When you graduate college and get a real job (and maybe even a family), the number of great, truly personal days a year you get excited for decrease dramatically. Not surprisingly, so does your amount of day drinking. In any case, for me, there are maybe four to five days annually that automatically put me in a better mood. Today is one of them. No, I’m not gonna skip out of work and head to a bar or stadium to catch the games, but when I do come home from work, there will be baseball highlights on TV. In fact, there will be baseball highlights on TV every night from now until October.  And that’s pretty damn fantastic.

We covered the Senior Circuit here.  Now, we get to dig into the Big Boys.  Despite Boston’s free-for-all this off-season, there still figures to be some pretty intense competition in each division.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had three new division winners this season.  In any case, there’s a lot to cover so let’s get on with it.

AL EAST

Just when you started getting used to a three team AL East triumvirate, the other two cellar-dwelling teams began making serious moves this winter in an effort to get out of the St. Devil Ray Memorial AL East Basement. In the meantime, two thirds of the triumvirate took significant hits to their own personnel: one expectedly, and the other, well, not so much. The Boston Red Sox, on the other hand, took a team that won 89 games last season and made it better. Much better.  With the additions of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez, the Red Sox have the best lineup in the American League, bar none. Their pitching staff has three playoff-tested and proven starters in John Lackey, Josh Beckett, and Jon Lester.  Their fourth starter, Clay Buchholz, won 17 games with a 2.33 ERA last year. Their bullpen also features a wide array of hard-throwing specialists, two of which are former All-Star closers. If that wasn’t enough, they added Dan Wheeler, one of Tampa’s top relievers the past three seasons.  In other words, the Sox are loaded. If Beckett and Lackey can regain just a bit of their prior form, Boston should have no problem cruising to 95+ wins. Read the rest of this entry

We’re pretty sure the England manager and his assistant Franco Baldini would like to be up in Miss Wales’ ass like Dr. Dre. If either of them get that, it might look a little something like this.

Last year Preakness officials wanted you to “Get Your Preak On”. This year they pulled out the big guns and asked the god of Port-A-Pot racing and power hurling to bless Pimlico with his presence.

The Maryland Jockey Club unveiled Kegasus as the mascot for this year’s Preakness. The drunk centaur is supposed to appeal to the 21 to 40 age group in hopes that they’ll invade the infield and treat it like a prostitute.

…Maryland Jockey Club President Tom Chuckas said an over-the-top figure like Kegasus is just the thing to get young people fired up for the May 21 race.

“It talks their language,” Chuckas says of the infield demographic. “We have never hidden the fact that we want people to come to the infield and party.”

Dr. Jonathan Chase was unavailable for comment as he was busy stopping drug dealers in Liberty Heights in the form of a koala.

Everyone isn’t thrilled with Kegasus. Unbelievers think he leaves pain and drunken debauchery in his wake. All he wants to do is make people chug Natty Boh from his booze horn.

On the event’s website (theinfieldfest.com), the homepage depicts Kegasus in his element, a dank, wood-paneled “man stall” with beer mugs lined up on the window sill, not far from a pitcher and the full-blown keg he was apparently named for. Bikini tops dangle from the walls. Cheese curls fill a basket.

“Be legendary,” he implores.

“Half-horse half-man with beer in hand, he strolls the infieldfest,” goes the first Kegasus radio ditty, featured on YouTube with a picture of the centaur gripping a beer mug in each fist. “He’s bold, he rocks, he’s hot to trot, for girls with beautiful yes!”

At no point does Kegasus mention sunstroke or alcohol poisoning. Blasphemy will not be tolerated on the west side, hon. The 2011 Running of the Urinals will be most epic if he has anything to do with it. Be legendary indeed.

Whoa.

I was walking up the West Side Highway a week or two ago on my way to Lincoln Center to pick up some opera tickets. I was consumed with my thoughts and blasting some Tevin Campbell on the iPhone when I came across this ad near the USS Intrepid museum.**

You know it’s bad when Manhattan Mini Storage goes from making fun of George W. Bush and Paris Hilton to mocking the Mets. Consider this picture a reminder to fans out there who still harbor some delusional thought that this season will be anything but disastrous for the city’s second team. Accept your fate before the season starts and you’ll find that it’ll be much easier to deal with 162 games filled with ineptitude and failure.

I’m an Orioles fan. I’ve been used to losing for years. In the years immediately after 1997, I used to get my hopes up only to have them crushed and realize they were who I (and everyone else) thought they were. Now winning streaks don’t get me excited and losing streaks I expect like the sun rising in the morning or Jim Tressel lying his corrupt ass off. I try not to pay attention but I always get sucked back in around the start of spring training. Every season I come up with a reason that sounds rational at the time. This year? It’s the Buck Showalter plan. Let him build up the team, fire his ass and the O’s will win a World Series two years after he leaves. Never question the plan.

Who can forget the Mets choking down the home stretch a few years ago? It was actually quite impressive. Their fans were suicidal and neutrals like myself could only laugh and watch in amazement.

Chin up, Mets fans. At least you won’t have to deal with hilarious pictures like the one above this season. Consider live games an opportunity to work on your tan, get drunk and find someone new to hate since Oliver Perez has left the building. Go early and often, kids. Who knows how long it will be until foreclosure proceedings start on Citi Field thanks to the Madoffs.

** All of that is true. Fuck. I’m that guy. I’ve become what I… Jesus, I have some thinking to do. I should go.