Week 8 MVP Award Winner –
New York City Sewer Rat (32 Points)
After wallowing in the grime and smell of bad picks for the first half of the season, New York City Sewer Rat has pushed aside the manhole cover and emerged into the daylight with 32 Points and the Week 8 MVP Award. NYC Sewer Rat has been hovering around 16th Place for most of the season, but this strong week has bumped him up to a new peak position of #12. He is now only 5 Points away from gnawing his way into the Top Ten and 15 Points away from the Top Five. NYC Sewer Rat came up with some huge picks this week such as getting both Games of the Week correct and being 1 of only 2 players to correctly pick the difficult Triple Crown of Jax-Car-Sea (with the other being Young Tuna). He also avoided the mousetrap of a failed Triple Jeopardy by getting it correct with Tennessee. Five Points behind NYC Sewer Rat this week were Double-Double and Young Tuna, who both scored 27 Points to tie for the Week 8 MVP Award Runner-Up. After scoring only 32 total Points in the last 3 weeks combined, Double-Double nearly matched that in a single week. He is currently 9 Points ahead of his chief rival Stinkerbell in the Points Standings and hopes to order some Animal Fries soon which will energize him to stay ahead of her. Young Tuna was disappointed last week when he lost 1st Place to his grandpa Roadrunner. He was almost on his way to the cannery. But with a strong Week 8, Young Tuna has swam back ahead of him and currently has a one touchdown cushion. The current Top Five consists of #1 Young Tuna (6 Weeks at #1), #2 Roadrunner (7 Points back), #3 Fearless Tuna (16 Points back), and tied for #4 Shaylene & Drummer Boy (19 Points back). But while there is a 19 Point gap between 1st and 4th Place, there is also only a 19 Point gap between 4th and 15th Place. So the standings are much tighter down lower, with the Top Five seemingly reachable quickly by just about anyone. The October Player of the Month Award winner has been announced as Shaylene. After reviewing all of the players in the running with Young Tuna, he pointed out that she has climbed a full 7 spots in the standings over the last month while also winning an MVP Award. So she is being recognized for that excellent performance during this past month. We should also probably talk about Triple Jeopardy for a moment. Not to pile on, but I couldn’t help but notice that Mr. T has fallen to 0-6 in picking TJ this season. That’s a loss of 12 Points and definitely a glaring weakness in making picks. Our 2020 Club Champion really needs to step it up this week (if he selects TJ again) and make sure that he gets it right. The pressure is on and we will all be anxiously waiting to see what happens. Will Mr. T attempt TJ this week once again? And will he finally get it right or will he fall to 0-7 and have to receive a pep talk in the locker room from recovering former TJ picker Captain Insano?
As you probably noticed, the 22nd Year edition of the club is entitled the Champions Edition. The reason being that we were going to take some time out during the season to reflect on our past Club Champions. So I wanted to start with the first three original champions back when the club was first established. Our 1st year Club Champion in 1997 was Big Wiggle and our 2nd year Club Champion in 1998 was Schloppy Joe. I’m actually not sure where either of these players are now or how they are doing, so we will leave it at that. Our 3rd year Club Champion in 1999 was Millennium J-Bird who narrowly edged Runner-Up The Rickster by 11 Points to win it. Four years later, J-Bird (then playing as Papa J-Bird) would win the Club Championship once again. And once again, he topped Runner-Up The Rickster, but this time by a mere 9 Points. Thus, J-Bird became a two-time Club Champion. So far, only five players in club history have won two or more club titles. Although he is currently retired from the club, having last played in 2019 when he finished in 2nd Place as the Runner-Up (playing as Halibut J-Bird), he remains one of our strongest Hall of Fame legends. Who knows, maybe he will return to the club down the line and do battle with all of us once again.