There and Back Again

Yes, that's a Hobbit reference. Yes, I'm a dork.

So I visited Kirsten's kinfolk in Houston (with Kirsten, I should add) last weekend, and it was a good time. Good Texas folk, every one of them. I should point out that the public high school in Texas had an invocation during graduation. It was even scheduled on the program. Apparently, the ACLU and ADL haven't had a lot of effect making inroads into the central Texas mindset.

Anyway, as per my previous post: driving in Houston is not so bad. Traffic is heavy, but not insanely so. I kind of enjoyed it. The construction in the town of Conroe, north of Houston, was insane and foolish, but whatever. I only had to drive through it twice, and so I can live with it. Pity the poor fools who chose to live there, though.

Anyway, a second portion of our trip involved going to Charleston to visit my parents, which was also nice. I got to practice my masonry skills and lay a stone patio, which was kind of fun. I've never done it before, but I think I did a decent job of it. We'll see how it holds up to weather. The only problem was the heat - it was 90 and humid in town when I did it, and I was close to passing out by the end of the day.

Finally, I noticed a lot of talk on SportsCenter while I was out about how the NL Central is the worst division in baseball. That might be the case - the Pirates, Cardinals, and Reds are all in that very same division. But I figure the best way to compare the divisions is to look at the divisions' cumulative records against other divisions, and against interleague opponents.

Here's what we get. The comparisons are broken up into overall out-of-division record, other division record, and interleague record:
AL East: 78-75, .510 (72-66, .522; 6-9, .400)
AL Central: 78-72 .520 (68-67 .504; 10-5 .667)
AL West: 66-69 .489 (58-65 .472; 8-4 .667)
NL East: 66-56 .541 (57-50 .533; 9-6 .600)
NL Central: 51-88 .367 (46-78 .371; 5-10 .333)
NL West: 75-54 .581 (71-46 .607; 4-8 .333)

So there it is. Not only is the NL Central the worst division in baseball (with a winning percentage 120 points below the next-worst division, the AL West) they one of only two divisions with a losing record outside of their division, and the only division with a losing record in both American League and National League play.

That division is terrible. Just terrible. As a Cardinals fan, I can't help but understand that this season is going to be very, very long.