Burritofinger, doo doo doo

It made perfect sense that I would write a post touting the great control shown by Braves pitchers and then the next night, they lose because Jeff Bennett completely lost the strike zone in the tenth inning.

I always thought that Javy Vasquez was a great pitcher when he was an Expo, probably because the Braves never hit him. Normally, that's a bad test. Exhibit A: Randy Shannon hiring Patrick Nix because Miami struggled against his offense. Once. It's nice that the Vasquez who did well against the Braves is doing well against the rest of the NL.

My 31-month old son asked for the Barcelona 2006 European Champions video yesterday instead of Thomas the Train or Elmo. When I got home from work and heard this story, I had to hold back tears. Roma victor!

I cannot tell you how disappointing it was to see Dr. Saturday write this morning that Alabama's archtype this season should be '02 Ohio State. You're better than that! The biggest misnomer about that Ohio State team was that they had a great defense. In reality, it was aided by playing games with few possessions and plays. I don't know this, but I bet I could prove it.

I really like the zoo. One of the cool things about having kids is that we get to go all the time.

I have a post working in my head about the fact that numerous movie franchises have opted for the "explain the origins" reboot and there are a number of college football programs that need the same treatment. My challenge is to avoid making the post totally obvious. Yeah, Miami would like to go back to the late 80s; what else do you have for us?

I read the excerpts of Selena Roberts' book about A-Rod in SI and it struck me as incredibly unfair. I'm no A-Rod fan by any stretch, but Roberts manages to attack him for absolutely everything. She manages to turn his gesture to Cal Ripken to play short in the All-Star Game into a negative. She uses every anonymous gripe by a former teammate into an indictment. Needless to say, when I get done with Vasily Grossman's war diaries, I won't be buying Roberts' book.

If the Braves can get a serious outfield bat and Hudson and Hanson (or Medlen) bolster the rotation in August, this team has a real shot...other than the fact that baseball's stupid post-season doesn't reward teams for having depth in starting pitching.

I found it amazing that SI decided that 80% of the top five owners in the NFL can be found on the I-95 corridor in the Northeast. Riddle me this: what has Jeffrey Lurie done that Malcolm Glazer hasn't, other than not win a Super Bowl. And suffice it to say that I'm not buying the idea of George Steinbrenner as one of the top five owners in baseball when the Yankees' dynasty occurred on the heels of Steinbrenner being suspended from baseball. I guess everyone in the Northeast must be smarter and better.

What would happen if a Jew like me took the "what kind of Lutheran am I?" Quiz on Facebook?

There's class, and then there's John Terry going into the Barca locker room to congratulate the Blaugrana after a bitterly contested tie. There's class, and then there's Carles Puyol wearing the Basque flag to salute the Athletic Bilbao fans after the Copa del Rey Final. Central defender/captain/club icons are always the most rootable guys, like catchers in baseball.

Why do I get the feeling that Megan Fox isn't really bi and is just leading us all on?

So if we were all supposed to root for New York teams after 9/11, shouldn't we root against them on principle after a chunk of the financial services industry plunked us into a quasi-depression? Mike Lupica, what say you?