My top ten greatest Cardinal moments (so far):

1. Wainwright's K on Beltran in 2006 Game 7 NLCS
2. Wainwright's K on Inge in 2006 Game 5 WS
3. Edmonds' HR in 2004 Game 6 NLCS
4. Yadi's HR in 2006 Game 7 NLCS
5. Big Mac's 62nd HR on Sept. 8, 1998
6. Willie McGee's walk off HR in 1997 Opening Day (I was attending)
7. Pujols' HR in 2005 Game 5 NLCS
8. Reyes' pitching gem in 2006 Game 1 WS
9. Edmonds' catch in 2004 Game 7 NLCS
10. Watching Pujols and Yadi live at the 80th ASG in Busch in 2009

Honerable mentions:
Ankiel's two throws against Rockies in 2008
Attending Ozzie Day in old Busch in 1996

Got married on the beach!

Holy Shit! It's been a long time... I miss you, Blog... :(

Well, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up as religiously on my blog as I would have been able to when I wasn't working, but DAMN! A month and a half is too fucking long! I'm really going to try and get back into it a little bit, but who knows how long that will last...

Since my last blog post a lot of things have happened in my life. Here's the main points:

1) I got engaged.
2) I bought a new (to me) car.
3) I began working full time for the first time in my life.
4) I began umpiring a LOT of baseball games ranging from youth baseball to HS Varsity.
5) I have attended three Cardinals' games (to which they won all three!)
6) I found out that all of these things above really take up a lot of time in my life.

Now, there's a lot that I would like to write about, but I won't create another 10 page post (written in MS Word) like I did in my first post. Instead I'm just going to ramble on for a couple of paragraphs in order to get my blogging fix in.

Yesterday I went down to Murray, KY to pick up my sister from college. My little brother went with me, and we made the 3 hour trip together. Too bad it took us 5 hours to get down there due to the storms blowing a shitton of trees on the interstate. We were bumper to bumper for 20 miles on the interstate! That blew a lot of ass, but once we got down there, packing my sister's things up didn't take too long. We then got to throw the frisbee around which really gave me the itch to play some Ultimate! Anyways, we didn't get back home until midnight, and I concluded my day by spending 10 hours behind the wheel. Makes for a long day.

Well, other than work, my life has been consumed by Cardinals' baseball. I am VERY excited with how this team has performed so far this season (sans the last 7 games as of today). I'm saddened to see that Carp went down early on this year, but at least its not for the whole year (fingers crossed!) Also, I would like to see Rick make a quick and full recovery from his meeting with the wall earlier this week. Lastly, I am very surprised to see how Baby Dunc is hitting so far this season. I said that I just wished he would just go away before the season started, but I fully retract my statement that I made. He's been a pleasant surprise, and I hope it stays that way for the rest of the year. A couple of other things to point out. Skip looks like its working in the second base project, Franklin has secured the closer's role (for now), Waino really needs to turn it around soon, Pujols is the man, and I still think that this team has potential but just not for this year. I can sadly still see them fizzling out before the year is out. Honestly, the Reds look good this year. They may be the team to beat...

Well, that's all I got for tonight. Hopefully my next blog post won't be at the end of June!

Only two more days until Selection Sunday!!

The day after I witnessed one of the best college basketball games that I have ever watched (not including the Arizona vs. Illinois game in 2005 ... THE best college basketball game ever) I have realized that this whole bracketology thing is really tough. It seems as though all the upsets happen at the same time. For example, both Kansas and Oklahoma lost yesterday to lower seeds in the Big 12 tournament. Luckily, I didn't have either one of those teams as a one seed in my projected NCAA bracket, but it did affect my S-shaped rankings a little bit. For those of you that don't know, the S-shaped rankings are what I use to seed all of the teams and place them in the different regions.

There hasn't been any automatic bids handed out in the past couple of days, but there have been some bubble teams on the move since my last bracket projection. I'll get into more depth about some of those bubble teams, but for now here is the list of automatic bids to the NCAA tournament:

Cornell (Ivy)

Radford (Big South)

E. Tenn. State (Atlantic Sun)

Morehead State (OVC)

Northern Iowa (MVC)

Gonzaga (WCC)

VCU (CAA)

Siena (MAAC)

Chattanoga (Southern)

Western Kentucky (Sun Belt)

Cleveland State (Horizon)

Robert Morris (NEC)

North Dakota State (Summit)

Portland State (Big Sky)

Again, the most surprising of all of these teams is Cleveland State who beat Butler in the Horizon league championship game. This both locked up a spot for the Vikings for the first time in 23 years, and it took away an at-large bid as the Bulldogs are already considered a lock to make the NCAA tournament. The room for error in the world of bubble teams just got smaller.

NEW LOCKS:

Dayton

Oklahoma State

Boston College

Dayton’s road to the Atlantic 10 championship game got a lot easier as Rhode Island was upset by Duquesne yesterday. This also ended URI’s hopes of getting an at-large bid. The Flyers should have an easy road to getting an at-large bid if they do happen to either lose to Duquesne or a potential matchup with Xavier for the Atlantic 10 championship.

Oklahoma State pretty much secured their at-large bid with their win over Oklahoma yesterday. Not much more to say about them.

Boston College has three marquee wins over ACC locks. A win tonight over the Blue Devils would lock up an at-large bid for sure (if they don’t win the ACC tournament, of course). I still think that they are in even if they lose.

Obviously there is still a lot of time for some of the bubble teams to move up or down on this list with some of the games being played as I type, but here are my rankings of bubble teams. At the top of the list is the most safe team, and the bottom of the list contains teams that are most likely to have their bubble busted.

1. Ohio State
2. Wisconsin
3. Michigan
4. Penn State
5. Minnesota
6. San Diego State
7. Texas A&M
8. New Mexico
9. St. Mary’s
10. Creighton

Ohio State, like the rest of the Big Ten bubble teams, can write their own way into the NCAA tournament by winning games in the Big Ten tournament. As I am typing, I am also watching the matchup between Ohio State and Wisconsin. I think this game is way more important to the Badgers because if they lose, their bubble hopes might become slim, depending on how the rest of the bubble field does. OSU should be in the tournament regardless.

Creighton might benefit from the fact that their conference tournament ended long before the rest of the bubble teams’ tournaments will end. The selection committee might forget about the bad loss to Illinois State, and Creighton might move back into contention of an at-large bid depending on how other bubble teams fare (Minnesota, SDSU, New Mexico)

The rest of the teams are still going to have to fight for their projected at-large bids with these teams :

1. UNLV
2. Arizona
3. Providence
4. South Carolina
5. Temple
6. Auburn

UNLV drops out of the “last four in” due to losing to a fellow bubble team in SDSU. The Aztecs swept UNLV three times, so that is a pretty easy comparison.

The rest of these teams on this list all have/will have one thing in common (except for South Carolina and Auburn). They have all lost in their respective conference tournaments which don’t help their chances. I’m assuming that Temple is going to lose to Xavier tonight, but if the Owls do happen to pull off the upset, they can climb back into the at-large bubble hopefuls. In the case of South Carolina, they are playing in a WEAK Southeastern Conference, and I believe that they will have to play into the SEC Championship game in order to be considered as the fourth SEC team to receive a bid to the NCAA tournament. In Auburn’s case, they have just played their way onto this list by beating LSU. A victory over Florida will help their chances. However, they must win out in order to get into the NCAA tournament, but it’s nice to be mentioned I guess…

There has been a lot of talk about the Big Ten getting eight teams into the tournament. As this is very tough, I am also very excited to see that this might happen. Being an Illinois alumnus, I always seem to root for Big Ten teams. I think that the style of play in the Big Ten won’t get their teams very deep into the tournament (maybe Sweet 16), I do think that eight teams is within grasp. If Penn State and Minnesota win and move on into the next round of Big Ten tournament play, eight teams is a realistic possibility. However, if one of those two teams loses, the Big Ten might only get seven into the NCAA tournament. Either way, I’m very excited to see at least 64% of the Big Ten teams make it into the tournament. Not even the Big East can boast a percentage of teams getting in that high.

With all of this talk, here is my bracket for today. We’ll see how this might change tomorrow. I will for sure get a bracket up tomorrow night or Sunday morning before the actual Selection Show comes on Sunday afternoon. Then I would like to see how bad my bracket is compared to what the selection committee decides.

I'm slacking on my rankings ... It's too nice outside!

Alright, well I didn't get my brackets up yesterday as I had planned, but the weather was so nice outside that I had to go out and not spend the whole day all cooped up in the indoors any more. Today was the same story. Now, as the storm clouds roll in, here is what I have come up with prior to Tuesday night's games:

Nine conferences (including the Ivy league) have wrapped up their respective conference tournaments. Each winning team received their automatic bid. These teams are as follows:

Cornell (Ivy)
Radford (Big South)
E. Tenn. State (Atlantic Sun)
Morehead State (OVC)
Northern Iowa (MVC)
Gonzaga (WCC)
VCU (CAA)
Siena (MAAC)
Chattanoga (Southern)

There's a couple of surprises here, and bubble teams are not happy with surprises in the mid-major conferences. Creighton lost out in the semifinal game against Illinois State who then lost to Northern Iowa. This does one of two things: 1) Creighton is most likely NIT-bound, or 2) it knocks out one bubble team if Creighton does somehow get in the NCAA tournament. The same thing happened in the Southern conference. Davidson is surely headed to the NIT tournament, so bubble teams can breathe a little easier as Davidson wrote their own ticket out of the bubble watch.

Luckily for the bubble teams, Siena and Gonzaga easily won their respective conference tournament. Gonzaga was considered a lock to get in, so bubble teams were happy to see that the WCC won't be sending two teams (unless St. Mary's receives an at-large bid on their own). In the MAAC, Siena would have been in consideration for an at-large bid if they happened to lose their conference tournament, but they won't have to sweat it out until Sunday as they have their bid for sure now. Bubble teams rejoice!

I've revamped my bubble listing, and it goes as follows (most likely to get in to least likely to get in as an at-large team):

1. Dayton
2. Ohio State
3. Boston College
4. Wisconsin
5. Texas A&M
6. Oklahoma State
7. New Mexico
8. Utah State
9. Michigan
10. Minnesota
11. Penn State
12. St. Mary’s
13. UNLV
14. South Carolina
15. Arizona

I have Utah State in bold, because they can play their way off of this list and into the tournament by winning the WAC conference tournament. This leaves these teams on the outside looking in (from first snubbed to last snubbed):

1. Providence
2. Rhode Island
3. Northwestern
4. San Diego State
5. Creighton
6. Temple
7. Kansas State
8. Florida
9. Davidson

I'm keeping Davidson on the watch just because the selection committee might put them in due to the fact that the nation might want to watch Curry in the national spotlight again, but I doubt that happens.

Providence didn't get any help from Cincinnati last night as the Bearcats lost to DePaul, the bottom feeders of the Big East. If Cincy would have won, Providence would have had a little better win to their resume than that of the Blue Demons. I think that Providence has to beat Louisville in order to get in. If not, they are NIT-bound.

Northwestern plays Minnesota in the 8/9 game in the Big Ten tournament. This is a big game for both teams, as Northwestern (who I previously did have in the tournament) needs two wins to be seriously considered for an at-large bid, and Minnesota definitely doesn't need a loss to Northwestern to haunt them going into Selection Sunday. Minnesota could easily drop out of the bubble rankings with a loss to the Wildcats. The winner gets to face Michigan State. If either team beats State in that game, consider them a lock.

With that, here is my bracket for March 10th:

I did have a change in the top seeds, although it was just flip-flopping North Carolina and Pittsburg as the overall number one seed. They will both get the same regional that they had previously, and I don't see them losing their number one seeds even with an early loss in their respective conference tournaments.

I'll try to do better tomorrow...

Well, the bandwagon trip was short... Thanks to Michigan

That's right. As quickly as I jumped on the Northwestern bandwagon, I have to get back off of it. It not necessarily due to me not liking the Wildcats’ chances on getting in, but more so due to both Michigan winning yesterday at Minnesota and Illinois State knocking off Creighton in the MVC semifinals. I substituted Michigan with the good road win instead of Northwestern, and Northwestern’s chances of staying in my bracket were hurt by the fact that Illinois State might have ensured that the Missouri Valley Conference will get two bids to the NCAA tournament. I’m still thinking that Creighton is in, but they don’t need any other of the mid-major powerhouses (Butler, Gonzaga, Memphis, possibly Davidson and possibly Siena) to lose in their respective conference tournaments. If any of those teams do not get the at-large bid from their conference, Creighton (and Providence for that matter), along with all the other bubble teams’ chances are not going to be looking pretty.

I did make some changes in my bracket, but I’m really torn as to who deserves the fourth seeds in my bracket. It seems as though all of my 4 and 5 seeds either lost or just made it into the conversation of these seeds. So, I decided to keep LSU in as a four seed, even though they lost yesterday. This might change if they have an early exit in the weak SEC tournament.

I’ve also been watching some of the mid-major conference tournaments, and I really enjoyed watching the VMI/Radford matchup for the Big West Championship game. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two conflicting styles of play in a competitive D-1 basketball game. I was silently rooting for VMI, because I thought that the leading scoring team in the NCAAs for the past three years would have been a scary team in the Big Dance. However, they didn’t have a big guy to match up against Radford’s 6’ 11” center. Radford prevailed and they are goin’ dancin’. Other teams that received an automatic bid are: East Tennessee State (Atlantic Sun), Morehead State (Ohio Valley Conference) and Cornell (Ivy). They are in bold in my bracket.

Here’s the bracket before Sunday’s games begin:

A little more than a week until the real thing...

Here's my second attempt at posting this blog, as my last one was almost completed and my computer decided to say, "Fuck you, Jason" and totally close out my internet browser. Then Blogspot decided to say, "Fuck you too, Jason" and not save said blog. So here goes round two...

There were only a couple of changes in my rankings from yesterday, the most notable being my alma mater. Illinois lost in a heartbreaker last night to Penn State. Penn State deserved to win that game, and Illinois shot like they deserved to lose. If a team only scores three points in the last 5-7 minutes of the game, you shouldn't expect to win. Therefore, Illinois drops out of their number four seed.

The team that takes over for Illinois in the four spot is the X-Men. They had a commanding win over Dayton last night, solidifing a fourth seed in my bracket. Xavier looked strong, and I'm excited to see how they are going to fare in the NCAA tournament.

South Carolina dropped the most in my rankings after losing to Tennessee last night. Tennessee on the other hand, moved into the lock category in my mind, ensuring their spot in the Big Dance. South Carolina however, is on the verge of having their bubble busted if they have an early exit in their conference tournament.

I would like to introduce the surprise team into my bracket. Are you ready?! Welcome to the Big Dance, NORTHWESTERN! That's right, I'm jumping on the bandwagon and I'm putting them in the tournament. This also gives the Big Ten eight teams in the NCAA tournament, something I am hoping will happen. Either way, I just wanted to get them in before you did, Barnes. That way I can say that my bracket is better if in fact Northwestern does get in.

Here's what I have for my bracket:


Let me know what you think...