ESPN.com - What's hot, not for baseball playoffs

ESPN.com: Page 2

Monday, September 30, 2002
Updated: October 2, 7:44 PM ET
What's hot, not for baseball playoffs

By Dan Shanoff
Page 2 columnist

As the baseball playoffs start up on Tuesday, we salute the sprinkle of 4 p.m. ET games on the schedule. As a proud sponsor of Office Sports Discussion, this list appreciates any sports event that cuts into the work day, causing normally productive employees to keep online scoreboards perpetually posted on their computer monitors, with trained trigger-fingers on the screen-swapping "ALT+TAB" buttons.

The strong possibility that you will end up in a baseball-playoff discussion with one of your co-workers -- not to mention a buddy or a significant other -- makes it all the more important to check out the list below. It's not built to win any arguments, but you may start a couple.

What's Hot, What's Not for 2002 baseball playoffs
Category	Hot	Not
Cap to be seen in	Twins	Braves
Managerial mind	Art Howe	Joe Torre
Celeb watch in stands	Nelly	Tawny Kitaen
Clutch closer	John Smoltz	Billy Koch
Rivalry	Chavez-Giambi	Bonds-Kent
Wily GM	Beane	Garagiola
Crazy-fans advantage	Minnesota	Atlanta
Jersey as fashion	Miguel Tejada	Luis Gonzalez
Place to catch homers	New York	Oakland
Starting pitching in five-game series	Three-man rotation	Four-man rotation
Manager in making	Curt Schilling	Jeff Kent
Bandwagon team to root for	Twins	Yankees
Talent pipeline	Dominican Republic	Japan
Flamethrower	Jason Schmidt	Eric Milton
Ready to haunt old teams	Tino Martinez (vs. Yankees)	Ron Coomer (vs. Twins)
Fashion statement	Ben Weber's goggles	Shinjo's wrist/forearm bands
Darkhorse playoff MVP	Scott Hatteberg	Denny Hocking
"He's Due" clutch hitter	Barry Bonds	Derek Jeter
Marquee pitching match-up	Randy Johnson vs. Matt Morris	Joe Mays vs. anyone
Poised for national-spotlight breakout	Corey Koskie	Mike Remlinger
Cards pitcher with great storyline	Post-retirement Andy Benes	Pre-settlement Chuck Finley
Molina brother	Bengie	Jose
Ready to rebound from last year's playoffs	Mark Mulder	Mariano Rivera
Pitching staff	Oakland	Minnesota
Distraction	War	Labor woes
Out pitch	Zito's curveball	Clemens' splitter
Music played before an at-bat	Clipse	Allison Krauss
Movie subject	"The Kontraction Kids"	"Ballistic: Boomer vs. Rocket"
Conventional wisdom	Diamondbacks -- one-hit wonder	Desert double-dip
Key injury watch	Jacque Jones	Craig Counsell
Pick to win it all	A's	Giants

Dan Shanoff is a columnist for Page 2. His "What's Hot, What's Not" trend-spotting list appears Thursdays. Got inside scoop on an up-and-coming trend? Want to declare something passé? Send this glimpse of your hipness to hotnotlist@yahoo.com.