It's that time of year again.

[edcool1]

Sgt. Mongoose: ed!
Sgt. Mongoose: ya'll got earthquaked
edcool1: yeah
edcool1: sure did
Sgt. Mongoose: not a bad one, though
edcool1: well 5.6 aint exactly chump change
Sgt. Mongoose: yeah
edcool1: felt it all the way here
Sgt. Mongoose: but it ain't like nobody got killed
edcool1: shook the building
edcool1: earthquakes aren't really all that dangerous unless they hit close enough to non-dense ground
Sgt. Mongoose: well
Sgt. Mongoose: i do suppose you're more educated about earthquakes than I am
edcool1: only slightly
edcool1: heh
edcool1: well i experienced a 9.somthing when i was 4
edcool1: or was it 8.something?
Sgt. Mongoose: 8 something
edcool1: yeah
edcool1: i was just telling the story to connie
edcool1: http://buzznet-59.vo.llnwd.net/assets/u ... 3871-2.jpg
edcool1: that's the house i was in
edcool1: rickety old shack
Sgt. Mongoose: a death shack
edcool1: well i think it's age and flimsiness kinda led to its survival
edcool1: not unlike the golden gate bridge
edcool1: so i was at that house
edcool1: 4 years old
edcool1: sitting on the front porch
edcool1: playing with a rusty table saw
Sgt. Mongoose: man
Sgt. Mongoose: that seems unsafe
edcool1: yeah
edcool1: as i remember, i didn't feel anything.
edcool1: i just remember the whole world moving around me
edcool1: and i went
edcool1: "hmm, that was interesting"
edcool1: and was about to continue playing with the saw when i got yanked up by the suspenders by my mom
edcool1: and i was like
edcool1: "jeez mom, you don't gotta be so violent, it's just a rusty table saw"
edcool1: but she dragged me to the middle of the front yard and turned around and looked at the house
edcool1: she seemed worried but i didn't understand
Sgt. Mongoose: that's awesome
edcool1: dad was stuck inside however
edcool1: he was cooking bacon, as i understand it
edcool1: he told mom to grab me and get out of the house, but he didn't make it out. so he stood in the doorway
edcool1: he got to feel the house shake
edcool1: and i think a vase fell off a shelf
edcool1: but it landed on the futon so it survived
Sgt. Mongoose: a senseless tragedy averted
edcool1: but yeah
edcool1: what's weird to me though is
edcool1: why was i sitting on the front porch playing with a table saw
edcool1: why was i not watching the A's and the Giants in the world series?
Sgt. Mongoose: i dunno dude
edcool1: one reason could be
edcool1: that the earthquake was pre-game

[edcool1]

Ooh it's time for the annual necropost of this thread. It's October. Guess who's in the playoffs.

Texas Rangers vs Tampa Bay Devil Rays
New York Yankees vs Minnesota Twins
Phillidelphia Phillies vs Cincinati Reds
San Francisco Giants vs Atlanta Braves

As a bay area boy, I'd be a horrible human being to root against the Giants, so they're my team all the way.
However, until the world series rolls along, I've gotta pick an American League team to root for.
Since it looks like Tampa Bay is choking, and the Twins can't beat the damn Yankees, I'm putting my American league support behind the Rangers, even if they did eliminate my favored Athletics.

So, what are the rest of your thoughts for this year's matchups?

[X]

Hockey season just started, so my mind is somewhere else.

However, I think the Rangers have got a good shot. Yankees will kill the Twins. Not sure who will win the ALCS. We'll see.

The Giants are in the same division as the Rockies, so I'll root for them.

[edcool1]

In case anyone didn't know, the two teams to make it to the world series were the Rangers and the Giants.

The Giants are currently leading the series with 3 wins versus the Ranger's 1, in a best 4 out of 7 contest. One more win and the Giants will win their first world series since 1954, before they moved to San Francisco and were located in New York. The Rangers, meanwhile, have never even made it to the world series since their foundation in 1961, so if they can manage to turn it around, it will be their first trophy.

But the Giants are gonna win it, so San Francisco will get their first championship. Texas is goin' down! Game 5 starts tomorrow afternoon at ~7 central time from Arlington. If Texas wins, the series will return to SF on Wednesday. If not...they get to stay at home.

Go Giants!

[Maelstrom]

See, I was going to make a contrarian post that the Rangers had a good chance to rally. But then I looked at each team's runs scored:runs allowed ratio, so I thought better of it. It also didn't help that Rangers rolled against a "superior" Yankee team (even though it took six games, their wins were generally very convincing), and the Giants got off to a similar start against the Rangers. Even with the 7 runs surrendered in game 1 (which they *still* won), the Giants pitching was just incredible this series.

Hope it's been fun. I can't think of a better city to host a parade.

[edcool1]

For the first time since they got here! I hope I don't have to work on Wednesday. If not I'll go to the parade and post some pictures.

I wonder if I should go wearing my A's gear...

[edcool1]

So it's coming to be the end of the season again.

Baseball is kinda weird this year, there are now 2 wild card spots in addition to the regular division spots to shoot for. That means, this year for the first time ever, the major league baseball playoffs will have 10 teams to start off.

Then 2 teams will be eliminated.
Then 4 more.
Then 2 more.
And then there's the world series.

For the first time since 2006, back when this board was lively and exciting, the Oakland A's have a real chance at making the playoffs, which if you look at how the team started is more unlikely than almost anything. Right behind them in the hunt for the wild card is the Baltimore Orioles, another weird thing to be saying. However, as expected, the Yankees -spit-, the White Sox, and the Rangers are leading their respective divisions, but with around 20 games left to play, anything can happen.

In the national league, it's the Nationals, the Reds, and the Giants at the top of their divisions. With Atlanta, and St. Louis going for their two wild cards.

Who you gonna root for?

Personally, I'm for the A's in the American league, and the Giants in the national league, and the rest of the country can suck it. Then the Giants can go down as losers in the battle of the bay yet again.

Well, I can dream.

[Guenhwvar]

I wish I had a baseball team to root for, but I've just never really picked one. Any opinions? suggestions? demands?

[edcool1]

If you like rooting for an underdog, the Oakland A's are your best bet.

If you like rooting for an underdog, but don't like that whole west coast thing, then this year you should go for them Baltimore Orioles.

If you're a terrible person you should root for the Yankees.

If you're an American, there's nothing really wrong with rooting for the Nationals. They're the closest thing to a national team we have. Though, some fans from the national league east might have some problems with that.

All else fails, root for the team that is closest to you.

[Guenhwvar]

As far as where a team is located, that doesn't really matter to me. I go for the Baltimore Ravens in football, and the L.A. Kings in Hockey (Hurray, we finally won the cup!).

No problem with me going for the Yankees. I do not like them at all. Or the Sox for that matter. Either of them.

I suppose I should probably go for someone around here, which would leave St. Louis Cardinals or the Chicago Cubs.

[Maelstrom]

The Cubs are already eliminated from post-season contention, so that'd leave you the Cardinals (who will *probably* qualify and are probably better than their record suggests). Unlike the Cardinals, the O's have probably overachieved, and while "anything can happen" in baseball playoffs, I wouldn't expect them to qualify in subsequent years; this is their best chance for the foreseeable future.

I don't really like how a fifth team (a second wild card) has been added to each league's playoffs. It may sound nice to say that winning the division should be important, but not all divisions are created equal, and a division winner can potentially be a good deal worse than the top wild card. The disparity is not too great this year (looking at the AL, the AL Central winner would only be ~five games worse than the O's), but I feel that MLB going to five teams is eventually going to force in yet another wild card in order to give a leader in a weak division more to play for.

I'll cover the Rangers largely for geographic reasons (and because they've been so close but unable to win it all so far). The Astros are physically closer and were a team I had followed more in years past, but obviously they were too terrible to qualify this year.