A St. Patrick's Day Miracle

What's up everyone? No previews from ol' Cheddar today. We're going to push the final two back to next week, when everything's a week closer to fruition, and that sick need for baseball knowledge is even more pronounced. Always thinking of you, folks.

Since I'm still playing a little bit of catch-up after turning in my Master's Project yesterday (and losing an entire 24 hours in a haze of not-sleep and coffeee), I hope everybody's St. Patrick's Day was interesting. It was, ironically, a particularly poor afternoon for the Irish; specficially, their national rugby team got hosed in the last minute of an important international tournament. It was the Six Nations, an annual round-robin tourney between England, Wales, Scotland, France, Ireland and those smarmy bastards in Italy.

It's the Northern Hemisphere equivalent to the Tri-Nations tournament played between South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. (There is, in case you didn't know, a lot of hemispheric pride floating around in rugby. Bizarre.)

Ireland had been kicking ass all along, and they went into the final day of the tournament knowing they would probably beat up on the Italians. At the same time, they knew the French (their rivals for the title) were also going to crush the Scots, and the title would come down to overall points difference. But Ireland was scheduled to play first, so they wouldn't know how many points they would need to score to win; France would.

So, the inevitable happened. Ireland busted up Italy 51-24, giving themselves a nice little cushion, only to see France come back with a 46-19 result over the roll-over Scots. The crushing blow was a try in the very last minute of the game that went upstairs to the television official -- like in hockey, if they're not sure of whether the ball was touched down in the scoring zone, they send it to the cameras.

An the official, a traitorous Irishman named Simon McDowell, awarded the try and the tournament to Sarkozy and Co. Their reaction was typical. "How like life, eh? They fucked up, we give it to them."

In other St. Patrick's Day news, our boy Kid Slick was doing some shopping up in the Bronx near his middle school in one of those discount hat joints. You know the type -- New Eras half-off, this stuff is almost certainly stolen. He's looking for some festive, green hatwear, and he comes across a whole row of green, St. Patrick's Day Mets jersey shirts, and he's pumped.

So, he goes up to the guy working the counter, and asks, "Do you guys have a Reyes shirt in green?" And the guy looks at him like he's a moron. So, Kid goes back to the rack, and finally realizes that every single shirt is a David Wright shirt, every single one. The implication being about as clear as can be. He had a laugh at that, and then walked out of the store. (He may have bought something first).

Anyway, I'll be back on the horse here soon enough. Keep checking out the previews and getting ready for the season. A new future awaits us!