Break Out the Brooms

Remember all of those articles saying that this was definitely the season the Cubs ended their World Series drought of 100 years? Remember how Kosuke Fukudome was supposed to bring them that title? Remember how both of those stories were on the cover of Sports Illustrated?

But yeah, there's no such thing as a curse ...

For the second year in a row the Cubs flamed out in spectacular fashion in the first round of the playoffs, swept by the Dodgers in three games. Despite the great regular season pitching of Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Rich Harden, it didn't translate into the postseason. The offense couldn't produce and the defense made uncharacteristic, but crucial, errors.

One thing Yankees fans already knew was how Alfonso Soriano struggles in the postseason. Soriano is a great natural athlete, but I don't think anyone would accuse him of being intellectual. He's a mistake hitter and, over the course of 162 games, those mistakes can accumulate to some gawdy stats. In the playoffs though, when you're facing teams' top pitchers who are dialed in on every hitters' weakness, those mistakes are fewer and farther between. The lasting image of this series in my mind will be Soriano chasing pitches in the dirt.

Hmm ... Soriano doesn't produce in the postseason and neither does Alex Rodriguez. Fitting that they were once traded for each other.

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ESPN.com proclaimed today that No. 14 Ohio State's narrow win over No. 18 Wisconsin restores Ohio State's national title hopes. (The ESPN lead-in reads: "Terrelle Pryor's 11-yard TD run with 1:08 remaining gave Ohio State a 20-17 victory over Wisconsin. With his first road win, the freshman QB put the Buckeyes right back in the race.")

I respectfully disagree. Wisconsin lost to a woeful Michigan team. OSU narrowly beating Wisconsin — even with the Badgers overrated ranking — in my mind isn't going to put the Buckeyes ahead of an undefeated team from the Mountain West.

That conference is too strong to ignore this year and if BYU finishes undefeated, I think they will play the SEC winner in the title game. That's not based on any math, but there's a very real possibility that BYU could reach the Top 5 by the end of the year if not higher. You can't have a team ranked in the Top 5 and ignored by the BCS. If Ohio State sneaks ahead of an unbeaten BYU team, you can't possibly argue that the BCS isn't broken.