Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Phield 2010: My Bracket

As The Phield churns out matchup previews over the course of the next few days, as well as starts the tournament with voting for the play-in game, let's take a look at my bracket.

My bracket for The Phield 2010. Click to enlarge and see my predictions.

Yep, I'm calling for a 3-seed to take it all. I am still shocked The Fightins were given a 3 and not a 2 (or even a 1), as their site has been stellar since its full-time debut in the spring of 2008. Yep, before the greatest night, er, nights in Phillies history. My final four consists of Macho Row, The Fightins, Beerleaguer, and The Zo Zone.

Macho Row, in my opinion, got too high a seed and could have easily been a 3 or 4. I think they can take down the almighty 700 Level, the overall #1 seed. Why? Because, while The 700 Level is an excellent Philly blog, it is split over all things Philly sports. I think blogs that are dedicated to just the Phillies cover the team more thoroughly and I think that will be shown with the results in The Phield. Really though, no disrespect to The 700 Level. I've been a daily reader of their site since 2006 and think they're the best all-around Philly blog on the web. For this though I go Macho Row.

The Fightins may just be my favorite Phillies-centric blog. It has a little of everything: statistics, game recaps, a kick-ass store, focus on broadcasters, and jokes. Boy do they bring the jokes. They have the fan base to topple the other 64 worthy entrants.

Beerleaguer is a classic and located just outside my hometown. The commenters may appear dry and pessimistic about everything but sole writer Weitzel knows his stuff. His strong following should get him to the Final Four. I'll be one pushing to get him there.

Lastly comes The Zo Zone, my favorite blog by a Phillies beat writer. I figure one of the beat writers makes it and since Zo is my favorite - and appears in tune with fans and other blogs - I think he storms past fellow beat writer blog Finger Food and edges out Swing and a Long Drive in the Elite Eight.

So there are my picks. I'm not getting into every single selection because that would take forever. Plus, this is just my gut feeling and biased approach as to which blogs I like best.

Really the real winner in this whole awesome process are the smaller, less-known blogs. This is free advertising for them and they should relish the chance to grab a new audience. I know I'll be perusing all 65 of these sites more often to get as much Phillies love as possible. Each site is different and original, and I respect that.

So, now that you see who I got... who you got? Favor The 700 Level? Love a dark horse?

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