Bored

ESPN/FOX/TBS Games to Poison Our Youth MONDAY Astros (Randy Wolf) at Brewers (C.C. Sabathia), 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2 WEDNESDAY Angels (Jered Weaver) at Rays (Matt Garza), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN SATURDAY Dodgers at Phillies, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX Rays at White Sox, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX Braves at Cardinals, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX SUNDAY Rays at White Sox, 2:00 PM/11:00 AM, TBS Dodgers at Phillies, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

Considering how many bowl games there are now eventually they'll have to start dipping into I-AA at this rate. With 34 bowl games there's an outside chance this year that there won't be enough bowl eligible teams so we could end up seeing a 5-7 bowl team. So no, teams shouldn't automatically be disqualified from bowl consideration if they lose to a I-AA/FCS/Whatever the fuck you want to call it school especially one the caliber of Appalachian State. It's actually pretty amazing how Michigan bounced back as the following week they were obliterated by Oregon and looked like a team that might struggle win three games, let alone win nine games including beating a very good Florida team in a bowl game.

In the past I've always waited until the first deadline to post the PM'd picks but there's no real point in waiting when both players in a match-up have submitted picks so here are those PM'd picks. Miami of Ohio - Hawk 34 THURSDAY Miami of Ohio South Carolina Oregon State SATURDAY Virginia Tech Syracuse Ohio Michigan Oklahoma State TCU Northern Illinois Mississippi Alabama Michigan State Missouri (at St. Louis) Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Illinois/Missouri game? 62 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Clemson's James Davis have against Alabama? 62 San Diego State - Next USC #55 THURSDAY Vanderbilt at Miami of Ohio N.C. State at South Carolina Oregon State at Stanford SATURDAY Virginia Tech vs. East Carolina (at Charlotte) Syracuse at Northwestern Ohio at Wyoming Utah at Michigan Oklahoma State vs. Washington State (at Seattle) TCU at New Mexico Northern Illinois at Minnesota Memphis at Mississippi Alabama vs. Clemson (at Atlanta) Michigan State at California Illinois vs. Missouri (at St. Louis) Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Illinois/Missouri game? 63 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Clemson's James Davis have against Alabama? 117 Washington - Smues THURSDAY Miami of Ohio South Carolina Oregon State SATURDAY Virginia Tech Syracuse Wyoming Michigan Oklahoma State TCU Minnesota Memphis Clemson California Missouri Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Illinois/Missouri game? 57 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Clemson's James Davis have against Alabama? 174 Indiana - Tzar Lysergic THURSDAY Vanderbilt at South Carolina Oregon State SATURDAY Virginia Tech Syracuse at Wyoming at Michigan Oklahoma State TCU at Minnesota at Mississippi Clemson (at Atlanta) at California Illinois Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Illinois/Missouri game? 51 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Clemson's James Davis have against Alabama? 98 Notre Dame - KingPK THURSDAY Miami of Ohio N.C. State Stanford SATURDAY Virginia Tech Northwestern Ohio Michigan Oklahoma State TCU Minnesota Memphis Alabama Michigan State Illinois Tiebreak #1: How many total points will be scored in the Illinois/Missouri game? 50 Tiebreak #2: How many rushing yards will Clemson's James Davis have against Alabama? 110

I decided to be brave and watch Baseball Tonight to see the replay. Jackass hit the grass while trying to run back to second and not because he was trying to avoid Aybar, and his elbow to initiate contact was as bitch a move as you'll ever see.

Could have left the player's name out of the description of the play and everyone would have guessed it was Pierzynski. Where's Michael Barrett to punch him the face when you need him?

Enough of the worst, it's time for the best. Now instead of OPS+ for these lists I'll be using Win Shares since it rates a player's all around game rather than just their offense, although the defensive measures are very flawed. Just like the worst lists I'm picking a year to start with and this time around I'm going with 1979. The reason is that I was born on October 1, 1978 which was the last day of the 1978 regular season (among the winning pitchers that day were Luis Tiant, Ferguson Jenkins, and Rollie Fingers...ya I'm really getting old), so essentially these are the best single seasons of my lifetime. Obviously there's going to be one glaring problem with these lists and that's the 1981, 1994, and 1995 strike shortened seasons will all be very underrepresented. And well...fuck it. I'm not going to worry about it. Note Win Shares Above Average is used to break ties. Top 20 Catcher Seasons since 1979 (per Win Shares) 1. Mike Piazza, 1997 - Los Angeles Dodgers 38.6 Win Shares Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG *OPS+ TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP +--------------+---+----+----+----+---+--+---+----+---+--+---+---+-----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+---+---+ 1997 28 LAD NL 152 556 104 201 32 1 40 124 5 1 69 77 .362 .431 .638 185 355 0 5 11 3 19 2. Gary Carter, 1985 - New York Mets 33.3 3. Mike Piazza, 1998 - Los Angeles Dodgers/Florida Marlins/New York Mets 33 4. Mike Piazza, 1996 - Los Angeles Dodgers 32.9 5. Gary Carter, 1982 - Montreal Expos 31.3 6. Darrell Porter, 1979 - Kansas City Royals 30.8 7. Victor Martinez, 2007 - Cleveland Indians 30.8 8. Joe Mauer, 2006 - Minnesota Twins 30.8 9. Darren Daulton, 1992 - Philadelphia Phillies 30.8 10. Mike Piazza, 1993 - Los Angeles Dodgers 30.5 11. Gary Carter, 1984 - Montreal Expos 30.2 12. Gary Carter, 1980 - Montreal Expos 30 13. Javy Lopez, 2003 - Atlanta Braves 29.7 14. Darren Daulton, 1993 - Philadelphia Phillies 28.6 15. Jorge Posada, 2000 - New York Yankees 28.6 16. Paul Lo Duca, 2001 - Los Angeles Dodgers 27.9 17. Jorge Posada, 2003 - New York Yankees 27.8 18. Terry Kennedy, 1982 - San Diego Padres 27.8 19. Ivan Rodriguez, 1999 - Texas Rangers 27.6 20. Rick Wilkins, 1993 - Chicago Cubs 27.5

The creation of the offseason college basketball thread made me realize I forgot to create an offseason college football thread like three months ago, so better late than never. My not so bold prediction for this year is that Georgia is going to fuck everyone up. Here's your non-traditional, non-conference games of note. Well okay not all of them are noteworthy and I probably missed a few. August 28th N.C. State at South Carolina August 30th Alabama vs. Clemson (Atlanta) USC at Virginia Michigan State at California Utah at Michigan Oklahoma State vs. Washington State (Seattle) Hawaii at Florida September 1st Tennessee at UCLA Fresno State at Rutgers September 6th Miami at Florida Cincinnati at Oklahoma Oregon State at Penn State Mississippi at Wake Forest September 12th Kansas at South Florida September 13th Arkansas at Texas Oklahoma at Washington Virginia at Connecticut Ohio State at USC Oregon at Purdue Wisconsin at Fresno State UCLA at BYU California at Maryland September 17th Kansas State at Louisville September 18th West Virginia at Colorado September 20th Miami at Texas A&M Iowa at Pittsburgh Boise State at Oregon Mississippi State at Georgia Tech Georgia at Arizona State September 27th Virginia Tech at Nebraska Colorado vs. Florida State (Jacksonville) Fresno State at UCLA South Florida at N.C. State October 23rd Auburn at West Virginia

Looks like that's it but this has been a fun 4th quarter.

Uh, wow. Rudy Fernandez just posterized Dwight Howard.

U.S. is in some shit now. Kobe has been awful in this game. Edit: Until the last few minutes.

I'm predicting someone takes an elbow in the face before this game is over. It's been getting fairly chippy and the horrible officiating isn't helping matters.

So is the goal of the refs in this game to foul out both teams?

Back by popular demand, add another "Worst" list with the worst pitcher seasons since 1961 using ERA+. Checking baseball-reference.com, unlike qualifications for the batting title, it appears the qualification for the ERA title has never changed. In order to qualify a pitcher must pitch at least one inning per team game. Now I could have gone back to 1901 then but again it would been littered with too many early 20th century pitchers that most us have never heard of. The worst ERA+ of all-time was Rube Bressler of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1915 who posted an ERA+ of 56. To put that into context, he had an 5.20 ERA while the league ERA that season was 2.93. I elected to go with 1961 since that was the beginning of the expansion era of MLB when the Angels and Senators (ver 2.0) were added to the American League. Now on the player lists there were a lot of ties and there would have been a ton for the pitcher list so to make it slightly less cluttered I break the ties by who threw more innings (as in who sucked in a larger sample). And the top of the list is someone who we could never forget, nor can we ever forget his wife's huge tits. Top 25 Worst Pitcher Seasons since 1961 (per ERA+) 1. Jose Lima, 2005 - Kansas City Royals 63 ERA+ (6.99 ERA in 168 2/3 IP) 2. Jack Lamabe, 1964 - Boston Red Sox 65 3. Eric Milton, 2005 - Cincinnati Reds 66 (186 1/3 IP) 4. Rick Wise, 1968 - Philadelphia Phillies 66 (182) 5. Mark Davis, 1984 - San Francisco Giants 66 (174 2/3) 6. Bob Knepper, 1989 - Houston Astros/San Francisco Giants 66 (165) 7. Jim Deshaies, 1994 - Minnesota Twins 66 (130 1/3) 8. Warren Spahn, 1964 - Milwaukee Braves 67 9. Matt Keough, 1982 - Oakland A's 68 (209 1/3) 10. Steve Arlin, 1973 - San Diego Padres 68 (180) 11. Phil Ortega, 1965 - Washington Senators 68 (179 2/3) 12. Javier Vazquez, 1998 - Montreal Expos 69 13. Vida Blue, 1979 - San Francisco Giants 70 (237) 14. Frank Baumann, 1961 - Chicago White Sox 70 (187 2/3) 15. Pete Broberg, 1972 - Texas Rangers 70 (176 1/3) 16. Joel Pineiro, 2006 - Seattle Mariners 70 (165 2/3) 17. Terry Mulholland, 1995 - San Francisco Giants 70 (149) 18. Dick Ruthven, 1981 - Philadelphia Phillies 70 (146 2/3) 19. Willie Fraser, 1988 - California Angels 71 (194 2/3) 20. Bob Walk, 1993 - Pittsburgh Pirates 71 (187) 21. Bill Singer, 1975 - California Angels 71 (175) 22. Brandon Duckworth, 2002 - Philadelphia Phillies 71 (163) 23. Terry Mulholland, 1994 - New York Yankees 71 (120) 24. Jack Fisher, 1967 - New York Mets 72 (220 1/3) 25. Joe Coleman, 1975 - Detroit Tigers 72 (201)

He was pitching in Korea earlier this season but got released. He's now with the Camden Riversharks of the independent Atlantic League.

I honestly had to look up Jim Umbricht and Don Wilson as I had never heard of them. So Umbricht died at age 33 due to cancer although he only spent two years with the then Colt .45's as a reliever but I'm guessing that was a spur of the moment thing. And let's see Don Wilson...KILLED HIMSELF! This loser decided to suck down on some carbon monoxide in his garage and in the process ended up accidentally killing his son and putting his daughter in a coma (garage was attached to the house). And they retire his number!? Damn J.R. Richard should have offed himself instead of have just a stroke if he wanted to get the proper recognition.

It's been over 24 hours since the last pick which means time is up for Broward, jwest, and King. CanadianChris pm'd his last pick to me. Joe Klecko, Defensive Tackle New York Jets 1977-1987 Indianapolis Colts 1988 And my last pick. Tommy Davis, Punter San Francisco 49ers 1959-1969

Kicked out by the World Taekwondo Federation. Yes...WTF!? Doesn't look there is any video of the attack. Edit: Oh wait there is.

Eight hours is up, not that I'm in a hurry to pick kickers and punters. Garo Yepremian, Kicker Detroit Lions 1966-1967 Miami Dolphins 1968-1978 New Orleans Saints 1979 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1980-1981 Better at kicking than passing.

ESPN/FOX/TBS Games to Poison Our Youth MONDAY Phillies (Kyle Kendrick) at Dodgers (Derek Lowe), 10:00/7:00 PM, ESPN2 WEDNESDAY Rangers (Luis Mendoza) at Red Sox (Jon Lester), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN SATURDAY Angels at Indians, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX Mariners at Twins, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX White Sox at A's, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX SUNDAY Brewers at Dodgers, 4:00/1:00 PM, TBS Phillies at Padres, 8:00/5:00, ESPN

I think it was some random road rat Lima gave herpes. I'll cover that in my next list "Worst Herpes Seasons" per STD+.

*Any of the mods who are in the contest, please pin this thread. Thanks. Welcome to year five of the second longest running football pick' em contest in TSM history! And this promises to be the most exciting season of them all! We start... by making a big CG building and then we have a meteor go CROSSHH! [makes a diving motion with his left arm] and it, and it's all like CRAAWWWLL [simulates an explosion with his arms] a-and motorcycles burst into flame while they jump over these helicopters, right? [has his right hand go over his left arm like a motorcycle over a helicopter]...An eighteen-wheeler spins out of control and it's all like BROSSHH [makes a crashing motion with his right hand] And then this huuuge tanker full of dyna- [launches into a series of explosions]... Okay, there is nothing exciting about this season. In fact for the first time in the history of the contest, nothing has changed. Same number of teams, same number of bowls, same number games, and same Bored Championship Series formula. So let me get the "how the contest works" stuff out of the way for those who possibly are interested up for the first time and for those returnees that have early onset of Alzheimer's. Basically this will be copy and paste of last year's sign up thread with some small edits. The prize is still the same, the winner of the contest will receive $50 cash. Also if someone can finish the season undefeated they will win $100. Each player will represent a Division I-A school and match-up head-to-head each week with another poster. I will select 14 games from the college schedule each week and you will pick the winners for each game. I avoid picking games that are obvious blowouts and I do pick a few games from the non-BCS conferences. There will be two tiebreak questions every week, #1 always asking for the total score from a key game that week, and #2 asking how many yards a star player will have that week. The regular season is 12 weeks long, then follows the conference championships that will match-up the 1st and 2nd place teams from each conference. The conference championships will take place over a two week span and will include 20 games. After that of comes the bowl season where if eligible you play in a bowl game and pick all the winners from the entire bowl season. Each week there are typically two deadlines for making your picks. I will always include either the Thursday or Friday ESPN game along with the Saturday games. If you don't get your picks in prior to the Thursday or Friday kick off you can not earn a point for those games. If you do not submit your picks prior to the Noon EST/9:00 AM PST kick off on Saturday you will be assigned replacement picks. You will be assigned the picks of a similarly ranked team for that week and teams using replacement picks can not win by tiebreak. You are allowed to use replacement picks only once during the season and still be eligible to win the contest, although you can still participate in bowl games. You will not be eligible to win the $100 undefeated prize if you use replacement picks at any point in the season. After each week is completed, I post the Bored Championship Series Rankings which is a spoof of the real life rankings. The rankings are based on three factors 1) Win/Loss Record, 2) Pct of Games Picked Correctly, 3) Pct of Games Picked Correclty by Opponent aka "Strength of Schedule." As already mentioned, there is no change in the formula this season. Your ranking in Win/Loss record is 65% of your BCS ranking, Correct Pick % is 30% of your ranking, and "Strength of Schedule" is 5% of your ranking. Now for veterans of the contest you know that the each winner of the prior year's bowl games have the option of renaming the bowl game you won, the only one that can't renamed is the Bored Bowl but the sponsorship can be changed. If you want to change the name of your bowl game please PM me, or if you don't want change the bowl name to let me know as well. I'll probably send a reminder PM to those who won once we get closer to the season. Here's last year's winners: Bored Bowl: Cuban Linx The Synagogue Bowl presented by Al Jazerra: AboveAverage484 The SWF.com Dust Bowl: Vitamin X (name change received) Deadspin.com Barbaro Memorial Bowl: Broward83 (name change received) Covers.com Degenerate Bowl: CanadianChris (will keep name) ConED Blackout Bowl: Edwin MacPhisto Ex-Lax Toilet Bowl: JHawk (name changed received) KFC PETA Bowl: phoenixrising (will keep name) Trent Boyette’s Texas Chili Bowl: Hawk 34 (name change received) For Cuban Linx, the Bored Bowl the name can't be changed but you can add a sponsor (iggymcfly the previous year elected not to have one). For AboveAverage484, please keep the same format of "bowl name" presented by "sponsor" as that is the Rose Bowl of the contest. Now on to the sign ups. Last season we ended the year with only two dead teams. kkktookmybabyaway will remain as the possible replacement for any early season dropouts, which always happens, and Ortonsault let me know at the end of last season that he would not be participating this year. So that leaves us with 36 holdovers and only four open spots. The first four new sign ups will be guaranteed a spot. After that I will still take new sign ups but can't make any promises you'll be in the contest but I've yet to have 100% return on holdovers and there's a couple of holdovers who I'm not sure if they visit the board anymore. For all sign ups please post in this thread what team you want to represent and it must be a Division I-A school. It is first come, first serve and holdovers can change their school if they want to. If any holdovers do not want to participate this year please let me know. Sign Ups are Now Closed Holdovers Alabama - AlwaysPissedOff Arizona - UZI Suicide Ball State - Vampiro69 Boise State - Vitamin X Boston College - HarleyQuinn Buffalo - Carnival Florida - Urban Warfare Florida State - 909 Georgia Tech - iggymcfly Indiana - Tzar Lysergic Kent State - JHawk Kentucky - Danville Wrestling LSU - teke184 Miami - Spaceman Spiff Miami of Ohio - Hawk 34 Michigan - MFerXtreme87 Minnesota - Vern Gagne N.C. State - AboveAverage484 Nebraska - Mecca Notre Dame - KingPK Ohio State - Gert T Rutgers - the pinjockey San Diego State - Next USC #55 South Carolina - Cuban Linx Stanford - Bored Syracuse - CanadianChris Texas - Broward83 Tulsa - Will Scarlet UCLA - phoenixrising USC - Cartman UTEP - Angel Grace Blue Virginia - Edwin MacPhisto Washington - Smues New Sign Ups Arizona State - still fly Fresno State - Agent Bond34 Georgia - Obi Chris Kenobi Illinois - The Ghost of Harold Ballard Navy - MarvinisaLunatic Tennessee - Canadian Brandon Washington State - MrRant

To fill the fullback spot, he's not the best available but I wanted to go with someone who will fit the offense and he did very well in a Mike Holmgren offense. Tom Rathman, Fullback San Francisco 49ers 1986-1993 Los Angeles Raiders 1994 2-time Super Bowl Champion Led NFL running backs in receptions in 1989 (73)

The west coast gets screwed at every Olympics as they did tape delay coverage for us for the Atlanta and Salt Lake Olympics as well. I will not be shocked if they pull the same crap with Vancouver.