Dad didn't look much happier. "AJ better know what the hell he's doing there." He did. We wish Hamilton all the best in his ongoing struggle with addiction, and marvel again how much different it looks when a professional athlete falls off the wagon than it does for the rest of us. When they do it, they take shots off the breasts off beautiful women. When we do it, we vomit on the Buck Hunter game and urinate ourselves.

Josh Hamilton
Relapsed.
Found defenders.
Pleads human.
Chilled in Jesusland.

JANUARY
Maurice Clarett scores a touchdown in double overtime to help Ohio State beat Miami in the Fiesta Bowl and win the mythical national championship. Republican choose New York City as the site for the 2004 national convention. The Miller Lite catfight commercial airs for the first time, and the Buccaneers beat the Raiders in another boring Super Bowl. "Chappelle's Show" debuts. The United States deploys 62,000 troops to the Middle East. Scientists find a winged dinosaur fossil in China. R. Kelly is arrested on child pornography charges. The Black Table launches.
FEBRUARY
Space shuttle Columbia explodes, killing all seven astronauts onboard. Saddam Hussein gives an interview to Dan Rather on "60 Minutes." Colin Powell argues the case for an invasion of Iraq to the United Nations. Phil Spector is arrested and charged with murder. A fire at a Great White concert in Rhode Island kills 100 people, including the band's guitarist. The city of New York selects Daniel Libeskind's design for the new World Trade Center building. Osama bin Laden warns of future attacks, and Donald Rumsfeld claims the broadcast is proof of a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Mr. Rogers dies. Not much happens in sports.
MARCH
Elizabeth Smart is found nine months after she was kidnapped. Kirby Puckett goes on trial for sexual assault. Chicago wins Best Picture, and Roman Polanski Best Director at the Academy Awards. The Believer magazine launches. SARS strikes Asia. Donald Rumsfeld says the Iraq war won't cost more than $60 billion. Broadway musicians strike. People magazine introduces the world to Doug Christie's wife. War in Iraq begins, with shock, and with awe.
APRIL
Michael Jordan and his Washington Wizards fail to make the NBA playoffs. Sen. Rick Santorum, when asked about gay marriage, says: "Society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality." Freshman Carmelo Anthony leads the Syracuse Orangemen to the NCAA Championship. PFC Jessica Lynch is rescued from a Iraqi hospital. Baghdad falls; the Pentagon says fighting in Iraq is "mostly complete." Roy Williams tells Bonnie Bernstein he "could give a shit about North Carolina right now." Nina Simone dies. The Des Moines Register runs photos of Iowa State coach Larry Eustachy drinking with students. "A Million Little Pieces" is released. President Bush re-appoints Alan Greenspan.
MAY
President Bush announces "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq and declares an end to combat in Afghanistan. New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigns from the newspaper. "Moneyball" hits bookstores. Mad Cow disease is discovered in Canada. Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympics bomber, is arrested in North Carolina after five years on the run. An Algerian earthquake kills more than 2,250 people. The first Democratic presidential debate features Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Joe Lieberman, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton. The Matrix Reloaded disappoints everyone.
JUNE
England decides to forgo the Euro. Martha Stewart is indicted. Roger Clemens earns his 300th win and 4,000th strikeout, in the same game. Gregory Peck, Strom Thurmond and Katherine Hepburn die. Hillary Clinton's book "Living History" is released. U.S. authorities foil a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge. The San Antonio Spurs beat the New Jersey Nets to win the NBA championship. The "Do Not Call" national registry is created.
JULY
John Abizaid, commander of allied forces in Iraq, warns soldiers than they'll be deployed for yearlong tours. Robert Novak reveals Valerie Plame's identity in a column. Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy is shot and killed by former teammate Carlton Dotson. Mike Ditka signs up as a spokesperson for Levitra. Saddam Hussein's sons are killed. Kobe Bryant is arrested and charged with rape in Colorado. Barry White and Bob Hope die. "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" debuts.
AUGUST
Several millions, including residents of New York City, suffer from a massive blackout. The blaster worm attacks computers. Baylor coach Dave Bliss tells his players to lie to investigators and claim the late Patrick Dennehy was selling drugs to pay his tuition. "Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs" by Chuck Klosterman is released. Lance Armstrong wins his fifth straight Tour de France. Charles Bronson dies. Michael Vick fractures his fibula in a preseason game. Chemical Ali is found. Bill Parcells comes out of retirement to coach the Dallas Cowboys. The slate of candidates for the California governor's recall is locked in and includes Arianna Huffington, Gary Coleman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Larry Flynt, porn star Mary Carey and Gallagher. Mitch Albom's "Five People You Meet In Heaven" is released.
SEPTEMBER
Gen. Wesley Clark enters the Presidential race. Hurricane Isabel hits. "Hey Ya" makes white people dance. Shane Mosley defeats Oscar de la Hoya. President Bush asks Congress for $87 billion to aid the fight in Iraq. John Ritter, Johnny Cash, Leni Riefenstahl and George Plimpton die. Britney Spears and Madonna kiss at the MTV Video Music Awards.
OCTOBER
Bartman. Rush Limbaugh admits an addiction to Oxycontin on his radio show and goes into rehab. David Kay says there are no WMDs in Iraq. Bartman. The last Concorde flight lands. Arnold Schwarzenegger wins the recall to become governor of California. Aaron Boone homers to win the American League Championship Series, but the Florida Marlins beat the Yankees in the World Series. Elliott Smith dies of two stab wounds to the chest. Bartman. The DC sniper trial begins. LeBron james scores 25 points in his first game, a 106-92 loss to Sacramento. Wildfires spread through California. Bartman.
NOVEMBER
President Bush signs a bill banning partial birth abortion. Michael Jackson is booked on suspicion of child molestation. The NFL Network launches, though probably not in your house. The DC sniper suspects are found guilty. The Massachusetts Supreme Court rules in favor of gay marriage. "Arrested Development" debuts.
DECEMBER
Al Gore endorses Howard Dean for President. An earthquake in Iran kills 30,000 people. Suicide bombers blow up a commuter train in Moscow, killing 50. "Life As A Loser," by Will Leitch, is released. The morning after pill is approved by the FDA. Sen. Paul Simon dies. They got Saddam.

Lenny Dykstra
Featured black men on the cover of his magazine.
Charged charter flight to his mother's credit card.
Hammered by HBO. (Finally.)
Filed for bankruptcy.
Played dirty.
Slept in car.
Pawned the rest of his belongings.

PREVIOUS NOMINEES
Erin Andrews

Erin Andrews
Joked with Bill Cosby.
Turned 31.
Hit by foul ball.
Attacked by tiger.
Snooped in a hotel.
Confirmed the snooping.
Caused kvetching.
Splashed across New York Post front page.
Called 911.
Posed for GQ.
Talked to Oprah.
Went back to work.
Busted that peeper punk.
Seriously, check out that dude.

• There are only eight nominees, rather than the 16 of years past.
• These eight nominees are unseeded.
• We will be announcing a nominee a day through next Friday, in alphabetical order.
• Voting will begin the morning of Monday, December 14, and a winner will be announced on Wednesday, December 16.
• Then everyone can move on with their lives.

Yes, this might be a little jarring to some of you, (CHANGE! BAD! YOU'RE RUINING IT! ETC.) but I've found that SHOTY seems to drag on and on, and by the time you get back from the holiday break, everyone's forgotten who or what or why they're supposed to be voting. So Leitch and I picked 8 people we felt exemplified the true spirit of SHOTY-ness (whatever that is) and we'll just have one big vote at the end so chubby-baby-loving rubes from Kansas can't stuff the ballot and piss everyone off.

Tomorrow, Emeritus will reveal the first nominee.

JANUARY
The Euro debuts as an international currency. The Miami Hurricanes defeat the Nebraska Cornhuskers to win the mythical national championship. Argentina's national congress approves its fifth president in a fortnight. Tom Brady and the Patriots beat the Raiders in the snow, in the infamous Tuck Rule game. President Bush declares the "Axis Of Evil" in his State of the Union speech. Steven King announces he will retire from writing "after five more books." Guantanamo Bay opens. Fox News overtakes CNN in cable news ratings. Journalist Daniel Pearl disappears.
FEBRUARY
Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 50th year on the throne. High school junior LeBron James appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Daniel Pearl is beheaded in a video that circulates on the Internet. The New England Patriots shock the football world by defeating the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl. Donald Rumsfeld invents the term "unknown unknown." R. Kelly sex tape is leaked. At the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Long Island teenager Sarah Hughes pulls off an upset win in female figure skating, but the Games are marred by paid-off judges. John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," pleads guilty. "Family Guy" is canceled by FOX. Chuck Jones dies. The United States announces new guidelines on mammograms, advising women to undergo the procedure at the age of 40, rather than 50, as had previously been the norm.
MARCH
Investigators officially close the Whitewater probe. Milton Berle, Billy Wilder and Dudley Moore die. Ariel Sharon proclaims Yassir Arafat the "enemy of the entire free world" and declares Israel to be at war. Denzel Washington and Halle Berry end racism by winning Oscars. The Connecticut women's basketball team finishes undefeated by winning the national championship. Hulk Hogan faces The Rock in the main event of WrestleMania X8. Alan Greenspan declares the recession "over."
APRIL
Hugo Chavez resigns as president of Venezuela but returns to office two days later. Robert Blake shoots his wife. Tiger Woods wins his third Masters, his second in a row. U.S. Senate rejects Arctic drilling. The Maryland Terrapins beat the Indiana Hoosiers in a boring NCAA championship game. Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes is killed in an SUV accident. Bush adviser Karen Hughes quits. Michael Jordan and his Washington Wizards fail to make the NBA playoffs. Oprah Winfrey announces she is ending her book club.
MAY
The White House admits it received explicit warnings in August 2001 that Osama bin Laden planned on attacking "within" the United States, and FBI head Robert Mueller says a future Al Qaeda attack is "inevitable." Chandra Levy's bones are found. "The X-Files" goes off the air. Sam Snead dies. Spider-Man breaks the record for box office opening weekend. MIke PIazza holds a press conference to let everyone know he's not gay. A China Airline plane crashes, killing all 225 people on board. Tom Brokaw announces he will retire after the 2004 Presidential election.
JUNE
Jack Buck and Darryl Kile die within a week of each other. "The Wire" premieres on HBO. The Justice Department arrests Jose Padilla in a "dirty bomb" plot. Brazil wins the World Cup. In the last NBA game on NBC, the Lakers complete a four-game sweep of the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Finals. Martha Stewart, under investigation for insider trading, tells CBS anchor Jane Clayson "I just want to focus on my salad." Lennox Lewis knocks out Mike Tyson. Tyco Dennis Kozolowski is indicted on tax evasion charges. Hamid Karzai is elected president of Afghanistan. Martha Burk and The New York Times begin their offensive against Hootie Johnson and The Augusta National Golf Club for not allowing women. "American Idol" debuts on FOX, with hosts Ryan Seacrest and Brian Dunkleman. Scotty Bowman leads the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup, then retires. Ken Caminiti confesses his steroid use to Tom Verducci at Sports Illustrated. WorldCom admits its falsified profit statements. Dee Dee Ramone dies.
JULY
Ted Williams dies. (Kind of.) Lance Armstrong wins his fourth consecutive Tour de France. Nine miners in Pennsylvania are trapped in a mine shaft for 77 hours, but are rescued. "20th Hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui pleads guilty, then withdraws the plea a week later. The Senate holds hearings about a potential war with Iraq. The House votes to give airline pilots guns. The Baseball All-Star Game ends in a tie.
AUGUST
Lakers announcer Chick Hearn dies. US Air files for bankruptcy. CNN pays $34,000 for Al Qaeda training footage. Scientist Steven Hatfill denies responsibility for the anthrax attacks. Former Bush adviser Brent Scocroft warns in The Wall Street Journal that an invasion of Iraq would hurt the war on terrorism. Baseball owners and players agree to revenue sharing and a luxury tax, averting a strike. Four Arab men in Detroit are charged with running a sleeper cell. Lisa Leslie becomes the first WNBA player to dunk.
SEPTEMBER
White Sox fan William Ligue and his son attack Kansas City Royals first base coach Tom Gamboa. President Bush argues his case for invading Iraq to the United Nations. Pete Sampras defeats Andre Agassi in the U.S. Open finals, his final Grand Slam championship. Johnny Unitas dies. The United States men's basketball team loses three times at the World Basketball Championships, finishing sixth in a 16-team field. Kelly Clarkson becomes the first "American Idol" winner. Dr. Phil premieres.
OCTOBER
Shoe bomber Richard Reid pleads guilty, and John Walker Lindh is sentenced to 20-years-to-life in prison. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota is killed in a plane crash. Jam Master Jay is shot and killed in Queens. Tim Montgomery sets the 100-meter record in 9.78 seconds. Warren Zevon is the lone guest on an episode of "Late Show With David Letterman," in which he discusses his fight with inoperable lung cancer. Snipers John Muhammad and John Malvo wreak havoc on the Washington DC area. The Anaheim Angels beat the San Francisco Giants in the World Series, thanks largely to a five-run comeback in Game 6. President Bush explains to the nation, in a live televised address, why he must invade Iraq.
NOVEMBER
Iraq allows UN inspectors to search their country for weapons of mass destruction. Emmitt Smith passes Walter Payton as the NFL's all-time leading rusher. Republicans re-take the Senate and increase their advantage in the House. "Around The Horn" debuts. The EPA relaxes the Clean Air Act. Tyrone Willingham goes 10-2 in his first season at Notre Dame. "Divine intervention at its best," says Notre Dame athletic director Kevin White "That's what this represents to me and, more important, to Notre Dame and Notre Dame football. Tyrone should have been here. Thank God he is here."
DECEMBER
Al Gore announces he will not run for President in 2004. Tony and Carmelo Soprano separate. BET founder Robert Johnson becomes the first black owner of a professional sports franchise when he buys the expansion Charlotte basketball franchise for $300 million. Trent Lott says that if Strom Thurmond had been elected President, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years." He resigns as Senate Majority Leader two weeks later. Gawker.com launches.

JANUARY
George W. Bush is sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States. Jennifer Capriati overcomes her past drug addiction and wins the Australian Open. Former President Bill Clinton pardons campaign contributor Marc Rich. ABC reality show "The Mole" debuts, hosted by future CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. Beloved broadcaster Al McGuire dies. Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin announce they are separating. The Baltimore Ravens beat the New York Giants in the most boring Super Bowl of all time. Affirmed dies. Affirmed.
FEBRUARY
Dale Earnhardt suffers a fatal crash in the Dayton 500. Paranoia over foot-and-mouth disease takes over England. Vince McMahon's Xtreme Football League debuts, with "He Hate Me" and Matt Vasgersian and Jesse Ventura broadcasting. A bloated Matthew Perry enters rehab. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman shock the nation by declaring that they are seeking a divorce. When asked by David Letterman how her life is different, Kidman says, "I can wear heels now." Ariel Sharon is elected prime minister of Israel.
MARCH
Bob Knight is hired as coach of Texas Tech. Gladiator wins Best Picture. Alonzo Mourning returns from kidney disease to play for the Miami Heat. America backs out of the Kyoto climate pact. Dick Cheney has his second angioplasty in four months. In the midst of an energy shortage, California suffers rolling blackouts to save power. Talk show host Morton Downey Jr. dies, of lung cancer.
APRIL
Joey Ramone dies. Duke defeats Arizona to win the NCAA men's basketball championship. Arnold Schwarzenegger announces he will not run for governor of California in 2002. A Japanese newspaper offers $1 million for a naked picture of Ichiro Suzuki. Race riots break out in Cincinnati after a white police officer shoots and kills an unarmed black man. Albert Pujols grounds out off Mike Hampton in his first major league at-bat. Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic is arrested in Belgrade. Tiger Woods finishes the Tiger Slam. A U.S. plane and a Chinese plane crash over Chinese airspace, and China officials keep the U.S. plane's 24-person crew hostage for 11 days. Bill Simmons' publishes his first piece on ESPN.com, "The Nomar Redemption."
MAY
The U.S. Supreme Court rules to allow disabled golfer Casey Martin to use a cart on tour. Pearl Harbor opens. Brendan Lemon, editor of Out magazine, claiming that his boyfriend is a current Major League Baseball player. Chandra Levy disappears. Vince Carter attends his college graduation in the morning and misses a shot with 2.0 seconds to lose Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals in the evening. Chuck Klosterman's "Fargo Rock City" is released. Harvey Pitt is approved as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "Walker, Texas Ranger" goes off the air.
JUNE
Congress passes President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA Finals. Tom Cruise sues a man who claims he has a videotape of Cruise having sex with a man. Timothy McVeigh is executed. The Atlanta Gold Club Trial ends. "The Producers" wins 12 Tony Awards. Ray Borque wins his long-awaited first Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. Jack Lemmon and Archie Bunker die. Luke and Laura of "General Hospital" divorce.
JULY
The U.S. House of Representatives votes to ban human cloning. Tom Green and Drew Barrymore marry. Beijing is awarded the 2008 Olympic Games. "Sopranos" star Robert Iler is arrested for robbery and marijuana possession. Cal Ripken homers in his final All-Star Game. Mariah Carey enters an undisclosed New York City hospital after suffering an emotional breakdown.
AUGUST
Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer collapses during a practice and dies of a heat stroke. Bill Clinton is paid $10 million to write his memoirs. Pop singer Aaliyah dies in a plane crash. Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett are enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gary Condit admits he had a "very close relationship" with Chandra Levy. The San Jose CyberRays win the first ever WUSA championship. Nothing in the world is wrong.
SEPTEMBER
Famed film critic Pauline Kael dies. Four hijacked plans crash into both World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing a total of 2,976 people, not counting the 19 hijackers. All airplanes are grounded, causing John Madden to offer a ride across the country to ice skater Peggy Fleming. People are sad. Michael Jordan announces he is returning to basketball with the Washington Wizards. Tom Brady takes over for an injured Drew Bledsoe as quarterback for the New England Patriots. Bob Dylan's "Love And Theft" is released. Eric Dickerson makes his debut as a sideline reporter for "Monday Night Football."
OCTOBER
The United States begins airstrikes on Afghanistan. O.J. Simpson is acquitted in a road rage case. Barry Bonds breaks Mark McGwire's three-year-old home run record, ending the season with 73. Author Jonathan Franzen refuses Oprah Winfrey's request to make his book "The Corrections" part of her book club. Derek Jeter makes the tag play. Letters laced with weaponized anthrax are sent to various media and government offices. "Pardon The Interruption" debuts. An Ontario newspaper reports that Bud Selig plans on contracting the Montreal Expos and the Florida Marlins after the World Series. Michael Jackson's "Invincible" hits stores. Rush Limbaugh announces he is deaf. Mark McGwire is pinch-hit for by Kerry Robinson in his last plate appearance. Everyone is still drinking.
NOVEMBER
Ken Kesey and George Harrison die. The government announces it will train doctors to recognize the symptoms of smallpox. Kyle Turley rips a helmet off a New York Jet opponent and throws it across the field. A plane bound for the Dominican Republic crashes in Queens, killing 265 people. The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the New York Yankees to win the first World Series ever to be completed in November. "24" debuts on FOX. Baseball owners vote 28-2 in favor of contraction. Mark-Paul Gosselaar joins the cast of "NYPD Blue." Everyone is still drinking.
DECEMBER
The Taliban collapses. Winona Ryder is arrested for shoplifting. Notre Dame fires Bob Davie as head football coach. Osama bin Laden releases a videotape in which he laughs and boasts about the September 11 terrorist attacks. Enron files for bankruptcy and evaporates most of its workers' 401(k)s. Rudy Giuliani is chosen as Time magazine's Man of the Year. Eric Crouch wins the Heisman Trophy. Everyone is still drinking.

JANUARY
Y2K doesn't kill us, but it could have. David Letterman has quintuple bypass surgery. Dan Marino plays his final game, a 62-7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" is released. Kurt Warner and the Rams win a thrilling Super Bowl over the Titans, but dot-com commercials dominate the storyline, most notably the infamous Pets.com sock puppet, voiced by Michael Ian Black. AOL and Time Warner merge. The deal, surprisingly, is not delayed while AOL waits for its roommate to get off the phone.
FEBRUARY
In their race for the Republican nomination for President, John McCain upsets George W. Bush in New Hampshire, but loses in South Carolina amid allegations of dirty tactics on behalf of the Bush campaign. Ray Lewis is arrested on murder charges after an incident outside the Super Bowl. Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius" is released. The Mariners trade Ken Griffey Jr. to Cincinnati, where he grew up. Marty McSorley hits Donald Brashear in the back of the head with his stick. Charles Schulz, Tom Landry and Jim Varney all die, though not at the hands of McSorley.
MARCH
Vladmir Putin is elected as president of Russia. Boomer Esiason is fired from "Monday Night Football." The NASDAQ collapses, signifying the end of the dot-com boom. Budweiser's "Whassup?" commercials debut. Sports Illustrated profiles University of Minnesota wrestler Brock Lesnar. Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan compares pitcher Rick Ankiel to Sandy Koufax. Dan Marino turns down an offer from the Minnesota Vikings to continue his career. Rangers pitcher Darren Oliver tells a reporter he's voting for George W. Bush because "it would be cool to know the dude in the White House."
APRIL
Michigan State, behind Mateen Cleaves, wins the NCAA Championship. "ESPN: An Uncensored History" is released by an independent publisher. Metallica sues Napster for pirating their songs, followed soon thereafter by Dr. Dre and Madonna. Mike Morgan pitches for his record 12th different major league team. Cal Ripken gets his 3,000th hit. "Hollywood" Henderson wins $28 million in the Texas Lotto. In a related story, the NBA approves the sale of the Dallas Mavericks to Mark Cuban.
MAY
The ILOVEYOU virus attacks gullible home computers. Boo.com burns through $160 million in six months. Malik Sealy dies in a car accident. Daniel Snyder signs Jeff George to a multi-year contract. Eminem's "The Marshall Mathers LP" is released to an unsuspecting public. "Party of Five" and "Beverly Hills 90210" go off the air. Lynn Swann is hired to serve as a sideline reporter for the upcoming Ray Lewis murder trial.
JUNE
The Los Angeles Lakers win the NBA Championship. Nancy Marchand, the actress who played Livia Soprano, dies. Mike Tyson knocks out someone names Lou Saverese in the first round in Scotland. Jeff McGregor writes in Sports Illustrated that "sportswriters will soon be dinosaurs, driven to extinction by the Ice Age of the Internet." Scientists announced they've sketched a rough draft of the human genome. Steve Young retires. Photos reveal that Mars has water. Frank Deford refers to Anna Kournikova as "the Jezebel of sweat."
JULY
ABC announces it is hiring Dennis Miller to broadcast "Monday Night Football." Pete Sampras wins his record 13th Grand Slam title. Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady sign free agent contracts with the Orlando Magic. Chuck Knoblauch hits Keith Olbermann's mom with an errant throw. A Concorde jet crashes minutes after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, killing all 109 on board and nine people staying at the Relais Bleu hotel in the town of Gonesse. Kobe Bryant performs a rap concert at Los Angeles' House of Blues.
AUGUST
Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship, his third major of the year. "Dora The Explorer" debuts. Firestone recalls 6.5 million tires after reports of faulty design. Gay con man nudist Richard Hatch wins the inaugural season of "Survivor." Obi-Wan Kenobi dies.
SEPTEMBER
The 2000 Summer Olympics begin in Sydney, Australia. The opening ceremonies are hosted by Bob Costas and Katie Couric. Many sports no one will watch for another four years happen, and winners are declared. Indiana fires longtime coach Bob Knight after he grabs a student's arm for saying "'Sup, Knight?" The San Diego Chargers announce Ryan Leaf as their starting quarterback. The Global Millennium Summit is held at the United Nations in New York City. Tiger Woods signs a $100 million endorsement contract with Nike. Nomar Garciaparra and Mark Grace fight over actress Lauren Holly.
OCTOBER
The Yankees and Mets meet in the Subway Series, and Roger Clemens throws a broken bat at Mike Piazza. The USS Cole is bombed by terrorist group Al-Qaeda and their elusive leader Osama bin Laden. Patrick Ewing plays for the Sonics. The PlayStation 2, hailed as the "future of entertainment," is released. Television programs "CSI" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" debut. Serbian president Slobodan Milošević leaves office. Allen Iverson records his first single, "40 Bars," which features the lyric, "Everybody stay fly get money kill and fuck bitches/I'm hittin anything in plain view for my riches/VA's finest fillin up ditches, when niggaz turn to bitches/die for zero digits; I'm a giant, y'all midgets." Joe Buck, 31, calls his third World Series.
NOVEMBER
The United States Presidential election between Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore ends in a virtual tie, and each candidate's representatives do battle for a month. Former Panthers wide receiver Rae Carruth's murder trial begins. Daunte Culpepper declares on the cover of Sports Illustrated that he "wants to be the best quarterback ever." Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting President to visit Vietnam. Hunter S. Thompson begins writing for ESPN's Page 2. Former Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne succeeds in his race for the U.S. House of Representatives, but Illinois State Senator Barack Obama does not.
DECEMBER
The Texas Rangers sign shortstop Alex Rodriguez to a 10-year, $252 million contract. Mario Lemieux announces he is returning to the NHL after a three-year retirement. Department store Montgomery Ward goes out of business. Mike Mussina signs with the Yankees and officially destroys the Orioles franchise. The Supreme Court stops the presidential recount in Florida, handing the election to George W. Bush. Victor Borge dies.

By a bad decade, we're not talking about fads that inevitably evaporated. (No Elian Gonzalez, or "Livin' La Vida Loca.") We mean people and concepts that, on December 31, 1999, were respected and/or revered, reputations that were devastated by the last 10 years. If this decade would have never happened, they would have been a lot better off. The last decade exposed them as not nearly as lasting as we once thought they would be.

The rest of the month, I'll be doing year-in-reviews, twice a week, but we kick you off with this photo gallery, inspired by the fantastic Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists by The Onion A.V. Club. (Thanks to A.J. Daulerio, Joe DeLessio, Drew Magary, Ben Mathis-Lilley, Mike Ryan and Bill Scheft for their suggestions on some of these.) Click the photo gallery to enjoy, and leave us your own suggestions in the comments, if you feel so inclined.

Roberto Benigni.
Blockbuster Video.
Bobby Bowden.
Chuck D.
Minnie Driver.
David Duval.
Janeane Garofalo.
Nomar Garciaparra.
Mel Gibson.
Alan Greenspan.
Dennis Hastert.
Helen Hunt.
Hummers.
Michael Jordan.
Craig Kilborn.
George Lucas.
Mike Martz.
Mark McGwire.
Chris O'Donnell.
Sarah McLachlan.
Moby.
Newspapers.
Liz Phair.
Colin Powell.
Pluto.
The Record Industry.
Michael Richards.
Ripped Fuel.
John Rocker.
David O. Russell.
Salon.com.
Mike Shanahan.
Alicia Silverstone.
M. Night Shyamalan.
Kevin Spacey.
Caring About Howard Stern's Personal Life.
The Wachowski Brothers.
Harvey Weinstein.
Ricky Williams.
Kerry Wood.
Women's Soccer.

You might have seen this earlier today:

Here's Courtney's own fawning-but-meaningful tribute to the Sports Guy's literary achievement:

One of my favorite Espn men is doing a book signing today. Bill Simmons, he is their MOST talented sports writer. I am a big fan of his and have heard he may be a fan of mine. I have some DVDs that I am going to bring him. A little gift for him. I want to buy some of his books and have him autograph them. I thought they would be good gifts for my brother and dad. What do you guys think from a guy's point of view? Is this a good gift? I thought so; I am going to take pics with him also. Can't wait! This is why I need to go get my nails fixed. I can't show up looking busted! Lol.

I was so nervous standing in line. I had butterflies in my stomach. I wanted to make sure he liked my gifts that I brought. He was so happy to see me. He hugged me and rubbed up against my titties. My pussy was so wet! I wanted to do him right there!! He was so sweet as he asked me who my favorite sports teams are. I can't wait to read his book. I bought four total!!

Or... he made the culture cum to him.

****

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Barry P rocks the party that rocks the body electric or something in a little while.

Daulerio will never admit this, and I probably shouldn't, but on January 23, 2003, we, along with fellow Black Table editor Eric Gillin, a Boston guy, stayed up to watch the debut of "The Jimmy Kimmel Show." We did this solely because Bill Simmons was a writer for the show. I'm not sure what we were expecting to see: Late-night talk shows aren't in the habit of giving guest appearances to lower-tier writers in their first episodes. (The show was a mess: This is back when they were openly drinking on set, and it was chaos. I think at one point, Kimmel tried to deep fat fry a ventriloquist dummy while "guest" Adam Corolla plaintively attempted to remind a piss-drunk Kimmel that "YOU ARE ON TELEVISION RIGHT NOW.") But it felt important somehow. A television show smart enough to hire Bill Simmons to write for them, well, that was something we couldn't miss. We felt like we knew him.

It's easy to forget this now, now that sports blogs are everywhere, now that Simmons is as much of an establishment figure as Chris Berman, now that the man produces his own television show, but back when he first came to ESPN, in 2001, he seemed like a revolutionary figure. I remember working in a doctor's office in May 2001 and reading his Is Roger Clemens the Antichrist? column. (I was not familiar with his Boston Sports Guy work.) I couldn't believe someone was getting away with this. Today, phrases like "kicked in the gonads," "this was the musical equivalent of U2 asking for a contract extension from their record company on the heels of "Zooropa" and "Pop")" and "looking like he was auditioning for the 'Chris Farley Story'" are familiar Simmons tropes: Everyone writes like that now. But not in 2001. In 2001, Skip Bayless was the "hip" columnist at Page 2. The other column I vividly remember from the period was Simmons' guide to the Atlanta Gold Club trial, which featured graphic descriptions of Patrick Ewing receiving oral sex from two women and this immortal aside:

During [Andruw] Jones's susbsequent testimony, the prosecutor asked which of the women Jones had sex with, and Jones answered, "Both of them," adding, "to tell you the truth, I wouldn't remember one of their faces right now." One of my personal favorite quotes from the trial.

What Simmons was doing was so different from what anyone else was doing that it didn't even seem to be the same medium. They were letting him do this? (Eventually, they would stop, somewhat: That Gold Club column got a solid scrubbing from ESPN back in 2007.) Other sportswriters hated Simmons immediately, ostensibly because of those tired Doesn't Sit In The Press Box arguments, but mostly because he was connecting with people, he was proving that the empty Verse Chorus Verse of the inverted pyramid and Fire The Manager! wasn't going to cut it anymore. Simmons was talking about sports the way people actually talked about sports. It's no wonder he was so disliked by the insiders and so embraced — tentatively at first, like a viral meme that spread, have you seen this guy? — by the masses. He gave hope for a lot of people — including, yeah, me, and Daulerio, and Gillin — that maybe the landscape for this shit, maybe it existed.

That turned, of course. It always does. Eventually the obsessives began carping — I think the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004 was when the minor Bill Simmons Is A Douche! movement began — and the mainstream folks, unable to deny his success any longer, began meeting him halfway, featuring him above everyone else on the site and encouraging their own writers to impersonate him. (That Rick Reilly sits next to Simmons on ESPN.com's front page today is wonderfully surreal: No one's reputation as Sports Wit suffered more from Simmons' ascendance than Reilly. He morphed from Jim Murray to Henny Youngman, seemingly in a matter of weeks.) Sports blogs blew up, including this one, sites that put the Establishment (whatever that was) in their crosshairs and started firing, ultimately blasting in every possible direction, no matter what got hit. Inevitably, Simmons would become a target. He was the biggest name — to us, anyway. But even in those attacks, sometimes justified, sometimes not, there was always a little bit held back. After all, everyone still read Simmons: No matter how many Karate Kid and Teen Wolf references there were, you still always read him. You still took him seriously, even if it were to trash him. Nobody does that with Jay Mariotti, or Bayless, or Reilly. (Honestly, when's the last time you seriously read anything by those guys?) They're easily dismissed. They've been mailing in their work for a decade. No one has ever accused Simmons of that.

A large part of Simmons' appeal has always been that sense that you knew him, that somehow you were invested in his success. Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman will sell more books in their lifetime than Simmons, but people don't wait in lines spanning around the block just to have them sign their book like they do for Simmons. (A search for photos of Simmons brings up hundreds of shots of him posing with fans.) People want to know what his wife's like — type "Bill Simmons" into Google, and the second hit is "Bill Simmons wife," and the fourth is "Bill Simmons wife picture" — and what his kids are like and whether he's different in Los Angeles than he was in Boston. This is all absurd, of course. The guy types into a computer at a coffee shop all day. But it's what fans have always done with Simmons, even those who purport to hate him. Simmons turned into an indie rock band from the early '90s. "He's hanging out with Jimmy Kimmel and Matt Damon now? SELLOUT!" We treated Simmons like he was a guy from our neighborhood who made it big, like it was important that he remember the little people who got him there. In a way, he kind of was.

Now there he is, atop the New York Times Bestseller list, as establishment a pedestal as one can imagine. Simmons did something incredibly rare, particularly in our fractured, niche media world: He made the culture come to him. His triumph is his own, but, in a strange way, it feels like a victory for all of us. The sports culture needed changing, and Simmons is walking evidence that it can, and did. Somewhere out there, there's a college student with a viewpoint different than everyone else, and he/she will show up and change everything too, exposing Simmons (and the rest of us) the way he did to Reilly. That'll happen again. Thank heavens. Good ideas win out. Perseverance and new perspectives break through. The old rots and washes away. Sometimes the good guys win.

(Photo via this outstanding Flickr set.)

In the third installment, Simmons talks about his future book projects. One idea seems like a goldmine:

Of course. It's so much more fun than writing columns - not having deadlines, being able to swear, making fun of announcers, and working on the same section for a week until you get it right. I loved it. I want the Book of Basketball to do well if only so I can shop an absolutely ridiculous topic for my next book: like, a book about basketball cards, or an unauthorized biography of A.J. Daulerio. Something that would make a publisher say, "That's an absolutely terrible idea, but his last one was a best-seller, so we can't say no, and maybe he could pull this off." I want to get to the stage professionally where you can get paid a lot of money for a loony idea that has like a 2.3 percent chance of working. I was always jealous of those people.

Although, the more I'm thinking about it, an unauthorized Daulerio autobiography is not a bad idea ...

I don't know. Is there a market for 12-page novels?

An Interview With Bill Simmons [NYMag.com/The "Sports" Section]

ALDS
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim over Boston Red Sox in five.
New York Yankees over Minnesota Twins in four.

NLDS
Philadelphia Phillies over Colorado Rockies in four.
Los Angeles Dodgers over St. Louis Cardinals in five.

LCS
New York Yankees over Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in six.
Los Angeles Dodgers over Philadelphia Phillies in six.

World Series
New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers in seven.

Here are facts about the Cardinals' first game this season, a 6-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

**** The cleanup hitter was shortstop Khalil Greene, who might be a lesbian.
**** The third baseman was Brian Barden, who won the Rookie of the Month award for April and now plays catch with his daughter.
**** The left fielder was Chris Duncan, who had disc replacement surgery on his spine. By the July, the Cardinals were so eager to get rid of him that were willing to trade him for the least popular Red Sox player in recent history and totally infuriate the team's pitching coach.
**** The closer was Jason Motte, who gave four runs in the ninth inning to cost his team the opener.

To be a fan of any sports team involves an endless amount of rationalization and compartmentalizing. On July 2, 2009, the Cardinals were tied for first place, and I could not have cared less about Julio Lugo, Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa and John Smoltz. I hoped the Cardinals could go get themselves some help to surround Albert Pujols' historic season and the career years from Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, but that was only a theoretical notion, a plea for a deus ex machina to come and save us, to vanquish the looming Cubs dragon.

And then the reinforcements came, and suddenly, the nearly 34 years I've spent obsessing over the St. Louis Cardinals — making them the centerpiece of every human interaction, every event on the social calendar, every moment of walking around and breathing — coalesced in these new fellows. I've watched at least 130 Cardinals games this season, and you get to know the new guys. I can impersonate perfectly Holliday's little leg kick he uses to generate power, I can pinpoint exactly why DeRosa plays third base like the second baseman he is, I can recognize Lugo's absurdly scrawny arms from 500 yards away, and I can tell the exact parameters of Smoltz's epic bald spot. These guys, in the span of two months, have become members of my family.

Yet it still feels a little untoward. The Cardinals do not have a long history of mercenaries — ignoring, conveniently, that pretty much every baseball player is a mercenary by nature — and it feels a little like cheating, in the same way that the surreal lottery ticket of Jeff Weaver that came up in 2006 felt like cheating. (Seriously, his ERA that postseason was 2.42 in five absurdly stressful starts against the best lineups in baseball. It is unfathomable that that happened.) It is possible, probably even likely, that Holliday, DeRosa and Smoltz will all be playing for other teams next year (or, in Smoltz's case, golfing). We are making one run with them, and then we will send them on their way, a one-night stand that pops up every few months or so, the kind you nod to briefly, a nod both of you hope nobody noticed. There are no overarching storylines, no 24 years between titles, no long-suffering superstars making one last lap for that elusive ring. This is a moth-ridden quilt with temporary patches. The Cardinals will be a good team next year, and for a few years after that, perhaps even in perpetuity. But this Holliday/DeRosa/Smoltz business is a one-shot deal. How much did you root for Karl Malone and Gary Payton when they made their desperate attempt at a title. More to the point: How much did Lakers fans care? I love cheering for Matt Holliday; I even, stupidly, bought a Holliday 15 jersey. But I'm aware I won't get much use out of it. We're renting him.

That is to say: A championship always means something different to fans than it does to a team. If the Cardinals win the World Series this year, it'll be a joy to be shared with my fellow Cardinals fans, with my family, with all the souls who followed the ups-and-downs of a Frankenstein monster of a team, one that put it all together for one crazy August and was mostly listless (outside of Pujols, Wainwright and Carpenter, of course) the rest of the way. It'll be something we'll always remember. It'll be something that changes us forever. For Holliday, Smoltz and the crew, they'll have spent three months the best possible way one can spend three months, and they'll have made themselves a helluva lot more money. That's great.

But I think our way, the way fans do it, is way better.

One of the stranger conceits in the coverage of sports is the fallacy that past performance is indicative of future returns. It makes the least sense in college sports. People will write, "Illinois seems to have Missouri's number" (obviously I'm speaking of basketball, not football) as if what happened six years ago, with entire different players, coaching staff and circumstances, could possibly be relevant. As if someone looks at a member of the opposing team and says, "Holy shit, we always struggle with teams wearing black. Oh no!"

The Red Sox, Anaheim's first-round opponent, seem to Have The Angels' Number, which mainly means Angels fans are pretty goddamned sick of seeing the Red Sox every October. The Angels look better than the Sox this year in a random, flip-a-damned-coin five-game series, but they looked better last year in a random, flip-a-damned-coin five-game series. Unfortunate head-to-head dominance on this seems to affect fans psyches' more than it does the players'.

The Angels are a large-market team that somehow strikes the world as a small market team, and the fans react accordingly. (I particularly loved this Bud Selig is rigging the series for the Sox and ratings! fanpost at Halos Heaven.) Anaheim actually has a larger payroll than the Dodgers do, but I suspect none of you think of it that way. Maybe it's Anaheim. It's a lot freaking farther from Los Angeles that I realized. It's also one of those unfortunate ballparks in large metropolitan areas where you can't find anywhere to have a damned beer before the game.

For years, the Angels had a reputation, because they had a bunch of free swingers and because they were in the same division as Billy Beane's A's, for being an almost anti-Moneyball team, a team that won because of a great manager, "playing the game the right way" and an inordinate amount of luck. Well, this year, they had their Happy Gilmore "Happy learned how to putt! Uh-oh!" moment: They learned how to walk and get on base. The lowest on-base percentage in their lineup belongs to Vlad Guerrero. They also run like crazy, perfect against a team like the Red Sox, whose catchers should seriously consider throwing left handed because, well, yaneverknow. This team really is different. This team should beat the Red Sox.

But lots of things should happen in the postseason that don't. If the Angels lose to the Red Sox, it won't necessarily mean they just Can't Beat Boston. And it won't mean the Angels aren't better either. Sometimes shit just happens. Now, you will go to sleep. Or I will put you to sleep. Check out the name tag. You're in my world now, grandma.

The Red Sox clinched their postseason berth at 1 a.m. on September 30. They'd just lost to the Blue Jays and had to wait for the Rangers to lose their West Coast game until they could "celebrate." It was not exactly a wild bash. Here is how the Red Sox went crazy:

"Once the Red Sox lost, there was a bizarre feeling in the clubhouse. Some players packed up and went home, while others milled around and watched the Rangers-Angels game on television. Ortiz said he would go out to a local establishment and then return to Fenway if the Rangers gave him reason to celebrate. Rookie reliever Daniel Bard went to his apartment across the street to have a late-night dinner, but he was prepared to return and enjoy the clinching moment with his teammates."

It has been that sort of season for the Red Sox. They have chugged along, winning enough to outlast an uninspiring group of wild-card challengers, never really making the Yankees sweat, as uninspiring as a 95-win season can possibly be. Almost every Red Sox fan I talk to is far from optimistic about the postseason. It just doesn't have that feel, one told me.

This is a unique luxury for Red Sox fans, this notion that this year's team isn't the team, one that no other team's fans can possibly understand. (And after a year off from the postseason, that includes the Yankees.) It's a privilege to make the playoffs, a rarity, and that Pink Hat Nation generally seems more exhausted by his season than invigorated speaks to just how far they've come since 2004, since Johnny Damon was bearded, since that incredibly brief time in human history where the rest of the nation found the Red Sox likable. It doesn't have that feel. Please.

That is to say: Bah! The mad rugby scrum that is the baseball postseason has no time or patience for protestations of what is RIGHT and what is POSSIBLE. Certainly — here comes the Cardinals reference! — there are other teams than the 2006 version of the Cardinals that I would have desired to win the big pennant-spiky trophy. That didn't stop me from losing my shit when they pulled it off. The tsunami can strike anyone at any time. If the Red Sox beat the Angels and make the ALCS, who will even remember the regular season? Who will even remember it by ALDS Game Two?

I'm about to write something that will make you nauseous, so I apologize in advance. But: Doesn't this decade deserve another Yankees-Red Sox ALCS? Isn't that where all this is going? This has been the decade of Tiger Woods, of Lance Armstrong, of Tom Brady, of Favre of Favre of Favre, the decade in which we recognized brilliance, and then we recognized it again, and then we bashed it against the wall and pushed it in everyone's faces over and over and over and over. This has been the decade of overkill, the This Is The Greatest Super Bowl Ever and This Is The Greatest Gunslinger Ever and This Is The Greatest Rivalry Ever. It wouldn't be right to end this decade with a modest Twins-Angels ALCS. The Yankees-Red Sox rivalry transmogrified into the pulsating, tentacled mega-monster this decade, and it changed everything. It caused the sports networks to ignore any team west of the northeast corridor. It raised baseball salaries to unimaginable levels. It inspired everyone to start using steroids, and then pretend like they were stopping. It has dwarfed everything else in baseball over the last 10 years. None of us has been able to escape it. It has been the one part of baseball that resembles football. It is not humble and welcoming. It is loud and exclusionary. It is AROD AND JETER VERSUS PAPI AND MANNY TONIGHT ON FOXXXXXXX!!!!! It is exceptionalism and imperialism and everything that makes you want to throw your television across the room.

That all happened this decade. Doesn't it have to end that way? Could it possibly end any other?

See? Told you you'd get sick.

I was out drinking with Daulerio and Craggs last weekend, and the topic of Matthew Berry came up. (I think we were talking about Tucker Max or something, lord knows why.) I like Matthew Berry, I suppose, but I think his yuckity-yuck style just isn't pitched to my sensibilities. That is to say: I am a nerd. I'm more of an Eric Karabell guy. I prefer dorky facts presented mostly straight, dorkily. I'm not much of a party guy, I'm not all that much fun at all, really.

I'd drunk enough that night that I started thinking maybe you can divide all male sports fans into either the Berry camp or the Karabell camp. Craggs is a Karabell guy too. Daulerio, as you'd probably guess, isn't. Bill Simmons is a Berry guy. Rob Neyer is a Karabell guy. Stuart Scott is a Berry guy. John Clayton is a Karabell guy. You can make an argument that there's a third type of sports fan, the self-serious keeper of the moral center of sports, your Bob Costas, your Joe Buck, but I don't think those people exist outside of the world of sports media. I've never met anyone who truly believes in the soul of sports that doesn't actually work inside it. I'm talking about normal people. You're all Berrys, or you're all Karabells. (If you want to play the full Deadspin staffer game, Drew's a Berry, Dash is a Karabell, and so are Sussman and Kogod. If you dig into the past, Clay Travis was a Berry, and Rick Chandler was a Karabell.)

Those two paragraphs, probably more than a third of this "team preview," exist so that I can introduce my theory that the Rockies are the Eric Karabell of this postseason. (If you're wondering — and I'm sure you are! — the Angels and the Twins/Tigers are also Karabells, and everyone else: Berry.) They are a quiet, unassuming, just-the-facts team that does nothing spectacularly but does everything right. The rotation does not blow you away, the lineup does not blow you away, the bullpen does not blow you away. They are above average everywhere. We do not tend to value that. The typical let's match up these two teams head-to-head! previews that people put together will inevitably show the Rockies lacking. Someone will have better hitting. Someone will have better pitching. But few will have the steady combination of both. Those are the teams that often win, the ones that don't fluctuate wildly.

Of course, the teams that often win in the postseason are the ones that just get lucky and hot out of nowhere, which is why predicting outcomes don't make any sense, why it makes more sense to stay low-key and avoid bold proclamations. (More Karabell!) The Rockies are no longer a faith-based business, and all told, they probably never were (who knew USA Today had so much influence?) but they're still likable enough, in their affable, oh-here-we-are-out-here-in-the-Mountain-time-zone-don't-mind-us way. (You have to love that almost the entire team is homegrown.) The Rockies have been blessed by the magic humidor, the ball-sucking device that took away the team's identity but allowed them to play, and win, by the same rules the rest of us have to play with. If the Rockies make the World Series this season, they will be only the second National League team to reach the Series twice this decade (other than the Cardinals; the Phillies are going for this as well). No one would have expected this as recently as early September 2007. They're not in a pinball machine anymore. They play earthly ball now. Thank heavens.

My father was complaining to me the other day about the increasing probability that Matt Holliday is not going to be playing for the Cardinals next season. He was dismayed by the likelihood that he'll be at Fenway next year, or in the Bronx, or even in Anaheim. "He should love it here," he said. "It shouldn't be all about the money." As a well-behaved Midwestern boy from a military family, I am loathe to disagree with my father, but hey, Cardinals fans lamenting losing Holliday: Talk to the Rockies. If we lived in the perfect world of baseball finance that's never really existed, Holliday would be leading the Rockies' charge, not along for the ride in St. Louis. But then again, that'd be a little too flashy, methinks, a little too boldfaced name. That'd make the Rockies a Berry rather than a Karabell. I like the Rockies as a Karabell. I like Todd Helton and Huston Street and all those guys you never stay up to watch. I like these guys.

Oh, and by the way: May I be the latest to remind you that thanks to the plate that was never touched and the tag that was never made, the 2007 regular season never actually ended. Which is a relief. My fantasy team was terrible that year.

The 2009 New York Yankees are the first team I've ever spent any time in the clubhouse of — assuming that you will not allow me to count the 1993 Big Twelve Champion Mattoon Green Wave — and I'm not sure I've learned much about the players who dress in it, other than the facts that Joba Chamberlain has a Megan Fox-esque tattoo full of indecipherable words I suspect he wouldn't understand anyway, and that Nick Swisher has a picture of Cody Ransom in his locker. People always talk about clubhouse tension, but none of that would ever filter out to a point that the sad masses of notebookers would ever notice it. Not that they don't try, regardless.

This was the season that the Yankees' undignified lurch toward their past dominance actually worked, a cosmic confluence of circumstances that allowed them to sign the best three free agents and have them, lo and behold, to turn out to be pretty damned good. Of all the signings, Mark Teixeira was probably the most steadying. The literal opposite of a diva, he's a robot, a smiling semi-vacant switch-hitting machine, a man so lacking in personality that his at-bat song is "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister. You can almost see the gears whirring and creaking in his brain. I do, in fact, like rock. Particularly Daughtry. What song would be express this feeling? How do I say, 'Boy, I sure could use some rocking right now.' That man doesn't even think in exclamation points. The last few years, the Yankees have needed players they never have to worry about. Mark Teixeira is the living embodiment of Someone Who Requires No More Thought. This is not a criticism of Teixeira. It is what makes him valuable. Well, that, at the .948 OPS.

More than Derek Jeter, more than Mariano Rivera, more than anyone else, the 2009 Yankees have taken the character of Teixeira, a relentless, robotic, blandly devastating instrument of destruction. Jeter, having one of his better years and mentioned by some as a possible MVP candidate, is actually eighth in his own lineup in slugging. Seven different guys hit at least 22 home runs, nine hit 13. Much of this is the new stadium, which sure did transfer from Luxury Suites homer-happy embarrassment to Home of Champions! awfully fast. But that stadium is going to be hosting a lot of games over the next few weeks. It plays to their strengths perfectly. And it's a lot louder than the old place. It really is. Place feels like college football sometimes.

At the beginning of the season, there was hope that this would be the year the Yankees' greed and inflated self-importance would finally be deflated, prey to age, PEDs, karma, Matt Taibbi's typically overexcited fingers. And there was something fitting about it, a gluttonous empire finally taken down by choking on its own bullshit. But, alas, that wasn't the Yankees; that was the Cowboys. I leave it up to you to decide whose downfall would be more satisfying. True life doesn't conform to Macbeth. Sometimes the most powerful win. Sometimes you don't even hate them for it. But usually, you do.

After the Cardinals won the World Series, the scene around Busch Stadium was what it would look like after a zombie apocalypse if all the zombies were actually puppies who exhaled nitrous. It was unabashed chaos, the landscape littered with googly-eyed Midwesterners, running into walls, lying around the ground kicking their feet in the air, climbing the Stan Musial statue outside, taking off their shirts and waving them in the air, as if beckoning for a rescue they hope never actually comes. A big happy bomb had gone off. It was our Woodstock. It was a glee riot.

In March 2007, five months after that night, I wrote on this site that I didn't want the baseball season to begin. This was the opposite of the way I had been raised, the way I am wired. I am the guy who will watch a meaningless Mets-Nationals game on Sunday afternoon rather than a Browns-Bengals game. Baseball is all that I care about. And I didn't want the season to begin. I wanted that game to last forever. I knew the Cardinals were a weak team in 2007, just like, all told, they were in 2006. I knew they wouldn't win again. I wasn't ready for someone else to take their turn. (That it turned out to be the darned Red Sox made it worse, and better.)

When the Phillies won the World Series last year, A.J. Daulerio, editor of this site, vanished for a few days. (I remember receiving emails from people in Philly at the time. "We think we just saw him at the Locust Bar!") Something about your team winning the World Series makes all the usual rules and regulations vanish. (To be fair, Daulerio generally comports himself, in his daily life, as if the usual rules and regulations do not apply, so I'm surprised anybody noticed the difference.) You are a giddy screaming mess for at least a week afterward. It feels like the logical end of something. It feels like the end of baseball.

As I wrote back in 2007, "anybody who says the first title just makes you hungrier is full of it." It is to the Phillies' credit that they have rejected this notion; they are going for it this year, all in, as if they didn't win last year at all. Cliff Lee, Pedro Martinez, Ben Francisco ... the Phillies are trying to fill in all possible gaps. I have no doubt that if Roger Clemens had any interest in coming in to be the closer sometime in late July, the Phillies would have at least considered it. They have the bloodlust of a team that has never won a title before. In the past, it would have looked desperate. Now it just looks like piling on. Good for them.

Still, it's bizarre to think that the lone repeat champions this decade would come from Philadelphia, doesn't it? (By the way, Philadelphia fans don't receive nearly enough credit for avoiding the Boston plague, immediately turning into our-shit-don't-stink self-important spoiled brats after winning a long-awaited title. They're pretty much the same miserable fucks they've always been, and you have to salute them for that.) From this angle, the Phillies look to have the ideal postseason team: Strong rotation, massive power, enough speed, little unimportant depth. They'd have to be the favorites, right?

But yes, oh yes, Mr. Lidge, the one guy who didn't get the memo that this year meant as much as last year, the one guy not playing along. It was inevitable, really, that Lidge, haunted Lidge, would turn back into the sadsack of Pujols-at-Enron-2005, body slumped over, bewildered that this could be happening to him. Even when he was so dominant last year, we all knew a reckoning was coming. We couldn't have known it would be this. But we know it could not last. He is more human than the rest of them. He is still hungover.

This could be one of the the last runs for these guys, you know. The two youngest guys in their starting lineup are Shane Victorino, 28, and Ryan Howard, 29. Chase Utley is going to be freaking 31 in December. Teams age fast. You have to grab what you can, while you can. Sometimes if you forget that you've won one, you might just win two. The Phillies' place in history is secure. That they don't think that's enough is impressive, and rare. Good for them.

Until the Dodgers did right by the denizens of eastern Missouri, southern Illinois and parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Kentucky by sweeping the Chicago Cubs out of the playoffs last season, the franchise, one of baseball's signature pieces of china, had not won a postseason series in 20 years, when Kirk Gibson was limping around the bases and Jack Buck's eyes were making him incredulous. This was so long ago that Dennis Miller, long-haired, sane and sufferable back then, in the anchor's desk at "Saturday Night Live," made a joke about it on the air five minutes after it happened. This is a very long time.

Los Angeles has been through a lot since then, race riots, O.J., mudslides, blackouts, David Lynch giving weather reports on the radio, Kobe, but they've never quite had the Dodgers at the center of the conversation the way they supposed they always should be. The Dodgers have been Vin Scully, plodding away alone every night like a national treasure encased in a snow globe, and they have been derivative would-be Lakers. The team never really adjusted, never really came down from the Gibson-Tommy Lasorda Dodgers, and they moped around with would-be replacements, your Jim Tracys, your Grady Littles, a brief flirtation with a by-then-obviously-crazy Davey Johnson. This team played Eric Karros at first base for 10 years. Eric Karros is a fine player, but if he is your signature attraction, your beacon in the storm, one can argue that you have chosen to have no soul at all. One can argue that you are killing time.

The Dodgers realized around 2004 that it was time to rip out the guts and start over, and they turned in a direction that couldn't possibly have fit in with their inherent character, hiring "Moneyball" cast member Paul DePodesta — the nerd, the Demitri Martin — to remake the team in Billy Beane's image. DePodesta made a few mistakes, the "fuck off you better believe I'm in charge" Brad Penny trade, and never understood that even though he had been asked to reinvent Think Blue, he hadn't, not really. He thought he was Conan O'Brien; the Dodgers secretly wanted Bob Hope; he turned out to be "Late World With Zach Galifianakis" on VH-1, ahead of his time, sure, but still unwilling to bend enough to understand what he'd been hired to do in the first place. He was born to be a doomed folk hero, a sitcom a small number of fans are rabid about but one that inspires most of us to shrug our shoulders and wonder what all the fuss was about. The best thing one can say about Paul "Google Boy" DePodesta is that his tale was the first time smart people picked up their paper and realized, "Hey ... Bill Plaschke is an idiot. I had no idea."

What DePodesta really did, though, was pave the way for Joe Torre and Manny Ramirez, the guy who made the Dodgers realize their true personality is like its city itself: Transplants tired of the anger planet elsewhere, heading to the sunshine and the convertibles and they "hey, man, will you read my screenplay?" All the gorgeous vacancy of Los Angeles that makes the rest of us despise the place while understanding, deep down, that we'd all be happier, probably, if we lived there. Torre gave the Dodgers class, Ramirez gave them drama and spectacle, and, ta-da, the Dodgers were the Dodgers again. Hell, Kirk Gibson's really a Tiger, deep down. The Dodgers are happy to take your disgruntled and tired, give them a tan and polish 'em up.

The ultimate irony of the Dodgers' success this year is that they're based in the principles DePodesta championed, and was run out of town for: This team gets on base like crazy. The lineup didn't turn out to be as deep in 2009 as everyone had been hoping — Russell Martin fell off a cliff, and we shouldn't have expected all that much from Rafael Furcal in the first place — but it is relentless, sort of a Yankees lite, like Torre now, really, hanging around, hanging in, looking up and saying, "hey, doggone it, look at that, we ended up here again." The rotation succeeds because of the bullpen; you just have to hang on, Wolf, Billingsley, Kershaw, and the geniuses at the end will take care of the rest. The Dodgers are not exciting, and if if weren't for Manny, they'd be a bunch of blandly efficient gods chugging to first base, waiting for you to figure out which one is Ethier and which one is Kemp and which one is Loney. Everyone will talk about Manny all October, but he's a name, not a number. You get a sense that no one in the clubhouse dislikes him, but no one talks to him much either.

Amusingly enough, the Dodgers have become a hot "overrated" pick this postseason, reminding people of the Cubs of last year, proficient in all ways and excellent in none, coasting on a stressless regular season with a foundation easily cracked in October. I am not so sure. The Dodgers are a young team disguised as one making a last lap around the track. They lull you into submission. You feel confident, you see Randy Wolf, you pshaw and then you look up and you're down 5-3 in the seventh, and when that happens against the Dodgers, in their stadium (where they won 50 games this year), you've already lost. Sleep on the Dodgers at their peril. They still haven't figured out a personality outside of interchangeable kids and transplants, but isn't that what Los Angeles has always been about anyway? Forget about it, Jack. It's Mannywood.