Baseball Is Here and So Are The Braves

I still remember sitting in my TV room last September. A gut wrenching feeling in my gut as I watched my beloved Braves blow another game. And this time their playoff hopes with it. I don't know if I can remember a more painful sports month. The Braves had just completed one of the biggest collapses in MLB history. Blowing an almost certain wild card berth.

Even the bigger collapse the Red Sox had later that night wasn't enough to take the taste out of my mouth. I watched the rest of the playoffs with limited interest. My interest destroyed. We all know what happened. The cardinals benefited from the Braves fall to win the whole thing. Making the pill even harder to swallow for Braves Country. But that's over. A new season is here.

With a healthy lineup back for vengeance and a club determined to send guaranteed hall of famer Chipper Jones out a winner in his last year the Braves are poised for another run on October. With the aging Phillies team presenting a big question mark, the marlins bringing a team packed with talent but also questionable clubhouse cohesion and the Nats and Mets not really providing a menacing threat yet. The Braves have a good chance of achieving that. Only time will tell.

The Braves return one of the best pitching staffs in Baseball, the numbers skewed at the end of the season by injury and fatigue from frequent use out of the bullpen. They also return all but their starting shortstop in their lineup, with healthy revamped versions of all stars Jason Heyward and Martin Prado. A now comfortable Dan Uggla, NL ROY runner up Freddie Freeman, perennial all star Catcher Brian McCann and the speedy Michael Bourne.

With that potent lineup, the rock that is Chipper in the clubhouse and team that is out to prove something after last years ending. The Braves present a team to fear this year. Now we just have to watch it play out.

Look from more from me on the MLB soon. For now here is Jordan signing off

PS A-Rod Sucks!

Bracket Filling For Those Who Are Not Fans Of NCAA Basketball!

Look I love sports as much anyone I know. But I have never been able to get into College Basketball. Don't get me wrong, its very entertaining. Just not something I choose to follow even remotely close. But I am still going to fill out a bracket, it just makes watching the tourney more fun. But if you are like me you have very little knowledge of a majority of the teams in the tourney. In fact some of the schools are schools you probably didn't know were in existence. Let alone D1 Schools that qualified for the NCAA tourney.

So how do you fill out a bracket? If you are suddenly serious about your bracket you may go the route of reading dozens of articles on who the experts think will win. But that just means a lot of work on a sport you don't much care about. Instead I propose having fun with it. Don't put money on your bracket, that sucks the fun out. Plus there is more pressure to fill out a serious bracket when there is any amount of money on the line.

Figure out a method to filling out the bracket. There are endless ways to do so that can bring out some hilarious results. My personal favorites are filling them by your favorite of the two Mascots in each matchup or who would win between the two teams if it was there nicknames battling it out. Of course that could mean having #7: Notre Dame Fighting Irish (featuring a fighting Leprechaun!) beating #2 Duke Blue Devils, because how can you ever argue against an angry Leprechaun? Heck I would probably have #16 UNC Asheville beating #1 Syracuse, because how does the color orange EVER beat a Bulldog? It never does. So there goes a quarter of your bracket right there. But still its fun.

Other fun random ways is picking names out of hats, picking teams based off of which name you like best, or nickname/mascot you like best. Finding out which celebrities went to the schools in the tourney and picking winners based off your favorites from that list. Who has the best Logo between the schools playing. Or going purely based off of seeding in each bracket.

After filling out your bracket, (and with the methods I described I would fill out multiple. Since once again no money is riding on it.) Keep track of your points and use them as cheering points while watching. And when New Mexico St upsets Indiana and you picked it right because Indiana does not have a mascot and NMSU features a cowboy named "Pistol Pete" you can talk all day about how you called it to everyone complaining about their busted bracket.

If your crazy method somehow ends up winning you an office pool or making you look like a basketball genius it makes it all worth the while. In the end just remember to have fun with it.