Hail-ey to the Victor

For the second time in 3 years, a small child has won our ESPN tournament challenge group. In 2015 it was Nat, Hailey triumphs in 2017, with her newborn sister in fourth. My sister-in-law Mrs. Bates finished second. You will see your beloved hero, me, in 5th place with my real, actual bracket. That seems good, but I finished 5th among 5 of us who picked North Carolina to win it all. And I would have been even worse had I not mistakenly picked Kentucky to beat Wichita State in the second round.
Mrs. Poop was the highest finisher among those who didn't pick North Carolina. Nevertheless she remains our only 2-time champion. But with this crop of young talent we have in our group, she likely won't be alone for long.

2016: Master Bates
2015: Nat
2014: Billy
2013: TON
2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

All Work No Play Makes Master Bates a Winner

For years Master Bates has been sending me his bracket just under (and sometimes just after) the deadline for our 3-man family battle royale bracket challenge. Unbeknownst to him, I have been entering him into ESPN every year. And while everyone else picks a different name depending on what's happening that season, he remains, for once and for always, the Overworked Accountants.
In this topsy-turvy year Master Bates prevailed, defeating his nephew Juju who picked the lower number seed in virtually every game.
The biggest story however was yours truly who was the only person to pick North Carolina to win it all. I would have been the easy winner had that miracle shot not gone in and UNC had prevailed in OT.
But it would have been a hollow victory, because that was not my real bracket. It was the bracket I filled out right after the brackets were revealed, with little or not thought at all. My real bracket is way down at the bottom, 14th of 16. I would have been the first to admit it wasn't my real picks, but we have always treated this tournament challenge, the way Chicagoans treat their elections: "Vote early and often."
But it was not to be, so Master Bates is the winner, once again proving that you need to watch college basketball, or to even knowingly enter, to win.

2015: Nat
2014: Billy
2013: TON
2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

And a Child Shall Beat Them

Congratulations to Natalie for continuing a family tradition of great runs in Tournament Challenge.
Thanks to being the only Poophead to pick Duke to win it all she scored 1150 points, good enough for a finish just outside the top 10% nationally.
Unfortunately her triumph came at the expense of her older brother who for the second time experienced heartache on championship night.
Back in 2008, he wept when Memphis loss. But this year Evan took Wisconsin's defeat in stride.
The mother of these ace prognosticators finished third, proving the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
I'm very proud of my boys who finished 4th and 5th and even picked their own brackets. I only changed one of Chase's picks, NC State to make the Final Four. I was holding my breath and actually rooting against them so I wouldn't have to tell him.
JuJu almost rode Wisconsin to a second place finish.
And even though I finished down the list, I was in great position to win my first title but Gonzaga and then Kentucky let me down.
And special mention for Damino, who didn't have enough faith in his own team to pick them. Had he done so, he would have been the runaway winner.

2014: Billy
2013: TON
2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

Give Billy A House

Congrats to Billy for winning the 2014 Tournament Challenge for our group. In one of the worst performances ever (not our fault, it was a crazy tournament), not a single entry in our group had either of the correct teams in the final game.
But Billy did have Kentucky making the Final Four which was good enough to propel him to a victory over Michael and over his own second entry. There is nothing wrong with submitting multiple brackets (our motto: vote early, vote often) and Billy would have had the top two spots, but he lost to Michael on the tiebreaker.
It was another fun year of the competition and it's cool that some of the kids are starting to pick their own brackets, though maybe next year Jack should be supervised.
Hope to see you all again next year.
One more thing just occurred to me, Billy and I had this debate after Jim Nantz went on his rant about the best freshman (Wiggins and Parker) getting knocked out early and both Nantz and Billy were on the team over talent side, I will take talent every single time. And yet, Billy won because he picked the greatest collection of talent to make the Final Four, beating the best "team" in Wichita State in the process.
As I said before, every game is a different circumstance and there is no one thing that predicts who will win.
Which makes the tournament challenge so much fun.

Billy joins this illustrious list of past champions:

2013: TON
2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

A TON of Luck

TON knows about a lot of things: raising fish, body hair maintenance, sheet rock, computers, porn, computer porn and even sports like volleyball and MMA. But he will even admit college basketball is not his game. He'd be lucky if he could distinguish Peyton Siva from Peyton Manning. But TON used his head to pick Louisville to win it all and his heart to pick Syracuse to make the Final Four and his 1220 points put him in the top 1.8% nationally and at the top of our group.
Honorable mention should be given to Damino who was the only one in our group with 3 Final Four teams, and also the only one to have the title game participants correct. He was in the top 2,000 overall heading into the final game and probably would have been in top 2 or 3 hundred had Michigan won. But they didn't. So TON got the 320 points, and beat Damino by 10. But the following is not a list of people who did really well but fell short. It's a list of winners, and TON's name will go on it. Next year maybe you can add your name.

2012: Reissberg
2011: Mrs. Poop
2010: Vacated (I forgot to keep accurate records)
2009: Mrs. Poop
2008: Pa Beers
2007: Michael

Why the Long Face? You Won

Congratulations to Reissberg on his victory in this year's Tournament Challenge group. His 1440 points put him in the top 2.6% nationally, tied for 166,057th place. He was one of 10 (nearly half our group) to pick the champion correctly. He narrowly edged out Dylan, whose brother Evan would have won if Kansas had pulled off the upset.
In third place is some random entry followed by Mrs. Poop in 4th.
Mrs. Poop is a force in this contest, winning in 2011 & 2009.
2008 was another heart-breaking year for poor Evan, who lost to his father when Kansas (those bastards) pulled off a miracle against Memphis.
In 2007, Michael was the champion. The once great Michael has fallen to embarrassing levels, finished 20th out of 21 this year.
I did not keep accurate records so I don't know who won in 2010. But from now on I will post the list so we can look back at past performance.

You Win Some, You Lose Some, You Win Some

Every year in Maine we carefully plan our activities around the weather. We usually have only 5 or 6 days so if we plan non-beach activities on a sunny day, and end up with nothing to do on a rainy day, a good portion of our vacation will have been misspent.
This is why Mrs. Poop carefully selected the day we would take Chase to the amusement park at the pier.
We bought the unlimited ticket and for $23 (it's $2.40 for individual rides) little Chase could ride to his heart's content.

He rode the bear, the elephant...



the motorcycle, the jeep and several others.



We counted. He got to 10. And then they shut the ride down because of an impending thunderstorm. We thought it would pass. It didn't, we never got back on the rides.

But we did hit the arcade. At first we were just waiting under cover hoping the rain would stop. Then we all started to get antsy until I spotted a video game the whole family could enjoy: Deal or No Deal.

In the arcade version of the game you play for tickets instead of dollars. I let Chase pick every case number by hitting the buttons and he chose case 10, then proceeded to go on a ridiculous run, nailing 5 of the 6 smallest cases in the first round. We decided to keep going all the way to the end because we still had the 1000 tickets in play. But when we eliminated 75 with 3 cases less I told Chase to take the deal.



The best part of it was, it took a few minutes to play the game, but it took at least 10 minutes for it to dispense 502 tickets. And unlike the old days they don't want their functionally illiterate counter employees counting tickets. So when you are done, you have to insert your tickets into another machine to count them. Then it prints you one slip with a big number on it and you take that to the toy counter.




That took another 10 or 15 minutes. Chase ended up with a light up toy car that wasn't even worth the two dollars we put into the game, but by the time we were done it had let up sufficiently to allow us to go somewhere else for dinner.
A good deal if you ask me.

I Hope I Don't Jinx Myself

I can't hold it in any longer. For years I have been play Beat the Streak on mlb.com. The object is simple, pick one player everyday (no restrictions) and build a hitting streak. If your guy doesn't get a hit that day, your streak is over.

My longest streak prior to this year was 11 games. Right now I am riding a 15-game hitting streak.
I know I am still 41 games short of Joe DiMaggio but the prize for passing him and getting to 57 games is $5.6m.
And I am nearly halfway to this season's longest streak of 31 games.
So I know it's early, and I am not counting my chickens, I just thought it would be fun to share my streak, my selections and have you cheer along with me.

Tonight's selection is Prince Fielder because he is facing John Lackey who has a 7.41 ERA and a .297 batting average against.

Mrs. Poop Wins Again

For the second time in three years Mrs. Poop is the winner of our tournament challenge group. With perhaps the worst score in years (630) and only one final four team, not even one in the final game.

Once again, she did this in large part because she did it while I wasn't around, she picked all chalked, and she went with her heart and picked UConn.

So once again I salute my beautiful wife with my favorite picture of her.

Bowl Mania Time

ESPN has its Bowl Mania game up for this year. It's simple. Pick every bowl game and rank them by confidence. This year you even get to pick against Syracuse. Group name is The Poop.

It's Football Season

Once again espn.com is offering a wide variety of games for both college and NFL. I have created groups called "The Poop" in four of them.
They are college pickem, college showdown, pigskin pickem and eliminator challenge. The Eliminator is the traditional survivor pool, definitely do that one.
And join the group too assholes.

The Summer of Knicks Fans' Discontent

Have you ever been looking forward to something? A trip, an event or a present? And when it finally comes, it doesn’t quite materialize the way you hoped. I fear that scenario will play out for Knicks fans this summer. After years of preparing the team, and suffering through losing seasons, the Knicks were poised to cash in on a bumper crop of free agents. Unfortunately I think the Knicks are going to end up very disappointed.

The big prize if of course LeBron James. There aren’t enough celebrity endorsements, Ring Pops (what is the deal with Ring Pops lately?) or lap dances at Scores (though that is an awesome gambit) to get LeBron here. I think there’s at least a 90% chance he will stay in Cleveland. It just makes the most sense, they can pay him the most money, he’s tangentially from there and I think he would like to bring a title to that city. That leaves a small window for Chicago where teamed with Derrick Rose and perhaps another free agent (Chris Bosh?) the Bulls could assemble a Michael/Scottie-esque juggernaut.

Note: I don’t buy the stuff about him not wanting go to Chicago because of the unavoidable comparisons to Michael Jordan. You mean if he wins a few titles and is the best player in the game for some other team they won’t compare him to Michael Jordan? They compared Harold Miner to Jordan for heaven’s sake. He’d have to play for CSKA Moscow to avoid Jordan comparisons. And if he wins 5 titles in Chicago you think that somehow won’t be good enough because Jordan won 6? Asinine.

I’m also leaving a tiny window open for the Nets which would be a complete wild card but they do have some appeal (Jay-Z, Brooklyn) and some young talent (Harris, Lopez and now Favors).

I don’t see the Knicks getting the consolation prize either. I think Dwayne Wade will stay with the Heat, 95% sure of that. Once again small chance he goes to Chicago because he’s from there, but I expect him to stay and try to recruit someone else to come with him.

As for Chris Bosh, he could come to the Knicks, it’s possible if he wants to try to be a #1 guy and lead a team. But I think it’s more likely he’s willing to play second fiddle to LeBron, Wade or Rose (if LeBron stays).

I think the Knicks will end up with Joe Johnson and Carlos Boozer. If that’s the case I’d rather re-sign David Lee and take our chances once again next year once Eddy Curry’s money comes off the books.

If you think I’m wrong and you’re so smart won’t you join me in the ESPN.com Free Agency Predictor game. As always our group is called The Poop. You must sign up by Wednesday before midnight.

No One Will Play With Me

ESPN.com is running a series of great games: one for championship week, and in addition to the tournament challenges for men's and women's brackets there are two other NCAA tournament related games to be unveiled on Monday.

Sign-ups for all these games are available now and so far no one as joined my groups, called Paul's Poop.

There is also a new MMA game. It's a little easier than fantasy UFC, this one requires you to pick the straight winner of every match on UFC 111.

So join in fuckers before I kill you all.

Time's Running Out

College football bowl season snuck up on me this year and I forgot to set up our group for ESPN's bowl mania. Look for the group called "The Poop" and get your picks in today before the first game is played. You'll still be able to get your picks in after the first few games but they'll saddle you with losses.

Get in the Game

I signed up for four different ESPN.com games (college football challenge, college pickem, pigskin pickem and eliminator challenge).

I created groups for all four games, they're all called Paul's Poop and you should join me in them.

Mrs. Poop Comes Out on Top

When I tried to encourage you all to enter The Poop's tournament challenge group, I promised the winner a "laudatory post."
And there is no one about whom I'd rather write a laudatory post than my wife, the lovely Mrs. Poop.
But since I've often described this entire blog as "a love letter to Mrs. Poop" it's not necessary to repeat all that here.
Plus, her accomplishments speak for themselves. She got 3 out of the 4 Final Four teams correct, nailed Michigan State vs. UNC with UNC winning. And for good measure, in her tiebreaker she correctly predicted Michigan State would score 72 points in the title game.
Her 1570 points placed her in the top half-percent nationally, pretty good. She finished in a multi-way tie for 20,587th place, a remarkable accomplishment in a field of more than 4,000,000 people.

Now the question everyone is asking, how did Mrs. Poop do it? First of all, she picked the least creative entry name possible. Seeing as how "ton" finished second, there must have been something to this.

Second, she did not have me standing behind her while she was making the picks, clearing my throat when she made a bad one. Although, if I had been I wouldn't have let her pick UCLA or Duke over Villanova.

Third, with Mrs. Poop first and jusTON second, maybe being good-looking helped. But considering I finished third and Special K finished last, I doubt that had anything to do with it.

Maybe Mrs. Poop just knows a lot about college basketball. Or maybe she really did travel into the year 2015 and buy a sports almanac.

Who knows?

Congratulations to Mrs. Poop, a deserving winner of the 2009 Poop Tournament Challenge.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's March Madness, the NCAA Tournament and that means its time for the Poop's annual bracket challenge. Go to espn.com's tournament challenge, search for a group called "The Poop," make your picks before the tournament starts Thursday at noon and talk some trash in the comments section.
It's easy really.
Brackets for wives and children are acceptable, but you can only get credit for the picks made under your name.

The winner will be the recipient of a laudatory post like the one Beers received last year.

Super Pick Em

I'm a little late getting to this but I hope all of you will still join me in playing ESPN's Super Pick Em.
Join the group "The Poop" and answer the questions, an idiot could do it, so most of you should have no problem.

Congratulations to Freedo

All year Freedo has run his big mouth about his Penn State Shittaly Lions, and while he was wrong about them, he was right about a lot of other things. Freedo was the only one bold enough to throw his hat into the College Bowl Mania ring with Pizza Parlor Derek and me, and Freedo was a resounding winner.

He nailed 20 of the 34 games, a passable 59%. But based on his confidence rankings he came up with 387 points, coming in the 87th percentile among the thousands who played the game on espn.com.

And he would have done even better if his pride and loyalty had made him pick Penn State, even though he knew they were going to get killed. And he even assigned 24 to that game, which showed he knew they were going to lose.

As for me, I was horrible. Freedo absolutely killed me, I sucked. I got only 11 games right, for 206 points. 94% of the people who played beat me. What a disaster.

I hope next year more of you will take the chance to embarrass me by playing in the bowl challenge next year.

Go Bowling

Pizza Parlor Derek and I will be competing in ESPN's College Bowl Mania. The object is to pick all 34 Bowl games then rank them according to confidence.
Then you have to join the group called "Paul's Poop."
Pretty simple right?
That's why I expect all of you to participate especially those of you who think you know more about college football than I do just because the school I went to has a shitty team.
It's Put Up or Shut Up Time for you State Penners.
And hurry up, the first game is Saturday, though I think you can still participate after the first few games have been played.