This will be quick and painful, I promise.

A couple weeks ago we took a crack at a prediction contest for the playoffs here on da Baux. We had 15 brave entrants, and, well, let's just say for the most part the results weren't pretty. Almost half of our contestants (7) picked the Phillies to win the World Series, and the eventual winner, the Giants, were picked by only two entrants. Even worse, only three people had them making the Series in the first place. Things weren't much better in the American League, as only six of our contestants had the Rangers beating the Rays to make the ALCS - though everyone who picked the Rangers to win a round had them make the World Series. No one even go the number of games the World Series would last correct, and their are only 4 possible options! Everyone picked 6 or 7 games,when in fact it took the Giants but 5 to run the Rangers out of town.

In any case, I'm sure no one cares about this minutiae, so without further ado, congratulations are in order to... Thomas, who absolutely crushed the field, getting 6 of the 7 series winners correct (he had the Twins beating the Yankees) and getting the number of games right in 4 of his 6 correct series picks (he thought the Giants would need an extra game in the last two rounds.) John Northey was the only other Bauxite to have the Giants win it all, also over the Rangers. John finished second, missing just the Twins, and could have narrowed the gap with Thomas had be made predictions about the number of games each series would last. Mick Doherty finished 3rd and might have been closer had he not picked the Reds to win it all (he was the only poster to have them win a series, in fact) and Gerry finished 4th thanks to nailing several series absolutely correctly, (though he picked the Phillies to win it all.) The only non-Bauxite in our top 5, with 6 out of a possible 18 points (Thomas had 14, John 10, Mick 8, Gerry 7) was Electric Carrot, who nailed the exact number of games in three different series. It's a good thing we didn't have to go to a tiebreaker, because no one got Edgar Renteria as World Series MVP, and the only person who guessed the correct number of World Series home runs, 10, was me, and I didn't finish anywhere close to the top of the leaderboard (although Thomas guessed 11 - is there anything that guy can't do?)

So Thomas, come on down and collect your fabulous No Prize, and to the rest of you, thanks to all for playing, and better luck next year.