I know this is not technically about sports, but this is the best forum I have to whine about this kind of stuff.  I have a couple of geeky blogs, but I am not sure this content is appropriate for either of them.

So, here goes…how does everyone else feel about the free speech implications of the “Zack and Miri” trailers that began running during the World Series?  You know, Zack and Miri, that movie starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks…oh, you might have known it by its original name, Zack and Miri Make a Porno.  See, they changed the name of the movie due to the apparently insensitive nature of its title.

Wait a minute…later that evening, on Comedy Central, I saw a trailer with the original name.  Now I am confused…it appears that they did not actually change the name of the movie, they just removed the “Make a Porno” part from certain commercials airing on certain networks at certain times.  So, I just have to chime in about this one, if for no other reason than the fact that Jim Morrison’s finest hour as an American was when he deliberately failed to substitute the word “better” for “higher” on the Ed Sullivan show on September 17, 1969 (the link is to the Val Kilmer movie version…where Val-Jim is a lot more of an attention-grabbing prick about it during the live broadcast than Jim-Jim supposedly was…but I could not find the original on YouTube…although I must admit I did not look very hard). 

First of all, let me say up front that I would not have enjoyed having to explain the word “Porno” to my 4-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son while we watched the World Series.  But you know what, I somehow think I could have handled it.  Anyway, here are my thoughts about this, in no particular order:

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Popularity: 22% [?]

Since everyone liked my Redskins-Cowboys thread with JJ so much, we are going to see if we can knock one out every week.  We are already working on one for this week, and here is the one from last week.

Enjoy.

Mack:  No e-mail about Pacman’s inability to even make it to the bye week without being in the news for something other than football?

You disappoint me…

JJ:  You could always write the Adam “Don’t call me Pacman” Jones eulogy article preemptively. 

So, just to make it a double barreled jab, T.O. crying on the sidelines along with Pacman’s most recent altercation is a sign that Cowboys are coming apart at the seams.  I am waiting for Tank Johnson to make the paper next. 

My only concern is that the collapse is coming too early.  The Cowboys might be able to put it back together again.

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Popularity: 41% [?]

As the American League gets ready to announce its Most Valuable Player shortly, I wanted to offer a (hopefully) unique perspective.

In addition to voting for “Value” to mean a player’s value to his team, let’s also incorporate his financial “Value” as well.  For instance, a player making 15 million dollars per year should be roundly castigated in the press if he is not on the list of M.V.P. candidates every single year, while a guy making $400K, who is matching the high-priced prima donna tit-for-tat, should be regarded as being much more “Valuable”.

Anyway, it has long been a dream of mine that salary should count for something in the MVP voting.  I know it’s a pipe dream, and I also know that a bunch of writers, usually the last guy picked all their lives and now drunk on power, vote for these things.  That is why it all too often devolves into a popularity contest.  I would love to see some of these younger writers use the huge audiences they have now with TV (I am talking to you, Buster Olney) and take a stand against the status quo.  Ignore whether or not the guy is likeable, or even tolerable, and make your decision based on what matters…was he the player in the entire league with the most value over the course of 162 games?

Yeah, I know…another pipe dream.  OK — let’s get on with it.  Here are the numbers:

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Popularity: 11% [?]

John Lackey, who is better at what he does than I am at anything, is a sore loser.  He is probably a great guy who just got caught up in an emotional situation and did not have time to think before opening his mouth.  Well, I hope that is the case, because if not, it would make him easily the dumbest dude I have ever heard about in professional sports.  Even if that is the case, I am not sure his actual stupidity could hold a candle to how stupid he looks with his ever-gaping mouth, beady eyes too close together, malformed head and jacked up teeth, but perhaps that is a rant for a different day.  Suffice it to say that when centuries of inbreeding manifests itself in such a tragic way, and you have the money to do something about it, why on earth would you stay with the status quo, especially when the status looks like this?

So, here are the quotes from cry baby number one:

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Popularity: 6% [?]

OK — I totally spaced it and spent all night last night working on some stuff for work after watching the play-in game.  I have been shirking my MackOnSports duties and remain suitably chastised for doing so by everyone who is a regular reader.  So, I am dedicating part of my lunch hour to get my predictions out there before the first pitch of the first game later this afternoon.

If you were disappointed at the lack of content over the summer, rest assured that I will try to make time this fall and beyond.  Plus, you can always get off your ass and chime in with some posts of your own.  Just click the “Write For Us” link at the top of the page and follow the instructions.

Before I get to my predictions, let me just reiterate what a total crap shoot it is to make any of these kind of predictions in baseball.  Sure, it usually works out over a 7-game series that the better team will win, but not always.  Even 7 games is a pretty small sample when you are talking about baseball.  Case in point — does anyone outside the city of St. Louis actually believe the 2006 Cardinals were better than the 2006 Tigers?  And then, when you throw in the 5-game component of the divisional round, anything can happen.  The 2005 Chicago White Sox swept the 2005 Boston Red Sox…a team that was better than them at every single position on the field, in the dugout, and in the corporate offices…friggin’ El Duque.

Anyway, here are my predictions guesses.  Sorry about the image quality…no time to eff with it right now.  Maybe I will clean it up later.

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Popularity: 5% [?]