Everybody in the know has figured it out thatfollowing my sports prognostications is a sure fire path to fame and fortune. The trick is just bet on the opposite of my prophecies. Last week i picked 3 out of 4 losers in the first round of the major league playoffs. The one pick that did win was SF, and in that case it was an old friend who schooled me on the virtues of their pothead star pitcher Tim Lincecum.The key to my consistancy is betting on the underdog. In every sporting event there's usually a favorite, an underdog, and a reason why each is what it is. In most cases of professional sports the favorite usually is the favorite because their organization has more money to buy top notch players than the underdog. Sometimes the odds makers' call is a toss up-even money-50/50 in which case i'm as likely as the next fan to be right/wrong so stear clear of my picks in those. Otherwise, as in all walks of life, there i'll be cheering for the hopeful but usually hapless.
Tonight it's game 1 of the AL championship, Texas Rangers vs. the Evil Empire. Of course i'm picking the Rangers to win the 7 game series. Not just because Bad Vlad, Cliff Lee and my old nemisis Tommy Grieve are part the team, not just because the Damn Yankees resemble a bunch of Wall St. barons binging on unearned bonuses, not just because they win to often by buying up their competition's best players, but because they're the dogs in gambling parlence. On the NL side, despite years of rooting for Roy Halladay when he was a hapless Blue Jay, i'm stickin with the left coast Giants, a definite dog, and their pothead pitching star.
Why do it? Why take pride in rooting for a long string of dogs? Why not just smarten up and ride the tide, go with the flow? For one, as fair Sarah of the North points out, only dead fish go with the flow and i've still got a pulse. For another, after years of losing money by betting bucks with my heart i'm now only in it for the buzz, the thrill of unlikely victory snatched from the maw likely defeat. Winning in sports can be a big endorphine buzz if you're a player, as it was pour moi in years gone by, because of the investment of the effort put into preperation and execution. Watching not so much, unless of course your investment has morphed from effort into emotion. So if, like me, you're willing to ride an emotional rollercoaster that usually ends at the bottom just so that once in a blue moon you get the big buzz, hop on the Rangers ride tonight at 5PM[pst], see ya there.
