Seasons

There are moments in the cycle of life that encourage one to stop, reflect, and enjoy their implicit wonder. Perhaps it is the turning of the seasons from Summer to Fall (can't you tell, its only 90 with 90% humidity out), perhaps it is the pending arrival of a child that makes one feel very mortal, or perhaps it is the end of the daily grind of baseball's regular season and the "beginning" of conference play in college football.

This year presents a confluence of all these occurrences for me, and that has made me somewhat introspective. How lucky are we to have arrived at this time of the year? A week of fall rain has saved me mucho energy and $$ spent on watering my lawn. We are closer to the arrival of my (as yet unnamed) baby girl than we are to the date of her conception. The crucial stretch begins for the Horns this week (though hopefully Colorado does not prove to be a worthy opponent). The Dodgers have (finally, exhaustingly) clinched the West and move on to the glorious playoffs (there is nothing better than playoff baseball). To top it off, they will face the Cardinals first, renewing one of the great MLB rivalries of all-time and stoking the flames of hatred between yours truly and the Lone Reader.

And, if I may, Summer and Fall are acting very Spring-like for my co-author, bringing a renewal and rejuvenation of sorts.

There will be opportunity for preview and predictions before Wednesday's first game. Certainly, my sanguine mood will be replaced by a surly, pessimistic gloom as the prospect of Carpenter/Wainwright/Piniero v. Wolf/Kershaw/??? grows closer. But for now, let's just enjoy a day of calm, reflection, and happiness for all.

Except for OU. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

"Carnack" Stockel

First, sorry for the mistaken post earlier. What kind of site are we running here?: I hit one wrong button and whoops! there goes everything.

More importantly, we are now 3 games into the college football season. SLAE was founded, in part, to allow us to make bold, visionary predictions that would be cherised for all posterity -- and subject to endless ridicule when inevitably wrong. In that misanthropic spirit, I went back and reviewed David's pre-summer prediction thread regarding the Horns.

My god, David, what is in the water over there at Legge Farrow!! Let's review:

Game Pick Score

UL-Mon Tex 55-6 Tex 59-20

Wyoming Tex 45-14 Tex 41-10

Tech Tex 49-24 Tex 34-24

So, after three games, including 2 against garbage opponents where picking the score is compromised by meaningless end-of-game points, you are: within 4 points of our score against ULM, within 4 points of our score and Wyo's score, and dead on with Tech's total (a huge surprise given we haven't held them to 24 points since 2005.

What's more, you said we would beat ULM by 39, and we did. You had us beating Wyoming by 31, and we did. That's just sick accuracy!! I seriously hope you laid some money in Vegas because... well... SLAE has its eye on a hot Cisco server and wants to show her the bling-bling. If your trend continues, things definitely bode well for the Horns (and you should quit this law thing and start up a Phil Steele-esque phone line).

Predictions asside, what we saw from the Horns left a lot to be desired. The D was excellent. Say what you want about the second half passing yards, but Tech is going to get those yards no matter what, and holding them to 24 is an accomplishment. The O....not so much. I've been to CLE's with more action than our offense showed in the first half. I don't know if the flu really got to Colt, if this season is going to be 2007 redux, if he broke up with that hottie of a girlfriend or what, but he is just not the same QB as last year. That might be fine if our offense utilized any other weapons besides him, but ... as they say ... live by the spread offense, die by the spread offense.

Something tells me this team starts to gel in the next few weeks, and that game with OU becomes a monster. I know that if the OL doesn't get its act together, I'm going to get an ulcer watching OU's D-line.

Showdown at the OK Corral

Its getting near time. The weekend is fast approaching. One of the participants is a brash upstart, talking a little trash and hoping its swagger will help it win the day; the other is an old powerhouse, the establishment, the tried and true that is confident...nee cocky?...in its prospects. Who will win out? We will see this weekend.

Wait... what?? You thought I was talking about Texas vs. Wyoming. Hell no!! I meant Comcast (parent company of Versus) against DirecTV!! Unfortunately, this ridiculous business brouhaha is likely to prevent me from watching our Horns go off against Wyoming and its long football tradition of ... well, even my in-depth internet research can't turn up any players I've heard of, so it must not be much of a tradition.

How in this day and age is it possible that we can't watch this game!?! Come on people. It is frigging Versus network! I have more leverage with my pregnant wife than they do with DirecTV. How many people really sign up for DTV with the hope of catching the Versus channel nightly? Now that the NHL is back from the hinterlands, what is even on Versus? Mountain biking? Custom hot rod design shows? Extensive late night infomercials?

I can't believe an agreement hasn't been reached between Comcast and DTV on this, but I guess it just goes to show that the anger and bickering we see on TV every night is actually governing the businesss of TV also. I am jealous of those (brilliant) among us who will be dining on Cowboy Saturday evening in Laramie. Wait, that didn't come out sounding right....

Oy Vey!!

If this keeps up, I may just start using SLAE to talk about health care reform...

It is bad enough for the Dodgers to lose a baseball game, especially in the midst of what is shaping up to be an historic collapse in the NL West, and especially on a night when the Rockies magic appears to be fully taking hold. But to lose a game when your ninth-inning reliever commits a throwing error on a simple grounder, then walks in the winning run, that is just stupendously infuriating.

The faith that I once had in this team is nearly entirely gone. I feel like each goal I set for the team is being systematically broken, one by one. I am reduced to satisfying myself with the reality that (in all likelihood) we will still make the playoffs; then I want to puke at the thought of settling for the Wild Card. Each day feels like one tiny failure after another, which is horrible because we are still in first place. Imagine what happens if (when?) the Rockies pass us. I can't imagine how the team can have any confidence left.

Remind me, why do I follow sports?

And So it Begins....

I hate to think, but am starting to believe, we have this to look forward to all season:

1. Fozzy Whittaker will be a game time decision on Saturday.

Death By A Thousand Cuts

First of all, this brilliant picture is off of a site called "executedtoday.com." Really a lovely image, if I do say so, and one that perfectly encapsulates what it has been like to be a Dodgers fan lately.

While some of us have been too busy to blog of late (notwithstanding that we are only 12 days away from the start of college football season), others have been so disgusted by the near loss of a 15 1/2 game lead that the mere thought of putting fingers to keys carried the weight of Leonard Davis five years after his pro career ends. However, on the eve of a massive 3 game series in Colorado, I felt the need to add my thoughts to the ether .... lest the bloodletting soon be completed and render me incapable of offering any more.

I suppose the good fan in me should concede nothing. We have a 3 game lead still, and just as easily as a Colorado sweep of the next three games could erase that lead, a Dodgers sweep could make it 6. Still, Old Mo' is really on the Rockies side, and i get the feeling the Boys in Blue are wilting under the pressure of their first real challenge since Manny arrived last year. Ned Colletti elected to do nothing prior to the trading deadline, and we will see if that is brilliant faith in the young kids or delusional myopia predicated on saving a little money.

Needless to say, I don't have a good feeling at the start of this series. Amazingly, it feels as though the Dodgers have already lost their lead and the series, despite the fact that the Rockies are trotting out Josh Fogg and Jason Hammel (he of the 7.00+ ERA at home) as two of their starters. The way the Dodgers have been hitting, though, I can't see us taking more than one in the series. At this point, I feel it is more likely Vicente Padilla incites a full-blown riot by hitting Todd Helton in the head than that the Dodgers pull 2 of 3. Still, I will be pulling for them, if only because baseball is a synonym for masochism.

Where's the Tylenol?

We at SLAE are not always big on numbers, but let me throw out some numbers.

14 W - 17L (the Dodgers' record since the All-Star Break).

6-9 (the Dodgers' record in August).

4 1/2 (the number of games back in the NL West of the Rockies.

3 (number of blown saves by Broxton out of his last 5 opportunities).

0-2, 4.76 ERA (tonight's starter's, Chad Billingsley, numbers lifetime against the Cardinals).

We at SLAE are also not ones to panic when things turn bad.

Wait....yes we are.....P A N I C!!!!!!

After last nights systematic dismantling by Chris Carpenter and the Cards (which should please the Lone Reader), the NL West suddenly looks imminently loseable by the Boys in Blue. The numbers tell part of the story, but what is most concerning is that they are just playing bad baseball.

Carpenter, with all due respect, did not look particularly dominant last night. Evidencing the SLAE jinx, Bison Kemp struck out twice on HORRIBLE pitches, even after working the count in his favor. Casey Blake is going through his predictable decline to slap-hitter status (which belies his size and Beard), Furcal and Hudson continue to fail to spark the top of the lineup, and Manny still does not look like the Manny of old (and certainly not the Manny of last year).

I'll give some credit to the Cards (mostly for Lone Reader's benefit). Pujols is a frigging God. The guy seriously should just relocate to Mount Olympus. Ankiel hit a mammoth home run, and Ludwick made a beautiful throw to nail Ethier at third on a sac fly. But more than anything, they impressed me by making just enough plays to hang around until they got to poor Charlie Haeger -- which you just knew was going to happen eventually.

The Dodgers are playing right now without that confidence and assurance. Watching them, they don't look like they are always thiiiiis close to pulling a game out (as the good teams do), they look like they have to put up 9 runs in order to have a chance to win. And no team is going to do that in the playoffs (if they, gulp, get there).

So now the questions start: did the team get complacent (I think so); is the bullpen dead tired (umm, yeah); is there enough starting pitching to survive a stretch run and the playoffs, especially with Kuroda out for at least a start and of questionable effectiveness when he returns (we'll see); what the hell happened to the offense that was getting key hits early in the year and always seemed to have guys on base (who the hell knows).

All I know, is I am thiiiiiiiiis close to full-fledged meltdown mode, and if Billingsley can't beat
Mitchell Boggs tonight, and the Rockies win, I could spend the night curled in the fetal position in the corner of my living room.

How long until Longhorns football starts again?!?