The Dream Situation
Now that the Dodgers will be taking October off, we now turn towards next season. Because of the promising youth, next season already has a good foundation. Ned Colletti, however, has not been putting good veteran talent around that youth that can help the Dodgers succeed. Last year's additions were all over-the-hill veterans who were either always hurt or unproductive (i.e. Jason Schmidt and Luis Gonzalez).

Wouldn't it be nice for once for the Dodgers to sign a player who didn't have more question marks than career homers? The Dodgers haven't landed a marquee free agent since Kevin Brown, and we all know how that turned out. To get to that next level we need to sign an A-Rod or trade for a Miguel Cabrera. Signing more aging veteran stop-gaps will only keep the team afloat until the stretch run, when they will inevitably fade just like this year.

So if I ever come across Shaq any time soon, I'll ask him to turn into Kazaam and give him these three wishes for the Dodgers' offseason:

1) Fire Grady Little - This whole Jeff Kent debacle has taught us all two things: a) Jeff Kent is really old. And b) Nobody on the team listens to Grady Little anymore. Whenever you have a team with as clear cut of an age divide as the Dodgers, you need to have a manager who can motivate the youngsters enough to perform for their older teammates. Grady Little is not the man to do that. His quiet drabble couldn't motivate Travis Henry to jump into a bed full of naked women. Of course, it helps to have veterans who aren't total assholes like Jeff Kent, but it's already too late for that seeing as how the Dodgers have picked up his $9 million option for next year.

2) Sign A-Rod or trade for Miguel Cabrera - Last offseason's biggest need was a power hitter that could strike fear into opposing pitchers. This offseason, that need still stands. I know getting A-Rod will cost the Dodgers a shitload of money ($30 mil a year?) but the Dodgers make plenty of it. They're going to again draw 4 million fans this season, so you know they could afford him. What remains to be seen is whether McCourt's cheap ass will pony up the dough and whether Ned Colletti will ever swallow his puke and work with Scott Boras again.

Cabrera would be just as great as A-Rod. He's got one year left on his contract with the Marlins, with who there is a -70% chance he will resign with. The fish will want to do what they always do: trade him and restock their farm system with blue chip talent. Enter the Dodgers. They can offer Cabrera the big money he wants, plus he's way younger than A-Rod. The way I see it, there are 4 Dodger kids who are untouchable: Russell Martin, James Loney, Matt Kemp, and Chad Billingsley. Everyone else can be used as trade bait. It'll be extremely difficult to nab Cabrera without giving up any of those guys, but some combination of Andre Ethier, Jonathan Broxton, and the pu-pu platter deluxe will have to do.

3) Pick up a decent middle-of-the-rotation starter who wont get hurt - Last year Jason Schmidt and Randy Wolf were signed to help bolster the rotation. Both were done by the All-Star Break. Three spots in next year's rotation seem to be in good shape with Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, and Chad Billingsley, but the last two spots are wide open. There's no way I feel safe trusting Esteban Loaiza anymore, and Schmidt can't be relied on to stay healthy. Neither can Wolf, with whom the team has an option that they are unlikely to pick up. Can't they nab Greg Maddux back from the Padres for another 1-year deal? But knowing Ned Colletti, he'll just end up resigning Brett Tomko.

Week 3 Picks
After a terrible showing last week, I must rebound or face digging a hole that could possibly cause me to lose money. That is, if I had bet on the games. Which I didn't, because gambling is illegal. So here ya go:

Baltimore (-4) over Cleveland
Tampa Bay (+3) over Carolina
Chicago (-3) over Detroit
Dallas (-13) over St. Louis
Green Bay (-1.5) over Minnesota
Houston (-3) over Atlanta
Indianapolis (-9.5) over Denver
Oakland (+4) over Miami
Buffalo (+3.5) over NY Jets
Philadelphia (-3) over NY Giants
Pittsburgh (-6) over Arizona
Kansas City (+11.5) over San Diego
Seattle (-2) over San Francisco
New England (-7) over Cincinnati

Week 3 Results
The third week of the season turned out terribly for me. I went 4-8-4 with my picks, pushing my season record to 19-22-7. To make matters worse, I took my first loss in fantasy. Next week can't be any worse.

Week 3 Picks
Here are the week 3 picks. I'm 1 game over .500 so far. Time to make a push.

Arizona (+8) over Baltimore
Carolina (-3.5) over Atlanta
Dallas (+3) over Chicago
Denver (-3) over Jacksonville
Indianapolis (-6) over Houston
Kansas City (-3) over Minnesota
Buffalo (+16.5) over New England
NY Jets (-3) over Miami
Oakland (-3) over Cleveland
Detroit (+6) over Philadelphia
Pittsburgh (-9) over San Francisco
San Diego (-5) over Green Bay
Seattle (-3) over Cincinnati
St. Louis (+3.5) over Tampa Bay
Washington (-3.5) over NY Giants
New Orleans (-4) over Tennessee

Week 2 Results
I went 7-8-1 in Week 2, pushing my season record to 15-14-3.

It was a crazy week. Underdogs went 12-3-1 against the spread. And since most people take favorites to cover, that screwed me up quite a bit. Look for my Week 3 picks later in the week.

The Great Tease of My Life
In 2004 the Boston Red Sox saw their fanbase explode as an entire generation hopped on the bandwagon all the way to the World Series title. Much of this was a result of the open Red Sox worship displayed by Hollywood celebrities such as Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Stephen King, and the Farrelly brothers (who churned out the abominable Fever Pitch). What made the Sox even more charming was the agonizing way the team lost every year. Bill Buckner in '86, Aaron Boone in '03, and Bucky bleep-ing Dent all helped fuel the monster and make the yearning for a title so strong that it reached outside the normal fanbase. Thus, when the team made their run, Red Sox nation spread over America like wild fire, even reaching the West Coast.

Although the Red Sox were a great story, baseball fans in Los Angeles need not look all the way across the country to find a team with great misfortune. Our very own Dodgers have been teasing their fans for years.

The Dodgers' last World Series win came in 1988. In 1988 I was two years old, and more interested in Ninja Turtles and eating sand than baseball. This means I have gone my entire baseball life without seeing my team get anywhere close to a championship. The cruel thing is they've always been just good enough to give their fans hope, but just bad enough to take that hope and crush it come season's end.

Since the '88 season, the Dodgers have finished with a winning record 14 times, yet have failed to advance in the playoffs. In that time, they have exactly one playoff win: an improbable victory that will forever be known as "Lima Time". Other than that, they have been unforgivably bad in the postseason. We have had our share of torturous events such as the Jeff Kent/JD Drew base running traffic jam in '06, Barry Bonds' pirouette home run in '97, and perhaps most of all the Curse-of-the-Bambino-like potential of the Mike Piazza trade in '98. Dodger fans have been anything but pain free in recent years.

Yesterday, after winning four in a row and giving their fans a glimmer of hope by pulling to within a game and a half of the Wild Card, the Dodgers lost. They fell to 2.5 games back, and with only 13 games remaining, it looks as if another season of torment will end without a World Series.

Am I jealous of Red Sox fans? A little. I'll admit it. I want to see Alyssa Milano shamelessly bleed her Dodger Blue to the press. I want to see an awful movie like Fever Pitch 2: Dodger Blues made. Most of all, I want to see my team hold up a World Series trophy.

Luckily, the future looks bright. With emerging young stars like Russell Martin, James Loney, Matt Kemp, and Chad Billingsley, the Dodgers look set to make numerous runs at the title. And maybe, just maybe, one of these years they'll get there. Red Sox fans had to wait 86 years for their salvation. Hopefully, I won't have to wait quite that long for mine.

Week 1 Correction
It turns out if the score of a game exactly equals the spread, you push, you don't lose. I was not aware of this fact, meaning my actual Week 1 record was 8-6-2. This means I actually would have made money had I bet on games this past weekend. I mean, if gambling were legal that is.

Week 2
So my 8-8 week 1 showing wasn't a total disaster after all. Here goes nothin' for week 2:

NY Jets (+11) over Baltimore
Houston (+6.5) over Carolina
Chicago (-12) over Kansas City
Cincinnati (-6.5) over Cleveland
Dallas (-3.5) over Miami
Denver (-10) over Oakland
Detroit (-3) over Minnesota
Indianapolis (-7) over Tennessee
Jacksonville (-10) over Atlanta
San Diego (+3.5) over New England
New Orleans (-3.5) over Tampa Bay
Green Bay (Even) over NY Giants
Pittsburgh (-9.5) over Buffalo
Seattle (-3) over Arizona
San Francisco (+3) over St. Louis
Washington (+7) over Philadelphia

Week 1
I went an even 8-8 in my predictions for week 1. Not bad, not great. Doesn't do enough to instill the confidence to gamble real money in me yet.

Celebs' Real Names
This site gives away a bunch of celebrities' real names. But to save you the trouble of clicking through all the pictures, I've chronicled my favorites here. Some of these are just puzzling.

Jennifer Aniston ... Jennifer Anastassakis
Madonna ... Madonna Louise Ciccone
Faith Hill ... Audrey Faith Perry
Carmen Electra ... Tara Patrick
Demi Moore ... Demetria Gene Guynes
Sting ... Gordon Sumner
MC Hammer ... Stanley Kirk Burrell
Natalie Portman ... Natalie Hershlag
Pink ... Alecia Moore
Portia Di Rossi ... Amanda Lee Rogers
Tom Cruise ... Thomas Cruise Mapother IV
Whoopi Goldberg ... Caryn Johnson
Winona Ryder ... Winona Horowitz
Ricky Martin ... Enrique Martin Morales
Elle Macpherson ... Eleanor Gow
Seal ... Sealhenry Samuel
Charlie Sheen ... Carlos Irwin Estevez
Alicia Keys ... Augello Cook
Tina Turner ... Anna Mae Bullock
George Michael ... Georgios Panayiotou
Diana Ross ... Diana Earle
David Bowie ... David Robert Jones
Michael Caine ... Maurice Micklewhite
Jay-Z ... Shawn Corey Carter
Ozzy Osbourne ... John Osbourne
Dido ... Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong
Vin Diesel ... Mark Vincent
Moby ... Richard Melville
Meg Ryan ... Margaret Hyra
Marilyn Manson ... Brian Warner
Meat Loaf ... Marvin Aday
Gloria Estefan ... Gloria Fajardo
Bono ... Paul Hewson
Goldie Hawn ... Goldie Studlengehawn
Boy George ... George O'Dowd
Alice Cooper ... Vincent Damon Furnier
Cher ... Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere
Elton John ... Reginald Dwight
Woody Allen ... Allen Konigsberg
Coolio ... Artis Leon Ivey Jr
Macy Gray ... Natalie Renee McIntyre
Vanilla Ice ... Rob Van Winkle

Now there are some strange ones in there, but to me the strangest by far has to be Elton John's real name of Reginald Dwight. Reggie Dwight? If that doesn't sound like an NFL player's name then I don't know what does.

Dwight has a hole ... breaks a tackle ... and it's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road!!! He takes it to the house!

Colts Beat New Orleans Harder Than Katrina
Looks like I'm 1-0 so far with my NFL predictions, though no one could have predicted the absolute ass kicking the Colts handed the Saints in today's 2007 opener. Peyton Manning threw for 288 yards and 3 TDs and the Indianapolis defense was all over Drew Brees and company in a 41-10 Colts victory.

So much for the off-season defections hurting the Colts defense. The media had tagged them inferior to last year's team after guys like Cato June and Jason David left. Well, tonight they certainly didn't look like they missed the old guys. They displayed great speed and that had that "swarming" feeling that all frisky defenses do. David, now with the Saints, was burned numerous times by Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne for big catches. What a way to welcome back an ex-teammate.

The Colts looked like they could absolutely repeat as Superbowl winners after dismantling one of the best teams in the NFC. I wouldn't hand the title over to New England just yet. As for the Saints, I still think they'll be fine. In their weaker conference, they'll have no problem repeating last year's 10-6 record once they start playing some home games. And come playoff time, who knows?

The Real Roy Hobbs Juiced
It was reported today that Rick Ankiel received HGH in 2004 while beginning his comeback as an outfielder. The report says that Ankiel stopped getting the stuff after it was officially banned by MLB in 2005, but this still puts an unfortunate stain on an otherwise great story.

Rick Ankiel is Roy Hobbs incarnate. A blue chip pitching prospect who loses his ability to pitch, then makes an unexpected comeback as a power hitting outfielder. The only differences were that Ankiel wasn't shot, didn't have lots of sex with Kim Basinger, and for all we know doesn't carve his bats out of trees that were struck by lightning. But other than that, it's the same story.

This is just a sad sign of the times we live in today, where nothing in baseball is sacred. Everything that seems too good to be true probably is because of widespread juicing. Sometimes I wish we could go back to 70's era baseball where everyone was smaller, leaner, and had porn-star mustaches.

Tomko Resurfaces
Brett Tomko, who the Dodgers let go when they signed David Wells, was picked up this week by none other than ... the San Diego Padres. Of all the teams he could have signed with (and apparently his choices were limited to, oh, about 2) he had to sign with the team the Dodgers are fighting with for the Wild Card lead.

I'm not sure how to feel about this one. Part of me rejoices because the Dodgers will probably get to face him an pummel him like the rest of the league has been doing for years. Another part of me is wary that he will gain superpowers just prior to facing the Dodgers and will end up throwing a no-hitter against us. That kind of thing always seems to happen to us, as evidenced this year by the beating former Dodgers like Shawn Green, Edwin Jackson, and Ted Lilly have given us already. Will Brett Tomko be next? I'm really on the fence about this. It could go either way.

Phil Doesn't Choke
Usually when Tiger Woods is breathing down the neck of the leader in the final round of a tournament, the leader crumbles like the Berlin Wall. Usually when Phil Mickelson is the leader in the final round of a tournament, he crumbles like a buffet line under assault by John Daly. Neither of those things happened on Monday, as Phil held off Tiger down the stretch to win the Deutsche Bank Championship by two strokes.

As the pair approached the par-5 18th hole, Phil had a two stroke lead, and the feeling in the air was that somehow, someway, he would blow it. Tiger's tee shot was a ridiculous 270 yard blast with a 3-wood. 270 yards! How the hell does any human being hit the ball that far with a 3-wood? The man is a true beast.

Anyway, Tiger gets on in two, and Phil tries to do the same, but his second shot goes just far of the green and ends up in some nasty thick rough. At this point, you couldn't help but think that Tiger would putt in for eagle and Phil would choke after a pitch and two-putt for par, forcing a playoff. But that didn't happen. Tiger two-putt for a birdie, which allowed Mickelson to walk away with the tournament and the #1 standing in the Fed Ex Cup.

Is this where Phil ceases to ole as Tiger bulls by him? Will this mark the day where the so-called "rivalry" changes from pre-'04 Sox-Yanks to post-'04 Sox-Yanks? Only time will tell. But in the Tiger vs. the field discussion, the field just got a wee bit more defensible.

Esteban Esta Bien
In his first start for the Dodgers, Esteban Loaiza went 7 innings and allowed 3 runs as the Dodgers whooped the Cubs 11-3. This is exactly what Dodger fans should have expect out of Loaiza: A middle of the rotation guy who isn't spectacular, but gives you a lot of innings and quality starts. The important bottom line is, once again, that he's infinitely better than Mark Hendrickson and Brett Tomko. For $1 million for the stretch run, and another $7 million next season, I'm glad he's on our side.

Week 1 Predictions
Are you ready for some football? The new season starts Thursday with Saints @ Colts, so remember to set your fantasy rosters! Here are my predictions for week 1. This is the first season where I'm picking the spreads, so if it turns out I'm good at this I might end up sticking some actual money into it next year. So here goes nothin':

Indianapolis (-5.5) over New Orleans
Kansas City (+3) over Houston
Denver (-3.5) over Buffalo
Pittsburgh (-4.5) over Cleveland
Tennessee (+6.5) over Jacksonville
St. Louis (Even) over Carolina
Philadelphia (-3) over Green Bay
Minnesota (-3) over Atlanta
Washington (-3) over Miami
NY Jets (+6.5) over New England
Seattle (-6) over Tampa Bay
San Diego (-6) over Chicago
Detroit (+2) over Oakland
Dallas (-5.5) over NY Giants
Baltimore (+3) over Cincinnati
San Francisco (-3) over Arizona

So there you have 'em. I'll keep track of my record throughout the season to see how I do.