What About Bob?

I come back home after a nice relaxing vacation where I enjoyed temps in the 80's to a complete monsoon outside, 4-6 inches of rain and wind is expected on top of the 2 inches we already got and just for kicks we sat through an 8 hour tornado watch on Tuesday. But it's great to be back .....   And happy birthday to me, I turned 21 again!

Funny thing about writing this, I don't look ahead of time and plot out what I will write, not a ton of research is done leading up to this and this should be obvious to anyone who reads this that 99% of the time is is just pointless dribble.  Generally I'll  look over the weekly and season standings, see if anyone really tanked this week (you know, focus on the bad) then look over the Survivor pool, jot down some notes then start typing away.  When I finish I do a quick Google spellcheck, one proof-read and post the blog, sure I have typos everywhere but I don't call them typos or improper grammar I call them creative writing. In total it takes me about 30 minutes to put together this masterpiece, Picasso I am not. 

Today I thought for sure I'd look at the Survivor Pool and see double digit people with losses on SD, I was shocked to see only player (Pickle) pick them. SD, at home vs. the rebuilding Seahawks I would have thought we'd see more action there but nope, most pinned their hopes on the overrated Redskins, 7 players took a loss with them.  But that is not as bad as the 5 losers who failed to make a pick! Really, into week 4 of the season you still could not get your pick in! My fellow Survivors and and I thank you for your service and wish you all the best.   20 players are now gone from the Survivor Pool in the first 4 weeks, they along with (SPOILER ALERT -- Jimmy Johnson)  can now head home, shave and get some food in them. 


Onto the original pool, "Bob w" took it this week, he jumped out to a 7-2 start in the early games then coasted to the finish.  Bringing up the rear was "Kris10" who  after winning week one with a 13-3 mark decided to taste last place this week going 2-14.  I'll have to do research and see if a player has ever won a week only to finish last so quick. (truthfully I won't do any research I'll just say this was a first).   The overall season leader is last week's winner "Rotten 1" with 31 wins which if you are an avid reader of this you would know that I told you a few weeks ago all you need to do is average 8.5 wins a week and you will make the top 10 at the end of the season, with 31 wins through 4 weeks "Rotten 1" is averaging 7.75 wins so at this pace and with the bye weeks coming up we are looking at a slightly below average season in terms of overall wins.   This week two games really helped out players, Chicago and St. Louis, too bad not many people picked these two games.  26 players (20%) took St. Louis to cover and they did and 28 players (22%) took Chicago to cover (@home) and they did, those players saw a huge jump in the standing and the 12 players who took BOTH Chicago and St. Louis really climbed in the standing - of course I was one of those 12 players.  

Looking at the basement of the season standings if the bottom players HighSteppnSeafood 33 losses, mustang 32 losses, PATSAGAIN 31 losses and DK 31 losses all picked the exact opposite teams this season they would make up the top 4 players this season....   and don't sleep on "Vamp" (with  30 losses already), I have been told by him (if he existed) that he always starts slow and he finishes strong maybe if the games were played at midnight he would do better.

And that's a wrap.. now I need to go find my rubbers before going out into the rain....

Nomar Fact of the Week
"Nomar finished second in MVP voting in 1998"

So Late and So Rotten ….

Cue the Kokomo melody … Yup! This is later that usually, I am not going to apologize though, I had much better things going on this week. A few days on the island followed by a few days on the cap, just living the dream for the rest of you.  As I write this my feet are up, sun shining down with cocktail in hand.  My current view:

Now onto the reason we are all here, in week one “joef”  threw his hop behind the Chargers who of course lost then in week two he smartened up and took .. wait for it … the Chargers! So now “joef”   joins 10 other soles who are too dead on arrival, think about that, 11 people could not pick a team to win at all this season.  Is it parity or stupidity? 

But don’t feel bad for “joef”  he is only ½ dumb, he was able to pick enough winners in the regular pool to finish in 2nd place.   He was second only to “Rotten1”, nice name dude … but a 13 win week was good enough to get the smelly one some cash in his pocket and his name in lights for the week.   Nearly ¾’s of the othe players fell between 7-9 wins  The only real pick that shook the standings was SF, only a handful of players took them to cover the 4.5 spread and of course I was one of those handful so those us saw a jump in the standings Monday night. 

Sorry to cut this short but there are skirts to chase and thongs scope but first I need a refill, my glass is empty ….

Now onto the Nomar fact of the week …

“In 2000 Nomar won the batting title with a .372 batting average, the highest average for a right handed hitter since 1939”

Chicks and Football, Please Pass the Dip .....

Great, a chick won the pool this week. I love it when that happens. You know girls, they make their selections using one of two systems; (1) by if like to vacation in that city or (2) if that team has a cute mascot and once in a while this strategy works – bravo. The rest of real game players know how the system works, we know that you don’t have to win a week to finish in the money, just average 8.5 wins a week and in the end that will get you into the end of season money spots. No need to blow your load the first week, let the chicks do that, pace yourselves, it‘s a marathon not a sprint. But congrats to “Kris10” someone had to win week one and I really wasn’t in the mood to win myself.


A little know fact, the pool started way-way back in 1997 in the security office inside Filene’s in Chestnut Hill. Instead of chasing shoplifters a few of us put together a football pool all done with pen and paper each week. The first year there were 7 players, $10 was the fee, first place for the season won $60 last place won $10, and there were no weekly prizes. Why is this important, because even back then, the dreaded 1/2 point difference in a spread would still screw people over? You should know what I am talking about, esp. those of you who took Minnesota this week. You lose a game by a mere half a point ATS! Sometimes you can live with it, like when you are getting 3.5 and your team loses 21-17, it sucks but it wasn’t like your team left points on the board by missing an extra point they just got 2Td's and a FG so be it. But lets revist last Thursday, what a way to start the season for those 27 players who took Minnesota getting 4.5 points, a mere 21% of players who could have started the season off with a leg up but instead they are left mumbling to themselves that a missed extra point cost them a win when Minnesota lost 14-9. You could have been like the rest of us and done..well ...–nothing- you would have been assigned the Saints and won but nope, you had to be different and try to be clever. And believe me, I know who you all are and come the end of the season when people are jockeying for position in the money spots some of you will be wishing you just left well enough alone.


As far as the Survivor pool where the cool people hang out Jimmy Johnson survived another week but sadly several of you hung your hopes one two teams trying to win on the road, never an easy thing unless your Baltimore playing at the Jets but I digress... for those 8 players who took those aforementioned SD and Dallas that is strike 1 or strike 1.5. But don’t feel too bad because 2 players bought into the Hard Knocks hype and actually took the Jets Huh!, I'm going to guess you were the two fans at that game with those brown bags over your head. But as bad as that was you still were not the loser of the week, that title goes to those 5 players who never bothered to make a pick, they probably figured they had too many teams to pick from and couldn't make a decision. Nice job - Thanks for your $10 …. And while we are there all you fuckers better pay this season, no deadbeats, if you signed up and made picks you are in the pool so don’t be a retard and screw the rest of us honest folks over. I'll expose you here, at your work, school, church, I'll canvas your whole neighborhood letting everyone know you are a deadbeat.

And now a new feature this season I like to call ....

"Nomar Fact of the week"
“Nomar Garciaparra's 30-game hitting streak in his 1997 rookie season is an American League record.”

Another Season, Another Reason For Hope

Hope for some ... but for most you  just donated $100 to my ski vacation fund.  With that said, we are back and new season is here.  The newsletter looks a bit different, it is now blog style which makes it easier to update because I now have a lot of shit going on in my life and don't have time to do a fancy web page like last year. I no longer live in the basement just waiting to write for you every week, so I had to streamline the process of getting my biblical words posted in a timely manner.    It also allows you DB's to leave comments instead of sending me your whinny emails, they are open for anyone so have at it, you can even leave them anonymously. 

So..... how will this newsletter be different than last year?  Probably in format only, and maybe a few less pictures but I'll try to post pictures of people when they win but lets face it I plan on winning every week so get used to seeing the picture below.. And I still will only at most skim over my words before posting the newsletter so there will be plenty of typos, if you don't like it then  tell the pool commish to give me a budget to hire a copy editor until that happens I don't give a shit about typos and will rely on Google spell check to correct any misspellings. As far as grammar, if you want a well written piece read the NY Times.

My predictions for this season because you have all been waiting for them - the Super Bowl will be Baltimore vs. Dallas ... as far as the winner, who cares ask me in January....

.....and no ... stop asking me ...  I don't play fantasy football or fantasy sports at all, I am an athlete who PLAYS sports not some tool who creates fake teams and gets excited every-time my fake team QB has a 10 yard pass or my fake team RB scores a TD. I have plenty of fantasy's but they don't involve sports.

As of now there are 118 people in this pool and you all better pay, no deadbeats this season or you will be exposed here with your name, address, email and phone number posted for everyone to see.

Until next week, keep the letters to the Red Sox coming to get Nomar's number 5 retired ....
-05