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Monday, September 29, 2003
What's hot for 2003 MLB playoffs

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By Dan Shanoff
Page 2 columnist

As the baseball playoffs ramp 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, for instance 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 IN THE MLB PLAYOFFS
Category	Hot	Not Hot
Cap to be seen in	Red Sox	Braves
Pitching to Bonds	Are you crazy?	Make him beat you
Managerial mind	Jack McKeon	Ron Gardenhire
Celeb watch in stands	Ben Affleck	Arnold Schwarzenegger
Clutch closer	John Smoltz	Anyone Cubs
Rivalry	Epstein-Cashman	Baker-Media
Bay Area GM	Brian Sabean	Billy Beane
Crazy-fans advantage	Twins	Marlins
Jersey as fashion	Dontrelle Willis	Miguel Tejada
Place to catch homers	Fenway	Metrodome
Starting pitching	Three-man rotation	Four-man rotation
Manager in making	Jeff Conine	Manny Ramirez
Bandwagon team to root for	Red Sox	Evil Empire
Talent pipeline	Venezuela	Japan
Flamethrower	Kerry Wood	Tim Wakefield
Ready to haunt old teams	Clemens (vs. Red Sox)	Baker (vs. Giants)
Darkhorse playoff MVP	Edgardo Alfonso	Javy Lopez
"He's Due"	Red Sox Nation	Barry Bonds
Key for Boston	Team batting	Team pitching
Poised for national-spotlight breakout	Bill Mueller	Shannon Stewart
Distraction	California recall	Torre/Boss blow-ups?
Yankees Most Valuable Import	Jose Contreras	Hideki Matsui
Ready to rebound from last year's playoffs	Yankees	Braves
Pitching staff	A's	Red Sox
Out pitch	Johan Santana's fastball	Greg Maddux's fastball
Music played before an at-bat	Outkast	Avril
Key A's-Red Sox injury watch	Trot Nixon's calf	Jose Guillen's wrist

PAGE 2 PICKS
Category	Hot	Not
ALDS 1	Yankees	Twins
ALDS 2	Red Sox	A's
NLDS 1	Giants	Marlins
NLDS 2	Cubs	Braves
ALCS	Yankees	Red Sox
NLCS	Giants	Cubs
World Series champ	Giants	Yankees

Dan Shanoff is a columnist for Page 2. His "Daily Quickie" commentary appears every weekday morning.

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