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Page 2's Power Poll dares to rate the teams that are currently wielding the most power in the entire sports universe.
Each week, our poll will rank the 10 teams at the top of the power heap -- and the five teams that have lost the most power in the past week. And, by the way, Page 2 uses its own definition for a "team" -- any group of two or more bonded together for the common purpose.
Our Momentum Meter also predicts the direction these teams will be heading in future weeks (see the bottom of the page for a full explanation).
If you've got anything to say about our Top 10 or our Bottom 5, click here to comment -- or forever hold your peace.
TEAM
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PAGE 2 SAYS
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MO' METER
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| 1.The legend-to-be that is Rich Beem |
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What is so rare in a day in August as a vitually unknown golfer who holds off El Tigre in a major? How about a
pro golfer who actually says what he's really thinking? Page 2 is in love. |
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| 2. Diamondbacks dynamic duo |
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Between them, Curt Schilling and the Unit are 30 games over .500. Only three entire teams are 30 games over .500 -- the Braves, the Yankees and the D'backs, who are running away with the second-toughest division by seven games. |
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| 3. AL West |
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The game's toughest division features three of the four
top teams in the AL, plus baseball's best player -- Alex Rodriguez -- who leads the majors in home runs ... he hit six over the weekend ... and RBI. |
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| 4. The legend-to-be that is Alfonso Soriano |
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First second baseman ever to do the 30-30 thing. If there's no strike, could become the fourth major-leaguer to go 40-40, along with Jose Canseco, A-Rod and Barry Bonds. (Of course, as Willie Mays rightly said, "If I knew it was gonna be such a big deal, I would have done it a few times.") |
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| 5. Atlanta Braves |
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Baseball's best team (80-43) was thought to be ready for the long slide to oblivion. As it has been so wisely put, "That's why they play the game." |
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| 6. Edgar Prado |
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The little-known jockey pulled into a tie with the great Jerry Bailey with 32 wins in their battle for riding supremacy at Saratoga, America's most important horse racing meeting. |
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| 7. San Jose SaberCats |
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The 'Cats won their first Arena Bowl in convincing style, burying the Arizona Rattlers 52-14 to cap a 16-1 season. Perhaps even more impressive: They held the Rattlers without a point for 50 consecutive minutes, an almost unimaginable feat in a league where teams routinely score 50 points a game. |
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| 8. Los Angeles Dodgers |
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Pretty much out of it in the NL West race, but they opened a huge 3½-game edge over the stumbling Giants for the NL wild-card berth. Not bad for a team with only two good hitters -- Shawn Green and Paul Lo Duca, and Lo Duca had been in a slump since the All-Star Game until he broke out of it against the woeful Mets. |
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| 9. Ferrari Formula One team |
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A one-two finish by teammates Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher in the Hungarian Grand Prix allowed Ferrari to lock up the team title with four races still left in the season. |
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| 10. St. Louis Cardinals |
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Stumbled a bit -- understandably -- after the deaths of Jack Buck and Darryl Kile, but they've righted themselves and opened a five-game lead in the NL Central. However, sadly, their pitching is too shaky to do much in the postseason, if there is one. |
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| ALSO RECEIVING VOTES: Minnesota Twins, Jeff Blake, Amelie Mauresmo, Dale
Jarrett, David Tua, Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band, Damian Charles Hurley, "Bud, Sweat and Tees: A Walk on the Wild Side" (Alan Shipnuck's chronicle of Rich Beem's 1999 PGA season), "XXX," "Signs," "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"
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TEAM
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PAGE 2 SAYS
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MO' METER
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| 5. New York Mets
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The $100-Million Team That Couldn't. On an 11-game home losing streak -- eight overall -- and looking at 40 games of mail-it-in garbage time. |
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| 4. Justin Leonard |
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He saved it all for a rainy day. |
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| 3. The luxury tax |
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Explain to us again about how a tax that won't really affect anyone -- all the other teams will get under the tax number, which is likely to wind up at about $115 million-$120 million, and George Steinbrenner will just ignore it -- is supposed to restore competitive balance. If anything, it will just discourage those few teams on the cusp -- the Mets, the Braves, the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Orioles, the D'backs -- from competing with the Yankees even to the extent that they do now. |
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| 2. "The Adventures of Pluto Nash" |
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The $90 million Eddie Murphy vehicle grossed $2.2 million on its opening weekend -- averaging an anemic $941 per screen -- putting it into excellent position to be the biggest movie bomb of all time. What is the significance of $941 per screen. To put it into sports perspective, this is roughly the equivalent of your local major-league baseball team drawing 4,000 fans ... on Opening Day.
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| 1. Baseball fans |
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Repeat after us: "Neither the players nor the owners care about you." There, don't you feel better?
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| ALSO RECEIVING VOTES: Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Milwaukee Brewers, Spurrier's
first-team offense, Los Angeles Lakers (Shaq's surgery), Include, those who doubt the existence of global warming, Lawrence Phillips, integrity of "American Idol" fan voting
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| Mo' Meter explained: |
No mo'; holding |
Climbing the charts |
Peaked; all downhill |
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