Top 10 reasons to root for Germany in the World Cup Final

Werner Herzog's Happy Face

10) Gutting Argentina like a trout is the least they can do for Brazil after that historic beatdown

9) It makes everyone involved with the U.S. team feel so much better about that 1-0 loss in group play

8) Would help more people in the U.S. admit to their true heritage, because, um, that kind of didn't happen for a few decades here

7) If you hate this sport and the attention it's been getting, they are doing all they can to make everyone forget how close and exciting this tournament has been

6) Those Argentinian bastards have no right to the Falkland Islands

5) They've had dozens of years without a World Cup win, and with way too much David Hasslehoff

4) If they win, we get Happy Werner Herzog, which is to say the strangest Werner Herzog there is

3) Have actually been the best team in the tournament to date, and it's always kind of nice when the best team wins one of these things, rather than just the luckiest

2) Validates Jurgen Klinsman's strategy of sweet talking the sons of U.S. soldiers in Germany

1) When Germans don't get what they want, Bad Things Happen

Top 10 reasons to root for Argentina in the World Cup Final

Too Late, We're Crying

10) Gives every future host country a clear and intense warning about how the FIFA Money Rape might not be the end of their misery

9) Lionel Messi seems to be the only star goal scorer in futbol who isn't someone you want to beat to death with a claw hammer

8) Might help more people in the U.S. learn where Argentina is

7) Honestly, have every right to the Malvinas Islands

6) If you hate this sport and the attention it's been getting, yesterday's 0-0 win should have made you very, very happy

5) If this team wins, that cheating bastard Diego Maradona might finally be relegated to something less than Absolute Local Deity status

4) Actually play spectacularly effective defense, unlike many of the teams in this tournament

3) America First kind of implies South America, too

2) If they win, they might finally become known for something more than "Evita"

1) Rooting for Germany is like rooting for the house at a casino, machines against nature, and the onset of winter and age

Top 10 takeaways from Germany's win over Brazil

Oh Dear

10) It's good that Brazil had home field advantage, or this could have gotten ugly

9) When Brazil gets waxed, it really is an unforgettable experience

8) Shockingly, the country has proven very accommodating to visiting Germans

7) Germany really has to be concerned about how their players have used up all of their goal scoring celebrations before the final

6) On some level, this has to be better than losing in penalty kicks

5) U.S. fans are feeling a lot better about their team's 1-0 loss to the Deutchlanders

4) Brazil's fans have to feel a lot better about spending billions and billions of dollars on stadiums and FIFA bribes to hos the Cup now

3) If only Brazil had been healthy and little luckier, they might lost this game by less than a historic margin

2) Brazil gave up more goals in this game than they did in the last three World Cup tournaments, which just goes to show how they were really overdue for a beatdown

1) The home team gets to try to redeem themselves in the third place game later this week, which reminds us just how dumb it is to play a third-place game

Top 10 reasons why the Cavs think they have a shot at signing free agent LeBron James

Reason #11: These Swell Duds

10) Lots of people move back to Cleveland after they go to Florida

9) People in Las Vegas are betting on this to happen, and people who make bets in sports books are rarely wrong

8) James really wants to spend his post-prime years grooming young players

7) They'll let him have his old number and everything

6) James hasn't bust out laughing at the idea, and he'd never play one team off the other to enhance his leverage, or just to be a douche

5) Gives James the chance to humiliate the next LeBron, Andrew Wiggins, on a daily basis in practice

4) Dan Gilbert took down that mean comic sans letter from the Cavs' web site, so James can no longer be certain that happened

3) He really misses playing with Sideshow Anderson Varejao

2) Is sure that Kyrie Irving will pass him the ball, unlike everyone else on the roster

1) This is the same organization that took Anthony Bennett at #1 and DNP-CD'd him a ton last year, so it's not like we're drowning in wisdom here

When Oakland Makes A Trade, It's All About Detroit, Says Detroit

Velocity Down, Hubris Up

One of the very best things about MLB in 2014 bas been watching my least favorite player, Detroit pitcher Justin Verlander, become ordinary and worse. He was bad for most of 2013, at least after I traded for him in fantasy, but righted the ship just in time to end my A's for the second straight year in the playoffs. It was as if he's spent the last two years on a personal mission to destroy my happiness in real and fake baseball.

So the A's, currently the best team in baseball by won-loss record, decided to bolster a starting rotation that's been buttressed by guys who are likely to regress in the second half, and filled with lots of guys with injury issues. So they took on two quality SPs from the Cubs in Jeff Samardzjia and Jason Hammel. The cost were three low-cost prospects, including the team's best middle infield hopeful, and some quality arms. It's basically a classic current assets for future assets move, and one that's likely to help them in a playoff series.

Now, the team with the second-best record in the AL is the LA Angels. They also have the second best run differential, which is a pretty significant indicator of future performance. And the third best team in the AL by that metric is surprising Seattle; both of those clubs are basically a hot week or two away from unseating Oakland in the West and putting them in the lottery life that is the wild-card in a dual-team system.

But do you know who the A's really made this trade for? Detroit. At least, if you are Verlander, who really is all that kind of obnoxious, really. Here's the money quote:

"I found it very interesting," Verlander told reporters Saturday, according to MLB.com. "Really, when I saw that trade, I thought that they made that trade for us. No doubt about it in my mind."

And then, after realizing just how awful that sounded, he backtracked.

"I think a lot of factors had to do with why they did it," he said. "Obviously, October's the main one, not necessarily us, but October in general."

In reality, of course, the A's haven't done anything while thinking of Detroit. Neither Hammel nor Samardzija are Miguel Cabrera stoppers, and honestly, as an A's fan, I worry about that guy a lot more than I do about a guy with a 4.7 ERA and 1.5 WHIP. Holding off the Angels and Mariners with a rotation that, even while bolstered, still has to wonder about the effect of higher innings on Sonny Gray, Scott Kazmir and Jesse Chavez. As good as the A's have been at the stick and in the field, it's still really easy to go into a tailspin if the rotation fails, and this is, clearly, the best division in the AL now. They were overwhelming favorites to go to the playoffs before, but with this move, I'm sleeping easier.

Oh, and one final thing. Run differential for Detroit? Just +28, tied for fourth in the AL with Toronto, just 13 better than the upstart Royals, 4 back in the Central as I write this. Of course, if they get to the playoffs, the Tigers are dangerous with a rotation that features Rick Porcello, Anibal Sanchez and Max Scherzer.

And if they need to go to a fourth starter? Drew Smyly has been surprising stable. All of these guys have dramatically better numbers than Verlander.

So if the A's are making deals in relation to Detroit?

Then they really should have done that in 2012 or 2013, when the Tigers were much bigger threats than now...