21st Edition - 10/4/06

• Last Wednesday I decided every Wednesday would be "The Wednesday Fluff," focusing on life outside of sports. Well, I'm not sticking to my guns already. Fluff will happen when and where it can. No day can officially be fluff when ...

• My Twins (Hurting)

A's 3, Twins 2 (A's lead series 1-0)
Barry Zito (a free agent after this season who would look great in a Cubs uniform) outpitched Johan Santana mainly because of Frank Thomas. A year ago Thomas was washed up, and the Sox happily dumped him, now he is a Hall of Famers who might lead his team to the promised land. Don't you love when sports analogies get religious? Punto was my name of the game (new phrase I am trying out that means pick to click). He went 0-3.
And now Bonser (a rookie) is pitching against Loaiza (another ex-White Sox) today at noon.
Name of the Game: Morneau, time for him to show the season stats weren't a fluke.

• My Mets (Hurting even more)

No Pedro, and now El Duque (Orlando Hernandez) felt discomfort in his leg during a jog, but at this stage, he's going to pitch. The pitching staff just doesn't look good, but the great thing about baseball is that the Mets could put up 8 runs a game and it just wouldn't matter who pitches. The Mets play at 3:00 central this afternoon.
Name of the Game: Cliff Floyd, he's hurting with a sore Achilles, but it won't matter when he hits a home run.

• MLB (The others)

Cardinals 5, Padres 1 (Cards lead 1-0): Pujols homers, Carpenter pitches a gem and the Cards forget they have sucked recently.
Yankees 8, Tigers 4 (Yanks lead 1-0): Jeter, Abreu and Giambi all have great days.

• My Cubs (My real team)

Dusty Baker is gone. Joe Girardi is available. I am nervous. It makes too much sense. And the Cubs aren't good at making sense. Before Baker the Cubs never had a real manager (except for Don Zimmer) in my life. Though after being at Wrigley with my girlfriend (now fiancee) for Game 6 of the 2003 NL Championships, I realized Baker is not a good in-game manager. He lost control of his ball club after the Bartman thing, and putting in Farnsworth instead of a rested Zambrano, or a change of pace lefty (Prior had started) are still decisions that bug the hell out of me today.

• NFL (But, really let's just talk about the Bears)

There is a new number one NFL team in the power rankings on ESPN. Click here to read. The short version is, everyone is starting to realize the Bears are good.

• Stuff

Did anyone bother watching "Friday Night Lights?" I have it on Tivo, haven't watched yet.

Also - I was talking to friends about the best movies of the year for me. Here's the list.

The quick list (in no order)
Little Miss Sunshine
The Heart of the Game
Mission Impossible 3
Thank you for Smoking
Beerfest
The Inside Man
Jackass Number Two
Brick

It's a short list, and it's not official. Am I forgetting anything?