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