Good news from the Victoria Times team

Later, in about an hour, Steve's power ranks are going to be posted. I assure you, though, that they were written 2 days ago, and are merely scheduled to pot at that time. Steve is a little busy today.
He is currently at the hospital, where his wife is giving birth to their first child, a son. Join me in wishing Steve and his wife Elizabeth a healthy and happy baby boy. He certainly couldn't ask for better parents. Updates when I hear news!
**UPDATE** Steve's son Matthew was born an hour and a half ago. 6 pounds, 9 oz, and sounds like everyone is doing well! Congratulations! I couldn't be happier for him.

I invite you to take a look back

I know we haven't heard from Steve lately, but I promise, he will be back. I thought that maybe, to remind you of his genius, we would take a look back at one of his posts from, oh, let's say October. It was his first week putting the projected playoff matchups, based on his rankings to that point. Here, here's the post. Check out the NFC. Better yet, let me copy and paste it:

NFC
1st Round Byes: #2 Saints, #5 Vikings
#6 Packers @ #12 Cardinals
#10 Cowboys @ #7 Eagles

Holy projection, batman!!  For those whose booze has already killed the necessary brain cells to remember back that far, the NGC shook out like this.
1st round byes: Saints and Vikings.
1st round matchups: Packers @ Cardinals and Eagles @ Cowboys.
Save for the fact that he got the site of the Eagles-Cowboys game off, he pegged the playoffs exactly. EXACTLY. In week 7. Eat your heart out, Merril Hoge.

(What does Cliff Floyd have to do with this post? Absolutely nothing)

Happy Birthday!

Today is Steve's birthday. You all remember Steve, he puts together the ranks and generally writes longer, more insightful posts than I do. Anyways, I am trying to think of an appropriate birthday wish for Steve. His football team, the 49ers, is done. We both cheer for Purdue sports, so I feel like wishing the Boilermakers good luck would be self serving. And he is a White Sox fan, and there isn't a chance I'm going to say anything like "I hope the White Sox make the World Series this year!" Sorry. I guess I can just say "Happy Birthday" and at the very least reward you with this picture of Bobby Jenks. Happy Birthday Steve!

Wikipedia trusts Steve!

I don't know if you recall, but Steve picked Indians manager to win Manager of the Year in the AL this year. Of course, this is usually the kiss of death. Whenever Steve picks managers of the year, they tend to get fired mid season. (Exhibit A). Anyways, he picked Eric Wedge and Cecil Cooper this year. Both are still employed, surprisingly, but in talking about this with Steve today, we discovered that a Wikipedia editor decided not to waste any time and reach the logical conclusion:



Fired yesterday, apparently. Apologies to Mr. Wedge from all of us at the Times. Apologies from the future, I think.

Victoria Times, getting our name out there

As I may have mentioned, Steve got married a little while back. Delinquent as I am, I failed to get him a wedding gift, which was probably for the best, because I was going to get Steve and the new Mrs. Steve a blender, and they got about 11 of those already.
Then, while researching the Rays for my post a couple days ago, it dawned on me. See, Steve and I have had a strange and wholly unhealthy obsession with Cliff Floyd for some time now. He's always been one of our favorite punchlines and for no good reason. Seems like a nice enough guy, tries hard, but he just gets hurt all the time, and seemingly single-handedly derailed the Mets for about 5 years.
But I digress. Floyd has been playing like the Cliff Floyd of old lately, as I found when researching that post. Also, I found out that Cliff Floyd's page on baseball-reference was available. Naturally, I bought it as a tribute for Steve and Mrs. Steve. Congratulations!
(P.S. I have a spare blender. Beth?)