Bagels & Biscuits

Do you prefer bagels and cream cheese or biscuits and gravy? Football on Saturdays or Sundays? Big 10 or SEC? The Braves or the Yankees? You know what? It doesn't matter. You can have it all right here.

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Get That Man Some Cheese!


Albert Pujols needs some cheese to go with his whine! The latest? Pujols is whining about not winning the Most Valuable Player award. He says the MVP award should go to someone who made the playoffs. Pujols is quickly becoming one of the more annoying, whining professional athletes.

First he starts his whining after Game 1 of the NLCS where he criticizes Tom Glavine for not pitching well in the game. Glavine threw seven shutout innings, giving up only four hits and got the win. Pujols went 0-for-3 with a walk in the game. Clearly if Glavine didn’t pitch well, Pujols flat out sucked. For him, it was just whining – or, really, being a bit too arrogant.

Then, a few days later, after game four, Pujols started saying he had a sore hamstring. He said he wasn’t 100% and that was hampering his swing, which is why he didn’t play well. Sounds to me like some more whining and a major excuse. By the way, at that point in the series (which was tied 2-2) Pujols had still failed to drive in a run. He ended up with one RBI in the entire series.

Now, he is complaining about not winning the MVP. He says Ryan Howard doesn’t deserve it because he didn’t make the playoffs. That’s crap. If it wasn’t for Ryan Howard, the Phillies probably wouldn’t have won more than 70 games and wouldn’t have sniffed the playoffs down the stretch. While that was going on, the Cardinals were doing everything they could to miss the playoffs. Howard’s team actually finished with a better record than the Cardinals.

Pujols is one of the best players in the game. He is a multi-millionaire at the age of 26. He just won a World Series. Get a clue man. Your life is pretty good. Quit the whining and play baseball. It’s a team game. Who cares if you weren’t MVP this year? You won the World Series. I mean, isn’t that what playing is all about?

Two words for Pujols…GROW UP!

Photo Source: http://espanol.geocities.com/saludybeisbol/img/pujol.JPG

Sunday, November 26, 2006

A Second Approach to the Top 20

Well, I did indeed decide to see what things would look like if I tweaked the formula to include a bonus for a team's winning percentage. Here is what the Top 20 now looks like.


1 Ohio State
2 Michigan
3 USC
4 Florida
5 Boise State
6 LSU
7 Louisville
8 Rutgers
9 Wisconsin
10 Virginia Tech
11 Arkansas
12 Oklahoma
13 Notre Dame
14 Tennessee
15 Auburn
16 BYU
17 Wake Forest
18 Texas
19 Hawaii
20 West Virginia

The only change was that Michigan moves slightly ahead of USC. Actually they move to .0004 ahead of USC compared with USC ahead by .0072 without the inclusion of the winning percentage bonus. Clearly this will come down to USC's game against UCLA this week. I wouldn't count Florida out yet for a move ahead of Michigan or USC either. They are only .0273 behind USC in the original version of the rankings.

College Football Top 20

Using the same formula from a week ago, I've updated and expanded the NCAA Football rankings to the Top 20. Here are the updated rankings including games through Nov. 25. Big change comes as USC jumps past Michigan, and Florida is on the heels of both of them for the No. 2 spot.


1 Ohio State
2 USC
3 Michigan
4 Florida
5 Boise State
6 LSU
7 Louisville
8 Rutgers
9 Wisconsin
10 Virginia Tech
11 Arkansas
12 Oklahoma
13 Notre Dame
14 Tennessee
15 Auburn
16 BYU
17 Wake Forest
18 Texas
19 Hawaii
20 West Virginia

So what do you think? Do you think these are pretty accurate? Any suggestions on factors to adjust or add to better the rankings? I was thinking about adding a winning percentage bonus as well. Not sure what that will do to the rankings though.

Stay tuned next week for the final rankings before the bowl games.