Lucky Number Three

So it was the weirdest thing... It was the third day of March, and I was halfway through a six-pack of my Ommegang Three Philosophers. I had just returned home via the 3 train from my job at the rope factory, and was well into the George Clooney - Mark Wahlberg - Spike Jonze classic "Three Kings" when I heard the distinct clanging of a cowbell from my backyard.

I sprung to attention and lept to the backyard, only to hear three more clangings of the cowbell, and a strange, hobbit/witch hybrid creature appear in a puff of smoke.

In a gravelly, creaky and downright unsettling tone, this peculiar creature croaked, "You have 3's in your future. It has happened twice before, and your opportunity for the thrice shall appear within the fortnight..." I was about to quibble with this woman/hobbit abomination, but before I could get a word out, another three clangs on the cowbell and a puff of smoke. She was gone.

In her stead, a crow. Three caws and he too was gone.

I chalked this up to having had 3 large, heavily alcohol laden beers, but even under my most blotto conditions, never had I hallucinated crows and hobbit witches...

I spent the next several days at the ready, searching for any possible meanings for "the thrice" and coming up blank time after time. Soon thereafter, though, on the creepiest Friday the 13th I was ever to know, a flash of light blinded me as I walked the lonely streets of Brooklyn.

Across the street, in the distance, I noticed a bewildered man in strange dress. The strange was not the source of my interest, for in his hand, the man clutched a large starfish. All my life, for no apparent reason, I have harbored unnatural aversions to the most peculiar of sea-faring creatures, but have felt strangely compelled to them.

Drawn as though possessed by magnetism, I approached the frightened and bewildered man... I know that man... that is a Coxian visage if ever I saw him... He held in his other hand... THE WAGER!!!!

It was then that I knew my quest - I must summon forth from the depths of my being my list. My wager. That was the thrice. I had mustered the forethought and prognosticatory ability to master the Cox before, and as the hobbit-witch lady predicted, my chance for a third time now presented itself.

"Behold, Future Man! Your challenge is accepted. I shall prove to the Cox line, once and for all, the Jostian superiority over all things prognosticating. Shake in your futuristic boots, bionic boy!"

The Predictions

AL East:
1. Boston
2. New York
3. Tampa
4. Toronto
5. Baltimore

AL Central:
1. Cleveland
2. Minnesota
3. Detroit
4. Kansas City
5. Chicago

AL West:
1. Los Angeles
2. Oakland
3. Seattle
4. Texas

NL East:
1. New York
2. Philadelphia
3. Florida
4. Atlanta
5. Washington

NL Central:
1. Chicago
2. Milwaukee
3. Cincinnati
4. St. Louis
5. Houston
6. Pittsburgh

NL West:
1. Los Angeles
2. San Francisco
3. Arizona
4. Colorado
5. Padres


Wild Card Teams:
AL: New York
NL: Milwaukee

Division Playoffs:
Yankees over Indians
Red Sox over Angels
Cubs over Dodgers
Mets over Brewers

AL Champions: Red Sox
NL Champions: Mets
World Series: Red Sox in 6

Batting Champ:
AL: Ichiro
NL: Chipper Jones

Home Run Champ:
AL: Mark Teixeira
NL: Ryan Howard

ERA Champ:
AL: Roy Halladay
NL: Johan Santana

Strikeout Champ:
AL: Tim Lincecum
NL: C.C. Sabathia

MVP:
AL: Grady Sizemore
NL: David Wright

Cy Young:
AL: C.C. Sabathia
NL: Johan Santana

Contest Rules

In order to reduce to writing the new, improved rules of the challenge before us, they are as follows:

The wager: One bottle of mid-grade spirits, to be chosen by the victor. No plastic jugs from the bottom shelf, no dusty bottles from the top shelf... somewhere in the 30-60 dollar range.

The rules: Each participant - Zaaq and BS - must choose the correct final standings of all divisions in the American League and National League, the Wild Card teams, the Division Series winners, the League Championship winners, and the World Series champ. Additionally, each participant must choose each league's MVP, Cy Young Winner, HR champ, Batting Average Champ, Strikeouts Champ and ERA champ (for starting pitching).

The point structure:

• One point for each correct slot picked - 30 total possible points
• 2 additional points for each division winner correctly picked - 12 points
• 5 additional points for each division completely correctly picked - 30 total points
• 2 points for picking the correct wild card teams - 4 total points
• 4 points for picking each correct divisional championship winner - 16 possible points
• 6 points for picking the correct league champion - 12 possible points
• 10 points for picking the world series winner - 10 possible points
• 1 point each for MVP, Cy Young, HR leader, Average leader, ERA leader and Ks leader - 12 possible points

Perfect season = 126 points

The Wager II - 2009 MLB Predictions

I work in a world you can't see. A world of nanotechnology surveillance. Robots, as small as skin cells and as numerous as gnats, fly around and feed visuals back to my head-set. I can direct each individual bot. In times of urgency, I can unleash an J.W.B. ( assassin bot) the size of a bumble bee to deliver a fatal dose of Ricin. It's not the most efficient poison, but we can always blame it on the Russians.

The off-hours were the best and I looked forward to them. Despair reached new heights on the street. Every seedy hell-hole was full of first-timers.

I had a place: below the grid and hidden astride the tight winding side-streets of Downtown. I liked it because it lacked identity. Never the same people. Never the same Gangs.

Slipping in the bar, I immediately spied my corner seat open. It had a view of the front door, a back to the wall, and a clear path to the kitchen and the rear exit. I was always a man who needed options.

Ordering a double Pappy Van Winkle and a tall-boy Chimay, I scanned the place. It was something I picked up after they shipped me overseas. When you do what I do for a living, you're always behind enemy lines. And when you're behind the lines, there's always a sniper.

The place looked clean. I knew all the employees. There were a group of kids wasting credits reenacting the Altamont concert on the Virtual Replicator towards the back. They were no worry. The Display Wall had the game on.

The New York Yankees versus the Oklahoma City Mariners. Great match-up. My family had made their fortune betting Baseball games against an obscure family of rope-binders from Seattle. Strangely the family of Jost was always willing to bet obscene amounts of money against their rope-binding business ( the entire Pacific Northwest live in Tree-Huts ). After an initial feint of betting weakness; we drew the truffle to our ravenous pig-snout. Baseball was in my blood, and in my credit card.

I was on my second Van Winkle, and the game was about to start, when a large man dressed in the dense wool and hemp of a Puget Sound sailor bellied up to the bar beside me. There were bits of sardines in his beard.

" Be you buying me a drink," he said. " A Laphroaig will do."

I have a full defense skin job. They sent millions of bots into my epidermis. A mother-fucker touches me and he's Tased. I get a nice tingling sensation. So I wasn't worried about the man.

The bartender brought the scotch. "Drink up", I said, and got up to leave.

"Now don't be hasty, my name's Jost". He stopped me dead in my tracks. "I've come a long way to bring you this". He had a Giant Starfish.

"What do you want"? I cloistered back beside him ready to pounce if his salty villainy would surface. "The bet has been made this year. I could kill you for trespassing on The Wager."

"But being I wasn't from this year?" He took his scotch and downed it like vodka. "Then what might you say? Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Grandfather sent me here with this beast. It has the ability to send one through time...if you feed it only turnips. Don't ask, your ancestors were fucked".

I ordered another round and the disheveled Mariner rapped on.

"Back in the year of 2009 your besotted ancestors forgot to include their baseball predictions in their letter to me family. By accident they had instead inserted detailed instructions for bizarre vegetable sex rituals. Grim stuff it be. And me thinks on purpose it might be."

At this point I fingered the bot injector in my pocket. I could inject this madman with a bot the size of a flea and once in contact with heat it would expand to the size of a grapefruit rupturing any vital arteries or organs around it. But there was a ring of truth to his backward speech. And I also had a turnip in my pocket.

"Me and mine were ready to declare victory once again until your damnable ancestors found in our original agreement a caveat at the bottom, in fine print, written backwards, in coded Sanskrit, upside down, scribed in stealthy ink only visible by firelight. Funny how that a seems to happen more than you'd think."

"So let me guess Stinky," I said. "My rocking ancestors who mastered time-travel sent you here to get me to pick the 2009 season. But couldn't I cheat and just check out the results? Why did you go forward in time instead of back"?

"Like I said, your ancestors were fucked. But they bred these giant crustaceans to have power over the minds of men, and once grasped even a lying scallywag like yourself must be true to their word. Now take your burden!" He shoved the Giant Starfish into my hands and instantly disappeared.

Looking down at the exposed underbelly of this strange beast, my mind swam. It's large beak, exposed and slowly clicking, hypnotized me. I felt myself falling, falling...falling.

I awoke in a daze. I was lying on the street as people strangely dressed stepped by without a second look. After gaining my bearings, I stood and took in my surroundings. I was aghast.

The cars, the buildings, everything around me was like the Holo-History in school. I would have believed I had been bushwhacked and thrown into a Sim-Player, but for the Giant Starfish still gripping my hand and my ability to touch the people passing by.

After multiple attempts to get someone to tell me the date, finally a young Mother told me my doom: Friday the 13th March 2009. I turned my face to the sky and let out a violent,"No!"

fin
( for now)

American League:

East
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Rays
4. Orioles
5. Jays

Central
1. Twins
2. Racist Logos
3. White Sox
4. Tigers
5. Royals

West
1. Angels
2.A's
3. Rangers
4. Mariners

National League:

East
1. Mets
2. Phillies
3. Braves
4. Marlins
5. Nationals

Central
1. Cubs
2. Cardinals
3. Brewers
4. Reds
5. Astros
6. Pirates

West
1. Dodgers
2. Diamondbacks
3. Giants
4. Rockies
5. Padres

Batting Champ

AL: Dustin Pedroia, Sox
NL: Albert Pujols, Cardinals

Home Run Champ

AL: Miguel Cabrera, Tigers
NL: Ryan Howard, Philles

ERA Champ

AL: Roy Halladay, Blue Jays
NL: Johan Santana, Mets

Strikeout Champ

AL: A.J. Burnett
NL: Tim Lincecum

MVP's

AL: Mark Teixeira, Yankees-1B
NL: Manny Ramirez, Dodgers-LF

Cy Young

AL: Jon Lester- Red Sox
NL: Johan Santana- Mets

Divisional Series:
AL: Yanks over Angels in 5 games
Red Sox over in Twins 3 games

NL: Mets over Dodgers in 3 games
Cubs over Phillies in 5 games

Championship Series:
AL: Yanks over Red Sox in 7 games
NL: Cubs over Mets in 6 games

World Series:

Yankees over Cubs in 5 games