It’s been awhile since we’ve seen or heard from Chris Russo, as he’s been spewing his nonsense in the cultural Siberia that is satellite radio. I’ve got good news though. He’s apparently a huge fan of The Parent’s Basement! This is evidenced by the fact that he’s stolen our completely original idea of creating fake tournaments and then deciding who the fake winners would be. The Mad Dog’s tournament attempts to decide who the best baseball team of all time is, and according to the site, he alone has determined which 32 teams are worthy enough to participate. I hope you’re already getting excited, because that alone is worth the price of admission. I don’t want to spoil the moment any further, so just go ahead and take a look and I’ll follow up with my thoughts: http://www.sirius.com/maddogbaseball

• Ok, just started perusing the bracket. Wow. Looks like a great tournament so far. Oh wait… now that I’ve gotten all the way to the SECOND FUCKING TEAM LISTED, I realize this is a complete joke. The 1999 Rangers? What the hell? I actually took the time to look this up. They were 95-67 with a pythagereon record of 88-74, and they got swept in the ALDS by the Yankees. Their top 3 starters were Rick Helling, Aaron Sele, and John Burkett. The’27 Yankees were probably shitting themselves when they saw this draw, huh? That’s why you put these types of tourneys together though, to think about matchups like Ruth-Helling and Burkett-Gehrig.
• In Russo’s defense, even though the site claims this is his ”definitive list of the top 32 squads”, it seems that he imposed some kind of weird unwritten rule on himself that forces him to include a team from every organization. This is an explanation at least, but of course, it is completely idiotic and defeats the entire purpose of the exercise. This isn’t like putting Christian Guzman in the All Star game, asshole. No one’s going get any kind of pleasure out of seeing an undeserving team they once rooted for listed on this shitty bracket. Do you think Rockie fans are going to like relive Rocktober ’07 by watching their team lose a vote 95% to 5% in a meaningless fake baseball tournament?  But fuck it, let’s exlude the ’39 Yankees, so the ’98 Padres can fnally get their shot.
• 10 (11 if you include the ’94 Expos) of the 32 teams in this tournament did not win the World Series, so nearly a third of the field cannot even reasonably claim to the best team in their given year. And four of those teams did not even win their league championship.
• Even if you want to cut him some slack for his every team rule, remember that the Royals, Twins, and Cubs have all won championships in their history, and yet are represented by teams that did not win. And if you’re going to insist on including a Cubs team that did not win the World Series, why not include the 115-37 1906 Cubs (lost WS 4-2 to the White Sox) instead of the 94-58 ’29 Cubs (lost WS 4-1 to A’s)? If you wanted there to be any semblance of logic or reason, that might’ve been a good move. He included the 1905 Giants, so it’s not like he’s against going back that far. There are many similarly inexplicable decisions, but I think that example does a good job of summing it all up.
• Speaking of the Giants, why are they one of only 2 organizations to get 2 teams in? I know Russo’s a Giants fan, but this is just asinine. Even if you don’t want to go with 3 Yankee teams; the Cardinals, Dodgers, Pirates, Red Sox, Reds, and A’s (probably others as well) all had second teams more deserving than the ’54 Giants, who are pretty much never mentioned as one of the great teams of all time.
• The seeding is also incomprehensible. For instance, why would the ’01 Mariners be an 8 seed? They went 116-46. I realize they choked in the postseason, but so did 30% of your field.

I’m going to stop there, because this has been enough of a waste of time as it is. I’ll say this though: this is the first time I really, really wish a lot of people read this blog, because skewing these polls so the ’98 Padres or ’07 Rockies win this thing would be the highlight of my life. I think I would be willing to give up my ability to have children to make that happen.