Baseball Predictions + jokes = great lunchtime reading

I enjoy baseball. A lot. These predictions will likely be way off. But who cares? Baseball!

Dean meets the Phanatic 2012

AL EAST
Rays -- "Joe Maddon's new glasses day" lures in most fans ever.
Red Sox -- Despite the lowered expectations, Red Sox nation still upset at second place finish.
Blue Jays -- Toronto fans get excited for best third place finish in years.
Yankees -- Yankee Stadium scoreboard ceases to show scores, assures fans team is winning and will get another championship. A-Rod returns disguised as Billy Martin.
Orioles -- Baltimore fans set fire to Nationals park, believing it will help their team.

AL CENTRAL
Detroit -- Entire team forced to start smoking. Closer is nervous b/c his healthy lungs seem to be only reason he was signed.
Indians -- City of Cleveland throws parade for greatest sports franchise in city on May 1st when team is one game above .500.
Royals -- Kansas City Royals fans threaten to move city.
White Sox -- MLB Network offers to make reality show of beer vendor in effort to distract from utterly boring team.
Twins -- Joe Mauer injures scalp after too many takes during Head & Shoulders commercial filming.

AL WEST
Angels -- Pujols appears on Fox News to criticize immigration policies, gun control, and the attention paid to Josh Hamilton's sobriety.
A's -- mid-season decision to move team to San Jose results in very quiet, empty stadium. Allowing team to really concentrate and go on thirty game winning streak.
Rangers -- two words: coke binge.
Mariners -- King Felix caught having sex in big pile of money. No one questions it.
Astros -- Local high school team keeps getting confused for Astros.

GRAPHS!

NL EAST
Nationals -- I hate this team with a joyous passion that the Mets once felt shoot from my eyes like lasers
Phillies -- gonna miss playoffs by 1 game, thanks to that loss on opening day.
Braves -- yes. third. because why the hell not.
Mets -- Mr. Met found dead in Phanatic's basement, but no police investigation follows.
Marlins -- Team stops showing up for games around mid-August, manages to win a few games because real teams forfeit to avoid flight to Miami.

NL CENTRAL
Reds -- Cueto, Chapman, Votto, Phillips & Shin Shoo CHOOOOOOO
Cardinals -- Mark Macguire is a tool. Yadier Molina stubs toe, cries, begs Chris Carpenter to bean a hitter. Carpenter goes to Johnny Cueto's house and beans him. Gets arrested. Tony LaRussa represents Carpenter in court.
Brewers -- Braun indicted on July 4th. U-S-A! U-S-A!
Pirates -- finish at 80-82, McCutchen appears on MLB Network during playoffs simply to smack Mitch Williams for complaining about how that Pittsburgh traded its closer.
Cubs -- The fans storm the offices of Theo Epstein & Co. demanding answers, find him having sex with a robot that reads advanced statistics in a sexy deep voice.

NL WEST
Dodgers -- Team gets Giancarlo Stanton for Andre Ethier's shoes in Mid-May.
Giants -- Brian Wilson starts hanging out in dugout despite not having a contract. No one likes him.
Rockies -- Tulowitski lasts the whole season without injury, but rest of team hurt in August during massive locker room towel-snapping fight started by gleefully giggling CarGo.
Padres -- Moving fences in proves detrimental to left fielders in NL West who keep running into walls.
Diamondbacks -- end up in last place after Kirk Gibson benches team and decides to "Do it all his damn self."

WILD CARDS: Giants & A's
Wild Card: Dodgers over Braves; Reds over Giants; Detroit over Rays; Angels over A's
LCS: Reds over Dodgers; Detroit over Angels;
World Series: Reds over Detroit

The Courier Post sends out a YAWP for Dr. Bird!

A fantastic write-up by Kim Mulford of The Courier-Post, including quotes from WHYY's Dr. Dan Gottlieb.

Something magical must have been in the water at Collingswood’s Grooveground during the summer of 2010.

OK, not really. But two local men who spent hours writing in the coffeehouse turned out sensitive novels exploring mental illness. One was Matthew Quick, already the author of “The Silver Linings Playbook.”

The other was Evan Roskos, author of what was then still a work in progress, “Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets.”

Read more! 

The Philadelphia Inquirer writes about Dr. Bird, mental health, and friendship

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a great article by Kathy Boccella today. It focuses on what's truly important in terms of Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets. Check it out!

YAWP!

Before the enormous success of Silver Linings Playbook, both the book and the film, there was a young-adult novel called MonkeyShark.
Don't expect a movie adaptation starring Bradley Cooper.
But the poignant backstory of MonkeyShark and its protagonists - a redemptive tango of overcoming mental illness and miscommunication, surrendering old dreams and realizing new ones - would be a familiar plot to anyone who saw last year's Hollywood blockbuster starring Academy Award-winner Jennifer Lawrence.
The book was a collaboration between Silver Linings' author, Matthew Quick, and his friend Evan Roskos. Just four years ago, they were two struggling South Jersey writers who met every Friday morning at a Collingswood coffee shop, working on their hoped-for bestseller.
MonkeyShark would not be it.

Read more!