Here are my MLB picks for Thursday, May 8, 2008 (Previous day’s record = 10-5, cumulative record = 20-10).

American League
New York Yankees over Cleveland
Chicago White Sox over Minnesota
Boston over Detroit
Toronto over Tampa Bay
Kansas City over Baltimore
Seattle over Texas

National League
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
Atlanta over San Diego
Colorado over St. Louis
Arizona over Philadelphia
Florida over Milwaukee
Houston over Washington

Like many Americans, I really enjoy fast food. Growing up, I used to eat several fast food meals at McDonalds and Burger King. When I went to college, I didn’t eat at a lot of fast food restaurants. In the past few years, however, I developed an affinity for Wendy’s. I like their chili, Frosty dairy desserts, and Super Value Menu.

Recently, though, I have been eating all of my fast food meals at Burger King. I tried their Steakhouse Burger about three weeks ago when I saw a television commercial for it. It was one of the best burgers I’ve had. When I was there, I also checked out the dollar menu and I was excited to see the Whopper Jr. on there. I’ve eaten a few Whopper Jr.’s recently, and I forgot how great a flame-broiled burger tastes. The main reason why I keep going back to Burger King is because of a promotion they have. If you call the number on the back of your receipt, take a survey, and write down the validation code that will be given to you, you can get a free Whopper or TenderCrisp Chicken Sandwich with the purchase of any size fries and drink. This is an amazing value for the money. Last night, for example, I got a medium fries, medium drink, Whopper Jr., and Whopper all for $4.52 with my receipt and survey code. What a deal! I hope this offer continues, and next time I will have to try the new BK Cookie Dough Pie that is available for a limited time. It sounds delicious!

Here are my picks for Wednesday, May 7, 2008 (Previous day’s record = 10-5, cumulative record = 10-5).

American League
Oakland over Baltimore
Boston over Detroit
Cleveland over New York Yankees
Toronto over Tampa Bay
Kansas City over Los Angeles Angels
Minnesota over Chicago White Sox
Seattle over Texas

National League
Cincinnati over Chicago Cubs
Los Angeles Dodgers over New York Mets
Atlanta over San Diego
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
Florida over Milwaukee
Houston over Washington
St. Louis over Colorado
Arizona over Philadelphia

I have always loved Major League Baseball. I wish I thought of this at the start of the season, but starting today I am going to make predictions on who will win each game. Hopefully, I’ll be able to continue this for the rest of the season and keep track of how I fare. Now, on to the picks!

Tuesday, May 6, 2008 (Previous day’s record = 0-0, cumulative record = 0-0)

American League
Boston over Detroit
New York over Cleveland
Toronto over Tampa Bay
Los Angeles Angels over Kansas City
Chicago White Sox over Minnesota
Oakland over Baltimore
Seattle over Texas

National League
Atlanta over San Diego
Pittsburgh over San Francisco
Florida over Milwaukee
Cincinnati over Chicago Cubs
Houston over Washington
St. Louis over Colorado
Arizona over Philadelphia
New York Mets over Los Angeles Dodgers

Back in November, I had an entry where I predicted how the Boston Celtics would do this year. I said they would win 50+ games and advance to the NBA Finals against the Spurs, Suns, or Mavericks. Well, the Celtics, a 66-win team during the regular season, defeated the Hawks yesterday in Game 7 of their first-round series. They will now play LeBron James the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

So it looks like my guesses on the Western Conference were far off. The Spurs beat the Suns in five games, while the Mavericks lost to the Hornets in five. If the Spurs don’t advance to the NBA Finals, it would be neat if Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers got a chance to renew an old rivalry that really peaked in the 1980’s.

We’ll see what transpires over the next month-and-a-half or so.

Last night, the San Jose Sharks and the Dallas Stars played a quadruple-overtime game in their NHL Stanley Cup conference semifinals series. The game lasted five hours and fourteen minutes and was decided 9:03 into the fourth overtime. The Stars defeated the Sharks 2-1 to advance to the conference finals versus the Detroit Red Wings. It was the eighth-longest game in NHL history in terms of playing time. Dallas has actually been involved in three of the ten longest games in NHL playoff history, and they must be ecstatic about finally winning a lengthy game. In 2003, they lost to Anaheim in five overtimes after playing 80:48 of overtime. In 2007, they lost to Vancouver 18:06 into the fourth overtime, meaning that 78:06 worth of free hockey was played.

I just love NHL playoff hockey. It’s too bad the NHL has a television deal with Versus, a network that I don’t have. That makes it much harder to follow the league and its playoffs. What other sport has the capability of producing marathon games on a somewhat yearly basis? Double-overtime, triple-overtime, and longer games are almost unheard of in any other sport. The fact that the game can be decided in a few minutes of overtime as opposed to a few PERIODS of extra time makes it that much more entertaining to watch. Personally, I start hoping for a goal in the third overtime of any playoff game. That’s when the teams are playing their sixth full period of the match, and it slowly starts to get frustrating to watch a game where there is no scoring. I am offense-minded when it comes to any sport, and thus prefer pucks in the net.

San Jose and Dallas played a little more than two full games last night. However, the Stars should be able to recover for Game 1 versus Detroit on Thursday. They played hard against the Sharks. It was just a shame that I don’t have Versus, because I know I would have loved to see this game (Wait, I would have been at work anyway, so it wouldn’t have been any use). Oh well, maybe I’ll be lucky enough to have time to watch a game that goes two or three overtimes.

I just took a look at what the NBA playoff matchups would look like if the top 16 teams in the league qualified for the postseason, and it produced some interesting results. Now, I want to do the same for the NHL. If such a format were to be adopted, the NHL playoff bracket would look like an NCAA basketball tournament bracket. I wanted to take a look at what the playoff bracket would look like for this year if the 16 best teams qualified for the playoffs, using current tiebreaker procedures and ignoring conference affiliations. Here are the 16 best teams with their seed in parentheses:

(1) Detroit
(2) San Jose
(3) Montreal
(4) Pittsburgh
(5) Anaheim
(6) New Jersey
(7) Minnesota
(8) Dallas
(9) New York Rangers
(10) Colorado
(11) Philadelphia
(12) Washington
(13) Ottawa
(14) Calgary
(15) Boston
(16) Carolina

Again, travel becomes an issue. How about San Jose versus Boston, Montreal versus Calgary, Anaheim versus Washington, or Dallas versus the New York Rangers as first round matchups? The NHL also re-seeds after each round, which complicates matters. Clearly, a format such as this would be bad for the NHL. At least you would get a rematch of the 2002 Stanley Cup finals with Detroit versus Carolina in the first round.