Last Name Ever, First Name Greatest, Like A Sprained Ankle, I Ain't Nothing To Play With

I've held back from posting about this for a while now. Mostly so people believe that I'm always studying, partly because I didn't want to take the time, and minutely because just it's mentioning raises my heart rate and I'm not in sufficient shape to be doing that often. But I can't hold it back any more.

My White Sox play their first spring training game in less than an hour.

Yes, it's spring training and the games mean as much as my softball league, but the point is, they're back. Baseball is back. Baseball coverage is back. Baseball fantasy is back. Baseball conversations are back. Baseball shaped hot dogs are back (signed by the '86 Mets). It's back.

I've come to the point now where it's the only sport I actively follow. It's the only sport where if you tell me a starter, I can tell you his current team, position and a general statement on the quality of him. You give me the third star on pretty much any NBA team outside of the Lakers or Jazz, and I've got at best a 30% chance of getting the team. Football is a little easier because trades are far less frequent, but I would never think about ranking players outside of the top five in the major positions. I simply don't care anymore.

I would get home from church with plenty of time before the first NFL game started. I never turned the TV on for it. Not once. I never even flipped down to the channel it was on. The first game I watched was the Arizona-Green Bay playoff game. And I came in around half time. The Super Bowl was the only game I watched start to finish. I didn't think the day would come when I was a one sport follower, but I am. I'm with Baseball. (And yes, I now capitalize it as though it were a person or deity)

As such, it's time to to announce the 2nd annual 'Rick Russell knows more about Baseball than you do' tournament. The stakes will be the same. I'll give $50 to whomever can beat me. However, when you do lose, you have to send in a $1 bill inscribed 'Rick Russell knows more about baseball than I do - 2010'. Yes, I'm putting myself roughly a 50-1 favorite against the world. (Or the percentage of the world that reads this, which I can only assume is close enough to be statistically similar to the global population) If by some infinitesimal chance more than one person PED's their way in front of me, $40 to the high scorer, and $10 to the second highest.

Going to tweak it a little. Of course, team wins, playoff results as well as Cy Young and MVP will stay in play, but we're pulling Rookie of the Year. Despite the excellent movie by the same name, it's just not a good indicator of personal knowledge.

In it's place, We're going with the top three leaders in each of the triple crown categories for each league. In English, that means the HR, RBI, AVG and the Ks, W, ERA leaders of both the NL and AL. Each correct placement will be worth 2 points. You don't have to get the players in the right order, just that they finished in the top three. So if you think Omar Vizquel has been juicing all winter and is going to finish 2nd in HR this year, but actually finishes in 1st with 48 jacks, you still get the 2 points. Get it? Good.

Also, this time, we're starting with 300 points. That way everyone should finish in the positives, making the victory that much easier to show.

To recap:

Start with 300
Take the difference of actual team wins from predicted team wins, and subtract
Add 5 points for each playoff team
Add 5 points for each correct playoff designation
Add 15 points for picking a World Series team
Add 20 points for picking the World Series winner
Add 5 points for each Cy Young or MVP winner
Add 1 point for each All-Star Starter
Add 2 points for each top 3 finisher in the triple crown statistics.
Highest score wins.

All entries are due before the first official game of the regular season, Sunday, April 4, at 3:05pm ET. Mine will go up on this site at that time. Send your entries to RickRussell239@gmail.com. I'll give you all my mailing address at the end of the season.

And go White Sox.

Word.