Natinals are done. Team batsu game!!

The good news: the National League is almost set for playoff baseball.

The bad news: one team that will not be participating is the Washington Nationals.  The Natinals were eliminated from division title contention this afternoon by the New York Mets, and from wild card contention by both the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs.

Tim's initial pick to win the World Series: Washington
Mike's pick throughout the season to win the World Series: Washington

Therefore, Mike and Tim will be issued a team batsu game.  This will happen next time the guys get together to podcast, likely after the baseball regular season (where, by the way, Mike's original picks are severely hurting).

Episode 176 - Ray's Summer of Minor League Adventure

Ray has had a great summer, including some trips to minor league baseball games in Buffalo and Lansing, Michigan.  Ray and Mike discuss this adventure, as well as updates on MLB and NHL seasons.

When discussing the New York Islanders' move this season to Brooklyn's Barclays Center, which Mike has described as "weird" and Ray hasn't seen photos of, it occurred to us that maybe we should show photos of the Islanders' new shared home with the NBA's Brooklyn Nets:

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Episode 175 - September Potpourri

Mike and Tim are back on BlogTalkRadio for today's episode.  We talk about a bunch of current events topics:

• Tim opens with his thoughts on the NLRB denying Northwestern University football players the right to unionize.  Forgotten in the conversation is that the real issue is getting college athletes - especially revenue-generating DI football and basketball players - a small stipend, as has been suggested, including on Mike's former Sunflower Brew podcast.
• Mike talks about the NASL bringing an antitrust lawsuit against USSF and MLS (made all the more relevant since the recording in light of Don Garber's idiotic statements on the subject of pro/rel before an international audience that knows better).
• Tom Brady's "vacation" being rescinded (BTW, Brady's lawyer is the same lawyer representing NASL in their antitrust case).
• On the subject of the Patriots, was Deflategate meant to make up for Spygate?  Turns out Bill BEE-lee-check taped up to 40 different games from 2000 to 2007, including the Rams' pre-SB36 practices.
• We briefly touch on Week 1 of the 2015 NFL season, during which Mike further rips Art Modell Kroenke (as he will be known from now on - at least on this podcast).  This devolves into more talk about the LA situation.  (And Mike misspoke on the Edward Jones Dome - it's not Top 25, it's Top 25%.)
• We touched on college football, including K-State's marching band's unintentional violation of Wheaton's Law.   Ironically, William Shatner came to the band's defense.

 


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Episode 174 - 2015-16 UEFA Champions League Picks

One thing is for certain with this year's UEFA Champions League: Tim will not be picking Liverpool.

Recently, the Champions League group stage draw was announced.  Here are the guys' orders of finish (remember, top 2 per group advance to knockout phase, 3rd place team goes to Europa League):

Group	Mike's Order of Finish	Tim's Order of Finish
Group A	Real Madrid Shakhtar Donetsk Malmo PSG	Real Madrid Malmo PSG Shakhtar Donetsk
Group B	PSV Eindhoven Wolfsburg Man United CSKA Moscow	Man United PSV Eindhoven CSKA Moscow Wolfsburg
Group C	Atletico Madrid Galatasaray Benfica Astana	Atletico Madrid Benfica Galatasaray Astana
Group D	Juventus Man City Sevilla Borussia Monchengladbach	Man City Sevilla Borussia Monchengladbach Juventus
Group E	Barcelona Bayer Leverkusen Roma BATE Borisov	Barcelona Roma Bayer Leverkusen BATE Borisov
Group F	Arsenal Bayern Munich Olympiacos Dinamo Zagreb	Bayern Munich Arsenal Olympiacos Dinamo Zagreb
Group G	Porto Chelsea Dynamo Kiev Maccabi Tel Aviv	Chelsea Dynamo Kiev Porto Maccabi Tel Aviv
Group H	Zenit St. Petersburg Valencia Lyon Gent	Valencia Gent Zenit St. Petersburg Lyon

Champions League winner:
Mike: Juventus
Tim: Real Madrid

The picks are set.  Who gets the batsu game?



Click here to download.

Episode 173 - 2015 NFL Picks (AFC)

Today, we do our AFC picks:

Division	Mike's Picks	Tim's Picks
AFC North	Pittsburgh	Baltimore
AFC South	Indianapolis	Indianapolis
AFC East	New England	New England
AFC West	Denver	Denver
Wild Cards	Cincinnati Houston	Pittsburgh Miami

AFC champions:
Mike: Indianapolis
Tim: New England

Super Bowl champions (and batsu game teams):
Mike: Green Bay over Indianapolis
Tim: Green Bay over New England



Click here to download.

Episode 172 - 2015 NFL Picks (NFC)

We're now in Year 3 of the podcast!!

It's time for our NFL picks.  As always, we start with the NFC:

Division	Mike's Picks	Tim's Picks
NFC North	Green Bay	Green Bay
NFC South	New Orleans	Carolina
NFC East	Philadelphia	Dallas
NFC West	Seattle	Seattle
Wild Cards	Arizona St. Louis	Philadelphia NY Giants

NFC champions:
Mike: Green Bay
Tim: Green Bay

Next time: AFC.



Click here to download.

The Open Pyramid Project: Open Pyramid Project Collaboration With the USFA

The Open Pyramid Project: Open Pyramid Project Collaboration With the USFA

Exciting news today about the Open Pyramid Project, the special soccer standings that Mike has been working on this year in an attempt to introduce promotion and relegation to American soccer.

The OPP system is being adopted by the United States Football Association (USFA), which is a non-profit startup for an alternative to the US Soccer Federation (USSF).  Additionally, Mike has officially been named Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the USFA.

We encourage you to follow the USFA on Twitter (@the_USFA) and the hashtag #AFedForAllClubs.