MLB Restructure Part 2

We have seen SayHey's entry into the Restructuring of Major League Baseball and now I shall give you my thoughts on the matter.

I agree we could use another two teams and push the conferences into four consisting of East, North, Central and West. I also have a total of four teams moving cities along with the creation of two new teams. Now I went against the grain and chose the cities for expansion that differed from SH's. I went with Calgary and Memphis, two cities that love their sports and could easily support those franchises. They also benefit from not having any baseball teams anywhere remotely close to them.

I have four teams relocating and I guarentee two of them are going to shock you. First let us get to the obvious teams, the Marlins and the Rays. SayHey was right, Florida doesn't want baseball, it doesn't deserve baseball. MLB needs to realize this and stop trying so hard to get Florida baseball to succeed. I moved the Marlins to Omaha, Nebraska and Tampa Bay I moved to Charlotte, North Carolina. The other major move involved restoring a team to their rightful location, namely I am moving the Dodgers BACK to Brooklyn. With that I am moving the Mets to San Antonio as it has the population to support a team.

So here is how my league now appears

AL East
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Baltimore Orioles
Charlotte Hounds

AL North
Toronto Blue Jays
Chicago White Sox
Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Indians

AL Central
Minnesota Twins
Texas Rangers
Kansas City Royals
Memphis Crocketts

AL West
Oakland A's
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of West Hollywood and Oxnard
Seattle Mariners
Calgary Mustangs

NL East
Brooklyn Dodgers
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Atlanta Braves

NL North
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers

NL Central
ST Louis Cardinals
Omaha Godfathers
Houston Astros
Colorado Rockies

NL West
San Francisco Giants
San Antonio Horns
Arizona Diamondbacks
San Diego Padres

I'll explain the mascots as well. Charlotte got the Hounds since the Hound is the North Carolina state animal, Omaha got the Godfathers since it is the birthplace of Brando, San Antonio got the Horns no explanation needed, Memphis got the Crocketts because of Davy, and Calgary is an easy choice for the Mustangs.

There is another trick, there would be no more wild card teams. Whoever wins their respective group goes to the playoffs. If you win a hundred but another team in your group wins 102, tough titty, play better baseball San Francisco.

Dews Monday Issue Wrap up

I really liked how Shane was doing this before, so I thought I would take it upon myself to start off the day with some of the issues of importance (or humor) to me, so here goes.

In this corner wearing the black and white trunks, Sister Mary Fitzpatrick O'Conner!!!

In this corner, also wearing the black and white trunks, Sister Patrickfitzhenry O'Hoolihan!!!

So I needed an excuse to show some sexy nun outfit? What of it?

Turns out a Convent had to actually close down though in southern Italy after a quarrel among its last three remaining nuns ended in blows.

Awesome...

On the not-so-awesome side of the news though, is the on-going struggle in Burma between those that prefer to live, and the members of the ruling Military Junta that prefer that they not. For those of you that may not be following this, the ruling government has been systematically using genocide to eliminate protesters "by the thousands":

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

Luckily for the ruling government of Burma, they do not have large oil reserves that Chevron or Exxon may want, so they're probably safe from "Democracy" for the time being.

Lastly, my heart goes out to any fan of the NY Mets.... NOT!

My only wish is that both the Mets and the Yankees could be sitting at home crying this offseason, but alas, it will only be the slightly poorer of the two NY teams crying and whining all offseason. Toodles...

Nats-Mets August 18, 2007

On Saturday Say Hey, his brother and girlfriend, my roommate Acey and myself descended once again upon RFK for some Nationals baseball. I will put this out there right now, all week long I was trying to get close tickets so I could see The Greatest of All Time up close and personal. He is now the Mets' first base coach and I am dying to get a picture taken with the legend known only as Rickey. Well, this week didn't work out too well ticket wise, but I was able to buy some in section 108 row five for the September series. So expect to see a picture of myself and the Greatest here in mid-September.

Now then, back to the game, which almost began very badly for folks as the Metro broke down at Potomac which you all know is one stop away. This didn't bode well for DC period since these are the same tracks people were going out to FedEx for the Redskins game. SayHey managed to find his way through the unknown section of DC and got to our tailgate. He also managed to call his brother and they wisely took a cab to RFK.

Now we didn't expect a big crowd because of the Skins game, but when we reached the stadium and bought the tickets, it was the highest we have ever sat. Up in section 548 I'm sure SayHey and I pissed off all people around us with our constant, and I do mean constant, Rickey would steal right now, Rickey would have stole third as well, etc etc etc. Add that with our Harry Caray moon made out of cheese, and it was no wonder there was a bubble around us eventually.

As for the game itself, I do have to say it was some of the worst umpiring I have seen in a long time. It's bad when I'm way out in Maryland and can see the man made the tag, yet you can't from five feet away. Do not worry, I caught the post game on TV and I was correct. Of course this wasn't the big news of the night, bad umpiring, or even the Abe Lincoln bobble heads. Actually, let us talk about the bobble heads for a second.

20,000 bobble heads were supposed to be available for people. When we reached the stadium we didn't see any being given out, not even the so called vouchers. Hell, I didn't see too many people actually with said bobble head. What I did see though was people with up to seven carrying them around. We all know they are going to be selling them on eBay, but come on, why are you being a greedy prick? I'm sure there was some kid who would have wanted one, but here you are 45 with six Abe Lincoln bobble heads.

Oh, and fuck you RFK. We bet on the Presidential races, I don't care if it is Abe Lincoln bobble head night, he shouldn't get a lead and secret service, you owe me a fucking dollar now.

Back to the game, the Nats did hang in there, sort of. Without bad calls this one is much closer then the final score. Of course the big news of the night was Willy Mo Pena. The Nats really want us to cheer this guy on, even putting Willy Mo up on the scoreboard in attempts for us to chant and cheer. I'm sorry, but we find it funny they Red Sox gave us Willy Mo AND cash for a player to be named later who no doubt will be Willy Mo Pena.

Personally if I was Manny Acta I would put Willy Mo in Left, move Church to Center and use Nook Logan and his speed as my specialty runner and number 4 outfielder. The Nats are maybe one player and two starting pitchers away from being a contender in the NL. We definitely have the managing there, hell Manny would have my vote for NL Manager of the Year, he's done wonders with this team.

It was a fun game, though we (as in my group) have a special question to ask RFK and it's ushers. It is a long standing tradition in sports for people to move to empty seats as the game comes to a close. My party attempted to do this on Saturday, in an area that had five rows completely empty, and had been since the sixth. We moved down to this section in the bottom of the eighth inning. Why then does your usher have an issue with us moving down? We didn't move into VIP seats, there was no one around, and yet you felt like you had to be an asshole. Kudos to you sir for trying to impress the female usher who didn't want to do her job, but it is the bottom of the eighth, people are leaving, why can't we sit closer to the action?