thought on it for a second and said, 'Sir, my mama always told me it doesn't make a difference how you find God, as long as you find him. And through UA, Bear Bryant, and Van Tiffin, I have found God.'
"He then said, 'You people from the South are weird.'"

Seriously, if you see this man heading down your driveway to collect Halloween candy (I suspect he'll be wearing a houndstooth hat), lock your door.

{via}

Fearless Prediction

Before I get around to telling you what team will win the Super Bowl this year--and I've been right about it every year since I started making these predictions--I thought I would tell you that if you ever see a guy named Anibal pitch in a minor league game  in a town called Zebulon for a team with a mudcat (that's a fish) as a mascot, don't laugh at his name or say something like he could never make it on a major league team with a name like Anibal.  Well, Anibal threw a no-hitter last night, the first since another guy I've laughed at a lot over the years (not because of his name but because, well, he's damn funny looking) threw a perfect game against my beloved Bravos back in aught four.  It was the first no-hitter by a rookie since Bud Smith tossed one against the Padres back in 2001.  Yours truly was in attendance for Smith's no-no, but I wasn't laughing at his name.  Bud.

So, here's my prediction for this year's Super Bowl champion.  It will be a team from a city south of the Canadian line.

And college football will always be better than the NFL.

And, of course, baseball beats them both, even when your team is out of the race.

Empty Cup

The World Cup is over.  And just what did we learn from the whole thing?  1) Soccer has a long way to go to compete with even the lesser sports in the United States.  I saw a report that many of ABC's broadcasts were getting ratings on par with reruns of the WWE.  Of course, we are a sports saturated society and our sports tend to be a little more action packed.  Zero-zero ties just won't cut it.  After all, that's one of the reasons baseball has its steroid scandal right now.  Americans want to see results and for the most part that means goals or touchdowns or runs (or wrecks in NASCAR).  Couple that with the fact that most of us didn't grow up following soccer so we couldn't tell you one thing about the various rivalries much less enjoy the intricacies of the game.  We just want to hear that crazy guy on the Mexican channel lose his gourd when Rigalbertotino bends one in from forty yards out.  2)  That's not to say that I didn't try, but I kept getting frustrated at the absurd amount of flopping and fake injuries.  I know this is a complaint that you're hearing a lot and there's probably a great defense for the writhing-in-pain midfielder who tripped over his own shoelaces and appears to suffer a career-ending injury, but come on!  I say if they bring out the stretcher for you, you're done.  Automatic substitution.  3)  Championship games SHOULD NEVER end in a shoot out.   I don't care how long the matches take, you can't let the final outcome be decided by what amounts to chance.  It would be the equivalent of ending the NBA Championship Game 7 with a free throw contest or the Super Bowl with a field goal shoot out, which could be why they stopped drafting soccer players as kickers back in the eighties.  That was a dangerous trend.  4) My fantasy World Cup draft strategy (picking players with only one name) paid off and I took home first place in my league.  Okay, so there were only three teams and I eventually picked up players with two names, but I won and that's all that counts.  5)  Finally, might I suggest cheerleaders?  Couldn't hurt.  Imagine Brazilain cheerleaders and the possible outfits.  Just saying.

Now what will we ever do with these four years without soccer.

Heavy Lifting

Despite the fact that my body feels like I've just played in a Stanley Cup Final Game 7, what with all the heavy lifting and assembling and all-around hell that is moving, all is going according to schedule and if Time Warner keeps its end of the bargain, I'll be back and blogging by early next week.  In the meantime, here's what's keeping a smile on my face today.

Something about Cups Running Over

Somewhere under all that red and orange and pink and yellow indicating up to 9 inches of rain, most of it falling in about an eight-hour period, Lord Stanley's Cup awaits its own tropical storm.

Apologies for the lameness of that sentence.  Seriously, though, that was a bonafide gullywasher we had today.  I think I saw more rain in this one day than I did in most years that I lived in San Diego. 

Come on Aboard

Now that watching a Braves game has become the equivalent of listening to Conor Oberst sing, I can dedicate most of my sports watching energy to the hometown Carolina Hurricanes and their pursuit of hockey's championship, Lord Stanley's Cup.  I have to admit that I didn't know a damn thing about the Carolina Hurricanes before moving here a few months ago, but I've quickly educated myself, watching all of the playoff games from start to finish, and now I even find myself screaming "Woo" in my best Ric Flair imitation after every goal.  Besides, I hear there's plenty of room on the bandwagon, so I've reserved my seat and I'm going along for the remainder of the ride.  How cool will it be to have a sports championship in the city that you call home? 

Fantasy Novel

Back in '98, I tried fantasy hockey with a team named Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents (AFR). Well, they might as well have been in wheelchairs, the way they played.

But since I'm glutton for punishment, I thought I'd try another fantasy hockey team, this time manned with namesakes of my favorite writers.

Thank god I'm 10 years too late for Jim (Peter) Carey.

Let's see:

Evgeni (Vladimir) Nabokov
Johan (Jonathan) Franzen
Anson (Angela) Carter
Ryan (Arthur) Miller
Chris (Tom) Drury
Tom (Scott) Fitzgerald
Dominic (Lorrie) Moore
Greg (Denis) Johnson
Brent (Denis) Johnson

uh...
Doug (Tim) O'Brien  (7 minutes career ice time)

hmm...

Sidney (Norm?) Crosby

The league is crawling with Czechs and not one Kundera.

So I need some help.  Anybody?

Bring in the Clowns

I'm sure this will make the U.S. television ratings soar:

Federico Fellini-inspired clowns, acrobats and high-wire acts will perform at the closing ceremony for the Torino Olympics.

The circus theme also will include aspects from Italy's winter Carnival, a masked celebration based in Venice each February. A preview of the Feb. 26 ceremony was attended by about 200 people in a Milan theater Monday.

Actual costumes featured in Fellini's 1971 film "The Clowns" will be used. They were made by Academy Award-winning designer Danilo Donati.

Of course, if the ceremony is televised live back to the states, it will air well after the witching hour.  Thus, the appeal to pot smokers and acid droppers will be, well, high.  I'm thinking the U.S. equivalent would be opening ceremonies directed by David Lynch.  Hmmm, that's an idea.

Wait 'Til Next Year

I know that there are some upset Red Sox fans out there this morning who have awoken to the realization that there won't be another championship to ram down all of our throats this year.  (With any luck, today will also see the worst team a lot of money can buy confirming their tee times for next week.)  Anyway, in light of the Red Sox demise, I found this article in the Financial Times interesting.  In it, the writer uses Hunter S. Thompson's suicide note as the jumping off point for a discussion of the relationship between sports and suicide.

Frank Trovato, sociology professor at the University of Alberta, was among the first to link suicide with sport. He found that when the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team was eliminated early from the playoffs between 1951 and 1992, Quebecois males aged 15 to 34 became more likely to kill themselves. Robert Fernquist, a sociologist at Central Missouri State University, went further. Studying 30 American metropolitan areas with at least one professional sports team from 1971 to 1990, he showed that fewer suicides occurred in cities whose teams made the playoffs more often. Routinely reaching the playoffs could reduce suicides by about 20 each year in a metropolitan area the size of Boston or Atlanta.

But, the article continues, it isn't simply losing that contributes to this spike in suicide rates.  Instead, it is the resulting feeling that one no longer has a sense of belonging to a group, in this case a tightly knit group of fellow fanatics:

Joiner has gathered some of the strongest evidence yet that what protects fans is not winning matches but “pulling together”. It’s true that he found fewer suicides in Columbus, Ohio and Gainesville, Florida in the years when the local college football teams did well. But Joiner argues that this is because fans of winning teams “pull together” more: they wear the team shirt more often, watch games together in bars, talk about the team and so on. It’s the shared experience that matters, not the winning. Indeed, Joiner found fewer suicides nationally on Super Bowl Sundays than on other Sundays at that time of year, even though few of the Americans who watch the Super Bowl are passionate supporters of either team. What they get from the day’s parties is a sense of belonging.

While I can't say that I've ever experienced suicidal urges after one of the Braves monumental Fall collapses, it does take me a few days to get over the disappointment.  In fact, after the 1991 World Series, when the worst-to-first Braves lost one of the tightest and most memorable series in history, I wasn't myself for a month.  At the time, I chalked it up to a disappointing loss and the fact that they were so close to pulling off a miracle, but perhaps it was and is something else that leads to this. After all, the outcome has no direct bearing on my well-being, will not enhance my status on planet Earth, will bring me nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that we Braves fans have bragging rights for a year, that our team was better than your team.  Without that, we might as well be Mets fans, and we all know just why this could lead to depression.

Siss Boom Bah

While I'll give all due credit to Street & Smith's for their excellent college football coverage over the years, I'm concerned that there may be some bad water floating around their office.  The magazine has just released its top 50 football programs of all time, and let's just say that its curious.  To begin with, take a look at the top 10:

1. University of Notre Dame
2. University of Southern California
3. University of Oklahoma
4. University of Alabama
5. University of Nebraska
6. University of Michigan
7. Yale University
8. Ohio State University
9. University of Texas
10. Princeton University

How much weight do you have to give to graduation rates in order to get Yale and Princeton on this list?  When was the last time either of those programs produced anything resembling a respectable college football team?  Ok, if that serves to give their list a little credibility, a hint of something other than winning games and producing a product that is college football, then I'll accept that.  And I guess you could argue that the Ivy League was college football for the first half-century of the game's existence.  But still...

So I took a look at the complete list (available in pdf form only) and found my favorite team, Auburn, at #21, just points ahead of Harvard and six spots behind national powerhouse Minnesota.  Minnesota? 

Their scoring system is a little suspect, to say the least.  One category was the "ferocity of the mascot."  So how does a team known as the Quakers make the list?  And Golden Gophers? 

I guess lucky for S&S that Vanderbilt didn't show up.  Who knows, though, another win or two for the Commodores, which lost this weekend to the previously winless Middle Tennessee State, and they might just crack the top 20.

The Syntax of Things NFL Season Predictions (Spoiler Warning)

We're minutes away from kickoff of another NFL season, and I can't tell you how excited I am.  I had to stop myself from dressing up in the uniform of my favorite team and running around the neighborhood singing its fight song.  To share my excitement, I decided to hit all of the fabulous NFL sites, listen to all of the preseason prognosticators on the sports radio stations, watch hours of DVR'd NFL Live on ESPN (my that Sean Salisbury is a brain), and as a result, I'm here to give you the fearless first annual Syntax of Things NFL predictions.  Here are ten things I guarantee you'll see this season:

1.  A player from a team on the West Coast will suffer a pulled hamstring.
2.  Fans will pack a stadium in a major city on the East Coast.  Then they'll go home.
3.  A player that plays defense for a team in the NFL will win the Defensive Player of the Year.
4.  A Raiders fan will get drunk and curse players on the opposing team.
5.  One fat guy will block another fat guy and fat guys everywhere will cheer.
6.  It will be cold in Green Bay in December.
7.  Something will happen on any given Sunday.
8.  ESPN will bump the Yankees to the number two story on Mondays and Tuesdays.
9.  I won't win a single week of my office's football pool.
10. A team from the United States will win the Super Bowl.

Take those to the bank!  Seriously, though, does football even start until the end of October?

Across the Board

{Ed. note:  If you'd like to see the photos instead of reading this long, possibly boring account of my first ever trip to the track to bet horses, you can find them here.}

Other than a three week stretch in early 2000 when I won cash in a Super Bowl pool and a TV from an online trivia contest, I've never had much luck.  Sure, in some ways, I can claim that luck has been on my side.  For instance, there was the DUI I got out of in 1996 when a woman in my car recognized the cop; seems her roommate had recently Lewinskied the officer.  And then there's the luck of being able to find someone who is willing to put up with me most days of the week, even as I'm complaining and spewing my usual doses of negativity about everything from Madonna to the Braves bullpen. 

But I'm talking about the gambling kind of luck, the walking in the casino with ten bucks and leaving with the down payment on a house in La Jolla luck.  Mostly, I put my money in on a football pool or the nickle in the slot knowing that I will see nothing on my return.  I get frustrated when I see the same people win, hear about friend's friends who routinely hit some sort of jackpot or the other.

That's why when I pulled the sixty bucks out of the ATM on Friday, I figured I might as well kiss it goodbye.  My wife and I were on our way to the Del Mar Racetrack and we figured on this being enough to buy us a few hours of wreckless horse-betting entertainment.  After paying for parking and admission, we had forty-five dollars.  At most, we would be foregoing a few future trips to Taco Bell, probably not a bad thing.

Everything and Still Some

Thanks for all of the horse racing advice.  I'm going to spend the morning prepping, studying racing forms, looking at pictures of horses with funny names, and picking out the perfect hat to wear to Del Mar.  Instead of the regular goodness you've come to expect <cough>, I'm giving you a quick rundown and update of all the categories I've used here at Syntax of Things:

Baseball:  The Braves have regained their rightful place atop the division standings.  Ok, so they're tied for first, but it's been a long two months of waiting for the inevitable.

Books & Writers:  I will be picking up the McCarthy novel at some point before going out to the track.

General:  According to this report: "The central Appalachian states lead the nation in toothlessness. More than 32 percent of Tennessee residents surveyed last year had lost six or more teeth because of decay or gum disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That number was 38 percent in Kentucky and 43 percent in West Virginia, which holds the distinction of the most toothless state. Kentucky ranked No. 1 in toothlessness in 2003."

Hell in a Handbasket:  The Patriot Act is well on its way to renewal.  Doesn't that help you sleep better at night?

Images: 

Fisherman on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. display a massive 1,100-pound tiger shark Sunday, July 17, 2005. Unfortunately, the fisherman failed to capture first place in the monster shark derby because their boat was six minutes too late in returning to Oak Bluffs harbor with its catch. (AP Photo/Chris Lewis, ohmycod.com)

Impressions Before Reshelving:  I need to do a better job with the category.  To be honest, I forgot that I'd created it.

Load of Links:  See any post this week.

Music:  Bradley's Almanac has mp3s of Dinosaur Jr.'s recent homecoming show.  I've always been a fan of their cover of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven."

Ramblings:  No time for rambling today.  Got horses to study up on.

San Diego:  Well, let's see.  Our mayor resigned shortly after being named one of the three worst mayors in the country.  Within moments of the interim mayor's ascendancy to power, he was convicted, along with another city councilman, of taking bribes from some strip club owners who hoped they would help repeal San Diego's "no touch" law. There was actually a third councilman convicted, but he died last year of liver failure brought on by some heavy drinking (allegedly).  Well, the two convicted councilman have now resigned, meaning that I am without representation until at the earliest November.  Meanwhile, we are to elect a new mayor this Tuesday and I don't think anyone gives a damn. 

Smoking:  Operation Quit-by-Christmas is still in the planning stages.  Considering hypnotism.

Sports:  "It is 'Faith Night' at the ballpark. The Class A Hagerstown Suns are among the minor league teams, mostly in the South, that will bring in Christian entertainers, have players give their testimonies, conduct faith trivia quizzes for prizes and have giveaways that could include biblical bobble-head dolls." (emphasis mine)

Television & Movies:  SoT recommends: Me And You And Everyone We Know

The Books I've Read:  I hope to have a sidebar up soon showing the list of books I've completed this year. Right now, I'm on book 32 of 2005, a little off of last year's pace but not bad considering the lack of time I've had this year.

The IJ Report:  Done, done, and done.

The Kerouac Project:  On hold.  Blame the recent slate of new books that have kept me away from Kerouac.  I still want to do this but for now Jack will have to wait.

Tour of California League:  Geoff and I will be hitting the road in August to check out the new park in Stockton and the non-Cal League stadium in Fresno.

Weather:  This is usually my least favorite time of year to live in San Diego.  Long months of no rain in the forecast.  Incredibly enough, we have a significant chance of some thunderstorms over the next few days thanks to a nice monsoonal flow and the remnants of the latest Atlantic hurricane.  This does mean that the humidity has gone up significantly, and along with a heat wave it makes for some uncomfortable sleeping in an apartment that has only one window a/c unit. 

Would You Like Fries with That:  This is the one project/category that I want to finish before the end of the year.  That's my goal, but I'm not making any promises.

No Matter Where I Lay My Head

I'd planned on taking the morning off, but Tito reminded me that there was some important polling going on over at ESPN.com.  They are asking some hard-hitting questions about sports in each of the 50 states, and since part of my dual citizenship includes Alabama, I chose to answer the Yellowhammer State's questions.  The somewhat predictable results (and SoT commentary) can be found below the cut:

Touchdown Jesus

The way most football players are treated at Division I universities, this guy should be taken seriously:

Suspended Florida State quarterback Wyatt Sexton was taken to a Tallahassee hospital on Monday evening by local police after causing a disturbance in the street, then identifying himself to police as "God" and the "son of God."

Sexton was not arrested.

Of course, one need only look a little deeper in the story to figure out that Mr. Sexton probably got some of the bad stuff at Bonnaroo:

Sexton, friends told the officer, had attended the rock festival in Tennessee that featured the Dave Matthews Band and returned to town Monday.

I once knew a kid who under the influence of mushrooms decided that he would proclaim his love of the Lord by running around the girl's dormitory naked.  The kid wasn't a quarterback.  He was arrested and lost his academic scholarship.

Round and Round

My downstairs neighbor, a new immigrant from North Carolina, spent the afternoon watching the Daytona 500.  I know this because I asked, and because I could hear the drone of modified engines and the muffled accent of one Darrell or another as the race was being analyzed for all of the people who really want to know the intricacies of driving in a circle for five hundred miles.  I have no idea what the appeal of this "sport" is.  Despite being a Southerner--and by all rights, this is our pastime--I haven't the least interest in watching even if I were guaranteed a spectacular wreck every two laps.   My dad naps to NASCAR on Sundays and can tell you most of the drivers and what model car they drive, but thankfully, he hasn't stickered his car with his favorite's number.  Nor does he have the one with the cartoon character peeing on the Chevy symbol.  My dad just likes to nap and in his Sunday slumbers the process of osmosis has planted these names and stats, and perhaps the accent of a Darrell or two, into his brain. 

He long ago gave up discussing NASCAR with me. I guess you can see why.

The Sadness at the End of the Continent

That really loud thud that you heard Saturday night was not a rain-drenched Southern California falling into the Pacific.  Despite four days of off-and-on showers, we're still here, still getting out on the highways of adventure and eating our fish tacos.  Rocks may be sliding down cliffs and normally dry creek beds may have become rivers that have been keeping the lifeguards on standby, but Southern California hasn't gone anywhere, yet.

That thud you heard was something different.  It was the sound of thousands of disappointed San Diego Chargers fans jumping off of a bandwagon that they've been riding since mid-October.  Thousands of them who hadn't watched football since the mid-nineties--the last time their Chargers were in the playoffs--fell so hard that they may not remember spending over a hundred dollars for upper-deck seats and that they sat in the rain and watched as the field goal by the guy whose name they couldn't tell you without looking it up sailed right of target giving the other team--another New York team to bust the bubble of San Diego sports fans--the ball back.  When the kick by the other team split the uprights, the thud echoed through the city.  Then there was an eerie silence, the only sound was the rain and the slurred, indeciperable words of John Madden.  TVs were turned off, replica jersies removed and put in the wash, tears fell into beers.

So it's over Chargers fans.  A good ride, but you knew it had to end sooner or later.  Or did you?  This team played over its head all year, got lucky more times than not, and Saturday night, the luck went wide right.  Even for a non-Chargers fan, like myself, it was enjoyable following this team, watching a city that expected at best four or five wins galvanize around a team that ended up winning twelve games and home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs.  It was easy to cheer them on and hope that they might go the distance.  But the realists knew that the end was nearing.  Maybe it just came one week early.

Take it from an Atlanta Braves fan, after a few weeks you'll be able to enjoy life again.

+ A song so you won't forget.

Almost There

I just can't help wanting to listen to this a lot today.  If you'd like to sing along and you don't know the lyrics, you can find them here.

There's Always Next Year

I'm not willing (or able) to discuss the annual disappointment, also known as the Braves in the Playoffs, but Mac over at Braves Journal has a great assessment of what the Braves need to do in the off-season.

Now that baseball season has ended (for me), I can turn my championship hopes to my beloved Auburn Tigers. Auburn has surprised a lot of people, beaten some pretty good teams, and taken care of business against the Louisiana Techs of the world. Jason Campbell has done a 360 this season, finally materializing as the quarterback everyone talked about when he came in as a Freshman. He's made the Auburn offense a multi-dimensional weapon with Cadillac Williams and two other high-quality backs filling out a solid running game. Georgia looks to be the biggest threat left on their schedule, but no Auburn fan ever discounts that final regular season game against that other school from Alabama. Then there's the SEC Championship Game and a possible rematch against LSU, Tennessee, or even Georgia, or a possible match-up against Florida. If all goes well, this team could very well grab one of the top two BCS spots thanks to strength of schedule. This could make for a very Happy New Year.

I'm hoping I didn't just jinx it.