So Blog’s eighth-seeded playoff Team won World Series. Uncertainty! It rules MLB Postseason! It was fun post-season. Now that Tony LaRussa has hung up managing shoes, maybe he can join Randy Johnson, Keith Hernandez, etc. in Just for Men ad campaign.

But Blog has sadder news, this day. Apparently mean ol’ Regions Bank has decided IT’S NOT COOL that Dippin’ Dots owes it $11 million. As many readers may know, Blog has long been very pro-DDs and does indeed view them as ice cream of future.

Must credit WAYWARD O, Son!

Apparently, DD has figured out a way to keep operating in bankruptcy. Let’s have Christian Science Monitor take it from here:

Dippin’ Dots, which sells cryogenically frozen beads of ice cream, markets itself to stores, as well as a number of amusement parks across the country, theaters and malls.

And ballparks! Was there ever a better description? Anyway DD, best of luck squaring away your debt. Here’s to more chilled pellets for many “future” summers to come.

Blog was kind of avoiding this but here are grades for Blog’s 2K11 regular season predictions:

AL East: Blog incorrectly said Yankees wouldn’t finish in first. That was wrong. But Blog very accurately predicted an “epic pigpile with built-in playoff gravitas.” Not as bad as blog feared. B-

AL Central: Blog picked Tigers to end up in first along with Twins, who were horrible and finished last. But Twins’ injuries were brutal so that mitigates dumbness of prediction. Blog had Indians finishing last, instead they finished second. C+

AL West: Blog had Texas correctly “in playoff mix,” but saw Oakland with a surprise division win. Instead, Oakland was pretty bad. C

NL East: Blog had Phillies and Braves finishing one and two. Blog incorrectly had Marlins finishing ahead of Nats and Mets. Still a pretty good job though. Incidentally, great job by Nats! (Blog’s NL 2012 mascot team probably – sorry SF Giants) B+

NL Central: Blog had St. Louie in wild card, which was an accurate prediction. But Blog had Reds winning division and Brew Crew at pack middle. Blog also had Pirates in cellar (they had Garrett Atkins!) but Pittsburgh instead finished ahead of Cubs and Astros. C-

NL West: Blog had Giants correctly picked for second and Dodgers correctly slotted in third. But once again Blog saw Rockies coming in first and once again Colorado underperformed. Blog had no inkling of coming Diamondback success, very dumbly picking them for last place. C-

Overall: A very pedestrian showing. Lots of gentleman’s C’s and a couple bright spots. But no nails-on-head and no total flameouts, either. C Next year, Blog will try to do better.

Couple things in life we know for sure: Internet getting expensive, pale ale remains delicious and you can’t f*ck with a chipwich!

Also, when Blog blasts mobile thoughts related to Alex Rodriguez, paper of record listens!

Via NY Times

Anyway, you’re more than Welcome, Mr. Fancy City Room Man. Blog is free and always will be. Hahaha. Get it?

Sox by Prox: I like it
The Wayward O: It’s fun to do
Sox by Prox: Have you considered adding uncertainty negative points?
The Wayward O: [Blog thinks] there’s an underlying assumption that all teams in playoffs have liabilities
Sox by Prox: Makes sense. Playing a little devil’s advocate
The Wayward O: Got any examples in mind?
Sox by Prox: Not really. I was thinking if the Yankees had to wind up starting someone like A.J. Burnett
The Wayward O: Even a Burnett sighting would fall under umbrella of randomness
People that give [Blog] most sh*t about system are statheads who hate RBI. But RBI qualifier, because it looks at past as opposed to future, helps avoid arbitrary cap on how many games a guy has to have played to be considered. That said, it’s still a bit arbitrary
Sox by Prox: Well it would have to be, right? Any time you’re going to make a judgment about stats, you’re going to have to draw an “arbitrary” line somewhere
I’m not a big baseball guy, but the 100 RBI doesn’t bother me. My biggest question is the 54 home wins. Why 54?
The Wayward O: It says you win two out of every three home games. To me it translates to certainty
Sox by Prox: Got it
The Wayward O: You’d be surprised how hard that is to do. Only Milwaukee did it this year
[Blog supposes] if someone ever managed some sick number of road wins, there could be a point in there for them too.
Sox by Prox: 3/5 maybe
The Wayward O: One criteria [Blog] had when figuring out what would be worth looking at was: Was it hard? Was it difficult?Like 3/5 notion a lot. Bet few if any teams have a .600 road win percentage, which would be 49 road wins [checks Baseball Reference] Philly was only MLB team this year to eclipse that mark with 50 road wins
But even if you gave Philly another point this year it doesn’t affect seedings

“Blog’s certainty system doesn’t award certainty points because they’re easy, it awards them because they’re hard.” — John F. Kennedy*

Last year’s Phillies over Rays prediction, based on formula below, was off the mark. But in other years system has proven pretty good at predicting playoffs.

System has changed a little at times over past five years, however, and hardly can be construed as consistent. But object of system has been constant: to uncover certainty in eight-team playoff scrum where randomness largely rules.

To earn a certainty point:

-A batter must have a minimum .295 BA, 30 HRs and 100 RBI

-A pitcher must have 10 more wins than losses and an ERA of 3.00 or less or more than 30 saves and an ERA of 3.00 or less

-A team can earn another certainty point if it has 54 or more home wins

That’s it. That’s the list.**

Going team-by-team this year, Blog uncovered a total of 15 certainty points.

That number is subtracted from 100 percent and remainder — 85 percent — is split eight ways and doled evenly as baseline score for each October team. This means certainty baseline for each 2011 playoff team is 10.63% (last year there were fewer certainty points and baseline was, therefore, higher. The fewer certainty points awarded, the more randomness ensues).

Here’s how Blog seeds playoffs based on certainty points [with total wins in brackets as seeding tiebreaker]:

1) Brewers (+4) — Braun, Fielder, Axford, 57 home wins [96 wins]
2) Tigers (+3) — Verlander, Valverde, Cabrera [95 wins]
3) Phillies (+2) — Halladay, Madson [102 wins]
4) Yankees (+2) — Sabathia, Rivera [97 wins]
5) Rangers (+2) — Beltre, Feliz [96 wins]
6) D’Backs (+2) — Kennedy, Putz [94 wins]
7) Rays (0) [91 wins]
8) Cardinals (0) [90 wins]

Here are your Division Series winners based on this formula:

Milwaukee over Arizona
Detroit over New York
Philadelphia over St. Louis
Texas over Tampa

And your World Series outcome:
Brewers over Tigers

* probably didn’t say this but he should have

** You could argue for awarding points for other stuff, but so far Blog hasn’t found anything truly compelling (suggestions welcome)

Blog is.

Image via MASN

So are Red Sox!

Wonder if this tiny small little taste will help Team in future?

Thursday morning pudate: Buck addressed above question during post game last night, saying “The proof’s in the pudding. It’s gotta be relentless. It probably starts tomorrow morning. (…) Let’s see it. That’s what I’d be saying if I were the fans.”