All right. Man, my picks in the baseball playoffs have been terrible so far. Time to make excuses.

Justin Verlander's own mother didn't have them beating the Yankees. But the A's, well, she probably had them beating them. But the A's pitching looked so sharp! And Frank Thomas and Nick Swisher! Alas, even the best among us are wrong sometimes. And so am I.

So goes the Twins, and the Pads as well. At least I got the Mets, albeit, not in the right number of games. Now let's just see if the Mets can validate me in one of the two LCSs.

How about the NFL this week? Or tonight most notably, when the Cards blow one big time to the Bears - blame it on the kicker, Neil Rackers, blame it on the offense, blame it on the special teams. It's strange how sports work in that, if you said before the game, that the Cardinals would lose by just 1 to the Bears, you'd say spectacular effort, that's all you could ask from them. But the way it went down, with the Cards in control of the whole game, you've got to finish it out. Exciting for viewers, but ugly. Goes back to old school Bears form with the Defense pretty much singlehandedly winning the game, with an assist from the special teams, but none from the offense.

On to Hockey. I've been trying to watch a bit more this year, but won't get fully into it 'til baseball ends. What I love though, is the idea of awarding the best players in any particular game "stars" - a first, second and third. Why doesn't every sport do it? Something to think about, Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, David Stern.