Congratulations go out to the youngest champion of all-time, Joe Cada.  At 21 years old, he played aggressively at the final table, at times perhaps recklessly.  He put his chips in the middle and ended up with the lesser hand several times, and yet once the river came he was the victor every single time.  He dealt bad beats to several players, especially Frenchman Antoine Saout when they were three-handed, and just saw everything go his way.  He won coinflips, he came back from the brink of defeat when there were nine players remaining, when there were six players remaining, and then when logger Darvin Moon (yes, a logger) almost overwhelmed him heads up.

Cada’s win proves several things.  It proves his own self-worth.  It proves that sometimes luck conquers all…and it proves that nice guys can get rewarded. Rewarded with 8.55 million dollars, that is.  While Phil Ivey may get a ton of the coverage tonight, Cada will get the cash.

Ivey, for his efforts, played very well under the circumstances.  If an allin with Cada which turned out to be a coinflip went his way instead of Cada’s, he’s have had almost 25 million in chips nine-handed and Cada would’ve been gone.  This is tournament poker, where luck tends to decide what happens after skill exits the door.  Instead, Ivey lost that flip and became short-stacked, forced to slowly grind his way back up gathering one blind after another orbit after orbit.  He accomplished that and then lost AK allin against Moon’s AQ.  Such is poker, where the best player often doesn’t win.  No worries for Ivey though, as he almost instantly jumped into the high-stakes on Full Tilt Poker.  Poker fans may not get their Ivey victory, but they’ll enjoy it while he lasts.  The man can console himself with the two other bracelets he won this year and the millions and millions of dollars already in his bank accounts.

Watch tonight on ESPN.

There. Bump Pedro off the top.

Jheri Curl Power!

Eagles did the deed, now it’s your turn Phils. Do it for Ben Franklin. CC ain’t got nothin’ on you.

We gonna lose? I don’t think so. Don’t get your hopes up, Yankees fans. Cole is on the prowl for some strikeouts.

Pedro Martinez.  New Yankee Stadium.  Let history repeat.   I trust in him, do you?

Get to AJ Burnett early and make him throw pitches.  This game is the Phillies’ to lose.  The Phillies already have the Yankees reeling.  They’re throwing everything they can at the Phils.

Here’s Cliff Lee, currently brushing his shoulder off.  Guess dude’s just in an Empire state of mind (courtesy dhm):

Chan Ho will be there.  7:57 Illadelph, come alive!

Game Three needs some real good shit to pop it off.  Click here to get it started.

All props to this dude NeeKo:

From the irreplaceable Woody on backshegoes.com:

Almost too cool for words.

Classic.  TBS sucked the entire playoffs, and the fans made a quality decision here.  It’s just too bad an actual good broadcaster like Ernie Johnson got the brunt of the boos.   Can we just state these boos were meant for Chip Caray and company?

Congrats go out to every member of that team.  Special thanks to Ryan Howard, Cliff Lee, Jayson Werth, Jimmy Rollins, Pedro Martinez, and Carlos Ruiz for their tremendous Championship Series contributions.  Let’s celebrate tonight and get back at tomorrow!   Back-to-back NL champs for the first time since the 1995-1996 Braves, let’s go for back-to-back World Series champs.

Go Phillies!

And his kingdom is Philadelphia.  Defend your throne, sir.

Two run bombs are his specialty