A SNEAK PREVIEW OF SEASON'S TOP 40.Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Forty forecasts: 1. NL West standings, Oct. 3, 1999: San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , Dodgers, Colorado, Arizona, San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. . 2. NL Central: Houston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh. 3. NL East: Atlanta, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , Montreal, Philadelphia, Florida. 4. The Dodgers are the wild cards Symbols used to represent any value when selecting specific files. In DOS, Windows and Unix, the asterisk (*) represents any collection of characters, and the question mark (?) represents one single character. In SQL, the percent sign (%) and underscore (_) are used for matching text. . They break an 11-year drought by winning a playoff game Noun 1. playoff game - one game in the series of games constituting a playoff game - a single play of a sport or other contest; "the game lasted two hours" playoff - any final competition to determine a championship . They lose, three games to one, to the Braves in the first round. 5. AL West: Texas, Angels, Seattle, Oakland. 6. AL Central: Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Chicago, Kansas City Kansas City, two adjacent cities of the same name, one (1990 pop. 149,767), seat of Wyandotte co., NE Kansas (inc. 1859), the other (1990 pop. 435,146), Clay, Jackson, and Platte counties, NW Mo. (inc. 1850). . 7. AL East: New York, Baltimore, Toronto, Boston, Tampa Bay Tampa Bay, inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, 25 mi (40 km) long and 7 to 12 mi (11.3–19 km) wide, W Fla., separated from the Gulf by numerous small islands; it receives the Hillsborough River. St. . 8. The Orioles are the wild cards. 9. The Angels take a five-game lead into the final week. Manager Terry Collins dusts off last year's rousing battle cry: ``We've got a lot to be proud of even if we lose!'' The Angels lose their last six games and the division title. 10. Alex Rodriguez Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez (born July 27, 1975 in New York, New York), commonly nicknamed A-Rod, is a Dominican American baseball infielder. He is the starting third baseman for the New York Yankees, after having played shortstop for the Texas Rangers and Seattle is the best No. 1 pick in fantasy-league drafts. 11. Second best: Mike Piazza Michael Joseph Piazza (born September 4, 1968 in Norristown, Pennsylvania) is an American Major League Baseball player who currently plays for the Oakland Athletics. He began his career with the Los Angeles Dodgers and played for the Florida Marlins, New York Mets, San Diego Padres . 12. Major-league teams begin selling ads on their uniforms, a display of crass American commercialism copied from sports leagues everywhere else in the world. 13. Everybody's favorite name: Trot Nixon. 14. Another manager is fired for lying about his military career. An Army general is fired for lying about his baseball career. 15. The 25th anniversary of Hank Aaron's 715th home run - April 8 - receives too little attention from the sports TV networks. Not enough videotape of the event. Besides, TV is too busy putting together its big first-anniversary special, ``70 Camera Angles of McGwire Hugging Maris' Kid.'' 16. Kevin Brown is hailed as Man of the Year by the National Society of Emergency Plumbers. 17. Gary Sheffield's split personalities have a meeting and work everything out. 18. Sammy Sosa, shocked to discover that bowing to the fans following home runs offends the pitchers, tries a new crowd-pleasing trick, sticking out his tongue and wiggling his fingers in the direction of the mound. 19. Mark McGwire continues to refuse to answer questions about how many home runs he'll hit. He almost falls for, ``How many hits do you expect to have, and of those, how many do you expect to be singles, doubles and triples?'' 20. McGwire belts between 62 and 69 home runs and is asked to account for the disappointing season. 21. Sosa is second again in the home-run race but wins two-thirds of the Triple Crown. 22. Because the Cardinals and Cubs miss the playoffs, McGwire and Sosa finish 201st and 202nd in the MVP (Multimedia Video Processor) A high-speed DSP chip from Texas Instruments, introduced in 1994. Officially introduced as the TMS320C80, it combines RISC technology with the functionality of four DSPs on one chip. voting, behind all the players whose teams did make the playoffs. 23. NL MVP: Barry Bonds. Cy Young Award winner: John Smoltz. Rookie of the Year Rookie of the Year may refer to:
24. AL MVP: Albert Belle. Cy Young: Roger Clemens. Rookie: Gabe Kapler, Detroit (causing ``Welcome Back'' to be played more than ``Glory Days'' on ballpark PA systems). 25. Anybody who tries to do anything for 56 straight days - shave, eat breakfast, read a newspaper - will gain renewed awe for Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak. 26. Every manager agonizes over his choice for No. 5 starter. Every No. 5 starter goes 7-10 with a 5.23 ERA. 27. Chan Ho Park outpitches Kevin Brown and demands his next contract be worth at least as much as Mrs. Brown's airplane tickets. 28. May 1: It's a miracle It's a Miracle was a television show that aired on PAX-TV (now Independent Television) between September 6, 1998 and September 1, 2004.[1] Initially hosted by Richard Thomas[2], and later by Roma Downey, [3] - Joe Torre returns quickly from cancer surgery to manage the Yankees. 29. May 2: It's a miracle - Raul Mondesi draws a walk. 30. Major-league umpires, ordered to enforce the traditional knees-to-armpits, plate-wide strike zone, assert their individuality by calling anywhere from two to four outs per inning. 31. Broadcaster Rick Monday crosses up a radio interview subject by asking a concise, provocative question instead of making a rambling statement to set up a short reply. 32. Broadcaster Joe Morgan is hailed as the best baseball analyst in the business again for his creative use of the same word or phrase 42 times in one sentence. 33. The Expos will do better than everybody expects. The Diamondbacks will do worse than everybody expects. 34. I'll complete elaborate scoresheets, pitch by pitch and color-coded, for all the games I attend this season. I'll keep them all in a protective folder so that one day I can pull them out and relive my ballpark experiences. 35. One day this season I'll pull out those scoresheets and relive last season - if I ever figure out where I put the folder. 36. I'll find a reason to hate the Yankees again. I'll find a reason to love the Dodgers again. 37. The Dodgers improve on last year's 83-79 record, and manager Davey Johnson's analytical mind proves to be the difference. 38. The proof comes in August when the Dodgers struggle while Johnson is sidelined with a computer virus. 39. Fifteen Yankees tie for the team lead with 20 home runs, 70 RBI RBI abbr. Baseball runs batted in Noun 1. rbi - a run that is the result of the batter's performance; "he had more than 100 rbi last season" run batted in and .290 averages. It's believed to be a major-league first. 40. Yankees, four games to one, over Houston in the World Series. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion