Your Brain On Cubs

Quick plug for a book I haven't read yet. My old roommate and the Best Man in my wedding, Dan Gordon, edited a book called "Your Brain On Cubs."

The book was written by several neuroscientists and covers a variety of topics related to the brain and baseball, including what happens in the brain of Cubs fans that causes them to root for their team through so much agony.

I like to think I partially inspired this book. You see, I'm a diehard Cardinals fan and he's a diehard Cubs fan. Our teams, of course, are bitter rivals. I was his roommate in 2003, and I was with him during the Steve Bartman incident and the subsequent collapse of the team as they were moments away from their first World Series in almost 60 years. I was also his roommate in 2006, when the Cardinals won the World Series with a team that went barely .500 in the regular season. He needed to examine his own misery in comparison with my joy. I haven't read the book yet, but it's a book I'd certainly be interested in even if I didn't know Dan. It's a great premise for a book and I'm sure a good read.

Annual Preseason Baseball Picks

Welcome to The Nose Knows Baseball: 2008 Preview (disclaimer: these predictions are completely inaccurate)

I've done this for three years now. I predicted the Cards to win in 2006. It worked. I predicted them again in 2007. Not so much.

I will not be predicting the Cardinals to win it all this year. At some point, being a homer just gets ridiculous. It was ridiculous of me to predict them either year (even if it worked in one of them). But now they seem to be an even worse team. Baseball Prospectus, which makes much more scientific projections than I do, predicts a 72-90 record this year. They were right about the White Sox demise that caught so many by surprise last year and made people like this look foolish.

So onto my predictions.

AL East: Red Sox. This is the year they officially become more hated than the Yankees.
AL Central: Tigers. They should rebound this year, especially with Miguel Cabrera at the plate.
AL West: Angels. Nothing more to say.
AL Wild Card: Indians. So yes.....

That leaves the Yankees out.

AL Champs: Tigers. I think their offseason moves put them over the edge.
AL Cy Young: C.C. Sabathia.
AL MVP: Alex Rodriguez. And Yankees fans will STILL hate him.

NL East: Mets. They just got the best pitcher in the game in Johan Santana, and should bounce back from last year.
NL Central: Cubs. As hard as it is for a Cards fan to make this prediction, they're clearly the best team in the division.
NL West: Diamondbacks. Dan Haren was another nice offseason pickup.
NL Wild Card: Brewers. I've predicted them to win the Wild Card 3 years straight. Is this finally the year?

NL Champs: Mets.
NL Cy Young: Johan Santana.
NL MVP: David Wright. A Mets hat trick. Will it be enough for the World Series?

Nope.

Your 2008 World Champion Detroit Tigers.

Gang Leader For A Day

Following up on my last post,I mentioned that Sudhir Venkatesh, the sociologist who lived among gang members at the Robert Taylor homes in Chicago and was written about in Freakonomics, has his own book, Gang Leader For A Day.

I havent read the book yet. I plan on reading it soon. Now comes word that the book has been optioned for a movie, which will be directed by Hustle and Flow's Craig Brewer. That seems like a great fit for me. This is a story that could be told with the energy Brewer brought to Hustle and Flow and made into a fantastic film.

So who to play Venkatesh? Not that many huge Indian actors in Hollywood, which makes Kal Penn and obvious choice. While he's best none for being Kumar, I think he has potential to be a pretty good actor. But I think an even better choice might be Lost's Naveen Andrews (I had to check Wikipedia on this one... yes, his parents are from India. He's not Iraqi like his character on Lost). A third option is Sendhil Ramamurthy from Heroes. He could be ok but I'd prefer Penn or Andrews. And of course I'm sure there are many more Indian actors to choose from... Those are just the only 3 mainstream Indian actors I can think of.