The Patriots are amazing. They are the best football team ever assembled. Hands down. No I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid. I mixed the flavoring.
I still hate the Red Sux with a passion, and find it terrible that they won the World Series (in another sweep, no less)
A-Rod opted out -- soon he will be an Angel. "An A-Bomb for A-Rod the A-ngel!"
Yanks offer the job to Girardi -- I predicted in the summer of '06 that Girardi would be the manager for the Yankees on Opening Day 2008. I'm not a guy to pat myself on the back (he has to accept the offer first), but kudos to me and the other 50% of the nation that had Girardi as manager over Mattingly.
The Dolphins still suck. But hey, as long as they continue to lose games by only a score, or at least stay close all game (Giants, Texans, Cowboys), they will go down as the best 0-16 team ever.
Tomah, WI football fans are terrible. Drunk idiots that sit outside the stadium to yell meaningless banter at the opposing teams and coaches, blowing air-horns at will (despite WIAA prohibitions) because they didn't pay to get in and watch it from the sidewalk. Kids on WisSports.net talking trash about other teams, thinking Tomah was amazing. Good fun and all I'm sure, but regardless of having injury concerns Tomah could have made the game a little more interesting than the 38-13 blowout that was. Good job Lakeland.
I have nothing to do this week besides move into my new apartment and write four features. Should be a fun (or not so fun) time.
I miss the feeling of playing video games for hours at a time.
I miss the feeling of being absolutely and obnoxiously wasted. Well, I don't MISS IT miss it, but I still want to get crunked up again sometime soon.
My daughter is excessively smart for an 18-month old. And she loves the Badgers. And she cried when I said that the Red Sox won the WS. Thank god for me. Now... If only I can keep her away from Cubs, Bears, and Packer fans my experiment would be complete....

Now that I've had time to look back on this past baseball season, I will give my direct analysis.

This season, filled with so many highlights and historical feats – sucked.

-My two favorite teams finished above .500, which hasn't happened in the same year since 1992.
-The Indians went seven games into the ALCS.
-Prince Fielder nearly won the MVP.
-Ryan Braun probably won ROY.
-CC Sabathia is in a 50/50 tie with Beckett for the AL Cy Young....

So with all of these great things in my own corner happening, I still hated this season. Reasonings?

-The Cubs passed the Brewers and made it to the playoffs.
-Hafner and Sizemore blanked themselves out of stardom in the ALCS.
-The Indians blew a 3-1 game lead in the ALCS to the Red Sox, my second most hated team (behind the Cubs).
-Vlad sucked in the ALDS.
-The Rockies were crushed in Game 1 of the World Series.
-Beckett will win the Cy Young because of his postseason performance (and because he's a Red Stocking)
-Prince will lose the MVP to Matt Holliday (who also deserves it), but will be placed fourth behind Jimmy Rollins and David Wright. Rollins, though a spark-plug, did not mean more to the Phillies than Prince did to the Crew, and Wright was just the best player on a Big Market team that faded late in the season. Prince deserves the trophy as much as Holliday does. However, the only difference is Holliday's team made the postseason.
-Braun will likely lose the ROY to Troy T of Colorado. Because, well, Troy was clutch for a team that made the playoffs.
-Which brings me to my next point – Ned Yost is one of the worst managers in baseball. Not only did he singlehandedly lose 9-15 games by himself for managerial errors, those errors cost not only Milwaukee a playoff birth and division title, but the top two awards given out to fielders! Eric Wedge, on the other hand, took a very talented team that was very inconsistent (outside of Vic Martinez, CC and Fausto Carmona) and went to the ALCS.
-Milwaukee needs another starting pitcher (no more of this Claudio Vargas and Dave Bush crap). Maybe they should trade Hall, Gwynn, or both. Milwaukee also will need another quality outfielder to add to the bunch. They also need to bring back BOTH Francisco Cordero and Scott Linebrink.

-Cleveland needs to keep its lineup. This team went to the ALCS and lost in seven to the team who won the most games this season. Just think, not only did they lose, but Hafner, Sizemore, Peralta, and Garko struggled not only in the regular season for the most part, but also the playoffs. Getting just Hafner and Sizemore going outside of Martinez gives your team as good of a top of the lineup as is out there.
-If Cleveland doesn't bring back Lofton, I can see them making a pitch to get Coco Crisp back from the BoSox (after the original deal, in which I never understood in the first place). If they get Crisp for, say, Trot Nixon (straight up, which I would like to think BoSox Nation would love and take), Crisp would be the perfect two hitter behind Sizemore, and a fantastic LFer – again.

1. Sizemore, CF
2. Crisp, LF
3. Hafner, DH
4. Martinez, C
5. Garko, 1B
6. Peralta, SS
7. Gutierrez, RF
8. Blake, 3B
9. Cabrera, 2B
Bench: Shoppach (C), Barfield (2B, unless traded), Marte (3B, unless traded), Dellucci (OF), Michaels (OF), Rouse (Inf)

That would be a quality lineup with only Blake as the only possible Iron Glove candidate.

Outside of Milwaukee (a team in which I analyzed roster changes in a previous post) and Cleveland, I really don't analyze any other teams unless asked to.

-A-Rod will still be an Angel next year (in my own opinion).
-Posada will be a Giant. Mo Rivera will be a Cub.
-Adam Dunn will be back with the Reds.
-Mike Lowell will be a Giant.
-Cory Koskie will be a Red Suck.
-As for the rest of the free agent list, when I get my hands on it after the WS finishes, I will put down my predictions, who should go after everyone, and yada yada yada.

I really don't know why this season sucked in my eyes. Usually a Biggio siting, A-Rod, 500 milestones, Clemens, Brewers and Indians winning, and all the other mumbo jumbo is primed to be a fantastic season. But I think the disappointment in the Tribe blowing the LCS, the Crew blowing the Central, and my still hatred for the Red Sox and Cubs (and the fact that there is still no instant replay) makes me hate this season...



On a side note, I'm thinking of paying Blogger for more use out of my blog (different backgrounds, settings, polls, other things). Will anyone who reads this please chime in on whether or not it will be worth my money? I know people read this, I can see IP Addresses, and it makes me happy knowing someone really is reading it.

Thanks boys and girls

The Indians lost...
Eric Wedge must have taken managerial lessons from Ned Yost. Betancourt in for six runs? Westbrook throwing into the 6th?
Third base coach holding up Kenny Lofton?
The umpiring crew proved on Lofton's double (when he was supposedly thrown out) that regardless of how good of an umpiring crew you are, instant replay must be made available in postseason play.
I'm not going to get into my want for instant replay in all sports, though. Let's just say that, even though I am a HUGE sports fan with love for tradition, I hate the "human element" argument against instant replay. We have the technology now to put sensors on every ball, glove, base, field line and fence. No call would be missed -- especially with QuesTech calling balls and strikes. The only human element I would be OK with is the home plate umpire, just for the sake of the game. However, I would have no problem with an all electronical and computer umpiring system. Not be one bit at all. Besides, it would be just as quick if computers were analyzing the play as it would be with real umps. And missed calls would be a thing of the past. I would rather get the call right then have the lingering thoughts of "what could have been" in my head for years and years. Bud Selig told Mike & Mike a few weeks ago that baseball is the only sport where they don't want to sit around for minutes waiting on something. Well, Bud, what if those same minutes that were wasted when a manager puts on a tirade at home plate goes into instant replay. Baseball can/will live with it. All the other sports have it (college football has it as close to right as I can really live with). Just think, in the 15-20 seconds between pitches, extra officials in booths can look over the last play, each with a different camera angle, and make the correct call before the next pitch. Kind of like in college football. It doesn't seem that big of a deal to me. Regardless, I would rather have the play call right in a big game than have it wrong so we can get to the commercial break quicker.
But hey, that's just me.
In other news, Ronnie Brown is out for the year, ending his season as well as my fantasy season. It's OK, though. Miami will just have Darren McFadden next year, anyway.

Ok, I didn't move to the Wisconsin Northwoods so it would rain everyday... If I wanted that I would move to Seattle. No wonder this area has the highest suicide rate in the state/country....

On less of a suicidal note: The Indians are only trailing 4-1 in Game 5. It could be worse, Manny's single could have been a HR. Then again, it could be better. Kenny Lofton could have tornado kicked Beckett in the head and punctured his skull with his cleats. That would have been cool to see.

Sadly, South Florida is just a Cinderella bust.

BTW: Congratulations to my alma mater, Monroe High School, and its football team for pulling off an unbelievable feat. For the first time since the 1970's no Monroe football team has gone winless all season. That 41-0 spanking by MG sealed the deal and Witt's resignation. Not to say that Witt is a bad coach, but lets face it: When Pat Martin can win five state titles, three runner ups, two other semifinal losses, and over 15 straight conference titles - it's pretty hard to follow that kind of winning.

Maybe I can get the job now....

To: Johnny Peralta, Paul Byrd, Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore, Eric Wedge, Kenny Lofton, Franklin Gutierrez
From: Adam Krebs, international Cleveland Indians fans
Subject: Thank you, one more

Message: Thank you for trumping the Central Division, bumping the New York Yankees, and taking a 3-1 series lead versus the Red Sux.

Now please, go get one more and send the Tribe to the World Series. From there, destiny will do its work (but if you at all have the opportunity to beat the Rockies, please do so, because no one in baseball can seem to do it).

PC Load Letter, what the fuck does that mean?
-Michael (not the no-talent ass-clown) Bolton in Office Space.

This printer has taken 34 minutes and still hasn't printed any of my pictures yet. This is my work's printer, and it is supposed to be stunningly fast.

WFT, mate?

The Rockies rock. They will win in 5.
The Indians will beat the Red Sucks in 6, including the first game tonight. Then will beat the Rockies in 5. Count on that.
The Dolphins will beat the Browns by 6 this weekend.
New England will CRUSH Dallas.
#17 Kentucky will continue the weekly upset special tradition in college football when they trump unanimous #1 LSU - nearly forcing the BCS out the door.
South Florida will be National Champions after beating Mizzou in the the BCS Championship in January.
LeBron will finally win MVP this season.
Kevin Durant will cry to his mom when Marcus Camby cold-cocks him in the lane in the first month of the season.
Kobe will be traded to Maccabi for a 19 year old point guard named Vladimir. Maccabi will then trade Kobe to Cleveland for Eric Snow. Cleveland wins the title by an average score of 160-70 throughout the playoffs.
Joe Girardi will become the new manager for the New York Yankees.
Ned Yost will break his collarbone again, this time while runner from fans after allowing Derek Turnbow to pitch in a charity softball game (in which a 10-year-old girl will take him yard and he quits life). Not to say that I WANT Turnbow on my team, but rather than he is better than half of the relievers in all of baseball.
Miami will win 3 games this year, and take another QB in the draft, this time it will be in the 7th round and his name will be Tyler Donovan. Their first pick (#2 overall) will be D. McFadden, RB, Arkansas.

These are a few of my sure-to-go-wrong predictions. However, I still think some will work out.... Like the Indians, Rockies, Kentucky, LeBron, Miami and New England. The rest would just be funny, cool, and make me sound like a genius.

Cleveland beat the Yankees. Opening the door for Torre to be ousted from New York and sign on as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers.

After Cleveland beats Boston in six and Colorado in five, the Indians will be WS champs. Next year, then, Cleveland doesn't need to win it all, which would pave the way for the Brewers to win it all.

Speaking of which... Here are my suggestions for Doug Melvin.
1. Fire Ned Yost
2. Resign Geoff Jenkins for a substantially low price
3. Trade Chris Capuano.
4. Trade Claudio Vargas
5. Resign Fransico Cordero
6. Resign Scott Linebrink
7. Trade Estrada for pitching
8. Trade Gross & Mench for prospects (keep Nix for AAA and Gywnn for subsitutional duties)
9. Resign Matt Wise
10. Resign Craig Counsell
11. Lastly, sign Adam Dunn

Next year's lineup should look something like this:
1. Weeks, 2B
2. Hart, RF
3. Braun, 3B
4. Fielder, 1B
5. Dunn, LF
6. Hall, CF
7. Hardy, SS
8. Rivera/Rottino, C
Bench: Gwynn Jr, Jenkins, Counsell, 2nd catcher, Joe Dillon or other versital infielder
Pitchers:
1. Sheets
2. Gallardo
3. Suppan
4. Bush
5. Villanueva
Bullpen:
Parra long relief
Shouse-situational lefty
McClung-hard throwing bullpen arm
Wise, Turnbow for 6th, 7th inning
Linebrink for 8th
Cordero for 9th

The 2007 team:
-Broke the team record for homers
-Had two players hit 30+ homers (Fielder with 50+)
-Had a 20/20 guy
-Had a closer break the team record for saves
-Had an MVP candidate (Prince)
-Had a ROY candidate (Braun)
Why can't they win more than 83 games?
-Pitching injuries (5-10)
-Misuse of bullpen (5-10)
-Turnbow sucking (5)
-Managerial mistakes (15)
-Allowed teams to rally after being down by 3 runs in the last three innings (17 times)

Take even 1/4 of those results, and you are looking at a possible 90-100 win team.
Not a lot of moves are needed. Just a few. However, when making just a few, No. 1 must be to fire Ned Yost.

All I have to say today is:

GO INDIANS!

Bad weather sucks.

So I'm driving home from the Lakeland/New London football game in New London, and all I see is clear skies for two hours of the usual 2 hour, 30 minute drive.
The last half hour took nearly 45 minutes and that preceded another 20 minutes of sitting in my car in the parking lot of my work.
Here's the story:
So I pass the Highway 8 intersection on 51, and I start seeing some lightning off in the distance. Not so scary from 30 miles away. Then the rain slowly started to fall. Slowly.
I got about 10 minutes from Hazelhurst, or about 15-20 minutes from work/home, and the rain HIT. It wasn't coming down in buckets, it was coming down in barrels. My car hydroplaned nearly a dozen times in a five minute stretch, including two flash flood fast moving rivers traveling across the highway.
My '98 Ford Taurus, which had 140k on it and is ready to be laid to rest in a junk yard somewhere, somehow made it through. The lightning, now not 30 miles, but rather 3 miles (even 300 yards in some instances) was close, deadly, and had booming thunder that I could hear and feel OVER TOP of my Jay Z album I was bumpin' to on the drive back.
When I finally got to work, I decided to play it safe and not leave the car for a little while -- at least until the rain and lightning slowed down. That ended up taking 15 minutes. I waited through numerous heavy downpours of rain, making Hurricane Rita look bad, and lightning so violent, Ike Turner was curled into a corner somewhere.
When I finally did leave the car, lightning struck just down the street, and the thunder was so horrifying that I nearly dropped my $700 camera just trying to get the keys into the lock.
However, I made it in safe, so all is well. For now, anyway. I still have to drive home....

Indians, Rockies winning, Cubs losing = happiness

So the Indians pounded the Yankees 12-3 behind non other than my favorite 90's outfielder Kenny Lofton.
The Rockies are continuing to roll by the Phils (too bad for me, because I picked a Cleveland/Philly WS with the Cuyahoga Wigwommers coming out on top).
The Cubs are falling by the wayside (Praise Allah) to the Diamondbacks. I picked the Arizona in five, and hopefully they can sweep. Baseball needs a perennial loser (Cubs), just like it needs a perennial winner (Yanks). It's good for the sport.
The Red Sox (blah) are trumping off the Angels. As long as Boston and Chicago don't make the WS, I would consider this a good baseball season (even though my beloved Brewers choked away the season).
In Football, the Dolphins straight up stink. Too bad for me, because I thought, despite having Trent Green (ugh) at QB, the Phins would have at least a single game by now, probably two. I'm not saying they were/are a 10-win team, but I would have no problem with another 6-10 season this year... It's too bad we drafted a QB this year, because as of right now Brian Brohm or Andrew Woodson will be sitting in Miami's lap.
Brett Favre finally topped out Marino's TD record (in more games, no less), and will take the passing yards record by the end of the year. He'll also take the INT record - which will be the only one of Favre's record (except for maybe the games started streak) that Peyton Manning won't break. Kudos to the Volunteer for being a pure pocket QB and not a styling gunslinger.
The Packers are 4-0 and are making me hate living in the heart of Cheese Country.
The Bears are 1-3, a year after being 4-0 when I was living in the heart of Bear country. (Funny how things change wherever I move to. Miami Herald - please look at my application closely!)
The Cowboys are better than I expected.
The Lions are right where I figured they would be and are the new "Greatest Show on Turf."
The Patriots are the greatest single football team ever to play together (and I'm including Pro Bowl teams as well).
The Cardinals are just a fun young team. I just hope Leinart sticks it out and wins the starting job.
Tim Tebow is still a gorilla, and the future best QB in the NFL.
Either Wisconsin needs to go undefeated in the regular season (national title?) or Cleveland better make (and win?) the World Series, or I am going to call the 2007 year in sports a total personal failure.

Other than that, I don't have a ton of thoughts right now.
However, I will tell you a little about myself, in case you stumbled across this and didn't know who wrote it.
My name is Adam Krebs. I am a full time sportswriter for The Lakeland Times in Minocqua, Wis. I played JUCO baseball (horribly at that), and worked as a part-time sports clerk for The Journal-Standard in Freeport, Ill. I grew up in Monroe, Wis, just 20 minutes from the Pretzel City, however I never made it a big deal to eat pretzels with my cheese (seeing as my high school was the Monroe Cheesemakers).
I have been with my lady lover, Dawn, for nearly four years now (on Oct. 26th we will celebrate our anny), and we have simply the most beautiful - and I'm not saying this because I'm biased - daughter, Perla Jade.
Perla is 17 1/2 months old and is the love of my life.
Living in the Northwoods completely on my own with a family to feed is quite a cool and stressful feeling - especially when logging 60 hours or more a week at work and only getting paid for 40.
My favorite sports teams are the Dolphins, Indians, and Brewers. Wisconsin, UW-Milwaukee, and the Cleveland Cavs (only because I am so obsessed with LeBron, and have been since we were each 15) are next on the list.
Dan Marino is my all-time hero, and I have favorite athletes who I am obviously impartial to (LeBron, Marino, Ronnie Brown, Tiger Woods, Ryan Moats, Tyler Donovan, PJ Hill, Tim Tebow, Brian Brohm, Kevin Garnett, Peyton Manning, David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Sid the Kid Crosby, the rest of the uber young Pittsburgh Penguins, Travis "Pronk" Hafner, Grady "Lady killer" Sizemore, CC Sabathia, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, and Rickie Weeks. Other than that, I fly by from person to person and team to team. So keep up. Oh yeah, I also have a distinct disdain for the Cubs, White Sox, Bears, Red Sox, Michigan Wolverines, Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins.
This blog is for me to write columns and thoughts of mine that won't appear in our paper due to limited space. Any question, ask. Any comment, leave them.
Should anyone find this blog on their own without me telling them it's here, hooray for you.
-AJK