Night Owl Cards

I suppose I need to update those preseason predictions that I made back in March. After all, I had all of Vegas hanging on my every word when I "predicted" a Royals-Dodgers World Series. I think I threw a few people with that one. I hope you didn't lose your shirts putting money down. Because if you did, you missed out on a crucial aspect of the predictions: they weren't real . I happen to think preseason prognosticating is taken way too seriously. I mean stuff like that is supposed to be fun. But people have gotten too hyped up over it. So I've stopped putting any thought into trying to predict the future when it comes to most things, but especially when it comes to who is going to win baseball pennants. But sometimes you've got to keep the people happy. So with a little more than a month left in the season, I am providing my updated predictions. These are all based on what I WANT to happen. You know, like, what would happen if Night Owl suddenly became ruler...

When I saw yesterday that the Dodgers had signed lefty reliever Will Ohman to a minor league deal, my first thought was "who?" I felt guilty about that, so I read some more, and saw that he had pitched for the Braves and Cubs. My next thought was "um, yeah, I think I kind of, sort of remember him with the Braves." Then I figured I'd mention the acquistion on the blog. Which prompted this thought: "Where am I going to find a card of Will Ohman?" It turns out I had one -- the 2006 Upper Deck card up top here. I forgot that when you want a card of just about anyone, you turn to Topps Total ... uh, er, Upper Deck. So, not only did I forget who Ohman was, but I forgot who he was even though I had a card of the poor guy. I tell ya, situational lefty relievers who are 31 years old get no respect. A few snippets about Ohman: he appeared in 83 games for the Braves last year. He missed two seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery while with the Cubs. He was ...

I'm sure everyone's read those "etiquette in the work place" articles that are always popping up in the business section of newspapers. Inevitably, in those articles, there is a mention of email etiquette. And one of the most frequently mentioned pieces of advice is on sending hastily-written emails. "Wait 24 hours!" they say, before hitting "send" on an email you might regret. I'm sure the same goes for posting. But I've waited -- OK, not quite 24 hours, make it more like 10 -- and I'm still posting, dammit! And this is what I'm saying: I don't see anyone preventing Tampa Bay from winning the World Series in a couple of weeks. Seriously, what I see on the TV is three teams playing with their flaws hanging out and Tampa Bay, playing like a postseason team should. The Rays are playing like the Rockies last season, only there are no 2007 Red Sox lying in wait for the Rays in the Series. So, this is what I see: the Rays facing the...