As a Dylan fan, and one who generally distrusts white people and corrupt New Jersey police officers, it is unfortunate, but later, unbiased revisiting of the evidence has reaffirmed Hurricane Carter's guilt.
The Hurricanes are cheaters, just like the Miami Hurricanes. They have seen fit to award themselves a 0-0 tie for a game against the Black Sox which never happened. The Hurricanes' lone win was a 7-0 victory over the Owls, which was probably a forfeit.
We aren't in position to take any team lightly. If we do we will lose.
If I were to name my team after a Dylan song, I'd have gone with the (Subterranean Homesick) "Blues". Or, naturally the South Oakland "Eskimos".
I was at this Phish show where they covered, Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn"The Hurricanes are cheaters, just like the Miami Hurricanes. They have seen fit to award themselves a 0-0 tie for a game against the Black Sox which never happened. The Hurricanes' lone win was a 7-0 victory over the Owls, which was probably a forfeit.
We aren't in position to take any team lightly. If we do we will lose.
If I were to name my team after a Dylan song, I'd have gone with the (Subterranean Homesick) "Blues". Or, naturally the South Oakland "Eskimos".
The Ducks (4-7-1) have four days off before traveling to Pie Traynor field to play the Hurricanes (1-3). Naturally, following an entire week off, the Ducks play back to back games this weekend (sat. vs. Hurricanes, sun. vs. the Bulldogs (1-7). )
South Oakland is presented with a great chance to get back in the thick of the playoff race. Yesterday the Ducks learned they would be awarded a forfeit victory for an early season game against the Rebels, which was illegally canceled by the Confederacy. The retroactive win comes on the heels of a brutal three game losing streak.
With the W, South Oakland climbs out of the cellar and past the Rebels into fifth place, just two games behind the Eagles for the third and final playoff spot in the Monongahela Division.
The Ducks remaining schedule now consists of eight division games, and four games vs. the Allegheny Division, which consists of two teams with winning records and four teams with a combined three wins.
We should have seen this coming
Last season, the Monongahela division sent the sub-.500 Knights into the playoffs. This lead to an uproar from the Phantoms, who finished above .500, and in 4th place in the Allegheny Division, but did not qualify for the post-season. The current format has the top three teams in each division advancing, instead of an NHL-type format which would have the division winners seeded one and two, with the next four teams qualifying for the playoffs.
When the topic of playoff seeding was brought to the table in the off-season meetings, the vote was to keep the same format. Now, there are five teams in the Allegheny Division with one or fewer wins. Under the "division winners plus four" format, South Oakland would hold the sixth playoff spot. I doubt the Phantoms are whining about the seeding this season, as they sit 1/2 game out of third place, with a 0-3-2 record. There's no reason for us to complain, we almost quacked into third place last year, despite being pretty bad.
In Regards to this weekend's games, conspiracy theories, and bulletin board material.
The league expanded this season, the OwlZ, and their superfluous "z" were added to the Monongahela Division, and the Hurricanes were added to the Allegheny. The Owls, roster is full of NABA veterans, and small college players. The Hurricanes are struggling, I'm sure their roster lacks the "star power" of the Owls, who have Faygo, (a sick pitcher) and a bunch of kids from the RMU team who were league runners up, in 2006. Those guys have obviously played together before, they remind me of the Yankees from the Bad News Bears.
Bulldogs player, and league president Joe Graff, added the Hurricanes to the Bulldogs' Division, and put the Owls in the Monongahela. Interesting...Of course this could be an attempt to even out the divisions, based on last years parity; add the better team to the softer division, and the team that's weaker on paper to the division that was better top-to-bottom. What I would have done if I ran the league and had to deal with all the BS Joe does, put the worse team in my division. It also could have been an arbitrary decision.
Also, the League president and schedule maker, has pitted his team against the Ducks twice, when he could have chosen to play any of the other five Monongahela Division teams twice. Big mistake. Clearly he conspired with the Bulldogs front office and hand picked his team's inter-division schedule, and the decided they wanted two games against South Oakland.
The Ducks were 1-1 against the Bulldogs last season.
The Bulldogs got jobbed in their game on Sunday. There was a terrible call that lead to the Black Sox scoring the go ahead run in the top of the seventh(made by the same guy who called Eric Lee out in our game), and (all other things remaining equal) the Bulldogs scored in the bottom half of the inning, they tied it up instead of winning, and went on to lose in extra innings.
The Ducks did not fare well against the Black Sox on opening day.
What's really killing the Bulldogs is the pre-season injury to their best starting pitcher who was hit in the hand during batting practice, and lost for the season.
Brian Strom is a good ball player and a friend of mine, but he'd be the first one to tell you he's no pitcher.
The table is set for the Ducks this weekend, we have to take advantage of a couple struggling teams and build some momentum. It's great to be competing every game and to be playing exciting baseball, and we have to proud of that and optimistic that we can turn the corner. But if we can't turn our improved play into victories, it will be nothing more than bittersweet consolation, when we look back on a season of near misses.
Quack, Quack.
