GGGOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLLL

Wow what a match. I just watched Germany beat Argentina in penalty kicks. But I have to say that the penalty kicks ruined the game. No one deserves to move on in the greatest championship in the world by kicking a soceer ball into a huge net from 10 feet away. Its soo stupid to me. It is soo hard to score a goal in soceer, yet it is almost impossible not to score on a penalty kick. It's ridiculous. Make the penalty kick harder. Move it back another 10-20 feet. I dont mind ending games in penalty kicks but its way to easy to score. In hockey penalty shots to decide a goal are ok because it's still hard to score on a goalie on a breakaway. But, even though my wishful thinking champion is out, my 2nd place prediction (Brazil) and my third place predicition (Germany) are still alve. So all in all, I'm not doing too bad with my predictions this World Cup.

Now, let's talk about baseball and the AL Central. Does anyone else realize that the Twins are winning 55% of their games are are still a double digit number of games behind the Detroit Tigers and Chicago White Sox. There is still a whole half of a season to go, but it would be a shame to see the Wild Card be 6-8 games worse then the Red Sox or Yankees and not have home field advantage in the first round. What is great though is that the Yankees will not make the playoffs this year like I predicted. Yes the Yankees are doing pretty well without a number of their stars in the lineup, but the Red Sox are just way too strong and such a complete team. The Sox seems o have finally put on the cruise control and I expect them to strenthen their lead to 5 games by next week's All-Star game.

Tonight starts the battle of some inter-city rivals. Mets/Yanks, Cubs/Sox, and Angels/Dodgers. The Mets were made to look real vulnerable by the Red Sox the past 3 days. This weekend we will find out if it is the Sox that are amazing or the Mets that are scuffling. However, I do expect tonight's starter El Duque to put on a stellar performance for the Mets. He loves the spotlight and loves Yankee Stadium. He will win tonights game unless the Mets bullpen blows it for him.

Do I even have to talk about Cubs/Sox. All Sox all the time even though I hate Ozzie Guillen. The Cubs really are cursed. PERIOD.

Angels/Dodgers is very interesting. The Angels are my biggest dissapointment of the season, not the Indians. The Angels were my World Series pick and they have just underachieved all year. If they wanna be in this race in the West they must get some momentum in the LA series. Bartolo Colon starts tonight and must start making quality starts. Maybe Jered Weaver should be brought up again to provide a spark. Something has to be done.
For the Dodgers, they are in the best race in any division. 4 teams hanging around to fight it out. SO for the NL West, these interleague games mean sooooo much more. They can get out of division wins before battling it out with each other in August. The team with the best interleague record will control this division after the All-Star break.

Happy 4th of July everyone