Did you make it this far? Whew!
Like I always say, any writer can lose his readers in the story itself. It takes a special brand of boredom to disengage the audience in the headline. But when you see an opportunity to mix Cheryl Crow, a French apothecary, and nonsensical grammar into the title of a fanpost, you don't hesitate; you act. You start slinging apostrophes now and ask questions later.
This is my first post in more than six weeks, and only my third in the last three months. I've also dropped game threads this year after managing Friday night's action last season. At first I thought I AN would struggle without eye-popping post-game headlines ("A's lose 7-0") and pulse-quickening teasers to the overflow game threads ("the game continues"). But somehow the site has held on.
With today's off-day for the A's, I'd like to turn the focus back on AN and introduce Athletics Nation NO(t)STRADAMUS, a celebration of self-deprecation. In (Not)stradamus, we each look back at our own bold, sometimes ill-advised predictions made in fanposts and comments. Especially in the preseason, but really all year long, we all enjoy "throwing darts at the board" and attempting to handicap the A's playoff chances, possible free agent signings, and hypothetical trades. The goal here is to look back at your own predictions over the last few months or years, and find the one that missed the worst. Looking back at your own archive on your personal AN page, you want to find the dart that not only missed the board, but impaled the bartender standing 6 feet to the left.
It could be a comment in a game thread or fanpost, or it could be a full-length diary you wrote that, looking back, really missed the mark.
Here are the ground rules:
- You can make fun of your own poor predictions - and mine too of course, since it's my absurd idea - but please refrain from piling on when other people post their own NO(t)STRADAMUSes. Just chuckle quietly at your computer...they'll never know. But please do feel free to rip on your own contribution. It's easier to be funny when you're self-deprecating, and it doesn't offend.
- Using the AN search function or your comment archive on your personal AN page, try to find the actual comment or diary and link to it. Sometimes it can be good entertainment to look back at an old discussion to see how strongly everyone involved felt about it at the time.
- If you want, you can provide your own follow-up or context to the link.
I'll get it started. Without further ado, here's a few AN pieces I'd like to have back:
- "All Aboard the Furcal Train!" - November 14th, 2008.
Can I get off now? What a trainwreck. The time stamp for this post says it was made it in the afternoon, but you'd swear I wrote it at 3 a.m., bleary-eyed and in nothing but my G.I. Joe boxers. (Don't lie. You've checked AN in a similar state once or twice yourself). Apparently at the time I was willing to give Rafael Furcal $60 million dollars. Remind me of this the next time I mention that my dream job would've been to be a major-league GM. As we know, Furcal ended up signing with the the Dodgers for literally half the guaranteed money that I suggested, and now has an OBP south of .300 and a nearly identical SLG% a quarter of the way through the year. Don't wait for the women and children to calmly get off the $60M Furcal Train. Just shove and push and do whatever you need to do to save yourself from that disaster of an idea.
- "The Super Lineup" - April 24th, 2008.
What do you get when you cram the talents of Rajai Davis, Donnie Murphy, Chris Denorfia, Bobby McRosby, Emil Brown, and Old Sweeney into the same lineup?
A giant pool of suck, that's what.
But no! Apparently I can clearly to point to April 24th of last year as a date on which that I was a flaming idiot. At the time, my calculus was clearly this:
Against left handed pitching,
three mediocre right-handed hitters + SIX more shitacular right-handed hitters =
wait for it...
The Super Lineup.
This worked a grand total of once, against the Francisco Liriano the first time it was deployed last season. Then left-handed pitchers leaguewide remembered that those players are not good at baseball.
I just have a feeling this one already sucks, even without the benefit of hindsight or anyone reading it yet.
So how about you, AN? What's your prediction or proclamation you'd like to have back?
