The Traveling Band of Misfits 2011

With the playoffs fast approaching, we gave your our postseason picks last week, along with the rationale behind our decisions. Since we’re not fascist dictators, we politely asked if you disagreed on the three teams that the TBB happened to share. Apparently, you people got very excited about this poll because 12 of you responded. 3 of you disagreed with us that the Rangers were going to take the AL West. May we ask why? They’re blowing the Oakland Athletics out of the water in this race. How could you possibly think that the A’s are going to make a run at the title being as far back as they are. Are you in possession of some sort of secret intel that says that Gordon Bombay is taking over as A’s coach and they’re going to sail into first via the “Flying V.” Perhaps with a few triple-deeks thrown into the mix? 3 people disagreed with us regarding the Giants, but considering that division is so tight, we can accept your opinion. No one disagreed with us when it came to the Twins, probably cos’ they’re amazing. Lastly, 6 of you voted, “Actually…and let me start by saying this extremely rare…I agree with you on all 3 of these teams.” Wow. We’re both flattered that you agree with us and insulted that this is a rare occasion.

Exciting news, sports fans! The MLB released its 2011 regular season schedule, which means that we can start planning our traveling activities. As usual, we’ll be hitting up our local baseball teams. A few options that we have for the Mets are the Giants series in early May, the A’s series in mid-June, and if we want to risk total unhappiness, we might hit up a Subway Series 4th of July weekend. For the Yankees, we’ve got the Twins at the start of the season, an unfortunate Subway Series in late May, and two Oakland series: one in late July and the other in late August.

Of course, we’ll have to plan our local games around our Road Warrior experiences. For Toronto, we tried focusing on their weekend series, since that will be a quick trip for us and it won’t require taking much time off of work. We’ve got the Twins and Rays in April, the Tigers, Astros, and White Sox in May, the Red Sox in June, the Philles and Rangers in July, the Angels in August, and the Orioles in September. If we want to really creep out Vin Mazzaro and Craig Breslow, we can hit up yet another A’s series, though that series takes place in the middle of the week. We’ll investigate the price of hotel and airfare during the week versus the weekend and most likely make our decision based on that.

We plan on hitting up Minneapolis and Milwaukee during the same trip. Therefore, in reviewing their schedule, we have the following options:

April
Twins/Indians
Brewers/Red

May
Twins/Tigers
Brewers/Pirates
OR
Twins/Mariners
Brewers/Giants game and a potential Barry Zito stalk-fest

August
Twins/Orioles
Brewers/Cubs

September
Twins/White Sox
Brewers/Phillies
OR
Twins/Mariners
Brewers/Marlins

Plenty of options. Please be aware that the MLB has not released its promotional schedule yet and this may factor in when we make a decision as to which games we choose. Plus, these trips must be planned around our second annual Fred K’s Cancer event, which will take place on the 4th Sunday of June.

The 2011 schedule has also told us that the Cubs will be traveling to Fenway Park this year during interleague play. Very, very cool.

Baseball notes! Johan Santanta underwent surgery on Tuesday morning to repair a torn anterior capsule in his left shoulder. The Mets hope to have him back by Opening Day next season, but it’s not guaranteed. We’re currently working on a “Get Well” care package to send him. It will include our panties, an autographed picture of us doing an Elvis impersonation, Fred K’s Cancer beaded bracelets, a Serena-hand drawn picture of a T-Rex devouring Carlos Beltran, and a pair of Lisa’s mismatched socks…complete with holes. We’re sure it’ll cheer him right up and prompt a speedy recovery.

Prior to the Yankees being ass clowns and losing yet another series (and first place) on Wednesday, Joe Girardi announced that Andy Pettitte would be rejoining the rotation on Sunday. Thank f’n God for small favors.

Last night, the Giants finally slid into the first place slot with a 10-2 victory over the Dodgers behind Jonathan Sanchez’s 12 strikeouts. The win gives the Giants a ½ game lead over the Padres, who had lost to the Cardinals by a score of 4-0.

Next week, we’ll have some ridiculously awesome pictures from our trip to Yankees Stadium on Tuesday night. We’ll be in attendance for what we’re positive will be a kick-ass display of baseball. The Rays will be in town AND we’re getting a free Snoopy Doll. Not gonna lie. We’re not quite sure which part of that sentence we’re more pumped about.

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Iron Man is this week’s Super Hero. Serena didn’t even run that by Lisa. She just decided it. No, he has nothing to do with baseball, but Serena saw the costume at Party City yesterday and started getting ideas. None of them good, we assure you.

“Wheel in the sky keeps on turning, we’ve been trying to make it to the Midwest. Wheel in the sky keeps me yearning, don’t know which stadium we’ll be at tomorrow.”