Like the normal hard core sports fan I like to pick the winners of everything. From the NCAA Tournament, to a semi meaningless game like Northern Iowa vs. Wichita State.

Last NCAA Tournament I made a bracket and entered it into one of ESPN's bracket challenge pools with about 50 other people I knew. Through the first round I had only missed one game and was ahead by a mile. By the end of the tournament, however, I was in dead last. I found my situation humurous.

So far ten of eleven games have been played in this year's NFL postseason. So far I have picked ONE of them right (Dallas over Philly), just ONE, unbelievable, my bracket is almost the exact opposite of the actual one. Oh well, that's just how things go in sports, you can never tell. That gives me an idea for another post, but it will have to wait. Saints fans should be anxious because I have them winning the Super Bowl.

I also found this situation a tad humerous and began to wonder why sports fans love to analyze games and pick who they think will win. Why Vegas creates Over/Under and point spreads.

I think sports is just a way to get away from our real lives. Most of us are being told what to do and how to do it nowadays and it's nice to be able to look at the data ourselves, make our own choices, create our own brackets, and scores and point spreads or whatever. Just how we, ourselves, like it.

Moving the Pro Bowl to a week before the Super Bowl has its pros and cons. Pros: It shortens the wait between Championship, and Super Bowl Weeks, and more people are likely to watch it because they've still got football on their mind, but that's about it. Cons: Players playing in the Super Bowl cannot participate, and naturally the Super Bowl teams will have more and better players. Hawaii is better than Miami, and let's face it, the Pro Bowl just plain Sucks.

Honestly, it looks like the Pro Bowl is played as a pick up game between fourth graders. There's all these chinsy rules they add, it just makes it more complicated and less entertaining. You can't hit the quarterback, or anyone for that matter, so lineman don't get to have any fun, and I don't pretend to know the mind of a star football player, but I don't think the ProBowl is considered much of an honor, compared to other sports all-star games.

Baseball's All-Star Game is the best all-star game of the major sports. The voting process is a big deal and being selected is also a big deal. If your selected you SHOW UP and PLAY BASEBALL. The players slide hard into second, dive for fly balls, and try to strike out batters. It's a COMPETITION between the AL and NL, none of this AFC-NFC crap. The ProBowl is more of a social get together instead of a game. Baseball players get to have fun during the Home Run Derby, but during the ProBowl Randy Moss would be chatting with Derrelle Revis when he's running his routes instead of trying to burn him for a touchdown.

Hockey is great too. They have a skills competition for fun and then they play the game and everyone is trying to take out Sidney Crosby instead of gossiping with him.

Basketball's All-Star Game is more like a Globe Trotters game, but they play hard and have a Dunk contest and three-point shootout before hand.

If your selected as an All-Star in any sport you should be honored, but the least you could do would be to show up to the game and show people how you can do against fellow all-stars. You need the magic that 40 or so All-Star players can bring to a stadium, and the ProBowl doesn't have it.

I will not be watching it this year.

You can probably guess that we at Statimagician are big Detroit fans. But hey, that's the team we now and love and have to yell at someone when they do something wrong; which is often, in our eyes.

If you are living in Baltimore, or Kansas City, or maybe your an NFL, or Hockey fan, and just have to rant about your own team's bad decision making? Well tell us about it, or better yet, sign up and create your own posts and enjoy all the other benefits Statimagician has to offer, like joining groups or participating in discussions.

But, if your just not interested in signing up right now, (remember there is no fee) then feel free to comment on our posts and leave your own opinions. If it's good enough we'll acknowledge it.

I read yesterday that the Tigers were pursuing Jose Valverde as closer for this year. Now, this is a step up from Fernando Rodney and bullpen is definitely something Detroit must improve on this year, I still can't help wondering how the Granderson trade will affect the Tigers. Will the new prospects help Detroit finally win the Central Division? Will they again, just be beaten out by the Twins? Or will they bring back not so great memories to the people of Detroit?

You see, if you ask any Tigers fan who the biggest leader in the dugout was last year, they'd probably say Granderson. Not only is he an amazing player, but he was a presence in the community and the face of the franchise, kind of reminds you of another Ex-Detroit sports star huh?

That's right, I'm worried the Tigers will crash and burn like the Detroit Pistons did when they traded away superstar Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets.

Joe Dumars, GM of the Detroit Pistons, decided he wanted to make a move that would propel the Pistons into the NBA Championships again. Well, he traded away the guy that held everyone together for a complete bust, and a jerk, Allen Iverson. And just like that the Pistons went from Goliath's in the Eastern Conference to the team with no cohesiveness that everyone picks on.

You probably get it by now, I'm a hard core Tigers fan. And even though I wasn't around to see it, I still know about the magic that 1984 brought to Detroit and the rest of baseball.

That team had everything. Every player did his job, never complained, and had some sort of role in the clubhouse, not to mention expertly managed. The team was very cohesive, the best example being the double play tandem of Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, which pushed the Tigers to a championship, even though no one on that team hit 30 homers or 100 RBI's that year.

That team was one of the best ever and could have even given the '27 Yankees a run for their money, says Trammel. Yet, the only person who was part of that team and is in the Hall-of-Fame is Sparky Anderson.

Five players from that team were on the Hall-of-Fame ballot and three, Whitaker, Kirk Gibson, and Lance Parrish, were ousted after only one year. Maybe their careers weren't quite Hall worthy, but Alan Trammel and Jack Morris more than deserve to earn a spot in the Hall.

I don't know about you, but Trammel's career at shortstop has only been eclipsed by Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, and Cal Ripken Jr. Pretty good guys to be mentioned around, and he's probably the best fielder of them all. He says he's long made peace with the fact he'll probably never get in that he's a team player, but I think deep down inside he has to feel some anger towards the old white men that refuse to see his true worth.

Meanwhile, it's completly bewhildering to me that Morris isn't in the Hall-of-Fame. C'mon, it's the 3.90 career ERA isn't it? C'mon, that's the reason isn't it? The only reason he isn't in the Hall-of-Fame is because of his 3.90 ERA? I mean, he won three World Championships with three different team as a pitcher, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can say that about any other pitcher in history. He was the driving force in all those teams. He played 17 seasons, has 2700 K's, 28 shutouts and 175 complete games in 527 games started and opponents batting average is a skinny .247. Those numbers are great, not fantastic, but sometimes it's not all about the statistics.

There is a silver lining, however, both Trammel and Morris reached high's in Hall voting this year, with Morris getting just over 50 percent of the vote.

These guys will only get better with time.

The answer to the poll: •Which University Squad Won Both the NIT and NCAA Tournaments in 1950, the Only Team To Ever Do So? is...

City College of New York!

Interestingly enough they beat Bradley in the championship of both tournaments that year.

Stay tuned for more College Basketball Polls

The latest issue of ESPN the Magazine has a section of 31 new rules to change sports for the better. Some of them are good, but most of them will never be considered. Still it's fun to think how the game would be affected.

Here I some of the ones I thought would help:

Universal Replay: I'm a baseball purist, so I'm hesitant to this idea, but it would help the umps get the call right and that's what matters. It would keep basketball and football from being decided by a blown call

35 second play clock and one huddle per four downs: This would help speed up a typical football game. A new study done by Wired shows that a football game only has 12:08 of live action per game while games last about 3:06:00. Baseball (12:22)(2:52:00)

Limit Catcher Visits: second time in an inning and the pitcher is gone

An Actual Jump Ball: Scrap the alternate possesion rule

Unify Football Rules: Such as 2 feet in bounds for both NFL and NCAA

Seed NBA and NHL Playoffs Without Regard To Conferance: We all love March Madness

Allow Fouled Out Players To Continue Playing: With a three shot penalty if he fouls again

Either Get Rid Of The DH or Get Rid of Pitchers Hitting: Two leagues in the same sport with different ideas of hitting isn't gonna work out

Do Something About Football Overtime For Christ's Sake

Most people expected the New York Mets to make the playoffs last year. It looked like a good bet, the Mets had guys like David Wright, Johan Santana, and Carlos Beltran. They were a stacked team with one of the highest payrolls in baseball. However, their season turned out another example of money doesn't win championships (with the exception of the New York Yankees, of course).

The problem with that bet was that the Mets only won 70 games last year. seventy.
Granted David Wright had the worst season of his career, the injury bug plagued the Mets all season long, and at one point, I even forgot Santana was in the league because he wasn't beating me down in fantasy leagues.

The point is the Mets have problems, and I don't think Jason Bay is going to be able to fix them. He might jump start the offense, but he won't help the horrid pitching or all of his injury prone team mates.

I actually do hope the Mets make the playoffs, I like their players and I'm kind of sick of the Phillies now.