Ten Things JJ Thinks He Thinks

Here are 15 Thoughts as the Football Season draws closer by the minute. I do need to mention that thoughts 1-6 were written sometime during the first two weeks of June. Everything from 7-15 was written in the last week. Do not forget to follow me on twitter @justinwjohnson. It is now football season and hopefully I can publish a 10 Things besides once every three months. That is very weak sauce by me and I am better than that. As always please leave your comments or email them to me even if you hate something because it is always cool to get feedback on your work. Enjoy the football and baseball and hopefully no work this Labor Day weekend.

1. NCAA Football Thoughts
It was an exciting week for me as Phil Steele's 2011 College Football Preview hit newsstands. For those of you that are not familiar with Steele's annual preview you should flip through it next time you visit your favorite book store. Here are some nuggets that I found intriguing as we are about 90 days away from kickoff. Again all credit goes to Mr. Steele.

a. In the last 12 years the National Champ had a second year coach four times. In that same time span the eventual National Champ was coming off a 5 loss season 5 times.
b. Correct me if I am wrong but I do believe it is Jimbo Fisher's second year as the head coach for the Florida State Seminoles.
c. The Noles do get to play Oklahoma at home this season. While Oklahoma is a top-5 preseason team they are beatable on the road. In fact in the last three seasons all 9 of Oklahoma's losses have come away from Norman, Oklahoma.
d. Some people are picking LSU to win the SEC West this season but Steele and myself are high on the Tide. This season the Tide lose their QB, Heisman winning RB and top WR. However, when BAMA brought home all the bacon in 2009 they had an inexperienced QB, lost a 1,000 yard rusher and had just four starters back on offense.
e. In 2011 7 starters are back on offense and the Tide have Steele's #4 D-line, #1 linebacking corpse and the #1 secondary in college football. They do not rebuild on The Capstone, They Reload.
f. Since 2004, Georgia Tech hasn’t had a single season in which it completed more than 50% of its passing attempts?  The high water point was a 49.3% mark in 2007. Why did Calvin Johnson choose Tech over Georgia?
g. Only UGA and USC finished in the Top 10 from 2002-2005.
h. Only five SEC Coaches have won 10+ games in four straight years. The coaches would be Mark Richt, Bear Bryant, Steve Spurrier, Vince Dooley and Phil Fulmer.
i. Under Saban, Bama is 13-3 hosting SEC opponents. The three loses were to a 12-2 UGA team in 2007, the National Champ LSU in 2007 and National Champ Auburn last season.
j. The Kentucky Wildcats have gone to 5 straight  bowl games after going to two bowl games in the previous 10 years.
k. Auburns six returning starters are the fewest in the NCAA and they lose 31 letterman from last season's team.
l. The ACC has had one just one team win a BCS bowl game since 1999 and that was VaTech in 2008.
m. Oklahoma is 23-2 in openers in Norman since 1986. Both losses were to TCU, once in 96 and again in 2005.
n. Mike Gundy is 0-10 versus Oklahoma as both a QB and head coach. Oklahoma State has dropped 8 straight to Oklahoma.
o.The home team has lost 5 straight games in the Miami-Florida State series.
p. The loser from the previous year National Title Game has gone 10-2 since 1998. The loses were by Oklahoma in 2005 and 2009. Oregon this season opens with LSU in Arlington, Texas.
q. Heading into this season South Florida is 13-2 against in-state schools outscoring them by an average of 10 points per game.
r. TCU has finished #1 in total Defense 5 of the last 11 years. They are just the 3rd team with three straight #1's.
s. This year's ARMY-NAVY game marks the 10th different venue and since 1963, only 1996 and 2010 saw both teams come in with winning records.Right now Army has lost 9 straight to Navy with the average loss by 26 points.


2. MLB Thoughts From 12 Weeks Ago
a. I was reading some articles late Thursday night and I came across these stats and my mind was blown. How are their only two teams not to make the playoffs in any sport in the 25 years since 1986. Between the four major sports, 98 franchises have been around since at least 1986. Ninety-six of them have been to the postseason in that span. Not the Royals or the conglomerate known as the Expos/Nationals.
b. The Royals have come close to making the playoff just three times in the past 25 years, and they weren't that close on any of them. In 1989, they were the third-best team in baseball with 92 wins, but Kansas City still finished seven games behind the A's. In 1994, they were 64-51 and three games out of the wild-card spot when the strike ended the season. And in 2003, the Royals shocked everyone by winning 16 of their first 19 games. They led the division by seven games at the All-Star break.Only to finish 2003 seven games out of first.
c. Is this changing with all the top prospects the Royals are thought to had. Let's not forget the Royals have had young prospects before not pan out. Some examples include Bob Hamelin who beat out Manny Ramirez for the 1994 Rookie of the Year award. The next season he hit .168, and the Royals cut him a year later. Angel Berroa was Rookie of the Year in 2003, and within three years he was arguably the worst everyday player in the majors.
d. I still think their is something special being built in KC.
e. The Phillies starters ended June w/1.96 ERA - 1st team since July '92 (Cubs, Braves) to go full month under 2.00.They went 17-10 in June despite losing the first 3 games of the month. The Braves did go 17-9 in the month. Some pretty good baseball being played in the NL East.
f. Speaking of good baseball in the NL East the Nationals went 16-12 in June. They were set up to have a great month until they lost the last three games of the month. The Boys in Queens aka the Metropolitans were 16-11. We will not discuss the Marlins.
g. As of July 1st the Padres have 19 wins in 30 day games and 18 wins in 52 night games.
h.On June 29th Cliff Lee had is third shutout win in the Month. As of that date the Marlins only had three wins for the whole month.
i. Jose Bautista has 43 homers in his last 433 at-bats with the BlueJays. He hit 43 HRs in 1,314 career ABs with the Pirates.

3. Best Baseball Books I Have Read
About a month ago three months ago on the Poscast with Joe Posnanski, Michael Schur (creator Parks & Rec) and Posnanski have a draft with their favorite Baseball books. This got me thinking to the best baseball books that I have read. Here are my starting nine with links to Amazon for more book info.

1. Moneyball- The best baseball book I have ever read and the book I judge all baseball books by. I read this book in about 4 days while in college. This book has been made into a movie that looks tremendous with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Here is the Trailer.
2. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth- With 20 books already written on Babe Ruth (one of my favorite characters in history) Leigh Montville combines this research into a fascinating read. Montville who also wrote Ted Williams in 2004 brings fresh observations to his subject, one being that Ruth probably suffered from attention-deficit disorder, which accounts for his inexhaustible energy for everything from baseball to food to alcohol to sex, and not necessarily in that order.
3. Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston- I read this book for a Race and Sports class at UGA and was absolutely fascinated by Howard Bryant's research and reporting. Bryant relays the seldom-told story of Jackie Robinson's April 1945 tryout with the team, which resulted in someone (possibly owner Tom Yawkee) booming out a racial epithet. Having passed on Robinson, the Red Sox did the same with Willie Mays. The franchise was the last to include an African American player on its roster.In reading the book one can clearly see why the Red Sox went 86 years with out winning a world series. It wasn't because of some Curse of The Bambino.
5. The Game According To Syd -Read this book when I was 12 years old and knew that day I wanted to work in baseball. I still find the story on why the Pirates were the first team to change color of the brim of the hat to grey instead of green because it improves a players vision. Flipped through the book couple weeks ago and it is still intriguing.
6. Are We Winning? Fathers and Sons in the New Golden Age of Baseball-Will Leitch is a modern day hero of mine. Kid from small town that loves his team, moves away to NYC. I moved back but Leitch started a website called Deadspin and now writes for the New Yorker and New York Magazine.
7. The Teammates- Explores Dom Dimaggio, Johnny Pesky and Bobby Doerr as Dimaggio and Pesky drive down to see friend and former teammate Ted Williams who they all know is dying. A lot of stories of growing old and living life outside of the spotlight after being in the spotlight for so long.
8. Last Night of The Yankee Dynasty-Buster Olney uses game 7 of the 2001 World Series as the backdrop and explores how the Yankees went from the grinders of the mid to late 90's to baseball highest payroll and why the World Series titles did not continue when the payroll increased dramatically.

9. The Yankee Years-Joe Torre and Tom Verducci not only give great insight to Yankee history but MLB history as whole in the years from 1996 to 2007. Not all Torre as David Cone gives a lot of insight into those mid 90's Yankee teams.


4. Best Baseball Books I Have Never Read
1. Veeck As In Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck- To be fair I have read about 5 chapters of this book as student at NYU, then I got an email the book was overdue and turned it in without checking the book again. What was I thinking?
2. The Bill James Historical Abstract- The book that started the sabermeterics movement.
3. The Natural- One of my favorite movies, why have I not read the book?
4. The Last Hero:A Life of Hank Aaron-Enjoyed Howard Bryant's book on the racist Red Sox. I know I would enjoy it on the Home Run King
5. The Machine- Written by Joe Posnanski what else do I need to say.
6. 56: Joe DiMaggio and the Last Magic Number in Sports- Ted Williams hit .406 and did not win the MVP because of Joe D and the 56 game streak. Man Uggla's streak was a lot of fun to follow this summer and he did not get within 20 games of Joe D.
7. Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy- One of the most mysterious players to ever play. Maybe the most talented lefty pitcher ever.
8. Ted Williams: The Biography of an American Hero- Did you know in games when Williams had three plate appearances he reached base at least once 75% of the time.
9. A Pitcher's Story: Innings with David Cone- Ever since David Wells book who was a drinking buddy of Wells I wanted to know more Cone. Man he broke my heart with the Blue Jays and Yankees.

5. Non Baseball or Football Thoughts from Weeks 12 Ago

a. I watched Franklin and Bash with the roomdawg this past weekend. Very enjoyable and will be part of the summer viewing this summer.
b. For those not familiar with Franklin and Bash it stars two very memorable characters. Breckin Meyer (Road Trip) plays Jared Franklin. The other character is Peter Bash and is played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. If you do not know Mark-Paul's other major character in television history do not talk to me as we are no longer friends.
c. I watched some of the spelling bee on television and this year's winning word was cymotrichous. For those that did not have Ms. Taylor as their 11th grade teacher cymotrichous means having wavy hair.
d. I can use the word in a sentence and the sentence is: The coach is a big fan of the broads with cymotrichous hair. Is that even an acceptable sentence?
e. All of the draft talk in the poscast got me thinking and what will be the next great draft idea that we could share with you the readers. So far my drafts ideas include; Sports Movies, Lunch Spots in the ATL,Garth Brooks songs or favorite UGA football players of all time.
f. Any other thoughts for a draft?
g. This past week the Captain emailed me an amazing link. It was titled Who Had the Best Civil War Facial Hair? Click the link to check everything out. Personally I like Ambrose Burnside. My buddy Andrew is a big Carter Littlepage Stevenson fan.
h. Speaking of my buddy Andrew, he had a birthday on Saturday. Feliz Cimpleanos!
i. Last week I dicussed some great country breakup songs, no idea why I did. In researching those songs I found some classic 20 year old Doug Stone songs. I totally forgot how awesome these songs were. The first Doug Stone that I listened to for the first time in about 12 years was Why Didn't I Think That. The second Doug Stone song was In A Different Light. Youtube user countrycutie424 who put this video together used the Jim/Pam dynamic in the video, All Office fans will find intriguing. If you love both Doug Stone and The Office you will find the video to be AMAZING. The third Doug Stone in the trifecta is I'd Be Better Off In A Pine Box.
j. Safe to say the greatest kicker in Screven County history Donald Sheppard and my buddy Goat are the only one's who enjoyed reading letter I. That's how it goes sometimes.
k. This was the Boston Globe's feature property Saturday Night/Sunday Morning on Boston.com. That's high living. In all seriousness I would love to have that view from my balcony. However, I would prefer to have a house here with my own private beach.


6. What I Read 12 Weeks Ago


The first read from weeks ago takes a look at Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and his rise from video intern to head coach. Spoelstra had the job of breaking down video after Heat games and would often deliver the video straight to the Fed Ex plane at 2:00 in the morning so the tape would be waiting at the hotel when the Heat coaches would wake up hours later in a different city. Fascinating by his climb up the ranks to head coach in the NBA.


The second comes from Sports Illustrated and takes a look at Braves minor league manager Luis Salazar. Salazar who lost his left eye and almost his life in a freak accident in spring training overcomes long odds just to coach his team this season.

The third story comes from one of my favorite new web sites which is Grantland.com. Grantland is Bill Simmons new website where he has put together some of the best writers in the business and they look at everything from baseball to football to movies to wedding announcements in the NY Times. This story breaks down the process of becoming a movie star and asks the question do we currently have any true movie stars?


7. Halftime
This week's song that Smoak and myself use to rock out to while cruising the mean streets of Sylvania is Bourbons & Lacs by Master P from the Ghetto D which in my very white opinion is one of the best rap cd's but what do I know? The trivia question we had last time was to name the 6 players to have hit at least one homerun in 40 different ballparks. This was an impossible task as no one answered correctly. The right answer will be added when I get into work Thursday afternoon. So check back this afternoon. This week's trivia is SEC football related...name the last SEC Champion to not win a National Title?


8. Georgia Thoughts
Pretty much every day for the past month I have been asked what I have thought about the Dawgs this season and would we be back as a program. I have given the same answer: some days I wake up and I see 6-6 again and other days I wake up and see 11-1 or 10-2. Lately I have woken up and have been thinking more 11-1 or 10-2. The two thing that gives me hope are 1. Year 2 in the 3-4 with Todd Grantham, this hopefully means no more thinking....just playing fast and making plays. In addition, hopefully Grantham has figured out some things scheme wise against the spread and teams that will run the triple option against us. Last season our defense was embarrassing on 3rd down. That can only improve in 2011. 2. Two big donkey's in the middle of the field. Juco transfer John Jenkins and redshirt sophomore Kwame Geathers. Jenkins will wear number 6 and Geathers will wear 99. These guys will play nose in the 3-4 right over the center and should require multiple blockers on every play and thus freeing up Christian Robinson and Alec Ogeltree to make plays. I would not be surprised if Ogeltree does not led the team in tackles his first season playing linebacker after playing in the secondary all through high school and his freshmen season last year.

The motto with the offense is in Aaron Murray we trust. Everyone is making a big deal about UGA losing AJ Green and Kris Durham but I find it funny no one is mentioning the fact Boise St lost their two best receivers from last season. The pundits assume Kellen Moore we keep putting up the numbers he has in the past but why are they not saying the same thing about Murray who had a really good season playing tougher competition as a freshman. I am not going to lie I am a little nervous about the offensive line and the lack of depth upfront as this group can not have many injuries. The last time UGA was this inexperienced along the OL was in 2003 and Mark Richt did his best coaching job leading the Dawgs to an 11-3 record with two of those losses to eventual National Champion LSU. I am very excited to see Isiah Crowell and while I do not expect much from him early in the season he might become more of a weapon as he learns more of the playbook and gets accustomed to the speed of play in the SEC.


On Saturday night in the Georgia Dome I have no idea what will happen. I know what I want to happen....an early break for Georgia whether it is a turnover, blocked punt, big kick return and let the 80% Georgia crowd let loose after 9 months of frustration turns into pure pandemonium. I remember reading a quote from Terrence Edwards after the 2002 SEC Championship when we blocked a punt after holding Arkansas to a three and out he said the dome sounded like a bomb went off with the pro Georgia crowd rocking the dome. Another thing to keep an eye out on both sides of the ball....can the QB's and receivers make adjustments when they can not hear each other. This is especially important with both teams starting new recievers. I remember the 03 SEC Championship game against LSU and Nick Saban blitzing from every angle causing David Greene to throw multiple intersections right to the Bayou Bengals. What does not get told is some of the receivers making wrong reads and passes thrown right to the Tigers that night.

(Side note that has nothing to do with anything: JaMarcus Russell was a backup on that 2003 LSU team and in pregame warmups I remember asking a LSU fan who that guy was because I have never seen anyone throw a football like he does. Not many can throw the pigskin like he can, it's a shame he didnt care about the mental part of the position. The Sunfire also popped a flat in the parking lot before the game and it was no fun riding back to Athens on a spare. Ben Ross and myself did have a really good tailgate however.)

Back to the game on Saturday, I think Georgia's defense led by the two large human beings upfront will provide the difference and the Dawgs win 31-21. Do not forget the role our great specialist will play in the hidden yardage game.

9. NFL Thoughts
Once again Phil Steele provides the nuggets, I give you some of the most interesting items from his magazine. Both his college and NFL previews are must reads.


a. The Patriots have won 8 straight after the bye week, the Colts have won 6 straight after the bye, and the Eagles have won 12 straight after the bye week. No other organization is close to a streak like this, any wonder why these three teams are thought to be some of the best organizations in football.
b. Meanwhile the Jags have won six straight before the bye while they are 2-6 the week after the bye in the last six years. On the other end of the spectrum the Bills have lost six straight games the week before the game.
c.In the Patriots last 42 December games they are 37-5.
d. Baltimore has lost 5 of their last 6 trips to Cincinnati. How does this happen?
e. Reason for hope in Houston: Last season the Texans were #30 in Defense but they bring in Wade Phillips as defense coordinator and should not have 2 lb's lose 25 starts to injury this season.
f. Indy has never lost to Houston in Indy and have outscored the Texans by an average of 33-17. 
g. Over the last 5 seasons the Jaguars are 3-12 in their last three games of the season.
h. Denver has dropped the last three to the Raiders at home and 4 out of their last 5 to the Chargers at home. The 59 points scored by Oakland were the most points scored by an opponent in Invesco Field history. (Side note: of the 7 NFL venues I have ever visited Invesco Field at Mile High is my favorite.)
i. On the other hand Denver has beaten the Chiefs 10 of the last 11 games in Denver.
j. The Raiders have lost the last 8 games after the bye week. Safe to say the Raiders are the opposite of New England and Philly.
k. The Cowboys have not won a playoff game since 1996. Maybe on of the more crazier stats in the NFL.
l. Including the playoffs Philly is 8-1 versus the Falcons since 2000. They have outscored the dirty birds 65-24 in their last two meetings.
m. The New York Giants are 11-4 the last 5 years in NFC East road games.
n. The Redskins and Cowboys have played 102 times with the Cowboys holding the edge 60-40-2. The Skins are just 3-16 in their last 19 visits to big D.
o. The Super Bowl champions from the previous season has won 11 straight season openers by an average score of 25-12. The Broncos were the last Super Bowl champ to lose a season opener the following season in 1999.
p. The NFC South Champion has never repeated with the Saints 2nd place finish last year was the best finish ever. The other seven years the champion has finished 3rd 5 times and 4th twice. The Falcons won the NFC South last season as an FYI.
q.Coming into this season the Saints have won 5 straight Monday Night Football games by an average of 33-22.
r. The Falcons have lost 5 straight to the Houston/Tennessee franchise. They have not beaten the Titans/Oilers since 1990.
s. The Bucs have lost six straight non-Sunday regular season games. Last win was on MNF in 2003 against the Giants.

10. MLB Power 9
1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Atlanta Braves
3. New York Yankees
4. Boston Red Sox
5. Milwaukee Brewers
6. Detroit Tigers
7. Arizona Diamondbacks
8. Texas Rangers
9. Anaheim Angels


11. Preseason College Power 10
1. Alabama-Two years ago BAMA had a first year QB and won it all with their defense and running game. Saban knows the script and will stick with the script.
2. Oklahoma-Probably the most talented team in the country but will have two very tough road contests at Florida State and at Oklahoma State.
3. Oregon-Despite only returning 11 starters they return QB Darron Thomas and RB LaMichael James. They do have to travel to Dallas to play a very talented LSU team to open the season. The final three weeks could be tricky with a trip to Stanford and home games against USC and Oregon State to finish the season.
4. Florida State- The ACC's most talented team that does not get any favors from the schedule maker. After home game against Oklahoma the Noles must travel to Clemson the following week. At the end of the year they will visit the Swamp to play the Gators and might have to face a 12-0 VaTech team in the ACC Championship.
5. LSU- Very talented team that will face it's share of distractions at the start of the year. The Tigers play away from Tiger Stadium in three of their first four games. This includes games in Arlington against Oregon, at Mississippi State and at West Virginia. The Bayou Bengals have won 17 straight September games.
6. Stanford-The Cardinal return the best QB in the country so normally they would be ranked higher however the loss of coach Jim Harbough is a huge loss for Stanford in my opinion. They do play Notre Dame and Oregon at home.
7. Boise State- Besides the contests against UGA and TCU they Broncos should win every game they play by just getting off the bus. Kellen Moore returns for his senior season but he does lose his two top receivers. I hope UGA beats this team by 30 points. 
8. Texas A&M- Aggies get bot Texas and Oklahoma State among 5 Big 12 games at home this season. They do play Arkansas and Oklahoma away from College Station. The Aggies were very luck last season only losing 4 starts to injuries.
9. Wisconsin- The Badgers only leave the state of Wisconsin once before October 22nd and that is a neutral sight game at Soldier Field against Northern Illinois. Transfer QB Russell Wilson from NC State could have a Cam Newton affect on this talented team.
10. Arkansas- Tyler Wilson replaces Ryan Mallet and the Hogs should nice miss a beat on offense. The injury to Knile Davis hurts but this offense should roll up the points. They do have to play at LSU and at Bama plus Arkansas in Arlington, Texas. Every other game should be a win. Upset a couple teams on the road and Arkansas could easily be playing in Atlanta in December.


12. NFL Division Winners/Wild Card Teams
NFC
South-New Orleans Saints
East-Dallas Cowboys
Central -Green Bay Packers
West- St. Louis Rams
Wildcard-Atlanta Falcons
Wildcard-Philadelphia Eagles

AFC
South-Indianapolis Colts
East-New England Patriots
Central-Pittsburgh Steelers
West-San Diego Chargers
Wildcard-New York Jets
Wildcard-Houston Texans


13. What I Read The Past Couple Weeks

The first read of the week is a 1995 memo from Bill Gates about this thing called the internet. Click here for a pretty fascinating read.

The second read is an oral history of the television show Friday Night Lights which is the best show no one watched. Why would anyone put a show about high school football on Friday night? Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose.

The third read is titled The Day Kennedy Died and profiles the surgeon that looked after both JFK and Oswald on that fateful day in Dallas.

14. Non Football or Baseball Thoughts

a. Pretty good summer. Made a trip to LA which was awesome. First time in LA and I have to go back. The weather is something else and I think I would like the laid back California lifestyle. Like every else it cost to much to live but to visit it was solid.
b. Of course I also made a trip to NYC with a day trip mixed in to Atlantic City. Went to White House Subs in AC for the first time. That place is legit. When I was in AC I also went to see Stone Temple Pilots at the Borgota. Solid spot and small venue which is always nice for a concert. First time seeing STP in person and they absolutely rocked it. Very good show.

c. Other concerts this summer include Chesney at Lakewood in May and Montgomery Gentry at Turner Field in June. I also did see Corey Smith in July at the Verizon Amphitheatre in Alpharetta. Pretty cool set up, its a shame the venue is up in the Burbs and not closer to the City.
d. Everyone knows Corey Smith for "21" and "Every Dawg." I have yet to meet anyone who went to UGA or has visited Athens on a weekend who does not love the song "21." The song Every Dawg basically are my exact thoughts every Sunday morning I spent driving back from Jacksonville after having my heart ripped outby the Gators every year. That has to change this year.
e. Other Corey Smith songs that are must listens include Maybe Next Year and If I Could Do It Again.
f. It has been a pretty good summer of movies. The best movie I have seen this summer is Horrible Bosses. The second best is Hangover 2. Other movies that I have enjoyed this summer include Friends With Benefits, Super 8 and 30 Minutes or Less.
g. I was disappointed with Bad Teacher and Captain America. In the case of Captain America, just because a movie is in 3D does not make it a good movie. I left the movie theater a little disappointed that night.
h. A couple of movies that I have yet to see but hope to include Bridesmaides, Cowboys and Aliens and Crazy, Stupid, Love.
i. This movie might look like the best one of the summer. The movie is called The Devil's Double as Latif Yahia is an Iraqi forced to act as a fedai ("body double") for Uday Hussein the son of Saddam Hussein.
j. My quest to see a new ballpark each summer continued as I attended a game in Anaheim between the Angels and Royals. Very cool ballpark and very family friendly atmosphere. Other ballparks I have visited this year besides Anaheim and of course Turner Field include Citi Field in NYC, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and Nationals Park in our Nation's Capital.
k. It has been a decent summer of television. In my opinion Curb Your Enthusiasm is the best comedy on television right now. We have had some classic episodes this season with Larry David and Rosie fighting over a broad and Larry proclaiming that "the tie goes to the hetero." The Palestinian Chicken episode might be the best Curb episode ever in my opinion.
l. Is Larry David getting more creative the more shows he writes?
m. While I have enjoyed Entourage a lot this season it has moved more from a comedy to a drama and that should happen as characters age and develop. I am disappointed they haven't worked in a joke about Turtle losing a ton of weight.
n. By the way Eric is turning into the worst excuse of a Hollywood manager/agent that one has ever witnessed. It's Hollywood and what do you care about your ex-fiance anyway?
o. Royal Pains on USA and Leverage are must watches for the roomdog and myself.
p. Why am I not watching Breaking Bad?
q. What other great shows am I missing? I need to watch The Wire, Rescue Me, and Mad Men. What other great shows am I missing out on?
r. Go ahead and pick on me for not watching The Wire and Mad Men.
s. What other shows look good this fall?
t. Very excited for college football and shenanigans in Athens and other municipalities around the SEC this season. Feel free to make your way to Athens for a tailgate or two or three.


15. The Fun Stuff


Tweet of The Week From 12 Weeks Ago
This week's tweet comes from @BENGREENMAN who is an editor for The New Yorker.
Spelling Bee: Champion says "it's hard to find the words." That was a good joke. Too bad the unctuous interviewer didn't get it.


Not sure if I got it either.


Photo of The Week From 12 Weeks Ago
Mark Cuban with the Championship trophy. Just awesome.

Tweet of The Week
Comes from @justinwjohnson who is me. In the words of DP on self promotion....if not me, then who? If not now, when? This tweet comes from me two mornings ago after it was announced the Miami players would only be suspended one game while my man AJ Green got four games last season.

If AJ Green would have traded his jersey w/ a hooker instead of sold it would he have only been suspended one game?

Quote of The Week
From Larry David a couple weeks ago. See this clip for the whole dialogue.

I want to make that smaller.


Photo of The Week

A deer running through flood waters in Lincoln, NJ. This was the third time ever a hurricane has made land fall in the Garden State.

Ten Things JJ Thinks He Thinks

1. UGA Thoughts
Not many UGA thoughts but that goes with the territory this time of the year. This is what I do have.

a. For the 2010-2011 academic year UGA and Florida were the only SEC teams to play in bowl game, NCAA Men's Tournament and make a NCAA Baseball regional.
b. Does it count if you lose to Central Florida in the Liberty Bowl?
c. When you read this Wednesday morning we will be 94 days away from kickoff. Here is to a quick summer.
d. The guys over at the great UGA blog Bubba N Earl are doing a great job with a daily countdown. You should visit everyday. It will only make the summer go quicker.
e. The more I break down our team the more I love our Defensive Line and Linebackers. WIth that being said we are really weak at the back end of the defense especially at Safety.
f. While UGA is traveling across the country to play in the Oregon State regional. It will not be the first time these teams have met on the Diamond.
g. In 2006 when I was living in the Big Apple Oregon State eliminated UGA in the College World Series. The Beavers would go on to emerge from the losers bracket to win the whole that year.
h. In 2007 the Beavers swept a series in Athens while the Dawgs lost two out of three in Portland against Oregon State in 2008.
i. Oregon State has ended the season on a skid, dropping six of their last seven outings, including five straight. The Beavers’ next win will be their first since May 20, and Oregon State’s losing streak has included two three-run decisions, a five-run setback, and, most recently, a six-run loss.
j. The Beavers have lost five of its last nine outings in Corvallis, which could become the fourth different city to have hosted a Georgia-Oregon State baseball game in the last six seasons.

k. A couple of weeks ago it was announced that the UGA hoops team would be hosting the Cincinnati Bearcats in the ESPN made for television event SEC/BIGEAST challenge.
l. As a UGA season ticket holder for hoops I am liking next year's home schedule. Along with the SEC home schedule the Dawgs also get Georgia Tech at the Stegasorous. This is a big time step up from last seasons out of conference schedule.
m. The question now becomes; do we have the players to handle a step up in quality of opponent?


2. MLB Thoughts
a. Has Bobby Abreu ever swung at a pitch outside the strikezone with two strikes? That guy is an OBP machine.
b. BlueJays' Bautista has 80 home runs since Sept. 26, 2009. No other player has more than 50. For those wondering, Cabrera, Pujols and Teixeira are the players with 50 homers behind Bautista's 80 since Sept. 26, 2009.
c. Pirates have now reached double-digit runs three times in their last 137 road games. All three came against the Cubs in Wrigley Field.
d. Something to keep an eye on this summer: The RedSox are a major league-best 64-27 in interleague play since the start of 2006. Keep this in mind as the Boston 9 have interleague series at the Fens against the Padres and the Brewers. The Sox do have to visit the Pirates, Phillies and Astros.

e. When the Nation takes on the Phillies in late June I guess I can join the good doc and everyone else who is not from the Northeast and cheer for the Red Sox.

f. CC Sabathia threw a complete game last Tuesday, and it was the first by a Yankee in 341 starts, an American League record. The major league record was set by the Nationals from 2006-09 with 388 straight games.
g. The 19-inning Phillies-Reds game Thursday wasn’t even the longest game of the week in professional baseball. Jupiter beat Clearwater, 2-1, in a 23-inning Florida State League game. The next night’s game had the same score but was played in 2:11.(great nugget from The Boston Globe's Sunday Baseball Notes)

h. Last week the Cubs for the first time in their history played 10 games in a row at night.

i. I remember watching their first night game as a kid and the game was eventually rained out. The best part of the night was watching Mark Grace, Greg Maddux and others tarp slide. Good stuff.

j. The Cardinals have a 28-12 record when Carpenter does not start. When he starts, they’re 2-9. How does that make any sort of sense?

k. Here is a great nugget from Jayson Stark, other than Jose Bautista, only one active outfielder as won a home run title. I racked my brain for the answer and came up blank (that should not be a surprise), however the other active outfielder to win a home run title is Andruw Jones. How about that stat.

l. It needs to be mentioned that right now outfielders lead in both leagues. Bautista in the AL and Jay Bruce in the NL.

m. For a while on Sunday night it looked as if the Reds were going to win 1-0. This would have been fascinating while irritating. The reason I what have found it fascinating is the fact the Reds have never won a 1-0 game in Atlanta. Last 1-0 road win at Braves-- 1958! (we were the Milwaukee Braves then).
n. I am so glad that did not happen. Also, David Ross Sunday night picked a guy off of first base and threw another Red out at second. He has thrown out 3 of 5 would be baserunners this season.

o. On Saturday night Chipper Jones had his 12th career walk-off hit as the Braves beat Reds in 12 innings...7 of Jones' 12 walk-off hits have come in extras.

p. Why does it seem he has more than 12 career walk off hits?

q. How crazy are the Brewers and the way they win games? On Saturday the Crew won on a pinch-hit walk-off bunt by Jonathan Lucroy.. Last time the MIL won game on any bunt single: April 28, 2004 (Bill Hall).
r. Even more crazier is the fact The last PINCH-HIT "bunt-off" in the majors was also by the Brewers. (Former Met great) Glendon Rusch in 14th inning against the Astros on April 19, 2003.
s. Earlier in the week Brewer closer John Axford accomplished this feat...loaded the bases in the ninth inning Tuesday -- AFTER he'd already struck out the side. How'd that happen? Easy. Axford whiffed the first three hitters in the ninth, but the third (Ian Desmond) reached base on a strike-three wild pitch. Then Axford allowed a single and a walk, and only then got the final out for real, on a fly ball to right.
t. I love when something crazy like that happens!

3. Some fun September Weekends
Everyone knows I enjoy a good multi-city, multi-sport legendary weekend. If I win the lottery between now and then this is what I will be doing every weekend in September.

Labor Day Weekend-My birthday is on Friday
9/2 Friday Night- Dodgers @ Braves
9/3 Saturday- College Football Season starts w. Boise St-UGA at the Georgia Dome

An Empire State/Keystone State/Garden State extravaganza
9/8 Thursday- US Open, Flushing Meadow
9/9 Friday- Cubs @ Mets, Citi Field
9/10 Saturday- Alabama-Penn State, Happy Valley
9/11 Sunday- Cowboys @ Jets, Meadowlands Stadium

A visit to Chicagoland and the Hoosier State
9/16 Friday- Astros @ Cubs, Wrigley Field
9/17 Saturday- Michigan State @ Notre Dame, South Bend
9/18 Sunday- Browns @ Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium

A MLB Legendary Weekend in the Big Apple
9/23 Friday- Red Sox @ Yankees, Yankee Stadium or Phillies @ Mets, Citi Field
9/24 Saturday- Red Sox @ Yankees, Yankee Stadium or Phillies @ Mets, Citi Field
9/25 Sunday- Either of the games above or a quick Amtrak ride to DC for Braves-Nats
Only football option is Giants @ Eagles on the 25th.

4. Some Fun October Weekends

A Sunshine State Trifecta
10/1 Saturday Alabama @ Florida
10/2 Sunday New Orleans @ Jacksonville
10/3 Monday Indy @ Tampa Bay

Rocky Top, Carolina and the ATL
10/8 Saturday UGA @ Tenn
10/9 Sunday Saints @ Panthers 1:00
Drive like a Bat Out of Hell
10/9 Sunday Packers @ Falcons 8:20

Mid-Atlantic to The Big Apple
10/15 Saturday Purdue @ Penn State 12:00
10/15 Saturday Clemson @ Maryland TBA (Could be done if Night game. 199 miles between State College and College Park).
10/16 Sunday Bills @ Giants 1:00
10/16 Playoff Baseball TBA
10/17 Monday Dolphins @ Jets (Monday night in the Meadowlands, enough said)

Another Sun Shine State Trifecta
10/22 Saturday Maryland at FSU
or
10/22 Saturday Georgia Tech @ Miami
10/23 Sunday Broncos @ Miami
10/24 Monday Ravens @ Jaguars


Texas Four Step
10/27 Thursday Rice @ Houston
10/28 Friday BYU @ TCU
10/29 Saturday Missouri @ Texas A&M or Kansas @ Texas
 10/30 Sunday Jaguars @ Texans

5. Podcasts
Last weekend I mentioned my love for twitter and how it has changed how we get our news, sports information and communicate with those who 5 years old ago seemed untouchable. This year I will tell you my favorite Podcasts. I believe in 5 years every new car that we purchase will have the availability to download podcast automatically. No more downloading Dan Patrick to the IPOD, plugging in the IPOD to the adapter, etc. Dan Patrick will now be waiting on me when I crank up my car every afternoon for the ride home. As a big fan of Sports Talk radio how awesome would it be to have interviews from the top Sports Radio programs waiting on me when I get in my car every afternoon. One should also imagine the possibilities on the business side. The ability to focus your advertising by knowing who is listening to certain podcasts etc is knowledge that some will pay top dollar.

I was listening to Jonah Keri's Podcast from May 6th when he interviewed the great Sean McDonough. Sean who is the son of the late Will McDonough the go to NFL scribe for the Boston Globe from the 1960's through the early 90's. One of the items I found so fascinating is that one of Sean's brother is the Director of Player Personnel for the Jacksonville Jaguars. His other brother Ryan is Director of Player Personnel for the Boston Celtics. One sister is at Harvard Business School and another sister is head of Baptist General Hospital in Boston. What a family.

Here are my must list Podcasts Downloads
1. Rich Eisen- Every time I listen I learn something new about the game of football. Eisen is the master at interviewing his guests and often the subject does leave football. I also enjoy hearing the background info on the workings of the NFL Network and this includes the travel schedules that fascinate me.
2. Bill Simmons- The Sports Guy who is a basketball expert but is well versed in every sport. Sometimes the podcasts get to Boston centric but who am I to judge? I respect the passion the people in that town have for sports.
3. Up and In: The Baseball Podcasts- This should be number 1, they only problem is this podcast gets a little lengthy but still awesome none the less.
4.  The Poscast- My current favorite writer interviews some intriguing guests. How is it not awesome?
5. Behind The Bets with ESPN- I love hearing from wise guys and the house on how the numbers gets set up etc. The casino's do not get built by mistake.
6. Jonah Keri- I have only listened to the one podcast which I referenced earlier. Still fascinated by the opportunities that are available.

What am I missing? What are you downloading?

6. Halftime
Instead of linking one awesome song that Smoak and myself used to rockout to while juveniles in the metropolis of Sylvania I will give you two songs that we listened to on the way back from TMAC's wedding to the hotel. I thought it was ironic that we played two songs about cheating after seeing one of our best friends get married but who am I to judge? The first song is I Let Her Lie and comes from Darryl Worley who has a Scotty McCreery sound to his voice. The second song that we listened to was All These Years by Sawyer Band. Random fun fact: I once saw Sawyer Band at Effingham County High School when I was in high school. What does that even mean?


Last Ten Things trivia question was not answered correctly by anyone. The four sets of Father/Son combos with 200 homeruns apiece are Gus and Buddy Bell, Cecil and Prince Fielder, Bobby and Barry Bonds, Felipe and Moises Alou.


This week trivia question is just as difficult. Their have been 6 players to have hit at least one homerun in 40 different ballparks. Name them. Just some hints for everyone. Think players who have played in both leagues and in the not so distant past with the Stadium Boom and Interleague Play.


7. College Baseball Thoughts
This weekend will mark the start of the NCAA Baseball tournament with 16 four team regionals set up throughout the country. My Dawgs will make a west coast trip to Corvalis, Oregon. I hear it is lovely their this time of year. Hear are some thoughts and my predictions which should help you fill out your college baseball bracket. You are filing out a bracket right?


a. The ACC has never had a team win a National Championship. Yes, Miami has won multiple National Championships but none as a member of the ACC.

b. UGA is playing in its 7 NCAA tournament since 2001. Before 2001 the Dawgs had only made 3 NCAA tournaments. Those were 1987 when they went to Omaha, 1990 when the Dawgs won it all and 1992 when UGA lost in the Tallahassee regional.

c. In this years tournament seven SEC teams made the tournament, as did seven teams from the ACC. The Pac-10 joined the Big 12 with six teams selected.
d. One shocker was six time NCAA champion failing to make the field of 64. The Bayou Bengals went 36-20 overall record, an RPI of 26 and 18 wins vs. RPI Top 100 teams. The negatives include a dismal ninth-place finish in the SEC, 13-17 record in conference, and perhaps the most damming statistic, just three true non-conference road games.
e. Meanwhile, the St. John's Red Storm of the Big East finished the season with an RPI of 54 and a 35-20 overall record. They also finished second in the Big East in the regular season and reached the Big East tournament title game. However, they were just 1-3 vs. RPI Top 25, 1-6 vs. RPI Top 50 and 9-16 vs. RPI Top 100.
f. With LSU missing out on the tournament it makes me wonder if the SEC invited all 12 teams instead of the top 8 could they have still made the NCAA tournament? I know if I was on the NCAA Baseball Committee and we were discussing teams I would say how can we invite them to the National tournament when they can not make the SEC tournament.

g. With that being said the Bayou Bengals need to play more than three true non-conference road games.

h. St. John's on the other hand played 26 road games this season. The Johnnies also played an early-season series at Georgia Tech, won a series at Georgia Southern (a postseason club) and played North Carolina in a midweek bout.
i. Safe to say RPI was not a major factor when a team like Arkansas with an RPI of 14 gets shipped to Arizona State as #2 seed. Also, UGA is a 3 seed in the Corvalis regional despite having the best RPI of all the teams involved.

j. For the first time since the NCAA tournament was expanded to 64 teams, the West does not have a team seeded in the top eight. Virginia, Florida, North Carolina, defending champion South Carolina, Florida State, Vanderbilt, Texas and Rice are the top eight teams.
k. My 16 Regional winners are Virginia, UCLA, Florida, Southern Miss, UNC, Cal State Fullerton, South Carolina, UCONN, Florida State, Texas A&M, Vandy, UGA, Texas, Arkansas, Rice, TCU.

l. I do love the SEC and not the ACC with Clemson and GaTech losing home regionals. Besides those upsets I was mostly chalk.

m. My 8 College World Series finalists are Virginia, Florida, Cal State Fullerton, South Carolina, Texas A&M, UGA, Texas and TCU.
n. We will have a Virginia-Florida final with the Gators winning it all. (I can not believe I just typed that).


8. MLB Power 9
1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Boston Red Sox

3. Cleveland Indians
4. New York Yankees

5. St. Louis Cardinals

6. Arizona Diamondbacks

7. Tampa Bay Rays

8. Texas Rangers
9. San Fransico Giants


9. What I Read This Week
A couple of long reads about the sporting world. The first one is the New Yorker profile of Fred Wilpon that made news last week. While Wilpon does call out his three marquee players those comments come in one paragraph of an article that is 21 pages when printed. Also last week Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated profiled Wilpon as well for the magazine. Here is that article. I am still fascinated how Wilpon went from a middle class Brooklyn kid to owner of the New York Mets. His American Dream.

The next article can be found in this week's Sports Illustrated and it is the story that forced Ohio State to deal with Jim Tressel since the school would not investigate on their own. Fascinated that Tressel did not think what he was doing was wrong and how he underestimated the severity of the issues in Columbus. Where was the Athletic Director when all of this was going on? How silly does school president Gordon Gee look today?


10. Non Football or Baseball Thoughts
a. Saw the Hangover 2 twice this past week. Very funny, not as funny as the first but who would have expect that?

b. They used the same formula as the first movie but why change? The first Hangover was the highest grossing "R" rated movie of all time.

c. Mr. Chow is one amazing character. I can not remember another like him. Also, Doug's wife is amazingly gorgeous. She needs a better agent, or on screen credits only include Hangover, Hangover 2, American Pie (where she was a random hot girl), Jezebel's Kiss, Homer and Eddie (when she was four).

d. The actress I am discussing is Sasha Barrese. How does she not have a major role in a movie or television show?

e. Went to Kenny Chesney about ten days ago. As always a very good show even though I was dissapointed in only one encore song. The encore song was "Boys of Fall" while very good, not what I am looking for in an encore song.

f. Kenny did cover the David Allen Coe song, You Never Even Called Me By My Name....has that song ever been played when it has not turned into a great sing along?
g. Billy Currington is a better artist than I give him credit. I totally forgot how many really good songs that he has. Who doesn't love "Good Directions" "People Are Crazy" "Pretty Good at Drinking Beer" and "Let Me Down Easy"?

h. It has to be noted that Luke Bryan actually wrote Good Directions...here is Mr. Bryan singing one of my favorite country songs.

i. Does anyone realize that Billy Currington is from the 912 and Rincon, Ga? He also recorded this song with Shania Twain which might be the worst song ever recorded.
j. I think my wedding season is coming to a close...one more wedding in Athens the last weekend in June. One thing about wedding season is that I get to see and hang out with an A-list crew that I do not see that often.
k.With that being said if I ever find someone who is as awesome as me (let's be serious I am perfect and look like Brad Pitt) the festivities will not be outside in May. With that being said it was still an awesome time.
l. In a couple weeks Peter King (the guy I stole the 10 things from) is looking for guest writers for his column. If I were him I would ask Mike Mayock or Joe Posnanski. King also gets players or coaches to write for him and I would to hear from guys like Kurt Warner, Tony Dungy, Tom Coughlin, either Harbaugh brother, Marshall Faulk or Drew Brees. I will email or tweet him my thoughts. Let's see who he chooses?
m. Three years ago I could not tell you a thing about Mike Mayock. Today I think he is the premiere football analyst whether college or professional. This season he will team with Brad Nessler who is one of the best in the business for the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football. Mayock will also color commentate Notre Dame football on NBC.
n. Because I am a geek I looked up the NFL Networks and Notre Dame's schedule to find potential crazy travel schedules.
o. Their are two weeks that Mayock will have to pull double duty. The first is Thursday November 10th with the Raiders at the Chargers on a Thursday night. Mayock will then take the Red Eye to the East Coast for a Notre Dame home game against Maryland at FedEx Field in Landover, Md. The second crazy travel week for Mayock will be the following weekend when the Jets take on the Broncos in the Mile High City. After the game or the next morning Mayock will fly to Indy or Chicago and drive over to South Bend for Saturday's battle of the Jesuits when Boston College plays Notre Dome. That's a cool schedule.
p. With the Mav's in the NBA finals is everyone else surprised by how quiet Mark Cuban has been?
q. Week away from a trip to Tinsel Town, has anyone ever been? Does anyone have any recommendations?


Text of The Week
From the Good Doctor in the SAV who was doing what Doctors do in the summer.....visit the beach.
Eating breakfast at the Donut Hole in sunny Destin, Florida. If you ever in the area, I highly recommend the pancakes and the red velvet donuts. If Charlie Weis finds this place during the SEC meetings he will be buying a fat boy seat belt extender for the vehicle.


I need to learn more about these red velvet donuts.



Tweet of The Week
Actually last weekend but who is counting? This week's tweet comes from @NJ_StevePoliti who is Steve Politi a columnist for The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)

Well, this whole rapture thing didn't happen -- did Rex Ryan guarantee it or something?

Quote of The Week
From Allen who is played by Zach Galifianakis in Hangover 2

Are we not desert any more? I didn't get the memo.


Photo of The Week
One more item from The Star-Ledger (how does New Jersey's paper get two references in 10 Things)

Ten Things JJ Thinks He Thinks

First time, long time. And we are off...............

1. What I have been up to?
February 21-Last 10 Things
February 28th- Weekend in Statesboro
March 5th- Spring Training
March 12- Event in Chattanooga and family time in Rome, Ga
March 19- NCAA Tournament in Charlotte
March 26- Spring Training
April 2- In DC for Braves/Nats
April 9- Braves Opening Weekend and meeting half of Screven County in Athens
April 16- Braves Weekend versus Mets and Westphal wedding
April 23-High School Baseball and stock the bar party for TMAC in Augusta
April 30- Daley Wedding in Sylvania/Statesboro
May 7th-Derby Party/Shennanigans for TMAC
May 14th- Braves home games
May 17th-New 10 Things
May 21- Kenny Chesney and cousins high school graduation in Rome
May 28- TMAC Nuptials and Braves home weekend
June 4-NOT A THING
June 11- Trip to LA
June 18-Braves home games
June 25- Wedding in Athens
July 2-Braves home games
July 9-No Idea?
July 16-Braves home games
July 23-No Idea? Maybe a road trip to the Nati.
July 30-Braves Home Games


2. Georgia Thoughts

A couple quick thoughts and we will begin first with the UGA Hoops team. I attended my first NCAA tournament this spring and it was one of the highlights of my spring. Despite the losses to Thompkins, Leslie, Price and Barnes I still feel the future is bright for UGA Basketball. The upcoming recruting period is huge for the future success of the program as the state is loaded and it seems more of the top recruits are atleast considering UGA, something they have never done in the past. Now we need to get two or three of these players to enroll in Athens. UGA also steps it up scheduling wise next season as the Dawgs make trips to USC, Xavier and Colorado. Our for sure home games include Mercer, Georgia Tech and a Big East team as part of the SEC/Big East challenge. We are also part of the CBE Preseason Basketball tournament the weekend before Thanksgiving in Kansas City. Future opponents include Missouri, Notre Dame and Cal.

As far as the football team I am loving what I am reading and hearing. Of course that is usually the case when reading about UGA football teams but something about this season seems different. I am not saying we will win the SEC but I like our chances as much as any other team in the SEC East. I also need to discuss the transfer of Washaun Ealey. Judging by the comments of Mr. Ealey one can not wonder that he was part of the problem not the solution. I also hope that entitled attitude displayed by Ealey is not one that still festers in the UGA lockeroom because this attitude has given us a 8-5 record in 2009 and a 6-7 record in 2010. We are better than this.

3. MLB Thoughts
a. On Sunday the Braves beat Philly ace Roy Halladay in what was the 2nd straight CG loss for the Phillies ace. Halladay now has 6 CG losses since start of 2009, no one else has more than 3.
b. At one point during the game on Sunday the Braves had 6 hits, all singles and three of the six were broken bat hits. Reading the box score this morning they looked like line drives.
c. One of the surprises of the 2011 season is the struggles of Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. What makes these numbers even crazier is that After a 9-for-13 series against the New York Yankees in early April, he was hitting .400.
d. Here are some reasons for the struggles, Pedroia is swinging and missing at a much higher rate this season, an issue that’s clearly connected to more strikeouts. In his first four full seasons in the majors, Pedroia had an 8.6 miss percentage on his swings, the seventh lowest in the majors over that span. This season, that has skyrocketed to 20.7 percent, second highest on the Red Sox.

e. Furthermore, his .258 BA with two strikes entering 2010 ranked fifth among active players. However, the spike in strikeouts has led to a .178 average with two strikes this season.
f. In addition, Pedroia is hitting just .239 on fastballs and cutters, down from .320 in 2010 and .310 in 2009. However, the biggest discrepancy can be found on inside pitches. Before his injury last season, Pedroia was hitting .359 on at-bats ending on an inside pitch.
g. In 2011, that has plummeted to a .159 batting average. He already has more strikeouts on inside pitches (10) than he had in all of 2010 (7). So how about inside fastballs? The difference there is massive. In 2010, Pedroia hit .478 (22-for-46) on at-bats ending on an inside fastball. This season, he is just 6-for-31 (.194).
h.So far this season Major League Baseball has had 26 rainouts. All of last season MLB as a whole had 21 rainouts. This season the Braves have already had two rainouts while not having any games postponned in 2010.
i. On average April accounts for 37 percent of all rainouts each year (an average of 12), or more than double the amount of rainouts the league has seen for any other month during the season from 2002 to the present.
j. Over the last ten years the Red Sox and Mets have had the most rain outs. This is a list I hope the Braves never lead.
k. Year of the pitcher? There have been a record 73 shutouts in the majors thru May 10, 7 more than the next-best total, set in 2008.
l. Hitters throughout baseball are hitting .249/.319/.382. Even comparing that only to April performance over the last 17 years, the numbers are way, way down.
m. From 1994 through 2010, hitters in April batted .264 — so that’s down 15 points.Their on-base percentage was .345 — so that’s down 26 points. Their slugging percentage was .421 — so that’s down almost 40 points.
n. On Thursday, when the New York Yankees lost an 11-5 decision to the Kansas City Royals at Yankee Stadium, not a single New York batter struck out. It was the first time the Yankees had gone an entire game without striking out since July 8, 2009, when they defeated the Twins during their final trip to the Metrodome.
o. The last time the Yankees lost a game in which they didn’t strike out was a 7-1 defeat in Detroit nearly a decade ago -- on July 19, 2001. The last time they lost at home without striking out was June 17, 1994, in an 8-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
p.The lowest walk rate among batting qualifiers belongs to Oakland leadoff man Coco Crisp, who has drawn just two walks in 30 games -- an average of one walk per 62.0 plate appearances. As a group, leadoff hitters in the majors are drawing an average of one free pass for every 12.6 PAs, walking nearly five times as often as Crisp.
q. Among the 176 relievers who have appeared in at least 10 games in 2011, only two have yet to allow a first batter they’ve faced to reach base. San Diego’s Mike Adams has retired all 18 of his first batters, and the Angels’ Rich Thompson has set down 13 in 13 games.
r. First batters have gone 0-for-18 against another Padre, Chad Qualls, though he has given up a walk for a still-stingy .053 opponent OBP. Washington closer Drew Storen has the same opponent OBP, limiting first batters to one hit in 19 at-bats. 
s. With a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, the Pittsburgh Pirates improved to 18-17, marking the latest point in the season that they’ve been above .500 since they were 23-22 on May 29, 2004.
t. The Pirates, with 18 consecutive losing seasons heading into 2011, have been above .500 in the second half in only two of those 18 seasons -- the last time in 1999. In five of them, the Pirates never were above .500. In fact, they failed to surpass the .500 mark for nearly three full years, from May 2004 until April 2007.
u. I need to thank the great people at www.stats.com for the last 8 nuggets.

4. Joe Posnanski
Currently Mr. Posnanski has taken over the ledger as my favorite current writer. For a while Rick Riley held that post but he went to ESPN and his work has never been the same. Mr. Posnanski (who once wrote for the Augusta Chronicle) currently works for Sports Illustrated and is a twitter must follow. (more on that topic later) Here are some of my favorite Posnanski reads over the last year. A couple of these have nothing to do with sports. Joe looks at the difference between home and Home. A 16 game baseball season?. Joe looks at The Biggest Winner. Zero Intentional Walks. The last two posts are my favorite Posnanski stories that I have ever read. The first is titled Frenchy and Hope. The second read is titled Katie The Perfect and should be a must read for anyone that works in customer service, etc.


5. Twitter 
It's no secret that I absolutely love twitter and how it has changed how we get our information, how companies market their products and how people once unreachable now have communicate with regular joes (me and you) regularly. Here are some of the favorite people that I follow by category.


Sports Business/General Sports: si_vault Andy Gray,  sportswatch Neil Best,  richarddeitsch Richard Deitsch, SITimLayden Tim Layden, darrenrovell darren rovell, richarddeitsch Richard Deitsch, JPosnanski Joe Posnanski, sportsguy33 Bill Simmons

Baseball PeterMoylan Peter Moylan, Philled_In David Hale,  jaysonst Jayson Stark,  Kevin_Goldstein Kevin Goldstein,  Jim_Powell Jim Powell,  STATS_MLB STATS LLC,  Joelsherman1 Joel Sherman,  ajcbraves David O'Brien,  Buster_ESPN Buster Olney, SI_JonHeyman Jon Heyman

Football adbrandt Andrew Brandt,  giantspathanlon pat hanlon, richeisen Rich Eisen, LATimesfarmer Sam Farmer LA Times, SI_PeterKing Peter King


College Sports: JayBilas Jay Bilas,  GentryEstes247 Gentry Estes, Mark_Schlabach Mark Schlabach, MrCFB Tony Barnhart,  coachmarkfox Mark Fox,  SethEmerson Seth Emerson, schadjoe Joe Schad

Humor GaryUnCarter Gary Carter RAW, EricStangel Eric Stangel, Justin_Stangel Justin Stangel, ConanOBrien Conan O'Brien,  drewmagary Drew Magary

Etc: longreads Longreads,  jamiedupree Jamie Dupree, 


Etc, Etc: I know I left alot of friends of the list but I did not have a friend tab or everyone would have been on it. The only two friends I am going to add are kingdj27 and mhejduk who are absolutely hillarious and must follows during Yankees (kingdj27) and Indians (Mhejduk) baseball games.


Next week I break down my favorite Podcasts. Who are some quality people that I should follow on twitter?

6. Halftime
In the past few weeks since their concert at Turner Field I have become a huge Avett Brothers fan. I had vaguely heard of them and now they are one of my favorites. Currently my favorite Avett Brothers tune is I And Love And You. I am also a huge fan of Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise. This group from right outside Charlotte played the Grammy's with Mumford and Sons and also Bob Dylan. Here is that video. Am I the only one who thinks the lead singer of Mumford and Sons is actually Tim Tebow?

This week trivia question comes courtesy of @Buster_ESPN and co-worker Bob Askin. Their are four sets of Father/Son combos that each have hit 200 career homeruns. Who are they?



7. The 5 Best Baseball Stats Today
We all know about Batting Average, ERA, WHIP but what are some different stats that give us a better way of determing a player's value. I wish some of these stats were listed in the newspaper and on scoreboards inside the stadium like we currently see home runs, rbis, average and ERA.

1. BABIP-Batting Average Balls In Play-BABIP measures exactly what it says: a player’s batting average on balls that defenders can actually make a play on. Strikeouts and home runs are stripped out and subtracted from the player’s total number of at-bats, then batting average is calculated as usual. The point of all this is basically to find out how lucky a player is or isn’t. League average BABIPs are around .300, so a BABIP higher than that means the player’s success is generally luckier than average.

2. Win Share-Comes from the 2002 Bill James book that I might not be smart enough to read. It considers statistics for baseball and basketball players, in the context of their team and in a sabermetric way, and assigns a single number to each player for his contributions for the year. A win share represents one-third of a team win, by definition. If a team wins 80 games in a season, then its players will share 240 win shares. The formula for calculating win shares is complicated; it takes up pages 16–100 in the book. The general approach is to take the team's win shares (i.e., 3 times its number of wins), then divide them between offense and defense.

3. Ultimate Zone Ratings (UZR)-UZR is an advanced defensive metric that uses play-by-play data recorded by Baseball Info Solutions (BIS) to estimate each fielder’s defensive contribution in theoretical runs above or below an average fielder at his position in that player’s league and year. Thus, a SS with a UZR of zero is exactly average as compared to a SS in the same year and in the same league. If his UZR is plus, he is above average, and if it is minus, he is below average. If you want more info go to this Fan Graphs website for the breakdown of UZR. On a side note why do I not visit FanGraphs.com more often?

4. Run's Created- This is another baseball statistic invented by Bill James to estimate the number of runs a hitter contributes to his team. The Technical version of Run's Created formula reads like this:

 Thanks to the fine people at Baseball Reference here is the career leaderboard for Runs Created.

5. Wins above replacement player- Commonly known as WAR, this is a non-standardized sabermetric baseball statistic that is used to show how many more wins a player would give a team as opposed to a "replacement level", or minor league/bench player at that position. While WAR values are scaled equally for pitchers and hitters, the result is calculated differently for pitchers versus position players: position players are evaluated using statistics for fielding and hitting, while pitchers are evaluated using statistics related to the opposing batters' hits, walks and strikeouts.

Yes I am a stat geek. My apologies.

8. MLB Power 9

The Reason for Nine? Nine Innings. Nine position players.Ted Williams #. Babe Ruth Squared and Chipper Jones minus one. All records as of end of games Sunday night.

1. Cleveland- 24-13- Tied with the Braves for the best run differential +41 in all of baseball.
2. Tampa Bay- 23-17- How are they in first place again? This team has won the AL East 2 out of the last 3 years.
3. Philadelphia-25-14. Despite losing two of three the past two weekends to the Braves best overall body of work in the NL. Their schedule does get tougher the next few weeks.
4. Florida- 23-16. Their bullpen has been in my opinion one of the biggest surprises in baseball. Leo Nunez has not blown a save all season. This has to change.
5. Atlanta-23-19 Starting to play better baseball and if this team can get Uggla going, Lookout!
6. Detroit-22-18. Hottest team in base right now going 9-1 over their last 10.
7. Cincinnati- 23-17. Second hottest team in baseball right now going 8-2 over their last 10. Jay Bruce starting to heat up. Big sweep of the Cardinals at home.
8. San Francisco-22-17. Last week we heard of rumors of a Jose Reyes trade. If that happens, look out.
9. Anaheim Angels 22-19. Big series win over Texas is the only reason they are nine and the Rangers are not.

9. What Have I Read?

A couple decent reads over the past few months. The first is an excerpt from the new tell all book on ESPN titled Those Guys Have All The Fun. This excerpt takes a look at the brilliant Keith Olbermann and his lack of regard for authority and the role he had in building the network and the pay cut it took to be on SportsCenter. The NY Times gives us a breakdown on the 770 page book written by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. These two also wrote the 2002 book on the crew of Saturday Night Live titled, Live From New York.

The second read comes from Time Magazine and asks the question Is The FBI Up to the Job 10 Years after 9/11? This article was published a few days before we killed Osama Bin Laden and is still very fascinating. An inside look at FBI Director Robert Mueller's efforts to remake the department after 9/11, and the internal battles that almost led him to quit. Mueller—who was sworn in just seven days after the World Trade Center attacks—threatened to resign twice while serving under President Bush.

The third read comes from the May 3rd New York Times two days after it was announced that Osama Bin Laden was dead. Titled, Behind The Hunt For Bin Laden the New York Times investigates the CIA and US Military search for Bin Laden, how we found him and how everything went down on the fateful Sunday. 

10. Non Football or Basketball Thoughts
a. I absolutely loved the season finale of How I Met Your Mother. I do not even get excited when I see at Woman that we the viewer are made to believe that it is Ted's future wife because I am tired of falling into that trap.
b. In the first episode of the season we see Ted at a wedding where he supposedly meets his wife. In the season finale we learn that it is Barney's wedding but I think the bride to be is Robin not Nora despite Nora's appearance in the finale.
c. I am glad Zoey is now gone as she lasted about four episodes to long but that is just my opinion.
d. Overall an above average season that was better than season 5 but not as good as seasons 1 and 2. I felt like the show was picking up steam before Marshall's Dad died and then it was hit and miss.
e. Looks like a decent movie summer and I think May gets us off to a strong start. From everything I read and hear Bridesmaids looks hilarious and it is more than just a chick flick. Here is the trailor. Some funny broads in that movie.
f. The movie I want to see more than any other this summer has to be Hangover 2. How does this not look funny?
g. The most entertaining drama on television that I watched this season had to be Hawaii 5-0 and the finale did not disappoint. Holy smokes that was a great episode and now we have about 6-7 story lines to start next season.
h. I do know they need to find Wo Fat and find him fast. Hard to believe I started watching this show weekly thanks to a Bill Simmons tweet and leaving the television turned to CBS after one of the NFL playoffs.
i. Not sure about this movie but I will give it a try because it has Will Ferrell.
j. Speaking of Will Ferrell I have not seen the past 5 or 6 Offices but I have them DVR'd.
k. Three years ago would anyone have known that using DVR the way I did in the previous sentence was a verb?
l. Still a couple Modern Family episodes behind but the funniest show on television in my opinion.
m. I do know the A-list crew of Smoak, Shep and Ben are 22 days away from LA. Good chance the City of Angels will never be the same after we visit.
n. For those that have ever been or currently reside in LA do you have any tips for the trip? Unfortunately no Dodger Stadium as the Bums that originally played in Brooklyn will be out of town. We will attend a game at the Big A in Anaheim. Maybe put our toes in the Pacific? I don't know if we will have enough time.
o. I do know I am ready for some Embassy Suites happy hour and breakfast.



Tweet Of The Week
From the very talented Justin Stangel. It truly is amazing how talented and funny the Stangel brothers are.

@charliesheen's morning paper wasn't delivered. Out of habit @charliesheen sent an angry letter to @TMZ blaming Chuck Lorre.

Quote of The Week
Comes from Florida Gator Ja'Juan Story who tells it like it is when asked about his favorite pregame ritual.

I doodoo and then listen to Katy Perry.

If you do not believe me click here for the interview.


Text of The Week
From the price conscience Good Doctor from Savannah
At the Savannah Sand Gnats game for thirsty thursday. Tickets are more expensive than the bravos. Justin Grimm on the bump for the hickory crawdads.

It should be noted the Savannah Sand Gnats have $.50 Natty Lights and $3 Captain and Cokes the hour before first pitch on Thursday nights.



Picture of The Week
This weeks picture of the week comes from the NY Post. Below you will see Friday's borderline inappropriate cover, followed by Saturday's borderline inappropriate cover. I miss reading this paper on a daily basis. Despite my multiple calls and emails they have no plans to add daily delivery in Atlanta.

Eight Things JJ Thinks He Thinks

I had a busy weekend making trips to both Knoxville and Nashville so I only think 8 things this week. That is just how it goes sometime.

1. Georgia Thoughts


A kick to the gut game Wednesday night in Athens that we gave away followed by a unreal win in Thompson-Boling arena for the first time since I was a freshmen in college. (That was 10 years ago). Where Georgia was most successful on Saturday was on the boards. Georgia limited Tennessee to just 9 offensive boards, their second-lowest tally of the season.  Safe to say coach Fox  challenged his team to perform better on the defensive glass after they had yielded 23 offensive-rebounds to Vanderbilt in Athens on Wednesday.  The Dawgs responded by keeping the Vols off the boards, and winning the rebounding battle 35-27. If we can get anything consistently from Jeremy Price down low we have an opportunity to make a run. However, that is easier said than done.

I did make the trip to Knoxville and I was impressed with Thompson-Boling arena. It was my first time inside Thompson-Boling since I was a student manager for the baseball team and we would shower inside T.B.A. on getaway day. The building has since been renovated and I think they did a really nice job and the luxury boxes and Loge Suites are really nice, those are the ones that take up one half of the upper level. From what I was told overall capacity was reduced from 25,000 to 20,800 as they also got rid of the last couple of rows of bleachers in the upper level. Furthermore, tons of banners hanging in the rafters from the Women's team. This is similar to Athens where Gymnastics has all the banners in the building. I am still impressed they sell 20,000 a game for both women's and men's basketball. That is unreal.

Another opportunity for the Dawgs as we have two more weeks of regular season SEC play. This week Georgia visits Florida during the week before hosting South Carolina Saturday night in the Stegasorous.The trip to Gainesville will not be easy as we are 11-20 all time in the O'Dome. However, with the way we have played on the road this season and the Gators potentially missing Chandler Parsons...who knows what will happen. I do know if we can hold serve at home these final two home games we will hit twenty wins and should find the Dawgs dancing in March.

2. Baseball Thoughts
a. It is no secret I think Carlos Gonzalez is one of the best players in baseball, but when I saw these numbers I was a little concerned. For starters, CarGo has only had 1 season of greatness. In addition his BABIP is very high (.384), causing some to question if he was more lucky than good.
b. Other people look his road numbers as cause for concern. Last season he had a line of 289-8-41-41 in 71 games. However, I do not worry about that road line as much as others because .289 is still respectable and with Coors Field as his home ballpark you have to expect some drop off when the Rockies leave the friendly confines of Coors Field. 
c. Is it me or are we seeing and hearing a lot of weight loss/gain numbers this spring? It seem like more than usual. Here are a couple of the countless of numbers that I have found intriguing: The Panda, Pablo Sandoval, lost 38 lbs, body fat down 11%. He now weighs 240 with 19%. The next intriguing weight loss is AROD who has weighed in at 223 lbs. which is down from 233 at end of last year. Body fat dropped from 12 percent to 9. Lastly, Padres 3B Chase Headley reported heavier/stronger at 222 pounds after offseason program. Played most of 2010 at 201, 202 pounds.
d. The Pirates won 17 games last year on the road (64 loses). This is the worst in baseball since expansion in 1961 to 162 games.
e. Carlos Marmol K/9 mark of 15.99 is best mark in baseball history, min 50 IP. He had more Ks than Blanton, Lowe, Arroyo, Carmona. Those other guys are starting pitchers while Marmol is a closer.

f. Joel Hanrahan in 2010: K/9 of 12.92 included a 13.50 K/9 and a 4.00 K/BB ratio over his last 33 appearances. He should be the Pirates closer this season.

g. Nick Cafardo in the Sunday Globe Baseball Notes gives us his list of the top 30 managers in baseball. What are everyone's thoughts?

h. I had no idea Damon and Manny were so close in all-time hits. The two are only separated by just two hits (2,573-2,571) in Manny’s favor. Most career hits combined by a set of teammates?

i. For the Rays last season, Jason Bartlett hit .254 with four homers. For the Brewers last season, Yovani Gallardo hit .254 with four homers and went 14-7 with a 3.84 ERA.
j. Through the first four years of his career, Tim Lincecum is 56-27 (.675) with a 3.04 ERA, pretty darn close to Giants Hall of Famer Juan Marichal, who was 62-31 (.667) with a 3.05 ERA in his first four seasons.
k. Pretty neat to see Under Armour being names the "Official Performance Footwear" of MLB. Say what you want about MLB but they have done a great job finding different sponsors for each part of the uniform. Majestic is official provider of the uniform while Nike is the official provider of all the apparel that is not the uniform. (Undershirts, etc). Who thought you could sell the uniform three different ways?
l. Some of the top baseball players that have been wearing the UnderArmour brand include Buster Posey, Jonathon Papelbon, Ryan Zimmerman, Matt Wieters, Jose Reyes, and Nick Markakis.
m.Monday was a big day in Baseball history as on that date in 1968 MLB announced a minimum annual salary of $10,000. Boy those times sure have changed.



3. 2011 College Football A Dream Season
This is my early breakdown of the top games of the 2011 season and if I could watch any game, any weekend this is what I would choose. I tried to look at National game of interests but my SEC bias and love is to strong.

September 3rd- Georgia-Boise State at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Are the Dawgs back? Last time UGA opened with Boise we won the SEC and was an Auburn 4th and 19th completion away from maybe playing for the National Championship. (My worst memory in Sanford Stadium)

September 10th- Alabama at Penn State Happy Vally, Pa. Two of College Football classic teams (along with classic uniforms) match-up in a great setting in central Pennsylvania.

September 17th- Oklahoma-Florida St in Tallahassee. Potential for #1 versus #2 the third week of the season. Wow. If it is not #1 versus #2 it will be a top 5 matchup.

September 24th-Florida State at Clemson- The game known as the Bowden Bowl for the longest of times currently does not have a Bowden on staff at either school. Tough conference opener for the Noles on the road especially after playing Oklahoma the week before. For what its worth Clemson does host Auburn at home the week before. (more on this subject later).

October 1st-Alabama-Florida in the Swamp. Two of the last three national champions. We have witnessed some classics between these two the past few years. The SEC's two flagship programs. As a UGA guy it hurts writing that last sentence.

October 8th-Ohio State at Nebraska in Lincoln. Holy smokes what a game. These two have the potential to play each other in two months at the first ever Big 10 championship game in Indy.

October 15th-Florida at Auburn-Underrated rivalry by SEC standards. This game has seen Spurrier kick a 40 yard field goal to win the Heisman Trophy. Who can forget Auburn kicker Wes Byrum making the game winning field goal twice in 2007 and then run off the field doing the Gator Chomp. This game seems to always come to a kick.

October 22nd- USC at Notre Dame-Both schools combined have produced the most national titles (21), Heisman trophy winners (14),All-Americans, College Football Hall of Famers and future NFL Hall of Famers (21)than any other collegiate series.

October 29th-Georgia-Florida in Jacksonville. This statement has been written for about 18 years but it is time to change the balance of power in this rivalry to the school from the state of Georgia.

November 5th-LSU at Alabama- The Crimson Tide leads the head-to-head series at 45–24–5, but the series is split evenly at 14-14-1 over the last 29 seasons, including 2-2 during Saban's 4-year tenure at Alabama.

November 12th-Auburn at Georgia- The Deep South's Oldest Rivalry- Auburn holds 54-52-8 lead in the rivalry. However, Georgia leads the cumulative score by thirty-eight points: 1,809-1,771, or a per-game average of 15.86-15.53.

November 19th-Southern Cal at Oregon-One of college football's most prolific offense's against what has been one of it's best defenses. Can Monte Kiffin stop the fast break offense?

November 26th-Alabama at Auburn- The amount of fist-fights for this game will be in the 1000's. (I am talking in the stands, at tailgates, at malls in Mobile) The Alabama National Guard might need to be called in. And no I am not kidding.

December 3rd- SEC Championship in Atlanta. Usually the winner plays in the National Championship Game thus a defacto Semi-final game.

December 10th- Army-Navy in Landover, Md (Fed Ex Field-home of the Washington Redskins). I went to this game this past season in Philly. This game stands for such much more than a football game. Great pageantry. Something every college football fan should witness once.

4. Spring Training Fun Facts

a. The Florida Grapefruit and Arizona Cactus leagues are a 50-50 split, with 15 teams training in each of the two states. With 15 in each place look for more split squad games and off days as an odd number has to be a schedule maker worst nightmare. (This is why we have 16 NL teams and 14 AL teams).
b. The only double-decker spring training baseball stadium in Florida, would be at the home of the Atlanta Braves which is Champion Stadium at Disney’s Wide World of Sports Complex. Champion Stadium is also the state’s tallest spring training ballpark at 100 feet high.
c. Only one Grapefruit League teams share a stadium and that would be the Cardinals and Marlins in Jupiter, Florida. Both the Twins and Red Sox train in the city of Ft. Myers but play at different ballparks.
d. In Arizona we have 10 Cactus League teams share five spring training sites. The Reds and Indians train together at Goodyear, Arizona. The Royals and Rangers both train at Surprise Stadium in Surprise, Az. The Padres and Mariners call the Peoria Sports Complex home. Camelback Ranch is the home of both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago White Sox. Arizona and Colorado share a facility at the brand new Salt River Fields in Scottsdale, Az.
e. Do not ask me why this is more commonplace in Arizona than Florida. My only guess would be cheaper land and more readily available land for these complexes in Arizona than in Florida. But who knows.
f. This year Washington National pitcher John Lannon got to spring training by taking Amtrak from metro DC to Samford, Fl. Pretty cool story.
g. The Yankees train in Tampa, but the Tampa Bay Rays train 94 miles away in Port Charlotte.

5. Halftime
This week's song that Smoak and myself used to rock out to while cruising the mean streets of metropolitan Sylvania is Black by Pearl Jam. If memory serves me correct I do believe that the greatest kicker in Screven County history Donald Sheppard was also a big fan of Pearl Jam back in the day. Last week's trivia question was to name the top 10 home run hitters in Braves history. Co-worker Bob and Donald came the closest each naming seven a piece. The list includes:
1. Hank Aaron 733
2. Eddie Matthews 493
3. Chipper Jones 436
4. Dale Murphy 371
5. Andruw Jones 368
6. Joe Adcock 239
7. Bob Horner 215
8. Javy Lopez 214
9. Wally Berger 199
10. Del Crandall 170

This week's trivia question is The Atlanta Braves took the longest to have a player achieve 50+ home
runs in a season, at 130 years when Andruw Jones hit 51 in 2005.

Can you name the 11 other teams that have never had a player hit 50+ home runs in a season? (5-AL, 6-NL)

I was able to name 8 of the 11.


6. College Football Notes
a. Does anyone realize that the Irish will play Navy in Dublin, Georgia Ireland to open up the 2012 season. How are both schools pulling this off? How much of my tax dollars will be used to shuttle big time Naval officers to Ireland? What about the security issues of keeping safe future officers in the United States military?
b. Notre Dame that same season also plays a neutral site game in Chicago at Soldier Field against the University of Miami. The boys from better hope winter does not come early to the midwest. Just saying.
c. Why does the ACC wait until February to release its football schedule? UGA knows it conference and non-conference schedule for the next four to five seasons. In addition the ACC needs to do a better job of designing a schedule to benefit its stronger teams.
d. The Captain touched on this issue this past mid week with this very informative post.LINK IT
e. Here are some examples, why does Florida State have to play Oklahoma at home the week before traveling to Clemson?
f. Virgina Tech opens up with four cupcakes before back to back homes games against Clemson and Miami. Why do they not break up those cupcakes and split the Clemson and Miami games?
g. Why does ACC make Virginia finish with Florida State and Virginia Tech? Why is North Carolina partnered with the same Clemson-Miami back to back game issue that Virginia Tech faces.
h. How about this stretch for Clemson? Out of conference versus Auburn at home, Florida State at home, Virginia Tech on the road. Who at Clemson angered someone at the conference office?
i. Is this the case of basketball minded guys putting together a football schedule? Their might be something to this thought. Need to more research on how and who designs the ACC football schedule.
j. Let's look at how the SEC schedules its marquee games. Let's look at UGA where our four biggest games (my opinion) are Boise State, Florida, Auburn and Georgia Tech. Boise is first game of the season so we have all summer, this is the third year UGA has had a bye week before Florida in last 20 years (we are 3-1 with the bye week). Just as a reminder we only have three wins against the Gators in the past 20 years. We play New Mexico State before Auburn and Kentucky before Tech.
k. Alabama's four biggest games are at Penn State, Tennessee, at Florida and at Auburn. They play Kent State before traveling to Penn State. They play at Ole Miss before the 3rd Saturday in October. Before the tide roll into Florida they host Arkansas at home. Before the Iron Bowl the Tide play host to Georgia Southern.
l. Auburn's four biggest games are Florida, at LSU, at UGA, and home to Bama. The tigers schedule is tougher by SEC standards but a capcake last season when everything came together and NCAA rules did not apply anymore. Before hosting Florida the Tigers play at Arkansas. After the Florida game they travel to LSU. Not easy or fun. However, the War Turkey's have a bye before UGA and play Samford not Stanford before the Iron Bowl.
m. LSU four biggest games in 2011 include Oregon, Florida, Auburn and Alabama. This is another tough schedule by SEC standards as the Bayou Bengals also visit Morgantown, West Virginia and the Mountaineers in 2011. The Tigers open with Oregon so they have all summer to prepare. Before the Tigers host the Gators, UK will visit the Bayou. LSU must visit Tennessee before Auburn. However, they have a bye week before Alabama.
n. The one team that did get the short end of the scheduling stick is Florida. However, they have not left the state for an out of conference since the early 90's. Plus they are Florida so who cares. The Gators have five really big games this season in Bama, at LSU, at Auburn, Georgia and Florida State. They get a bye before the Dawgs and Furman before the Noles. However, the must play Bama, LSU, Auburn in a row.
o. I know I used this line before but after looking at that schedule no wonder Urban Meyer wanted to "spend more time with his family."
p. Wednesday was a very bad day for Auburn Tigers. For one it was confirmed that the oaks in Toomer's Corner were poisoned and said to be dying. I could go on and on on this topic but I would think no one at Florida would poison UGA or no one at Georgia would poison Smokey the Tennessee mascot. I would also like to think no one at South Carolina would chip or crack Howard's Rock. Furthermore, you would think no Clemson Tiger would poison the South Carolina live mascot Big Spur but who knows. I know the person who did this was not a Bama alumni or season ticket holder but nonetheless where are we as a society.
q. With that being said, any time I see a real Yellow Jacket.....I attack with Raid.
r. Back to Auburn's bad day on Wednesday Thayer Evans, reported that NCAA was investigating coach Trooper Taylor (the jumping jack hat backwards guy) for possible recruiting violations.
s. I like to take everything Evans writes with a grain of salt so no telling the truth but their is a quote in the article that we will see as the quote of the week.
t. Whether true or not this is not a sentence you want written about your program; In December, Lorio told FOXSports.com that several coaches and students saw Robinson show off cash and a new iPhone at school after making an unofficial visit to Auburn earlier in the year.
u. Again this is all circumstantial and has not been proven yet. However, it seems like a lot of smoke for a fire that has yet to be confirmed.


7. College Hoops Power 5
1. Duke- I pray to god the NCAA does not give them the easiest road to a championship like last season.
2. Ohio State- Only two losses were at Wisconsin and at Purdue.
3. Pittsburgh-First road loss was this season was the Garden against the Johnnies. You can't hold that against them.
4. San Diego State- Roomdawg says this could be a 7-2 upset in tourney. I say they could be Final Four team.
5. BYU- They travel to San Diego on Saturday in a rematch of the classic they played earlier this season.

8. Extracurricular Activities
a. Nashville, Tn keeps getting cooler and cooler everytime I visit. Another awesome time on Saturday night. I need to make more trips besides what seems like almost once every two years. I do know I will be going back in October (unless the Braves are playing in NLCS which I hope is the case).
b. Otter's chicken fingers needs to open a location closer to downtown Atlanta than out in the burbs....just saying.
c. If I could only watch one television show a week it would be the Amazing Race. Is it me or does the show seem to get better and better each season. I am worried about the Cowboys as they are one of my favorite competitors and it will be real difficult for them to come back and not get eliminated.
d. However, it is the Amazing Race and crazy happens all the time. For the first stage of the race the racers have gone to Sidney, Australia. How have I never been to Australia before? First thing their summer is our winter so December, January, and February are the times to go.
e. Furthermore, I have yet to talk to anyone who has gone to Australia and not have an amazing time.
f. How I Met Your Mother was decent last night. They have had a good run of about 4-5 episodes in a row so it is tough to bring your A game every week. Seinfeld might be only show that was awesome every episode.
g. Speaking of HIMYM I need to rant on Ted. He spends a majority of the episodes wanting a serious relationship and has soon as he gets in one he flees. He did this last week when he went to Minnesota for no reason. Why does that happen?
h. If I were only allowed to watch two shows a week the second one would be Modern Family. I love every character and Cam's line at the start of last week's episode might have been the best one in show history.
i. If you could watch only two shows what would they be?


Tweet of The Week
This week's tweet comes from @jspriggsdakid who is Jordon Spriggs who is a defensive back for Auburn.
man who is good at writing papers??????????? i pay.........

If I was an Auburn football player I would think I am invincible and that rules do not matter because I will get away with them thus I might see why Jordon does not think they are big deal.


Text of The Week
From the best baseball coach in Screven Coount history...
Am I only person not impressed with Blake Griffin jumping over the car. We've seen guys jump from twice as far back from free throw line. I could jump over hood of the KIA and I'm washed up with sh!tty knees.
I think the most impressive part was Baron Davis fitting inside a KIA. Coach Smoak wished he had my calves....what does that mean?


Quote of The Week
This week's quote of the week comes from Lydia Robinson who is the grandmother of Greg Robinson the athlete whose recruitment to Auburn is being investigated by the NCAA. (See article above) Safe to say she is not big fan of Auburn. The quote is from the article.

She said Auburn's coaches "weren't very intelligent" and was especially critical of Taylor, who she says "got a lot of lies in there when he was talking."

That reminds me of the old joke, how do you know so and so is lying? Their lips are moving.


Picture of The Week
If you look behind the basketball you will find a handsome devil in a red sweatervest. Sitted next to me is one Tyler Graham, Alex Ingle and Andrew Walters.  A-list crew.