A LOOK BACK

It's time to 'fess up: Back in April, Picasner predicted the out come of all 6 divisions. He also issued a challenge to his favorite whipping boy, Bob Matthews. How did it come out? Let's see.

**************PICASNER------MATTHEWS------ ACTUAL
AL EAST-------YANKS---------- YANKS--------------YANKS
AL CENT.------CLEVELAND-----MINNESOTA--------MINNESOTA
AL WEST-------ANGELS---------ANGELS-------------ANGELS
WILD CARD----BOSTON---------TAMPA BAY---------BOSTON

NL EAST-------PHILLY-----------METS---------------PHILLY
NL CENT.------CUBS--------------CUBS----------------CARDINALS
NL WEST-------DODGERS---------DODGERS-----------DODGERS
WILD CARD----CARDINALS-------PHILLY-------------ROCKIES

Pretty close, actually. If you just count teams that made the playoffs, Picasner was 6 of 8, and Matthews was 5 of 8. Picasner's worst pick was Cleveland, who self-destructed almost from the opening day, while Matthews blew it on the Mets, who waited until June to collapse.

Matthews picks the Yanks to go all the way and obviously, Picasner agrees. Matthews has yet to pick the NL team, but Picasner favors the Cardinals.

Sports writers seem to be in agreement that Tiger manager Jim Leyland mishandled his pitchers completely in last night's game, but Gardenhire also "over managed" in the game. Of course, in a sudden death situation, no manager will wait for a pitcher to work his way out of a jam. Jim Kaat always said "The more times you change pitchers, the greater the odds that you'll run into the guy having a bad day." Picasner's take: "Dance with who brung ya'"

***LEFT COAST SPORTS BABE***
One problem with Major League Baseball playoffs, most kids, especially on the east coast, can’t stay up late on weeknights for the usually ridiculously late games. Now, this years’ division series’ will feature exactly ONE game on Saturday – the Philadelphia Phillies at the Colorado Rockies. And for all those junior Phillies fans…the start time – 937 pm eastern. I can hear it now “Mommy, can I stay up and watch the national anthem?”
It never stops and won't as long as the networks throw big money at MLB. A long time ago, there would be two games on at once on different channels, allowing you to pick the game you wanted. In the words of Inspector Clousseau, "Not any more." The networks now pick for you and their choice today: ALL THREE GAMES. Starting at 2:30 am Eastern and ending, oh, about 1:00 am eastern. We're looking at about 11 hours of baseball. Better buy an extra bag of chips.