Strange Days Indeed

OK, what the hell is going on? The Devil Rays, Tigers, Reds, and Dodgers are in first place. The Mariners are winless. The closer one looks, the weirder the first week of baseball has been. Griffey is healthy. Hollandsworth ripped Smoltz's spacesuit. Monkeys are flying out of our collective baseball ass.

Where will all this madness lead? I see it like this: bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the world series with the game tied. Ugie's sweating bullets on the mound and Mac gets a funny hunch. Brazenly he signals for Randall Simon, sweating bullets on third base, to steal home. Simon takes off, only to be beat by 30 feet by Ugie's 92 MPH heater. Pudge stands up to block the plate for the tag and Simon knows what he has to do. Randall lowers his shoulder and checks Pudge out of his cleats, disloding the ball and icing a Bucco championship. Pirates 12, Tigers 11. Jack Wilson lifts Randall up onto his shoulders, mobbed in a sea of jubilant black and gold. Hundreds of miles away, Phil Luckett chokes on a hot wing. Hey, it could happen...

Or not, but hey the Bucs don't look as bad as most projected. Wells and Vogelsong got on the good foot, as have Kendall, C. Wilson, and Redman. Mesa's been perfect! Too bad we play the AL West this year, I'd love to see Mesa buzz Vizquel's tower for old times' sake. Hmmm, how about a Bucs-Injuns World Series?