It's About Time

It's Monday again, so that means it's time for the Starting Nine.

1. Thank goodness the Sun is back out. Enough said.

2. With the subsequent decrease in rain, I've been getting out and playing a lot more tennis than I have in years past. I've only ever played really sporadically, so this is a change - but a welcome one, I must say. Tennis is a lot more fun than I used to give it credit for, and I've found that I've gotten significantly better the more I've played.

3. I have to get this one in fast before the Derby starts - but my pick to win it all is either Pujols or Howard. No one in the AL has a decent shot at it - Carlos Pena and Nelson Cruz are the only ones who might get to the second round. When you've got Brandon Inge as one of your representatives, you know it's a down year for your league.

4. I'm disappointed to see that no changes have been made to the rules of the Derby - as I argued in my post about Josh Hamilton last year, the Derby is flawed. It punishes contestants for doing well and encourages mediocrity. In short, it's like the dystopic society in Atlas Shrugged.

5. Speaking of Atlas Shrugged, I finally finished it about a week ago. Since then, I've gone through and picked out quotes that I want to use in my *hopefully * prize-winning essay. But that's taking a while, considering that the book is 1168 pages long. I've also sat around a lot feeling like I ought to be reading something - which isn't surprising, seeing as how I had been reading the book for good amounts of the day for a month and a half.

6. The water was cold in Maine this weekend - but of course, that didn't stop us from jumping in several times. I can't wait until the water's warm in August, and we can just stay out in the waves, instead of jumping in and sprinting out. I tried to take a wave in yesterday, and it was a bad idea - I had brain freeze so bad when I came back up that I was disoriented for a couple seconds.

7. My fantasy baseball team in a league with friends from BC, Legends Never Die (midseason summary coming shortly), is currently sitting in 2nd place, 9 games back. I had been enjoying a comfortable lead in 1st for about 10 weeks, but consecutive losses of 8-3 and 9-3 set me back. I'm not overly worried, there were just some flukey bad pitching outings.

8. Update from the HR Derby: Nelson Cruz was up first and hit 11 impressive homers. Prince Fielder is up now, and just finished with 11 impressive dingers also, including a mammoth 497-footer. To put it in perspective, though, Cruz's average distance was 415 feet, and Fielder's was 428 - Hamilton's average was 445, after hitting 28. Again, just a reminder of how truly remarkable that July night last year was.

9. And now your Daily Show clip for the week: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-3-2007/one-state--two-state