A few years ago I was the Sports Editor for my graduate school’s student newspaper. Every spring, I’d write 5,000-word baseball previews that were not only full of premium analysis and expert opinion, but they were also hilarious (to me). I’m pretty sure nobody read them. In actuality, I was fortunate enough to have an Editor-in-Chief who gave me that much space because she either didn’t care or was really a huge baseball fan. I can’t remember which.

Anyway, I think it’s time to bring some of that well-reasoned analysis back. Maybe not in the form of a 5,000-word Magnum Opus, but seeing how Opening Day is almost upon us, it’s time to make some predictions. And really, could my predictions be any worse than John Kruk’s? I think not.

We’ll do the American League today and the National League later in the week.  And since there is no East Coast Bias at the Deuce of Davenport, we’re going left to right, baby (*denotes Wild Card winner):

American League West

1. Los Angeles Angels
2. Texas Rangers
3. Seattle Mariners
4. Oakland Athletics

Best nickname in baseball.

Coming into 2010, you can make an argument for each of these teams to win their respective divisions. Seattle’s big offseason was well-hyped, but I’m not buying it. Beyond Felix El Cartelua and an already-injured Cliff Lee, the rotation is not particularly impressive and neither is the offense. Sure, the defense will be stellar, but you have to score runs at some point. Relying on Milton Bradley to stay on the field and bat cleanup for 140 games is about as likely as a Pink Floyd reunion concert: don’t count on it. The Angels quietly added Hideki Matsui to compliment a nice offense and Joel Pineiro to round-out a rotation that pitched in the ALCS last year. This division is Anaheim’s to lose, with Texas and its young talent coming on strong. Oakland will be a pitching and defensive monster, but offensively, they will suffer the same fate as the M’s.

American League Central

1. Minnesota Twins
2. Chicago White Sox
3. Detroit Tigers
4. Cleveland Indians
5. Kansas City Royals

They say in baseball that the heart of every great baseball team is up the middle. If that’s the case, then the 2010 Twins should be pretty good. Reigning AL MVP Joe Mauer will lead a team that has two very capable veterans at second (Orlando Hudson) and short (JJ Hardy) and an up and coming centerfielder (Denard Span) who had an on base percentage (OBP) of .392 in 2009. If that’s not enough, they’ve got another MVP at first (Justin Morneau) and a guy with 564 career homeruns at DH (Jim Thome). Throw-in a solid rotation with a revamped Francisco Liriano at the backend, and you’ve got a pretty formidable team. Yes, they lost their closer, but their bullpen should be good enough to get them to October. Note to Mr. Kenny Williams: Dodger cast-offs Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones does not represent an offensive upgrade. In Detroit, Dontrelle Willis is competing for a spot in the rotation. I love the D-Train, but I’m sorry, that’s not going to get it done. I wish Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro would put Grady Sizemore out of his misery and trade him. He deserves better. So does reigning Cy Young winner Zach Greinke, for that matter.

American League East

1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox*
3. Tampa Bay Rays
4. Baltimore Orioles
5. Toronto Blue Jays

This is a division of behemoths, plain and simple. Toronto fought the good fight long enough but decided to finally give in and accept their fate. Baltimore, on the other hand, seems ready to step up and take their shot (or beating, depending on how you look at it). While the O’s are going to struggle to get to .500, this isn’t your typical 4th place team. That’s because the teams in front are three very well-oiled, albeit different, baseball machines.

A literal interpretation of this year's American League East division race.

Short on experience but long on talent, Tampa has the bullets to go after Boston and New York. This 2010 Rays team may be the best yet, but to me, their pitching isn’t quite there. For some reason, the much-ballyhooed Matt Garza hasn’t been able to put it together for an entire season. Wade Davis, Jeff Niemann and David Price show tremendous promise, but the likelihood all three of these young guys are able to pitch consistently well is not great. If they falter, Jeremy Hellickson isn’t too far behind, but he’s even greener.

Setting the trend for pitching first, defense second, and everything else third, the Boston Red Sox will attempt to beat their rivals with an incredible cache of starting pitching talent and superior defense. The offense has potential in the rebirth of Adrian Beltre and David Ortiz as well as a pretty deep bench. But in the AL East, you gotta slug, and the Red Sox will struggle to do that.

New York is perhaps the polar opposite of the Rays and Red Sox: what you see is what you get. A relentless team of professional pitchers and hitters, they will score runs and pitch effectively. Whether or not they can do so for an entire season is the real question. Talent-wise, this team is better than last year’s World Champions, but the Core Four and their colleagues are almost all on the wrong side of 30. If any of those guys miss a significant amount of time, or begin to show their age, the Yankees will struggle.

So there it is in less than 1,000 words. Check back for the NL and playoff predictions later in the week.

Too bad no one has that reaction on Wheel of Fortune. That followed by an Adrian Brody-style kiss of Vanna White would be much stronger than a dopey family on stage jumping around like a bunch of brain-damaged kangaroos.

Watch these horse racing fans react to Imperial Commander’s win in the 2010 Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Fucking brilliant. Lesson? Horse racing inspires more emotion and provides more winnings than answering obscure questions correctly. Learn how to read the Daily Racing Form and stop there unless you’re Ken Jennings or Michael Larson.

Fine. Here’s some Press Your Luck. No whammies!

It’s Passover, so…uh….L’Chaim?  I am not a very good jew. This is evidenced by the fact that I spent the first night of Passover playing bocce ball in a bar with my friends and drinking cider instead of sitting at a sedar drinking kosher wine eating Matzoh ball soup.  But, because it’s Passover, I find myself thinking, why is it that Jews are not so good at sports? Don’t get me wrong, we’re good at being fans.  We can manage some fantasy teams, bet some games, and remain grateful NFL games are on Sundays.  Not to mention, Al Davis has clearly set the bar going forward for professional team ownership but, every time Jewish people playing professional sports gets discussed at any family dinner, and if you’re Jewish or have been to a Jewish family holiday dinner, you know what I’m talking about, inevitably, Sandy Koufax is brought up.  Usually right before or right after someone complains about the Brooklyn Dodgers.  (As an aside, and completely off topic, I am convinced the Brooklyn Dodgers logo, the B, is the reason bitter Brooklyn Dodgers turned Yankees fans, started hating the Red Sox, but not really).  Back to the point though, it’s like Sandy Koufax is the “you can do it” for every Jewish kid who plays a sport from birth until about 16.  That is, of course, because at 16 his or her dad starts to pressure him, or her, to try to get into med school, law school, or become a CPA. 

Oh wait, it’s really because all we have is Sandy Koufax… and a few others that me, my dad, and the other Jews reading this know of.  It seems Jews can make some movies, balance some budgets, and represent players in their contract negotiations but, Jewish people seem to be lacking in the throwing, catching, running, tackling, dunking department.

Before K-State survived, Syracuse was knocked out by Butler. 

Yeah, 75% of the country’s brackets were done last weekend, so we don’t care.  What I really care about is the deification of Gus Johnson.  What happened to this guy?  He’s not that good anymore.  A few years ago, he was solid.  Now, he’s just another screamer.  I found him almost unbearable last night. 

Meanwhile, Billy Raferty explained the origin of “onions.”

I, on the other hand, will never get tired of Billy Raferty.

Joe Mauer signed an 8-year $184M extension with the Minnesota Twins.

Couldn’t be happier for Twins fans; Mauer is a great player (even though his guaranteed $184M is roughly $32M more than what the team contributed to the funding of their new ballpark.  Thanks, Hennepin County!).  I just find it interesting that people are back-slapping the Twins for stepping up to the plate and taking such a big risk.  The recently- deceased owner was reportedly worth $3.6B.  Yeah, that’s a “B” for BILLION.  Excuse me if I’m not as obsequious.

Vicente Padilla, a true gentleman of the game.

Vicente Padilla will be the Opening Day starter for the Dodgers.

Apparently, Dean Wormer was wrong.  Fat, drunk and Plaxico is a great way to go through life.

Gilbert Arenas will be sentenced today.  

I wouldn’t be surprised if Flip Saunders hopes for the chair.

Tim Tebow was cursed at when he suggested a prayer before the Wonderlic test.

Tebow is denying the story and if I were him, I’d deny it too.  The dude scored a 22 out of 50.  Just to give that score some context, 24 is the average for NFL QBs.  Even this guy beat him.  Clearly, Jesus was busy that day.   

Phil Hughes will start the season as the Yankees’ 5^th starter.

Color me shocked.  If you followed the Yankees in spring training even somewhat closely, it was pretty easy to see this wasn’t really a competition.  And since most teams don’t need a 5^th starter until May, once again, I must ask: who cares? 

Tiger Woods will hold a press conference the Monday before the Masters.

Wrestlemania XXVI is this weekend.

Now, there are two unrelated places that could both use Gus Johnson.

This week was kind of a downer, yes, I know.  Treat yourself to Keith Law’s Top 200 Rock Songs of the 1990’s.  In addition to his encyclopedic knowledge of music, I’m fairly certain he’s one of the few people in the world who could make the Kansas City Royals a playoff team.  That’s a rare combination of talent.   Have a great weekend, enjoy the games.

Yesterdaky, Uncle Teddy reached a deal with the estate of Abe Polin on a purchase price for the Verizon Center and the Washington Wizards.  Now, if only the Wizards can stockpile 7 first round picks in the next 3 years or 11 in the next 5 years, get lucky in the lottery with a #1 pick and use that pick to grab one of the greatest players in the game then Uncle Teddy will cement his place in the hearts of all Washingtonians as THE GREATEST OWNER CURRENTLY IN TOWN.

Ted Leonsis appears to be the owner in DC that fans want Dan Snyder and any of the Lerners to become, which I can kinda understand.  He seems to treat people well, doesn’t abuse the fact that he is massively wealthy too much, he actually talks to the fans (a novel concept), he hasn’t raised ticket prices too much (except this season, YIKES what a hike) in his ownership tenure and has even cut them once or twice…but do not forget he wasn’t always this way.  This guy was Dan Snyder Jr. with a violent streak (he did punch a fan once) when he first got the team, buying up aging veterans and constantly trying to compete the wrong way…then he got the sports equivalent of religion and his flock began to gather.

Somewhere after the disastrous 2002-03 playoff appearance, Leonsis discovered the NHL draft and using ancient scrolls that contained the blueprint of the Florida Marlins World Series titles (of all teams!) he sold off every single asset he had for future players and minor leaguers.  People loved getting rid of Jagr in this town, but I can’t say that anyone enjoyed watching the Capitals that 2003 season.  Poor Peter Bondra didn’t deserve to have his tenure here end like that nor should the best player on your team ever be named Robert Lang.

Nevertheless, from 2002-2006 the Washington Capitals had 11 first round picks.  ELEVEN!  Sure the team sucked balls from 2003-2006 but who cares now, right?  Who are those guys they drafted with those picks?  You might have heard of some of them like: Steve Eminger, Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, Eric Fehr, Alexander Ovechkin, Jeff Schultz, Mike Green, and Nicklas Backstrom.  Green, Backstrom, Semin and Ovechkin are the top 4 point scorers for the Capitals this season and Fehr isnt far behind at #9.  So with those accumulated picks and players and a whole lot of luck, he’s built a foundation of players that he could control on the cheap for quite awhile and contend for titles…and the fans were happy and decided to fill his church and wear red…lots of red.

That is the good news.

The bad news is, what happened with the Capitals will likely never happen again and especially not to the Washington Wizards.  God only created the Earth once as far as we know.  The NBA is a different game when it comes to team rebuilding, look at the Minnesota Timberwolves and ask them how rebuilding is going…and they traded away Kevin Garnett!  The Wizards have no assets to trade for picks anymore after their gutting this season.  There is no Alexander Ovechkin to come save the Wizards in the draft either, John Wall is not going to elevate this team to another level even if they get the #1 pick.

Just because Leonsis is now the owner, it doesn’t mean that the Wizards are going to suddenly be able to rebuild “the right way”.  There is so much luck in the draft it would be foolish to think the Wizards could duplicate the success of the Capitals even if they tried to follow that blueprint.  They also don’t have a ton of cash to throw around in free agency thanks to the $100 million albatross in Gilbert Arenas they have.  Rebuilding for Leonsis this time is going to be a lot longer than it was with the Capitals.  Its going to hurt…for awhile.

So, while it is nice to know that the Wizards and the Verizon Center are in good hands in that they have an owner that seems like he will spend the money to look after them the right way, I don’t understand the mindset that believes Ted Leonsis will suddenly cure the Wizards of sucking.

They’ve sucked for over 30 years people…they are going to keep sucking.   If you’re a Wizards fan, the team is essentially the girl you love that will break your heart, tease you just enough to lure you back in to give her just ONE MORE CHANCE, only to have your heart broken in a new and spectacularly different way before she lures you in again and starts the cycle anew…on a yearly basis.  As much as people love him…Uncle Teddy ain’t gonna change that anytime soon.