This Is A New One. Even For Me.

Ladies and gentleman, I am a Mets fan. You know this. I don't keep it a secret even though perhaps I should. But being a Mets fan means I have seen a lot of bizarre things, both in person and on TV. But all that said, I'm pretty sure I've never, ever, ever seen a baseball game end the way it did last night.

Yeah, you read it right.

The Mets defeated the A's -- and their totally awesome yellow jerseys -- when, with the bases loaded, Justin Turner fashioned the Amazins' first walk-off win of the year with a bases loaded hit by pitch.

Sometimes you just can't make these things up.

That is, I suppose, the beauty and wonder of baseball. It is nearly impossible to predict everything that will happen and there is always a bizarre chance that something totally unusual like this will happen. Of course, in a sport where, as we've found elsewhere last night, even the mascots are as tough as they come, it doesn't seem so crazy that a man would be willing to surrender his body for the good of the team. In fact, sometimes I wish they'd do it more often.

Still, this was a most peculiar way for this, or any game to end, even if it apparently has happened before with the Mets falling on both sides of the ledger. However, keep in mind that this was already a pretty odd night at the ol' ballpark. For starters, the game was delayed an hour by a fairly unrepentant rain storm that swept through and left puddles through a stadium that has shockingly uneven concrete for a building that's only in its third season of use. Also note that Mets starter R.A. Dickey was utterly brilliant for eight innings, at one point making us furious that a dropped ball by center fielder Jerry Hairston Jr. in the second inning had already put the kibosh on a potential no-no.

Add into that that with both Dickey and A's starter Gio Gonzalez throwing pills all night, the Mets were in line for a 2-1 win courtesy of Jose Reyes' eighth-inning triple and Justin Turner's single afterward that set Francisco Rodriguez up for a save -- a save that almost sent us home in a relatively lightning quick two hours and 20 minutes.

Almost.

Instead, what proceeded to happen was a comedy of errors that stretched on for two more hours and didn't end until Turner's utterly heroic HBP in the bottom of the 13th. I stuck it out through all of the poor hitting and zany outs. Doing so meant that last night's crazy outing tied for the longest game I've ever attended in person to go with a Mother's Day clash between the Mets and Rockies in 2002 in which New York lost -- shockingly not because Steve Trachsel was starting.

I was glad to get home when I finally did, but my friend Frankie and I were still somewhat disappointed we didn't get to experience that rare moment known as a 14th inning stretch. Then again, I suppose I should be thankful I've never experienced a 21st inning stretch like the Rockies and Padres did in 2008 at Petco Park.

Then again, these days I'm just thankful I'm not a lesbian in Nigeria or a minority partner for the Mavericks making an utter fool of myself.

So yeah. That baseball game happened. Amazingly, the Mets and A's are going to be back at it in about 30 minutes for the finale of their three-game set. I'm going to be mighty impressed if these two teams actually have the energy to, you know, play baseball today -- or if they are willing to show their faces after last night's outing, which was, frankly, a terribly played baseball game.

My guess is they'll be on the field. Unfortunately for all of us, however, they probably won't find an ending that's quite as interesting.

GAMESEVENGAMESEVENGAMESEVENGAMESEVENGAMESEVENGAMESEVEN

Yeah, that's right. For just the 16th time ever -- although, bizarrely, the sixth time in the last decade -- there's something pretty damn awesome on TV tonight, and it's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. Yes, a Game 7 is special in any sport, there is no doubt about this, but something about Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final speaks of a heightened excitement. It may not have the gravitas of Game 7 of the World Series, but it does contain the extreme tension where one mistake can mean your season as well as the potential for the same easy up-and-down, back-and-forth action we might see in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

Also, they do it on fucking quarter-inch wide ice skates.

So yeah, this is going to be a pretty sweet treat, and despite the frequency of Cup Final Game 7s of late, this actually a pretty rare occurrence. From 1966 to 1986, the Stanley Cup Final went seven games a grand total of one time. And as I've mentioned before, this series has had just about everything you could ask for as far as blowouts, tight games, overtimes, scuffles, wars of words and intrigue is concerned. And if the Canucks wind up with their first championship in franchise history tonight, not only will it end an angsty 40-year drought, but it would be the flukiest championship in any of the three major sports that play a final series, well, ever.

Of course to call it a fluke would be an injustice to a stellar season for Vancouver in which the Canucks were head and shoulders above the rest of the League. But winning a Cup despite being outscored by a double-digit margin to this point would be something that is, well, utterly bizarre. Even more bizarre than Mike Rupp's three-point night in Game 7 of the 2003 Final between New Jersey and Anaheim.



Not that I'm complaining. Historical curiosities make for an interesting bit of entertainment, regardless of what you're watching, but when it's something like Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final -- at least for me -- it only gets more interesting. Besides, as anyone who has watched this season knows, the Canucks were hardly a fluke in getting this far.

There is the bigger question, however, of "who is going to win this game". And for that big question, I have a highly insufficient answer for you.

I have no idea.

I mean, I have some idea. I like the Canucks. After all, I simply think they're the better team and goaltender Roberto Luongo has been stellar at home in this series with two shutouts. Of course, he's also been utterly terrible at points, but beyond those journeys to the Hub, he has been stellar between the pipes, and back on his home ice, I suspect he will be again. Of course, the Canucks are making me somewhat anxious in that they won't just shut up and play the game. Normally this kind of bravado doesn't shake me, but considering the last time the Canucks talked, Daniel Sedin may want to think twice before becoming the Swedish Mark Messier.

But hey, what can you do. I still think Vancouver will hold Boston off in a tight one despite likely Conn Smythe winner Tim Thomas, but, really, I don't know anything. What I can tell you is that should Boston win, all of Canada will actually know that they didn't, in fact, win the Stanley Cup, which is more than you can say for some cities. In addition, the end of Game 7 will have that great hockey tradition of the organized handshake line, which, aside from being a sign of sportsmanship (though I think sportsmanship is kind of a red herring), will also be a sign that most fans watching won't have quite the same schadenfreude that we all did -- myself included -- when the Heat tumbled to Dallas in the NBA Finals on Sunday.

Sure we were all happy, but maybe, just maybe, the actions of a few politicians and minor league baseball teams were a wee bit over the top. Then again, at least this Minor League baseball team isn't completely copying the stadium layout of another one.

Even if we, the fans, decide to be that cruel to whomever loses tonight, I think the Bruins or Canucks will be tough enough to handle it. Maybe not as tough as Goldeneye villain Alec Trevalyan, but tough enough to handle some jeers with solid aplomb. I'm just excited to see someone lose -- or win for that matter -- because there are few things in sports I enjoy more than the overwrought pageantry of awarding the Stanley Cup, because unlike the pageantry of most sports, the presentation of hockey's holy grail is done just right. Hopefully, tonight's Game 7 will be too. This series deserves nothing less.

Now That's An Entrance. And An Exit.

Let's assume for a second that last night, Friday, May 13th, you were actually watching the Mets-Astros game. No, I know, no sane, rational person would be doing that on a nice Friday night in the spring time, but that's not the point of the exercise. Let's assume that you saw fit to watch to baseball teams that are probably going nowhere duke it out for three hours.

Although, as I point that the Mets are going nowhere I should also note that aside from an interminable 2-12 stretch earlier this season the Amazins are actually 16-8. And their four-run eighth inning last night did show off some rather exciting moxie.

But I digress. These are not good baseball teams. And given that we know that already in May, it's pretty clear that this game is not worth watching when you could do more productive things with your Friday night like see friends or stare at a wall.

However, one of the great things about baseball is that every game gives you the opportunity to see something you've never seen before, and while a late comeback to win a baseball game, or even a Mets victory, are things I've seen before, I had never seen something like this.

Yeah, that's a crazy fan running onto the field, something that has happened numerous times before, and while this particular incident won't inspire a silly debate about the necessity of tasers, or point out just how dumb Philadephia sports fans are, it's easily the greatest attempt to evade the authorities that I've ever seen from a stands jumper. That's what the Astros get for having that stupid hill in center field. And the best thing about it, beyond the acrobatics shown by the fan in question, is that, seemingly, no one really got hurt. It was just a fun-loving fan livening up the crowd.



Steve McQueen would be proud.

Now that said I don't want to imply that I'm suddenly encouraging fans to jump the stands and run onto the field. Far from it. More often than not these events wind up being potentially or actually dangerous to at least one if not both people involved.

Obviously we don't want that.

But if you, as a fan, absolutely have to be a reckless ass and run out on the field, when you do it, at least do it in a way that is most importantly not dangerous and almost as importantly, awesome. And this was pretty damn awesome. Even some of the players enjoyed it.

Of course, the one big problem with this is that all 15 Major League games today might get stopped by some schmuck hoping to duplicate the impressive feat. I'm guessing that it'll happen at at least one game somewhere this week. While that will be infinitely irritating, I'm at least going to revel and cherish this moment, almost as much as the Mets actually playing sort of ok lately or Geelong winning its big showdown with Collingwood Friday.

After all, how could I not enjoy the second funniest news item to come out this week?

Get Your Overpriced Ephemeral Merchandise Here!

Some of you probably noticed that there was a huge television extravaganza on recently with some royalty involved. Yes, the first round of the NFL Draft was last night, and boy howdy was it a party. I know, I know, you probably thought I was talking about some other royal TV... thing, but come on, we fought pretty damn hard to free ourselves from the yoke of these imperial oppressors, no matter how fabulous their sense of humor might be.

The brilliant, and not at all crazy, Jack Edwards knows exactly what I'm talking about.

So no, the royal wedding in the wee hours of this morning was not the exciting TV event I was talking about, although I really did enjoy when NBC's camera lingered over Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera clearly had no idea who she was. Come on, people? Even Dust and Sand knows who she is. Frankly, I think it's awfully nice of her to even bother making the trip to the wedding considering all of Australia was probably emotionally spent from Geelong's stunning win over Hawthorn earlier this week. Of course, the Cats have done that before.

But I digress. The draft. The Giants had the 19th pick in the NFL's annual selection gala, and chose to use it on Prince Amukamara, so named because he was the first son of a Nigerian chief, and if you don't think this qualifies him as royalty, you should check out the names of his sisters. Interestingly, he's not the first Giant draftee to be a sort of African royalty, although he grew up in Arizona, but what struck me most about the evening, aside from the fact that many Giants fans weren't sure we needed another defensive back (Ed: You can never have enough defensive backs), was that within moments I got an e-mail from the Giants offering me the exclusive opportunity to purchase what might just be the most useless piece of merchandise I've ever seen from a sports team.

You see, at least draft hats and the like can still be worn easily. The Giants are probably never changing their logo. But this was advertised to me as a "Prince Amukamara draft jersey". I understand this is a business and that sports teams need to make money where they can, but this just seems over the top. To buy this jersey would be a painfully silly purchase. And there are more than a few reasons why.

For one, and perhaps most importantly, we know nothing about how Prince Amukamara will be as an NFL cornerback. He may be the next Champ Bailey, but he may also be the next Rashard Anderson. We don't know. Personally, I don't really understand shelling out $85 for a player who may wallow in obscurity.

For two, Prince Amukamara may not even make the team. Sure that's unlikely, but it's certainly possible, and if that's the case, well, personally, I don't really understand shelling out $85 for a player who may never actually be a Giant.

For three, the number on the jersey is "No. 1". If Amukamara makes the team he will almost certainly not wear No. 1. Some of you may thing this is a place holder and that those who purchase this jersey will get a jersey with his actual number, but no. The description actually says, "made to look like the exact jersey given to Amukamara on draft day", which means it will be No. 1. And, uh, personally I don't really understand shelling out $85 for a player who may not actually wear the number on the jersey I'm purchasing.

For four, it's a replica. It's not even nice! It's just a thin piece of mesh with the No. 1 and Amukamara silk-screened on it. Personally, I don't really understand shelling out $85 for a player whose jersey may have the numbers rubbed off after five times through the wash.

So yeah, basically what I'm telling you all is that the NFL is asking me to pay $85 for a piece of merchandise that has the shelf life of, oh, two weeks. Who, exactly, is buying this jersey? Well, not me, but as we know, in service to the almighty dollar, the NFL has had a tendency to do what it can to get as many premature dollars as possible.

Far be it from me to stand in the way.

Of course, once the Giants picked I mostly tuned out from the draft, which is fine since some Giants were preoccupied anyway, and for most of the first two hours I was flipping between it and the Mets, who, tragically, saw their Major League-high six-game winning streak come to an end in Washington. It is worth noting after that winning streak that the Mets are still under .500. Once I tuned out I moved on to the NHL playoffs, which, duh, you should all be watching. All sorts of fun stuff could happen, and many prognosticators are putting their opinion in.

As are the brilliant scribes reporting on it. And that doesn't even include the awards nominations which, surely, you've all paid attention to.

If you haven't, there's a chance for you to jump on the bandwagon tonight when the Capitals and Lightning open up a doubleheader that will later feature the Red Wings and Sharks. And if you don't tonight, I won't blame you.

You're probably too angry at yourself for spending $85 on that short-lived Amukamara draft jersey.

Oh This Won't Be Depressing At All

Yes, fair readers, I know it's been a while since I've posted here and that surely you're all very upset at me for it. I apologize. It's been a busy week you see. A number of important and wild, crazy things have happened, such as the Knicks losing not one, but two soul-crushing playoff games in their first postseason appearance in seven years, some wild comebacks in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the NFL's 2011 schedule release, an event that has left me wondering if my two designated road games this season will actually be feasible given that they're in back-to-back weeks.

But friends, I come here to talk about none of those right now. Because those are good things. Fun things. And what I have to tell you is not fun at all.

I'm going to my first Mets game of the season tonight. It won't be pretty.

See, I've had several seasons when the Mets fell into mediocrity -- and did so early -- but it's rare that I've been living in the New York metropolitan area and seen them fall so quickly that I haven't even gotten out to a game yet. And fallen they have. After losing two straight to the Astros, the Amazins and their sparkling 5-13 record are at the very bottom of the Major Leagues, meaning that unlike last year's team, which simply plodded its way through injuries to a mediocre 79-83 record, this year's squad, with mostly the same roster, is downright awful.

The team is so bad that New York Daily News beatwriter Andy Martino actually got away with two of the more scathing -- and at the same time brilliant -- game stories I've ever seen, capturing not just the Mets awfulness, but the ambivalence of the fans that are currently watching. I'm generally disinclined against Martino since he grew up a Braves fan, but he does a masterful job of tiptoeing the line between truth and bitter sarcasm that apparently has eluded other writers in recent days.

And he hits the nail right on the head. This team is bad. Really. They're not good. We know it. They know it. And yet here I am ready to pull up stakes around 6:00 pm tonight and ride the 7 train to Citi Field for what is sure to be the first of several times this year. The positive to all of this is that when you know the team is bad you can at least laugh at it to make the pain dull itself. Also those $6.50 bags of fresh Kettle Corn they have at Citi Field are a tremendous deal.
Seriously. They're enormous.

So yeah, I've got that going for me tonight as I start my weekend, but on the plus side the Stanley Cup playoffs have been so good that I'm almost able to forget about how bad the Mets have been. I'm not sure how many of you have been watching, or keeping up with the very exciting awards announcements, European hockey news or top playoff performers, but it's all been pretty sweet -- in particularly Tuesday night's utterly wild Game 3 between San Jose and L.A. that saw the Sharks rally from a four-goal deficit to win in overtime.



And last night's double-OT games between Washington and New York and Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay weren't bad either. All in all the hockey playoffs are shaping up to be pretty tremendous so far, which is good because they might be the only distraction I have to keep me from watching baseball other than planning out my potential European vacation this summer or my two Giants road games I have planned.

If you're curious I'm looking to hit up New England on Nov. 6 and San Francisco a week later.

So hockey is what I will rely on for now, and the great thing about that is that they last for six more weeks. The only downside?

Baseball season lasts six more months.

The One Time In My Life That I'll Actually Think The NBA Does It Right

I'll be honest in that I think Draft Lotteries are kind of silly. Yes, I understand the point is to increase incentive late in the season so bad teams don't just throw in the towel knowing that a high draft pick is their reward. But the incentive to play well is also provided to most of these players by the prospect of, you know, not having jobs. So whatever impact a potential high draft pick has, I'd have to think, is minimal. After all, with the very real chance of getting cut or traded, most players, I'd assume are less preoccupied with the well being of their franchise in the longterm than of their own well being in the short term.

As a result, potentially robbing the worst team in the League of a rightly deserved chance at the top overall pick in the draft, and the best chance of improving itself, seems somewhat unfair.

But God Bless the NHL, because the fine folks in professional hockey have a solution to this stickler of an issue. That solution is that there are several rules beyond simply picking a ping pong ball out of a jar, with the most prominent one being that the most you can move up in a Draft Lottery, even if you win, is four spots, meaning that no one beyond the five worst teams in the League can grab the top spot and the draft is weighted in such a fashion that the worst team must be extremely unlucky not to get the top selection as their chances are roughly 48.2% with everyone else's chances far lower.

This is far more reasonable than the no-holds-barred weighted lottery the NBA uses in which any team can grab the top spot with a little bit of luck. That system has only given the top spot to the worst team in the League three times in 21 years, and in some occasions, wholly undeserving teams defy the odds and grab the top slot, such as Chicago in 2008, which won despite having only a 1.7% chance of winning and being better than eight other teams, or in 1993 when the Magic actually had a .500 record and won the draft lottery despite having just a single ping pong ball in the running. For the record, those picks turned out to be likely 2011 League MVP Derrick Rose and, in the event of Orlando, Chris Webber, who was immediately flipped to Golden State for Penny Hardaway and three first-round picks which would eventually turn into Todd Fuller, Vince Carter and Mike Miller. Sure, more ridiculous things in this world have happened, and yes, the pick that wound up being Carter was shipped to Toronto before he was drafted, but either way you slice it, that's an almost overwhelming amount of talent for a team that just missed out on a playoff berth.

So yes. In my estimation, the NHL's system is far better for purposes of maintaining fairness. Or at least, that's how I felt before the Devils were involved.
Now, I know what you're thinking. The Knicks have been involved in the lottery for nine of the past ten years, so you've had a reason to care, Dave. True. But the Knicks and Isiah Thomas were preoccupied with drafting Renaldo Balkman instead of Rajon Rondo, and about 18 of their draft picks went to Chicago in a trade for some overweight lug with a heart condition, so, really, you know those picks were pretty worthless anyway.

The Devils are different. They've got a decent scouting department and their history of drafting has worked out pretty well. When given a top five pick, New Jersey's churned out Kirk Muller, Brendan Shanahan, Bill Guerin and Scott Niedermayer among others. That's two likely hall-of-famers, one of whom was arguably the best puck-moving defenseman of his era and two players who had long careers as productive forwards. Those four players have 10 Stanley Cups among them. That's pretty solid, and it doesn't even account for other homegrown Devils like John MacLean, Martin Brodeur or Ken Daneyko.

So the Devils, who had the eighth-worst record in the League this year have typically been a trustworthy franchise when it comes to the draft, and the prospect of them moving up in the Draft lottery was awfully enticing, particularly since the Devils haven't had a decent first-round pick in almost 20 years as a result of being one of the more successful franchises around. But those rules inhibiting teams from moving up so far didn't really impact me. After all, the Devils' chances of winning the draft lottery and moving up were only 3.6%, so why bother getting your knickers in a twist?

Oh, they won. How about that?



So yeah, for the first and probably only time in my life, I wish the NHL had taken a cue from the NBA, but to be honest, that is for completely selfish reasons. The rational side of me knows the NHL's Draft Lottery system is far better for creating interest, but still protecting fairness.

Still, one can't help but dream of the prospect of the Devils grabbing the No. 1 overall pick through a tremendous amount of luck, but alas the strict rules of fairness and propriety prevent that, even if the idea of "winning" the Draft Lottery but not getting the top pick are a little confusing. Either way, as a Devils fan, it's hard to be upset with this result after New Jersey's first season since 1996 not being in the playoffs.

Oh, and speaking of the playoffs, those start tonight, in case you were wondering. I won't go into too much detail for all your sakes, but let's just say I'm taking Vancouver to knock off Boston in the Stanley Cup Final. Which almost certainly means it'll be the Predators over the Sabres.

Brace Yourself, Friends, For This Is The End Of Days

What I'm about to write might seem somewhat odd considering that the two ominous portents I'm about to discuss are, in theory, really good news. Really, they are. But I'm having difficulty coping, and considering there are bizarre occurrences aplenty popping up all over the globe, I'm inclined to believe that we're just days away from frogs dropping from the skies.

I mean, seriously. It's a statue of Michael Jackson at a Premier League soccer stadium. A goddamn scare one at that.

So yeah, that's the first incident of late that can really make you think, but in my life the more immediate things to notice are not so much colored by a diamond-studded glove as they are colored by, well, blue and orange. I refer of course to those two apples of my eye -- and by apples of my eye I mean, "those kids who disappoint you because they develop a drug addiction but you love them anyway".

Ah, curiosity, the name is the Mets ... or Knicks.

So what is my point here? Well, I'll get to it. After the Mets dropped their first game of the 2011 season in uproariously bad fashion, they somehow crafted a comeback Saturday night in an eventual 10-inning win over the Marlins to even the record at 1-1. Today with the rubber match looming, the Amazins didn't have to worry about making things close as they completely smacked around Javier Vazquez in a 9-2 romp. So what we have here is a Mets team that, despite its expectations for being utterly terrible this season, actually has a winning record three games into the season.

I know. I know. There are 159 left for them to lose disastrously, but for the time being, New York is on pace to go 108-54, and I'm perfectly fine touting that. Granted, this would hardly be the first time I've decided to relish in a flukish early-season run -- if three games could even be called a run -- but lease, let me enjoy it while I can.

So where do the Knicks fit in? Well, not only did they finally get over the bizarre hump tonight of actually defeating the Cleveland Cavaliers, but in doing so the Knicks sealed their first playoff berth since 2004. Ah yes, the heady days of 2004. When men were men, women were women, Barack Obama was a little-known state senator in Illinois, the Boston Red Sox were still eight and a half decades removed from their last World Series and I was but a freshman in college who thought it was ridiculous to assume the Knicks would go seven more years before reaching the postseason.

So, you know, it's been a while. But what might be more bizarre to wonder is just how long it's been since these both happened at the same time.

That would be the night of April 5, 2001, when the defending National League champion New York Mets beat up the Atlanta Braves 7-1 at Turner Field to go 2-1 on the season, and the Knicks were heading toward an eventual first-round loss to Vince Carter and the headband bedecked Toronto Raptors.

That would be the first time since 1991 that the 'Bockers failed to get out of the first round, but surely, I thought, that was just a blip. Ever since the Knicks had seduced me with their wild run to the 1999 NBA Finals, I had assumed sustained success would be the norm. Even with the uneven trade of Patrick Ewing, Kurt Thomas, Latrell Sprewell, Allan Houston and Marcus Camby formed a core that would continue contending much like the Knicks of Ewing, John Starks and Anthony Mason.

Good one, right?

But see, I had generally assumed that things would always go well for me because I was in the midst of the best stretches of sports fandom my life has known. The Knicks' run to the 1999 Finals was a precursor. First the Devils won the 2000 Stanley Cup and then a 10 month stretch starting in October of 2000 saw three of my favorite teams reach their respective championship rounds.

At the time I didn't even realize it, perhaps because all three of them lost, but the Mets reaching the 2000 World Series foreshadowed the Giants surprising run to Super Bowl XXXV, which begat the Devils once again getting to the Stanley Cup Final in June 2001 before falling in Game 7.

Yes, they lost, but this was an unprecedented run of success for me that I foolishly took for granted at the time. I won't go so far as to assume this is a sign of sustained success. After all, only a fool would expect the Mets to finish this season with a winning record, but it is nice to dream. This is, as far as my life is concerned, a rare time. And it gets even rarer when I take note of the fact that the Devils, who I was desperately pushing for the comeback to end all comebacks on, were officially knocked out of the playoff hunt with a loss to Montreal Saturday night.

Clearly, that's not a positive thrown into this, but two teams doing well is better than just one. The last time New Jersey missed the playoffs was 1996, but they weren't eliminated until the last day of the season when former-Devil Tom Chorske capped a surprising win by the Ottawa Senators, but that wasn't until April 13, at which point the 1996 New York Mets had already fallen below the .500 mark ne'er to return. That means the last time this particular troika occurred was in 1989, and since I was not even at my fourth birthday in April of 1989, it may as well have never have happened as far as I'm concerned.

In fact, it was so long ago that this guy hadn't even been drafted yet.

Of course, I'm not too worried about the Devils making it back next season. Anyone who watched how they played in the second half can clearly note that the abysmal first 33 games were a bizarre fluke.

The Mets and Knicks both being on the upside of things, however, that is a much rarer thing to note. It is so rare, that it may just not last the week once New York makes its first visit to Philadelphia for the season. Hopefully that isn't a case, but I'm a realist. My only real hope is that the next time that rare combo of the Knicks making the playoffs and the Mets having a winning record occurs isn't 10 years from now.

Also, I pray the rapture hasn't happened first.

Ok, So I've Had Better First Weekends Than That

I'm guessing when I said last week that this was by far the least research I had ever done before filling out my NCAA bracket that I must not have been lying. The first four days of the Tournament this year were outlandishly exciting, but also, uh, not what I predicted. On the first day alone I lost three teams from my sweet sixteen, one from my Elite Eight and wound up a mediocre 9-7. While that didn't inspire much confidence, at least my Final Four was still intact.

You know, until the second round, when my National Champion spit the bit against Butler on an utterly bizarre series of fouls in the games final seconds. But that's cool -- it's only the second year in a row that my eventual champion was sent packing in the round of 32.

Now don't get me wrong. Butler, obviously, has some experience, so I suppose in general, it's not really that crazy for them to be making another deep run in the NCAAs, but I have to be honest. I thought I'd do a wee bit better than this At this point my bracket is so shot that I have nothing to watch for except pure love of the game, which, really, is utterly silly.

Then again I'm still alive in my survivor pool, so at least there's that.

Of course, that I'm watching basketball at all after Northwestern's utterly bizarre loss in the NIT quarterfinals last night/this morning at Washington State, might just be a testament to my own intestinal fortitude. This was a game that featured a shockingly intense student crowd for an NIT game, the Wildcats doing something they've done maybe once in my life ever by rallying from a double-digit deficit to take a lead in the second half on the road, a potential walk-off foul after a game-tying goal tend in the final ten seconds and then someone missing both of those potential walk-off free throws which prompted this statement from me.

I then realized that if God was a Wildcat, Northwestern would have been to the NCAA Tournament once in the past seven and a half decades, making my statement patently ridiculous.

The Cats would go on to lose in an equally as bizarre overtime that nearly saw them get the ball back down 1 with 20 seconds left simply because the Washington State player lost his handle on the ball, before Alex Marcotullio missed not one but two three-pointers to tie the game at the final buzzer to end what is -- I'm not making this up -- the deepest postseason run Northwestern has ever had.

Seriously, why do I watch college basketball anymore? Or at least why Northwestern?

Oh, and the winning team had a player who had been suspended and had his suspension lifted within 12 hours.

Fun times.

So that's how college basketball has treated me in the past week, but fortunately I get the distraction of Aussie Rules Football finally being back this season after Carlton topped Richmond by 20 points this morning. Of course the season doesn't really start until Geelong has its first bounce tomorrow morning against St. Kilda, which I'm sure you're all waking up at 4:30 a.m. for.

Ok, I can sense that I'm losing all of you at this point. Perhaps it's time to go. Hopefully this weekend's basketball goes better than last.

It's March Madness Time! Apparently.

March Madness, generally, is a hell of a tournament. Often I consider the first two rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship to be the four best sports days of the year, and usually I can't wait for them. In college the first two rounds always fell during my spring break, and I recall each year that my friend Duane and I would sit down on his couch at 11:50 and not move until midnight, keeping our laptops with our brackets open all the while. In short, it was exciting, amazing, thrilling and for much of March it's almost always been all I can think about.

But not this year.

Don't ask me why, exactly, because I can't quite tell, but for some reason I'm just sort of ambivalent this year. Perhaps it's because I missed the actual selection show while in the U.S. for the first time in years so I could have dinner with my cousin in Georgetown on Sunday, or perhaps it's because a busy schedule at work has kept me from seeing the bracket until this afternoon, or just maybe it's because the only basketball game that really matters this year happens to be Wednesday night and not in the NCAA Tournament at all.

It could be any of those reasons. In all honesty, I really have no idea, but for some reason, I'm just not overly excited, to the point that I filled out my bracket this afternoon as almost more of an obligation than a joy. And it also happens to be a highly unresearched bracket. Just how unresearched it is, you ask? Well, a year ago, I was in Israel, and hastily filled out a bracket on a timed computer terminal in the southern desert city of Eilat, and that bracket performed, er, terribly.

That bracket, filled out in a span of forty seconds because the time purchased by my five shekels was expiring, was more well thought out than this one.

Really!

So yeah, I have no idea who is going to win or if I picked anything even remotely close to what could or will happen, but you can see the uneducated misery to the left yourself. I decided to go with a tried and true method of picking a few upsets early and mostly going with the chalk later. Not that it matters since with the pointlessly expanded bracket this year, the odds of getting the whole shabang right were a tidy 9.25 quintillion to one back in the old format and I don't have nearly the energy required to figure it out in the new one. Apparently, I have a better chance of winning an Olympic gold medal, which I supposed means... I have a chance of winning an Olympic gold medal.

Essentially, as the numerous other brackets to be found on the internet prove, we really have no idea what will happen. You may as well hand in a bracket to your pool where Princeton wins. Or ones that don't bother with basketball, but instead seek to answer the really big questions that plague philosophers.

In my bracket, you'll notice that, among other things, I've picked Pitt to win the whole thing mostly because a) they got a joke of a No. 2 seed in Florida, b) I think they'll be driven by their early exit from the Big East Tournament, c) I didn't want to see Duke win. Not that that matters since I have UNC coming out of the Blue Devils' bracket, but I have the feeling they're going to get picked off somewhere.

And speaking of getting picked off, you better believe I don't have No. 1 Ohio State reaching the Final Four. And how could I pick against a team with the versatile Jared Sullinger, you ask? Well the answer is simple. I don't care how good your record is. No team -- none -- gets taken to the final minute by Northwestern not once, but twice, including once on a neutral floor, and then makes it to the Final Four. Sorry. It ain't happening, and just because I didn't see it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

And trust me on this. I'm a sportswriter. I interview people and write stories about their impressive rookie campaigns. I know these things. The fact that I may have written stories about two different teams being touted as championship contenders only to see both of them lose their next game is entirely immaterial.

My word is as good as gold here. My bracket is brilliant. My bracket will rule the day. My bracket will almost certainly get every single game right. Just imagine how perfect my bracket would be if I were actually into it this year.

Don't worry, I'm sure I will be come Thursday. Happy basketballing.

When Buses Get In The Way

If you went to Northwestern, and I'm guessing since this is mostly read by my friends then the proportion is higher than usual, you might have noticed that the Wildcats got bounced in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament today by No. 1 Ohio State. What you might not have noticed is that Northwestern had a lead in the final minute that it let slip away before falling in overtime. Not only could this have been the single greatest moment of Northwestern's rather thin basketball history, but it also would have kept the highly faint hopes NU had of reaching the NCAA Tournament for the first time, hopes that it would seem rested solely on claiming the Big Ten's automatic bid by winning the conference tournament.

The Wildcats are likely to get an NIT bid, but that seems small consolation for coming so close to knocking off the No. 1 team in the country, a feat that just might have invigorated what has been a steadily improving but nonetheless fledgling program. What makes the loss all the more frustrating, however, is that this is second time this season Northwestern has taken the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes to the final minute with a chance to pull off the monumental upset. It feels like something greater than the season at large has been lost when two narrow chances to make a bold statement to the world of college basketball both slip through the Wildcats' fingers.

What was most frustrating for me, however, was that being a dedicated alum and a Northwestern fan, you'd think there was no chance I'd miss what could be the greatest moment in the lackluster history of NU basketball. And you'd be wrong. For you see at the exact moment Northwestern had shockingly taken the lead in the waning moments this afternoon, I was somewhere in northern Maryland on a bus bound for D.C. where I will be seeing the Blackhawks and Capitals Sunday afternoon.

This presented a number of issues.

I was hoping to follow the game on my laptop using ESPN3.com, which I have remote streaming set up for. However, when you're on a bus internet can be, diplomatically speaking, "shitty". In the case of the M31 Megabus from New York to Washington D.C. on March 11, 2011, it was utterly nonexistent.

I spent most of the game following on my phone and on twitter, refusing to believe that my Wildcats would actually make a game of it, let alone take the lead late in the game. Then I glanced at my phone and saw it was a one-point game in the second half.

It was time to break out the big guns. I got out of my seat, rifled through my luggage and pulled out my laptop in hopes of connecting to the bus's mobile internet. Connect I did.

And then: Nothing.

Apparently being connected to the internet isn't the same thing as actually getting to use the internet, and despite the comments of the young man next to me that on his bus to New York earlier this week he was able to watch the Big East tournament, I wasn't able to so much as load my homepage. Though when I consider that he also told me Rocky IV was the best of the series, perhaps he wasn't the man to trust.

Either way, the inevitable outcome was clear. I was not going to get to watch the magic or lack thereof happen in live streaming video. Instead I had to resort to painstakingly reloading the score on my iPhone's ESPN app, where I saw that not only did Northwestern let its late lead slip away, but the Wildcats got beat up in overtime in what eventually would be a season-ending 67-61 defeat. Sometimes it just isn't meant to be.

And sometimes you aren't meant to see it, regardless of what it is.

Luckily, the whole reason I'm here is to see the Blackhawks and Capitals this Sunday and cross team No. 39 off the list. While there are still some questions as to whom, exactly, will be seeing the game with me, I do know that at least I'll be there in person. I will actually witness that game.

And no bus is going to stop me.

Season Tickets: The Dilemma Of The Die-Hard Fan

When I was 20 years old I decided for fun to put my name on the Giants' season ticket waiting list. It was partially serious and partially a lark, but given that my number on the list generally hovered between 90,000 and 86,000, which would require an entire stadium's worth of fans to die off or give up their tickets for my turn to present itself, I assumed I wouldn't be getting the opportunity to buy season tickets for 20 years or so. This in turn prompted my father to ask if he could go to some games with me because, in his words, "I plan on still being pretty lucid."

He'll be 74, so I imagine he will, in fact, be lucid, but something funny happened on the way to my 40th birthday.

When the Giants moved into their new stadium this past season, not only was there an increased capacity, but a few bizarre quirks changed the game. For one, the Giants and Jets, not anticipating such extensive financial fallout, raised prices just a bit too high for the vast majority of their demand. As well, the scourge of NFL fans known as personal seat licenses wreaked havoc on the Big Blue fan base. By charging PSLs that were as high as $20,000 in some places, the average fan and many families that had been season ticket holders for years were priced out of being able to see their team every Sunday.

Now, while I can understand their frustration, the theory behind PSLs doesn't really bother me because it shifts the cost of a stadium to the people who will actually attend games in it rather than the average taxpayer who has no interest in going to a game. But more importantly, the PSLs and the other factors I mentioned previously opened a gaping hole in the waiting list, and by the start of the 2010 NFL season, I got a phone call from the Giants ticket office that was about 15 years earlier than I expected.

My number was up. I had the chance to buy season tickets.

Here's where it gets interesting, however. For one, I enjoy going to one or two games a year, but eight? Or realistically since you're required to buy preseason games at full price, 10? For another, the only remaining seats in the standing were far out of my price range. They were club seats that would cost $400 each per game and each seat had a PSL that was valued at -- wait for it -- $7,500.

So if I wanted to buy Giants season tickets when my number came up, the total first year cost (note: PSLs can have their costs spread out with longterm payment plans) would have been $23,000. That was not a price I had interest in paying.

So imagine my surprise when the Giants came calling again this morning to offer me season tickets, which I was quick to dismiss until they told me the choices had gotten cheaper. Of course, the word "cheap" is relative, but in this case, compared to the first chance I had it certainly was. The cheapest seats available ran at $120 -- I paid $150 to attend the Giants' first ever game at the New Meadowlands Stadium -- and PSLs would be $4,000 per seat, nearly half the cost of the previous tickets.

Herein lies the dilemma. Being able to call myself a Giants season ticket holder is something I have wanted for years, but is the cost enough to justify it? And moreover, if I'm not going to attend the games, the obvious choice, to not purchase tickets at all or to sell them at a markup and hope to recoup the cost of the PSLs through those means an enormous amount of work, or a leap of faith at any rate.

Throw this in with the fact that PSLs are available for far cheaper on the Giants' PSL exchange site -- albeit for much worse seats -- and things get more complicated.

Clearly, there is much to consider for anyone who has the chance to buy some, and I'm personally grappling with the realities right now. In the end, with logic dictating, I will probably not buy tickets at all, but that doesn't mean I won't be thinking long and hard about it over the next few days, and I will probably be placing a call to the Giants' ticket office in the morning to get a sense of what my options would be.

If I get too crazy, it may not be the last call I make to them.

Apparently, I'm A Masochist. Who Knew?

If being a Mets fan has made anything clear it's that I, apparently, have an insatiable lust for pain. Yesterday I realized that hadn't changed when I got an e-mail from the team offering five-game flex ticket packs for the upcoming season. Typically, I ignore these e-mails because the tickets are too damn expensive, but I was blinded by a huge segment of block text said "NO ORDERING FEES".

You know those things: the transaction fees that enable teams to needlessly add five bucks onto every ticket, but in actuality are complete nonsense.

So I, foolishly assuming I was about to get a deal, promptly bought a Mets flex package for this season, a season that is sure to be disappointing just like they all are. For any evidence of that, look no further than yesterday's spring training opener against Atlanta that ended in a 5-5 tie.

Yes, a tie. In baseball.

Sister kissing is an unusual phenomenon in this sport, which, as we've seen, could theoretically go on forever in a regular season game, but in the spring training no one really has the patience, which means when a game is tied after nine innings, the managers debate whether or not they really care to bake out in the sun much longer. In this case, Terry Collins and Fredi Gonzalez decided that 10 innings would be enough, and it seemed like it would be for Atlanta after they took a 5-3 lead in the top of the inning. Of course, then former-Met killer Willie Harris, who was signed this offseason with the apparent idea of "even if he sucks he won't kill us anymore", smacked a two-run homer to tie the game in the bottom of the 10th, and that was how it would stand. Were it not for my discovery that my supermarket now sells Sunset Wheat, this would have been the highlight of my week.

Considering that this was the second rally by the Mets to tie the game I'm pretty sure Saturday's tie marks the high point of New York's 2011 season. It's all downhill from here.

And when it goes downhill, I'll be there to watch six times. I made a point to pick games in my plan, since it gives you the option of choosing, that were generally in the first half of the season so that my delusions of the Mets still having a chance wouldn't have been shattered yet. Highlights include the Subway Series opener the first weekend of July, a meeting with the defending-champion Giants and Ike Davis bobblehead day on July 19th against St. Louis.

Now comes the hard part. Finding six people dumb enough to go to each game with me.

In other news, some of you might have noticed that the Oscars are tonight and I, something of an Oscar junkie as you can see from some of my zanier columns in the past, am as excited as always even though I somehow managed not to see half the Best Picture nominees this year. I bring this up because I came across a rather startling discovery this afternoon involving one of my favorite films of all time, L.A. Confidential. For those of you who have seen L.A. Confidential you know that it is, well, incredible in every way. As such, it is a constant reminder to me that the Oscars are total bunk since L.A. Confidential lost Best Picture in 1997 to some boat movie.

Either way, what I did not realize is that one of the stars of the film, Guy Pearce, who so deftly pulled off a turn as the film's protagonist Lieutenant Edmund Exley, is also a tremendous sports fan. This I should have assumed because he's also Australian and Australians love their sports. And most importantly, they love their footy.

And Guy Pearce loves his footy.

But almost more important than the fact that Guy Pearce loves his footy is that he loves one footy team in particular. And it's the right one. I was entirely unaware that Pearce grew up on his mother's deer farm in Geelong, where he endured a rough 40 years of his life before he finally saw the Cats get their first championship since four years before he was born. As far as Geelong fans go, apparently Pearce is one of the more famous ones, something that the club has noted on its own website for no apparent reason other than to say "We have a celebrity that roots for us."

Pearce is apparently such a big fan of the club that he was the no-brainer choice to narrate a special video segment on the most crucial moment of Geelong's 2009 Grand Final victory over St. Kilda.



It makes one wonder if Pearce had a bet on the match with Eric Bana, a diehard St. Kilda fan who was shown on TV in the crowd of the Grand Final that day about every four seconds or so.

In any event, it's nice to know that the main man of one of my favorite films shares a bizarre team in kind with me. Unfortunately, Pearce isn't up for any Oscars tonight, nor did L.A. Confidential take home the big prize 14 years ago, but the 2007 and 2009 Grand Final victories are far more meaningful anyway.

Besides, it could be worse. He could have been duped into buying Mets tickets.

Alright, Devils. I'm In. Let's Do This Thing.

Let's be serious here. About four people read this. Maybe more, but I doubt it. So most of you probably don't know, nor will you know what my thought has been regarding the once-moribund and now flourishing New Jersey Devils, though I've mentioned it a few times. And that thought was this. The Devils haven't had a decent first-round draft position in nearly two decades because, well, they've always been pretty good. New Jersey hadn't missed the playoffs since 1996 and it seemed unlikely that that would be changing any time soon. Some pegged the Devils as Stanley Cup contenders this season and they looked every bit of it the first ten minutes of the year before letting an early two-goal lead slip away against Dallas in a game they'd eventually lose in overtime 4-3.

Then Zach Parise tore up his knee. Then the team was terrible. Then coach John MacLean was fired. Then the team was still terrible.

Ostensibly, New Jersey was awful, having, for most of this season, the worst record in the League, and by a fair margin at that, but then things started to change. The Devils shipped off captain Jamie Langenbrunner and players began buying into Jacques Lemaire's philosophy. Now New Jersey is the hottest team int he League, which left me with a decision to make. Do I lament the loss of what could have been a top-five pick for a team that despite its hot streak is so far out the playoffs are a near impossibility? Or do I throw my emotion behind it and invest myself for what is still an unlikely occurrence?

I opted to wait and see the progress and I decided that if New Jersey could trim a deficit between it and the No. 8 seed, which once was as high as 27 points, down to 10 points by the end of their 60th game, I would start to believe. In New Jersey's last 18 games, the Devils are an astonishing 15-1-2. On Saturday night they played their 59th game, and their third in the last 12 games against eighth-seeded Carolina, and walked away with an impressive 4-1 win.

And just like that, with 59 games gone in the season, the deficit is down to 10.

I'm in.

There are 23 games left for the Devils to make a 10-point deficit disappear, and it's still a tall task despite how well the team is playing. According to Cool Standings.com, the Devils still have just a 1.7% chance of making the playoffs as things stand, but that is still a major improvement over just 11 days ago, when the Devils, despite already playing great hockey and moving up the standings, were given less than a 0.1% chance of reaching the top eight. New Jersey has 54 points, but 32 of them have come in the last 18 games. To continue playing at this pace is highly unlikely, and it may be necessary to pull off the impossible dream, but now that they're this close, I'm jumping along for the ride. And since the Devils' performance clearly hinges on my dedication, this is crucial.

The journey continues tonight in Dallas, where the Devils will be playing those same Stars they faced on opening night, only now they'll be facing them with former-captain Jamie Langenbrunner across the ice, though, it should be noted, Langs is pulling for his old mates. I'm sure most of you are caught up to speed on tonight's game after reading that great preview some guy wrote about it on the interwebs, and you just can't wait to see the Devils drop the puck. I know I can't. This team is real now, they're really in the race and I'm not the only one who thinks it.

If you aren't as excited then you're probably too distracted by the huge trade that broke yesterday. You know, the one in which the Stars shipped James Neal and Matt Niskanen to Pittsburgh for Alex Goligoski. I'm sure you were highly concerned about the potential ramifications of the trade both in the real world and for your fantasy hockey team.

Of course, there's the chance that you were actually thinking about that trade where Carmelo Anthony, finally, at long last, after what seemed like centuries of build up, was sent to the Knicks last night for Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, several draft picks, cash, Patrick Ewing's retired number banner and the vast French North American territory known as "Louisiana".

Don't get me wrong. I wanted Melo. I'm glad he's here. The Knicks are better today than they were yesterday. But simply put, the 'Bockers got fleeced in this deal, and it isn't difficult to see how or why. Everyone and their mother knew Melo was eventually going to be a Knick. He wanted it, the Knicks wanted it and it didn't matter how many players the Nets were going to offer Denver. Anthony was never going to sign an extension and the deal was never going to land him in New Jersey. Donnie Walsh knew the Knicks had all the cards and wanted to hold out as long as possible to either force the Nuggets to take New York's previous offers or to simply sign Melo in the offseason as a free agent.

But James Dolan is a petulant needy child, and he just had to get his man. And he wanted him now. And as a result, Dolan just had to get involved this weekend and muck it all up. Sure, the Knicks got the man they wanted all along and they have ample cap space in the future to try and get a third big star to power the roster such as Deron Williams or Chris Paul, but they didn't have to give up what they gave up. And perhaps more specifically, they didn't have to give up Danilo Gallinari. Gallo was developing into a quality swingman who could have been a quality player on a championship contending squad next to Amar'e Stoudemire and Anthony. Instead, the roster, aside from these two stars, has been completely stripped bare, and while the Knicks have a blank canvass to work with, they don't have much else.

And perhaps the most frightening thing about this? Despite statements to the contrary, it's pretty clear to just about everyone that Isiah Thomas has been advising Dolan from a far. It also seems apparent that Thomas, the man who single-handedly destroyed the franchise for nearly a decade, might have more influence than Walsh, a man with a proven record of building quality teams. In the end, it seems obvious that Dolan's need for instant gratification and his inexplicable love for Thomas won out. In a bitter twist of irony, the deal brings Renaldo Balkman back to the Garden, a player Thomas inexplicably selected in the first round in 2006 when he was projected as an undrafted free agent, and waves goodbye to Eddy Curry, likely Thomas' worst of several awful moves, whose expiring contract will wind up in Minnesota as part of the deal.

This isn't the first time Dolan's childlike neediness has become readily apparent to just about everyone, and it probably won't be the last. And knowing that New York could have brow-beaten Denver into a better offer for the Knicks instead of giving them everything short of Stoudemire, Landry Fields and the urinal in Dolan's private bathroom is irritating. But in the end, if the Knicks win a championship in the next few years, I, and everyone else, will have forgotten about the pieces that could have been kept and rightly so. In the end, that's all we really want.

And if that doesn't happen, at least I have other reasons for optimism. I mean, come on. The Devils are playing awesome hockey right now.

Anyone Notice That The Devils Are Kind Of Really Good Right Now?

I am faced with a massive quandary as a Devils fan right now. In what has been a trying season -- New Jersey has spent most of the season with the League's worst record -- my team is suddenly hot as a pistol and making a wild, bizarre run at the final playoff spot in the East. That playoff spot is still a far, far ways off, but it's an awful lot closer than it used to be. Last night, New Jersey trailed in the third period in Toronto before Ilya Kovalchuk pushed himself end-to-end and fired a game-winner past James Reimer in the waning seconds of overtime.

And just like that the deficit was down to 13.

Now that may not seem like the most exciting revelation. After all, New Jersey is still third to last in the Eastern conference. But that 13-point deficit was 24 points not so long ago, and with 27 games remaining there is ample time for that deficit to start dropping bit by bit. In fact, that win over Toronto Thursday night has pushed New Jersey's mark to 11-1-2 in its last 14 games, which easily makes them the hottest team in the League at the moment. Thursday night was the Devils' second consecutive overtime victory after defeating the Hurricanes in OT Tuesday at The Rock -- a game I was actually in attendance for -- and it now may have the New Jersey building the adequate momentum to make a serious run at the final postseason seed.

The win in Toronto also put coach Jacques Lemaire in the 600-win club, a feat that was written up by some anonymous lackey at NHL.com.

Lemaire's accomplishments are a pivotal part of the story, of course. The man who led the Devils to their first Stanley Cup Championship in 1995, has showed a remarkable ability to get the most out of his teams -- as he did with the Devils a season ago in what was expected to be a one-season return to the Garden State before moving on into retirement. What he has done so far this season, however, may eclipse anything else he's done. New Jersey was 9-22-2 when Lemaire was brought in to replace company man John MacLean on Dec. 23. At that point the idea of a playoff run was well off the team's radar -- and in likelihood it still is. Instead for the Lemaire, the challenge was to remind the players that not only were they professionals, but they were expected to be Stanley Cup contenders when the season began.

Rediscovering the Devils' confidence under Lemaire has been a rough process -- New Jersey went 1-7-0 in its first eight games following the coaching change, culminating in a home-and-home sweep at the hands of the hated Flyers. Since then, there has been a change, however. And the results have been staggering.



New Jersey was 27 points behind eighth-place Montreal on Jan. 9. In 14 games, the deficit has been halved.

With 27 games remaining there is certainly time for the Devils to get closer and closer, and while they would likely have to continue playing at the same remarkable pace of the past month, fans like myself have slowly started to believe that anything is possible. So why not?

Well, probability is one reason to believe why not. Cool Standings as of today still lists the Devils' chances of making the postseason this year at less than .1%, and I generally find a reliance on numbers and statistics to be the likely outcome in the long run. But without knowing the actual math they use, I'm not sure they can account for intangibles like momentum, but I can also attest, mathematically speaking, to a belief in regression to the mean and the law of larger numbers. All season long the Devils have been playing beneath their expectations and their talent level, but the larger the sample size -- in this case, 82 games -- the more likely the Devils' final record should approach their expected performance this season.

Now the Devils were expected to compete for a division title against the likes of defending-Eastern Conference Champion Philadelphia and 2009 Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh. While the chances of winding up in that race are just about nil, sneaking into the postseason with the final seed, if this team continues to return to its expected level performance over the long haul, certainly doesn't seem all that outlandish to me.

So that aforementioned quandary is this. Do I lament the likely loss of the Devils first potential top-five draft pick in decades, which could be used to patch a number of holes? Or do I get behind the improbable comeback?

Is it likely? Probably not. In fact, earlier this week I decided that I would wait until New Jersey had closed the gap to 10 points, and that it would have to happen by the 61st game of the season, before I fully invested myself emotionally in the prospect of the Devils making a stunning and unlikely playoff run. But with five games and only three points to go before that threshold, I'm starting to believe. It's only been a month of this season that the team has actually shown any signs of life, but now they're as lively as can be. And if they knock off the hottest team in the West in Newark tonight, (though I should note tonight's Chicago-Dallas game is also pretty intriguing as this preview attests) things could really get interesting.

And then I'd really start to believe that it's possible. In the end, short of a Championship, believing, in any season, is all you can really hope for.