Ice Down That Igloo Cooler, Tank Of Gas That Oughta Do Her, I Can Feel A Good One Comin On

Out of the gate, congrats go out to Mitch for winning the jar of salsa in last week's 1st Annual Super Bowl Prop Bet Contest. What makes it even more astonishing is that he won despite picking that Fergie's skirt/pants would go below her knees. He went 8 for 10, including that blunder. Impressive. That's how you take home the salsa.

Second, sometimes, you have to attend a super bowl party that has TV cameras show up. What? You didn't. Boring. They came because our buddy's commercial had the chance of airing. His was the Dorito's ad where the guy sucked the cheese residue off the other guy's finger. Neither of those guys are my buddy. My friend is the one that lost his pants in the last segment. And now he's a big deal, because his commercial led off the second commercial break of the super bowl. The TV crews interviewed him and then shot a bunch of B-roll of everyone there. It was pretty cool to see myself and my friends on the local news. And even cooler that it wasn't related to any criminal activity. Someone let my mom know I picked good friends. She'd be proud to know that.

Third, and easily most important, Pitchers and Catchers report in less than a week. I'm positively giddy because Baseball Tonight is airing right now. I genuinely believe that every time baseball tonight rolls, the temperature goes up 0.1 degrees wherever I am. You may think that doesn't matter, but I assure you, just as every game in the season counts, so does every bump up the thermostat. Plus, if you're throwing them away, I'm snatching them up faster than a hungry hungry hippo.

It also means the dawning of the 3rd annual 'Rick Russell knows more about Baseball than I do' competition. The wager will still be the same: you put up a single dollar bill upon which you write "Rick Russell knows more about Baseball than I do", joined by your signature, and I'll give $50 for whomever the winner is. I feel obligated to tell you that the house has taken home all the chips the past two years, and has no reason to believe that this year will be any different.

To give you schlubs a little better chances, I'm making it even simpler this year. In past years, I asked you predict the amount of wins for each team. Now, just determine their final position in each division. For each correctly positioned team, you get 5 points. Sweep a division, that's a 10 point bonus.

Playoffs are still involved as before. Correctly pick a playoff team: 5 points. Get their Wild Card or division champ designation right: 5 points. AL/NL champ: 10 points a piece. World Series winner: 20 points.

Individual awards still matter, so we're going to keep the All-star starter nominations, but, in further efforts to simplify, eliminate the triple crown categories and instead go with ranking the top three for each MVP/CY. Essentially, I'm just asking you to pick the best player at each position, and then the best three overall. I don't know how simpler I can make this without asking what color the laces are on the ball. (Red).

So please. Take the time this year. You've got 50 days until the first game. Put some thought into this, because I only have so much wall space to hang your tributes to my Baseball supremacy. And, maybe, just maybe, you can get lucky enough to sneak one past me.

Doubt it.

Word.