Fan Heartbreak

Growing up a fan of the Philadelphia Eagles, Phillies, and 76ers, one thing I have learned to deal with is disappointing sports teams. It was so bad that the city thought its sports teams were all cursed. The Curse of William Penn is what they called it. You see after the 76ers won the title in 1983 the city of Philadelphia built its first Skyscraper that was taller than the statue of William Penn. The Sixers, Eagles, Flyers, and College Basketball teams had winning teams throughout the years but they never claimed a championship. It got so bad that people talked about the Curse causing Smarty Jones to lose the Triple Crown in horse racing.

In 1993 when the Phillies made it to the World Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the city places a giant Phillies ball cap on William Penn’s statue, in an attempt to get him to end the curse on the town. It didn’t work; Joe Carter will forever be hated in the City of Brotherly Love. In 2001 Allen Iverson led the Sixers to the NBA Championship game against the Shaq and Kobe Lakers. Philadelphia wanted this championship bad; Kobe was one of their own, who now played for the much hated Lakers. Iverson led the team to a game once victory over a Lakers team that had not lost a playoff game yet. All of a sudden Sixers fans believed it was possible. Four games later, the Lakers had won the championship and the Sixers haven’t been close to the championship since. In 2004 the Eagles finally make it past the NFC Championship game and into the Super Bowl, only to lose to the New England Patriots by a field goal. At this point in my life I figured I’d die before my teams ever won a championship. I mean the only championships I’ve seen anyone win was from two of my favorite NASCAR drivers, Tony Stewart (2002 and 2005) and Terry Labonte (1996). I also got to see the University of Michigan win a share of the National Championship in football in 1997.


It wasn’t until the fall of 2009 when my beloved Phillies made it back to the World Series, 19 years since they had won there only World Series in 125 plus years, only after they became the first team to lose 20,000 games, and only after Comcast bought the tallest building in the city and put a miniature statue of William Penn on top of it did they finally win the World Series in one of the oddest World Series I can remember. Game 5 took three days to finish if that tells you anything. When they won I was in complete shock, I didn’t even know how to react, my heart was racing and when the last strike was called I just fell to the ground and stared at the TV in disbelief. My roommate at the time, a lifelong Cubs fan shook my hand and told me he hoped to feel what I was feeling one day. I remember everyone calling and texting me to congratulate me as though I played for the team. I didn’t play for them, but any real sports fan knows that you put a lot of yourself into your teams, when they lose it hurts and when they win on the grandest of stages you are overwhelmed with joy and excitement.

I tell you this to preface how I felt last night after watching my beloved Washington Capitals lose a game 7 in the first round of the playoffs. Ok I know your first question is how is the Baron a Caps fan if he is a fan of the Phillies, Eagles, and Sixers? Why isn’t he a Flyers fan? The main reason is I didn’t follow hockey when I lived in New Jersey, just across the river from Philly. Sure I followed the Flyers a little when I moved because it reminded me of where I grew up, but I never had an attachment to them. When the league went on strike in 2005 I didn’t care, because I didn’t have an interest in the NHL. After the strike the local team had just drafted a player who only comes along every 20 years or so, Alexander Ovechkin. Ovie was just fun to watch play, and the more I watched the more I started checking up on the Capitals, at some point I dove in as a fan of the team. The funny part is Ovie isn’t even my favorite player on the team anymore, its Mike Green. Well last night the Caps, for the third straight year gave us hope and ripped our hearts out and let the Montreal Canadiens skate right over them. The Capitals had the highest scoring offense in the NHL this season, they had the best record in the NHL, they had one of the top scoring power play units (got one goal from them this series), and lost to the lowest seed in the Eastern Conference after take a 3-1 lead in the series. Sure two years ago they had the excuse of being young and the loss gave them great playoff experience, and last year it was they met a better team in Pittsburgh, but this year there were no excuses, they were just plain beat by an inferior team. After the game I was pissed, because I got way to into the game and let myself believe this was a road bump, but we would win game 7 and go on to win the Stanley Cup. The Caps are the team in DC that’s supposed to be good that lives up to their expectations. But just like all my teams from Philly and I think the DC sports fan would agree, we are all left disappointed after last night’s game. Bill Simmons from ESPN even tweeted last night that Washington had surpassed Seattle as the most depressing sports town. Seattle has a bad football team, a bad baseball team, and some rich guy from Oklahoma stole their basketball team that’s how bad it was there. Now people think DC has surpassed them. At this point the only thing I can say is “here’s to next year,” but Cubs fans have been saying that for 102 years.

The good news is tomorrow I am travelling to Richmond for a weekend of NASCAR with friends, that will most certainly put me in a better mood and after that there’s baseball season and my Phillies to get me through till September.

Cornucopia of Manliness

This weekend I was down at a friend’s River house for a Man Weekend. Every so often guys get together to do Manly things, tell Locker Room stories, drink beer, smoke cigars and let loose in a way we can’t at work or in a relationship. As a single guy I am able to act this way more often then maybe some of my friends who are married or in serious relationships, because women still have some type of expectation of how men should behave. Like I said, I’m not currently in a relationship so I could be completely wrong on that point so let me know in the comments section. Either way it was nice to do things MEN enjoy doing with other MEN this weekend. There was the use of man tools which include our brains, shovels, power sprayers, etc. There were adventures on the open sea this weekend, which was a great conclusion to the weekend. Oh and did I mention there was alcohol and cigars. We even dealt with an irrational woman who couldn’t garden because our music was too loud, she couldn’t handle the BOOM, BOOM. But we are Virginia Gentlemen so we turned the music down and didn’t let it ruin the weekend. Why do I bring this up, especially after my earlier post on Man Nights, well why not talk about Manly Things, basically I had few ideas, I couldn’t get an entire blog out of so this is a cornucopia of manliness.

There is one thing that every man needs, and that is a Man Cave. It doesn’t really matter what is in his Man Cave as long as he has one. Sometimes men need to go some place to kick back and not be bothered, this is what keeps our stress levels low, it helps us live longer healthier lives. I have no statistics to back this up, but it sounds good doesn’t it. Men need a place where they can go and just be men. For some men, this may just be the garage, but in colder climates this may not be ideal in the winter months. For others it’s the basement or a room in the basement. It can really be anywhere. I worked with a guy who built a shed in his back yard. Kenny put a pool table, some bar signs, a TV (that he hooked to his satellite dish), a stereo, some benches, and a space heater (like the ones you see on construction sites in the winter). It was a place where we could get as loud as we want and drink and have a good time. No matter where this room is located it goes back to the days when we were boys and had our tree forts with signs on the door that read, “No Girlz Allowed.” For more information on Man Room's check out some of the Tool Man's ideas.

Man Movies, I’m sure I will leave some off, but you are free to add them to the comments. Any movie that involves The Duke is manly. John Wayne was the definition of manliness when he was alive. He towered over other men and made the horses he rode look small. I read once that Wayne would only drink his tequila with ice chips he got from an iceberg in Alaska, that’s just baller. Jay-Z wishes he thought of that. Some movies that stick out to me as Man Movies are Super Troopers, Scarface, Boondock Saints, The Hangover (although the longevity of this movie has not been proven yet), Blazing Saddles, Rambo, The Godfather, and many others. But things these movies have are crude humor and/or violence, they also have quotability. The man movie is becoming a dying breed though, it’s hard to find a movie that doesn’t have a ridiculous love story in the middle of it to attract female viewers.

The final topic is cooking, now I’m sure you are thinking wait cooking’s not manly, that’s women’s work. Well I’m not talking about cooking dinner or baking cakes, I’m talking about grilling. Men feel at home behind a grill, whether it be grilling up hot dogs and burger or slow cooking brisket. Have you been on the seasoning/marinades isle at the grocery store, its not small. It’s also the only place where women get lost in a store. They think teriyaki and bbq sauce is all they need to cook. Men can walk down that isle and find many different flavors to try, and others will make their own at home. Plus men love to eat.

So if you have your own ideas or disagree, let me know and post it in the comments.

The Baron Visits the Midwest Part II

Originally I was going to write one post about my trip to the Midwest, but I was telling two very different stories, so here is Part II of The Baron Visits the Midwest.

The second stop on my trip to the Midwest my mother and I traveled to Munster, IN, which is on the boarder of Illinois and a suburb of Chicago. I used to spend my summers in Munster growing up as a child. I would meet my cousin Jeff out there and we would spend two weeks with my Dad's Parents. We always had a lot of fun. The other day I tried to find my Grandparents old house, I made it to within a couple blocks before I decided to use the GPS. I found it and it still looks the same, I even found the house that used to have a For Sale sign in it forever because two people were murdered inside of it. I sat in my car across from the old house for a minute and all the memories I had of that house came flooding back. I remembered climbing the tree in the backyard with Jeff and my grandfather getting upset when we broke a branch or two along the way. I really wanted to walk around to the backyard and see if the old tree was still there. We used to set up the slip and slide in the back yard and play for hours. I remember my grandmother marking our height every summer along with my brother, sister, and other two cousins, I wonder if she replaced the paneling in the garage. One summer my grandfather let us work with him in his shop in the basement and we built wooden cars. The wheels were so out of alignment they wouldn’t move, but I still have those cars in a box somewhere because it was a lot of fun and it was the first time I was able to use power tools. My grandmother had picked up old bikes at garage sales so we had something to ride around on for the time we were at her house. My cousin and I would take them out in the street and get going as fast as we could and slam on the brakes to see who could leave the longest skid mark on the road. My grandfather would get upset because we would wear straight through the tires. Those bikes were great because all you had to do was slam the pedals backwards and it would engage the brake. Jeff and I used to play home run derby in the driveway, until my grandfather thought we were throwing the ball too hard and didn’t want us ruining the garage door.

Christmas's we would spend sleeping on air mattresses with all of our cousins in anticipation of Santa coming in the morning. There was a light in the basement that had a chain link wrapped around the chord and it was dangling in my face one night we were sleeping down there. I took the chord and laid it on the electrical outlet on the wall. I guess the plug wasn’t all the way in, because when the chord slipped off it sparked and everyone ran upstairs thinking a fire had started. There were all of the Christmas mornings spent in the living room opening gifts for hours; the stories that could be told from those mornings could fill a book. The last real memory was the winter my grandfather passed away, I was 11 years old and I remember my cousins, my brother, my sister, and I all had a huge snowball fight in the front yard, we went out front and started rolling huge snowballs and staked them next to each other to form fort walls. We filled in the gaps between to solidify the fort against stray snowballs. Then we started making snowballs to throw at each other and gathering them behind the fort walls. Before we started we split into teams of 3, so now we lay behind our forts ready to wage war on our family members. It was a blast, it was so much fun that 18 years later its one of the few memories I still have of this week.

The lady who lives in the house now was out front and I almost stopped to talk to her and tell her why I was driving down her cul-de-sac, but I decided the memories I had from that house were probably better then what I’d see if she let me see the place now, especially with a home improvement van parked in the driveway. So as I left I drove the circle we used to ride our bikes to the Little Store with my Grandma to get the paper every day. We were allowed to get a pack of baseball cards or candy each day. The old store is still there too. It’s surprising because a lot of things here are not still there, it’s been 15 years since I spent a summer here, and the mini golf/go kart place is closed with weeds growing over the track. It was surreal, because not only did that property look small to me, like how could this hold a go kart track and an 18 hole mini golf course, but the track itself was much smaller then I remembered. I told my Grandma about my exploration that afternoon and she said the place had trouble with the clientele it attracted. She also jokingly said they no longer had her money to pay the bills, we would go 3 or 4 times when we stayed with her.

The other night I asked my Grandma if we could go to Miner Dunn, it’s a Diner we used to go to every summer to get burgers and orange sorbet for dessert. She said it’s not worth going because the buns are stale and the burgers are not that good anymore. We ended up not going, and I’m a little disappointed, it would’ve been neat to go and see for myself if it had changed any.

The Baron Visits the Midwest

I’m sitting in a Panera Bread just outside of Chicago typing this because my Grandmother doesn’t have wireless. I packed my laptop for this weekend thinking I’d be able to use it, forgetting that some people haven’t joined us in the wireless age. The good news is she does have a high definition television. I’m sitting in a Panera because this weekend in Michigan, my mom's sister was throwing my sister a bridal shower. Julie couldn't attend because of work so I got to drive my mom halfway across the country. We left Virginia after 2 days of 90+ degree weather so I thought shorts would be appropriate, until we entered Ohio when we hit a freezing rain storm which quickly turned into snow. We drove in and out of snow for about 90 minutes. People at the rest areas were looking at me weird thinking, why is this guy in shorts. I was looking at them weird...because they were from Ohio. By 5pm we made it to my older brother's house just outside of South Bend, Indiana. South Bend is home to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, although lately I think they would lose a fight to their mothers. I jokingly tweeted this week that I hoped to see Jimmy Clausen so I could have my turn at punching him in the face; however he was not in town.

Now since I feel that I need to write about something manly to make up for writing this post in Panera I'm going to write about Guy's Night. Friday night at my brother's house is Guys Night. I'm going to go into more detail about guy’s night to balance out the fact that I am writing this at Panera Bread, but hey when you need free Wi-Fi it’s the first place I think of going. So back to Guys Night. My brother, Keith, started by frying some wings for us to eat, man they were good. Then we went down to the basement where Keith has set up a smoking corner and cut into our first cigars of the night and poured a few drinks. Now the smoking lounge is pretty sweet, Keith set his house up to have negative energy so that the air inside would blow outside and put in a fan in the basement to suck out all of the smoke. I was surprised by how well it worked when the next morning the house didn’t have that stale smell of smoke in it. My brother and his friend Tim are really into Cuban cigars lately, so that’s all we smoked. I know the first time I had a Cuban it laid me out. I was a little worried about how these were going to affect me, plus add in the fact my brother and me both had a beer and a glass of bourbon in front of us at all times of the night. No little brother wants to get punked out by his older brother, I had to hang or I'd never hear the end of it. We smoked through two cigars before the fourth guy, Chuck showed up and we decided to play some poker. Poker didn’t go so well for me, I lost $10. But during poker I had another 3 Cuban cigars; I had 5 different makes of Cubans, all with a different taste. Normally if I have a couple of the cigars you can buy more easily in the States I'm feeling rough the next day. The Cubans were smoother and didn’t hang around the next day, I liked that. Needless to say, it was a fun night. I'm not sure of all the beer I had that night, but I know we cracked a bottle of Dark Lord's Ale from Three Floyd's Brewing Company; I'm going by there after I finish this. I also had their Robert the Bruce, which is Scottish ale, both are really good.

Today in Chicago its opening day for the Chicago Cubs, which also brings back memories of going to Wrigley Field and watching the Cubs play as a child. I’ve always wanted to return to Wrigley Field as an adult of legal drinking age so I could fully enjoy the experience, I’d love to watch a game from the bleachers.

Well I am off to the Brewery; I need to get me some Robert the Bruce Ale. Maybe they'll have a tasting and I can write about that later.


I finished this post on Monday, but I ran out of time and Panera cut my internet connection. So I did make it to Three Floyd’s Brewing Company. I sat down at the bar and was greeted by a very friendly bartender named Dave. I told him that my brother had instructed me to go to this place and drink some beer. Dave started my out with their flagship beer, Alpha King, it was one of the better pale ales I’ve drank, but I’m not a fan. I followed that with Pride and Joy, it’s an American Style Ale, and I thought this was a little better then the Alpha King. I followed that by the Dreadnaught Ale, which was my favorite of the three ales I drank. I bought two bombers of this beer. Dave also gave me a sample of a Barrel Aged Popskull, which is a beer that Three Floyd’s worked with Dogfish head to create. The Popskull was barrel aged in Woodford Reserve Oak Barrels for a year. This beer smelled and tasted of bourbon and it was smooth. I tried to buy some of this, but you can only drink this beer there. It is worth the trip, it was the best beer I sampled. However if you don’t want to drive to Munster, IN, you can drive to one of the Dogfish Head pubs and they may also have some left. I also sampled another barrel aged beer called Alpha Clause; they brew this during the holidays. Dave finished me off with a Baltic Porter called Topless Wych. It had a very chocolaty taste to it, a lot like a breakfast stout does. I bought a growler of this beer. Anyways Three Floyd’s is worth the trip, it is located in Munster, IN off of Calumet Ave, when you see the Munster Water Tower, drive towards it.

Oh and anyone looking for a good time at a brewery, later this month Three Floyd's will be hosting Dark Lord's Day, when they will release there Dark Lord beer, which is a Russian Style Imperial Stout. I have it on good authority its there best yet. It should be around 15%abv. Its also been voted the #1 beer in the world for 2010. Suck on that Sexual Chocolate (Foothills Brewery).

The End of an Era in Philly...

The end of an era happened this Easter for the Philadelphia Eagles and their fans. Donovan McNabb, the Eagles franchise quarterback for the last decade (1999-2009) has ended. The Kevin Kolb era is about to begin. I’m sad that McNabb has left the Eagles, more than most Eagles fans. McNabb has been my favorite Eagle and I really wanted him to be the QB to lead the team to a Super Bowl victory, now I might have to watch him lift the Lombardi Trophy for a team in the Eagles division. McNabb came into Philly and wasn’t what I would call a fan favorite, he was booed at the draft, because fans wanted Ricky Williams, looking back its still the right decision. I however was excited, because I remember watching a Syracuse – Michigan game in 98. I remember Michigan not being able to stop McNabb and thinking man I hate this guy, he led Syracuse to a 38-28 win over Michigan that day. Obviously by 1999 I was a fan, it was the first decent quarterback the team had since Randal Cunningham. Watching McNabb play and run all over teams was exciting. In Philly people became accustomed to winning seasons and by 2001 McNabb was giving them what they wanted and the team played in four consecutive NFC Championships, in 2004 the Eagles finally won one and went to the Super Bowl. Say what you will about McNabb’s performance in that game, but they wouldn’t have been there without him. The Eagles have put together a couple good seasons since but McNabb’s injuries have slowed the team down and his game. Now when McNabb escapes a rush it’s more because of his experience in the game then because he can outrun the defense, still exciting, but for different reasons.

Donovan’s inability to win the Super Bowl is the only thing hurting his resume at the moment. As an Eagle though he is the career leader in wins, pass attempts, pass completions, passing yards, and touchdowns. A lot of this is because under Andy Read, Philadelphia was pass happy and their running game were screen passes to Brian Westbrook. The Eagles were one of the top 5 teams of the last decade behind the Patriots and Colts, based on wins and a lot of that is owed to McNabb. Some of McNabb’s NFL records include Least Intercepted QB per pass attempt of all time (4588-96), second best TD to INT ratio of all time (209-96) behind Tom Brady, one of six NFL QB’s of all time to have over 25,000 passing yards and 3,000 rushing yards, and currently the third highest winning percentage among active QB’s (.647) behind Manning and Brady.

Now the Eagles have traded McNabb to the Redskins and the Eagles will have to play him twice a year. I really wish McNabb went out of the division so I could still hope for him to have success, but I won’t be able to do that now. I’m going to put my McNabb jersey in the closet where it will sit with my Dawkins Jersey for eternity. Players like McNabb, Dawkins, Runyon, Westbrook, Trotter, and others who were the reason of so much success over the last decade are now gone. There is a new age in Philadelphia, a team of somewhat unknowns and young stars that hope to pick up where McNabb and the other Veterans left off, guys like DeSean Jackson, Brent Celek, LeSean McCoy, Jason Avant, Stewart Bradley, Trent Cole, Jeremy Maclin, and leading them on the field on Sundays will be Kevin Kolb. This new team will be able to grow together and maybe with a year or two of consistency win a championship or two.

It is a sad day as an Eagles fan, but the future looks bright and I bid farewell to my favorite player, because now you’re playing for the Redskins and no matter how much I want McNabb to succeed, I cannot root for the Skins. This trade hurts even more being an Eagles fan living in DC. So Skins fans consider yourself lucky, you have a QB now. I'm really going to miss watching Donovan play and the way he looked like he was having fun everytime he stepped on the field.

Opening Day and Why I love Baseball

Is it human interest or just me who wants to go into a store or restaurant every time I see a sign that reads Grand Opening. Is it the excitement of something new or just the curiosity of seeing what store A has that store B doesn’t have. I think it’s more the excitement; we’re trained to like new things from the day we are born and its part of our DNA. It’s why they are creating a PlayStation 4 or a Wii 2, we get tired of the same thing. It’s also why there are some 14 Land of the Lost movies, we all enjoyed the first one as kids but that got old after the 20th viewing and now they keep making new ones, sure we don’t watch it anymore for entertainment, but many of us have kids who watch it and we want them to have the same experiences we had as kids, at least I assume so because I don’t have kids.

This is also why Opening Day is so exciting as a Baseball fan. The newness, not just for the baseball season, but it’s also the beginning of spring and warm weather, it’s an exciting time of the year and baseball takes full advantage of it. It doesn’t matter if you root for the Evil Empire known as the New York Yankees or the lowly Nationals, you go into the season with hope and visions of the leader of your team hoisting the World Series Trophy over his head in the fall. Even Cubs fans find a way to pick themselves up off the mat and give themselves hope again, which is amazing for two reasons, 1) they haven’t won a Championship in over 100 years and 2) its still bitterly cold this time of the year in Chicago.

Now some people may say how can you get so excited about baseball? They have cheaters and are only concerned with individual statistics and the games are too long and too slow. I’m not denying these accusations, but baseball offers something that football, basketball, and hockey cant, it has memories. The other three sports price the average fan out. Baseball was cheap enough that families could go to the game together, or even groups that you belong to could afford to take everyone. I remember every summer going to Wrigley Field with my Grandparents and my cousin Jeff, we seemed to always go to Phillies v. Cubs games, my cousin and my grandparents were Cubs fans and I was the lone Phillies fan. We saw Cubs greats like Shawn Dunston, Andre Johnson, Mark Grace, and Ryne Sandberg. When we started going to the games in the 80’s it was before Wrigley had lights so we always went to day games, which is something I think teams need to go back to. I remember one game my favorite player Mike Schmidt was not playing for the Phillies, but I swear to this day he was sitting behind me. But it was always fun, the last year we went to Wrigley we say the 1990 All-Star workout, which included the Home Run Derby. That was one of the coolest experiences of my life, we had real baseball cards made for ourselves by Donruss. I also spent a lot of time at The Vet in Philadelphia, watching my Phillies lose, except in 1993 when they made it to the World Series for the first time in my life. In college my fraternity did a mixer where we took the girls to Camden Yards to see a Red Sox v. Orioles game, that’s still one of the best mixers we did while I was in the fraternity.

Just like every other kid, I grew up collecting baseball cards, I have boxes upon boxes of them and even today I still pick up a pack and it takes me back to when I was a kid. Although I don’t know how I used to eat that piece of gum. The other great memory of baseball for me was playing Little League ball. I love this game because for some reason it takes me back to those simple days as a kid. One of my favorite memories form little league was the first time I got to pitch in a game. My Dad was my coach and he didn’t want to show favoritism, which I thought was why parents coach their kids. My dad took me out in the back yard and drew a square box on the fence, he paced out where the mound would be, and put a bucket of balls next to me. He told me if I could put 30 balls into the square consecutively he would let me pitch. I sat out there and over the next 15-20 minutes I smoked 30 balls into that fence. The next game our team was holding a 1-run lead in the last inning, my dad walked out to the mound to make a switch and called me in from the outfield. Now sure we were playing on a field with no lights and the sun was going down so it was a strategy move, hoping it would take me enough time to warm up that they would call the game. I was too excited, I got up there and threw a couple warm up pitches and was ready. I don’t remember exactly how it played out but I know we needed two outs and I got them, Game Over. My career pitching stats are still to this day 0.00 ERA 2/3rds innings pitched. It was also fun just getting friends together and playing homerun derby and who doesn’t remember throwing the ball with their old man.

But back to the topic, Opening Day, every year at the beginning of the MLB regular season I am reminded of these memories along with the memories of past seasons, like the year Sosa and McGuire went after Roger Maris’ single season home run record, or when Cal Ripken Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak, or any season your team makes a September run for the playoffs and walks off with the World Series Trophy a month later. The anticipation for this day is too much sometimes. I live in Washington now and the Nationals are terrible, but I still want to go to Opening Day. The fanfare of the day is too much sometimes. We get to the park early and set up a little tailgate and throw a few beers back, then we go into the park and everything is clean, the grass is freshly cut and the ball park dogs are cooking. I like to get there and go to the outfield during batting practice and try to shag some homers, but then you get to your seat and the Ceremony begins. Someone walks out to sing the National Anthem and 40k plus stand and listen, while a giant American flag sprawls out over the outfield. Then the ceremonial first pitch is thrown, going to a Nationals game means it could be the President, but there’s always the Mayor when he isn’t available. Then the PA announcer introduces the starting lineup and the home team takes the field. Over the next couple of hours you get to take in the boys of summer playing a game that takes most of us back to our childhood and all the memories that go along with that come flooding back. Winter’s over and Summer is almost here, Let’s Play Ball.

Season predictions:

NL Division Champs : Phillies, Cardinals, Dodgers, Wild Card: Braves
AL Division Champs: Yankees, Twins, Rangers, Wild Card: Rays
World Series: Phillies over Yankees