Crane...

From the healthy, Norton virus protected notebook of your commish.  Tuesday November 14th, 2006 4:23 PM

Rambling after Week 10...

Ok, so Juice can finally have his props.....(at least that's what the kids are saying these days).  He completed the landlord sweep quite convincingly with a 154-95 win over the LB's (he earlier beat your's truly 131-91).  He's now got 5 consecutive weeks at 131 or better.  That's pretty good.  His average so far this year is 127.6 - again, not too shabby.  BUT, the crazy thing is this.....he's still 1.3 points per game behind Smitty's 2002 pace.  So as good as Denny Crane has been, and as much as he hates to hear this, he is not yet the best ever (yet).

So I suppose I need to start the playoff watch now considering that someone has already clinched their division championship.

Juice, with his 4 game lead, has taken his first Bulldog Division title since 2001.  Other than that....the waters are quite muddy.  Everyone else, even Jonny, is no worse than 3-7 and no better than 6-4.  (Although some may argue that Jonny's record is about 4 or 5 wins too high -- yea, that's right, four or five - we should possibly take away some of his future wins to make up for how poorly he's done the past 6 weeks).

So, the initial 2007 edition of - "If the Playoffs Were Today"

Bulldog - Team Juice (10-0)
Husky - Team WoJo (5-5)
Bison - Drunken Sailors (6-4)
Wildcard - Fat British Pigeons (6-4) -- on the 4th tiebreaker (total points) over the 'Fish

Needless to say though that just about everyone is still in the playoff race with four weeks and two divisional weeks to go.  Big matchups this week include:

Pigeons (-10) v Bastards - "Battle of the Neighbors"

Can Smith pick the right WRs each week?  Is Westbrook healthy enough to finish the year off?

Juice (-35) v Little Red Horse - "Battle of the Puckheads"

Will Tomlinson ever return back to Earth?  Can Jason keep this within 75 points?

Nookie (-3) v WoJo - "Battle of the 2001ers"

Which Grossman/Reggie will show up this week?  Which Vick/Addai will show up this week?

Kinger (-30) v Tang - "Skirmish of the Speedsters"

Four 100+ in a row, 1-3 record.  Not cool.  8 games at 82 and less, 1-7 record.  Not cool.

JC (+6) v Superior - "Battle of the Gurus"

Shaun?!  Really?  Maybe?  Oh boy.  Week 11 - officially Romo-time.

Hellfish (-4) v Sailors - "Battle of the Cartoons"

Palmer and Brees....not fair.  S-Jax for sure and pick-em for the WRs.
 

Sure there are obvious gambling opportunities with the official Vegas odds, but as Letterman says, please, no wagering.

And what else to touch on.....hmmm.  November 13th, wake up to snow.  Not overly fun, but reminiscent of good old Houghton.  Nothing like getting up in the morning and knocking off a good four inches from the car before hitting the road and slip-sliding the 7 miles to the office.  It was even better in Houghton since the terrain there is similar to Duluth and my house was at the equivalent of Central hillside (think about 2nd ave East and 5th street).  Slide down the hill to school.....then take the long way home after class so I could approach my house from the top of the hill rather than try to climb up.  It's nice to have either significant snow or no snow....it sucks to be somewhere in between.  Welcome to early November in Duluth.

For those of you who didn't know, the BIG is taking over the Piedmont area.  Following Jon and I purchasing the Decker Road home, Ben got his 27th W/15th St house and Smitty picked up a nice place on Chambersburg.  Add in Kinger renting from Ben and Juice from I, that puts half the league within a very short bike ride from each other (as long as that bike ride is going down the hill).

The Proctor Rails season has ended.  The boys got smoked by the best high school football team I've ever seen in person.  If the Becker Bulldogs don't crush the rest of the tourney lineup I will be very shocked.  My dad said that Becker could possibly take down the Vikings and prove to be the best team in the state.....ok, that's a stretch, but not by as much as you'd think.  All in all, the PHS boys played as tough a game as could have been expected, but put another playoff-PSS loss in the books for Coach Hylla.

Finally, a report from the woods.  I'm what you call a lazy hunter.  Well, not as lazy as others I know, but still fairly lazy.  I haven't gotten myself in the woods to build a stand, so I trudge out in the mornings with my Coleman chair, Duluth Pack and 30-30 over my shoulder to my favorite hill and overlook a hundred yards of serene MN wilderness (well, except for the hum of the tires rolling down Highway 194 and Canosia Road).  Otherwise, my typical morning involved getting set out in the woods by 6:20, dozing off by no later than 6:45, waking up by 7:30 and sitting till 9:00.  By then, since I lack the natural padding/insulation that others I know possess, my toes are pretty damn cold.  So, I get up, grab my campsaw out of my bag and start expanding my shooting lanes (but I suppose I would need to shoot down them to call them 'shooting' so let's call then 'looking').  So, after fifteen minutes of that, I am warmed up and then get back to the chair.  I sit till about noon on Saturday and 11 on Sunday and then get out of the woods.  I see deer....in fact Saturday a 4-pointer stared me down from quite close (20-30 yards).....but no big bucks to shoot at yet.  Next weekend I'll be back out there again....maybe I'll get lucky....or maybe I'll just nap.

Need I say more?

BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com