Saturday, March 30, 2013

2013 MLB Predictions

NL East -- Nationals, Braves, Phillies, Mets, Marlins

AL East -- Blue Jays, Rays, Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles

Blue Jays acquired high-priced talent in the off-season. This usually leads to achieving below expectations, but with the Sox & Yankees in obvious decline, I have to pick the Jays. The Rays have been  hurt by new rules on drafting, but they should hang on for a year or two before thre inevitable decline sets in.

NL Central -- Reds, Cardinals, Brewers, Pirates, Cubs.

First and last are easy, and the quality of the Cards' organization gives them second. A toss-up for 3rd & 4th.

AL Central -- Tigers, White Sox, Indians, Royals, Twins.

As with the NL Central, a toss-up here for 3rd & 4th.

NL West -- Dodgers, Giants, Diamondbacks, Padres, Rockies.

Dodgers spent big but still might lose out to Giants. A toss-up for 1st & 2nd.

AL West -- Angels, Rangers, A's, Mariners, Astros.

Same as NL West, Angels went all-in but toss-up for 1st & 2nd.

So there you have it. Let the games begin!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Memoir or Memoirs?

If you're like me, you have trouble deciding which of these is the right word to use in a particular situaion. I will offer some thoughts on this issue.

Memoir comes to us from "memoire", the French word for memory. Thus, memoir means one's memory of a particular event. The writer is not claiming to be presenting historical facts, but rather is relating the event as he or she remembers it at the time of writing about it.

"Memoirs", in the plural, would therefore make more sense when referring to an entire book, which presumably consists of a collection of many such remembrances.

It should be noted that memoirs is to be distinguished from autobiography in that an autobiography undertakes to tell about one's entire life, not just a particular group of experiences from that life, as one's memoirs would be. There is also the understanding that in an autobiography the writer has done research and fact-checking to ensure accuracy as much as humanly possible. With one's memoirs the writer is not expected to engage in this sort of research.