The Weekly RootZoo Awards: October 7th, 2008

It's officially October, and that's a good thing for all you sports fans out there. Football is in full gear on all levels, as the contenders start to separate themselves from the pretenders. The NHL kicked off the regular season this weekend in Europe, and the NBA started up with their preseason Sunday. NASCAR saw a familiar face in Tony Stewart win his first race of the year, as the chase for the Nextel Cup continues to come to a close. Oh, and if all that wasn't enough, the famous cry of "there's only one October!" is meant for playoff baseball. We saw the Dodgers sweep the Cubs and the Phillies hold off the Brewers to set up their NLCS matchup. As for the American League, Tampa Bay made history (again) by winning in four against the White Sox. The Red Sox knocked off the best team record-wise in baseball to continue their bid to defend their World Series tile, as well as setting up an all-AL East ALCS. Here are this week's awards.


RootZoo Athlete of the Week: Manny Ramirez

The new #99 in Los Angeles is not a star hockey player, but a couple more series like the one Ramirez had against the Cubs and Manny might do something Wayne Gretzky never could for The City of Angels: win a title. Ramirez was one of the main reasons the Dodgers were able to sweep the Cubs by batting .500 for the series with a pair of home runs. Since his arrival, the National League West champions have turned into a legitimate World Series contender. All this without any signs of his off-the-field problems that helped ship him from Boston. Congratulations goes out to him for winning RootZoo's Athlete of the Week.



RootZoo Team of the Week: Los Angeles Dodgers

While Manny might have been the main bat for the Dodgers, the team as a whole did enough to earn this week's award. Los Angeles got great pitching from all three of their starters, timely hits from the likes of Russell Martin and James Loney, and set the series tone early by beating the Cubs twice in Chicago. For Dodger fans, they can only hope their team will be RootZoo's Team of the Week later in the month as well. Our congratulations goes out to the Dodgers on winning this award.



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WEEKLY AWARD WINNERS

RootOff of the Week

Gold Medal (+500 points): boogss03 and titan_4life I Dale Earnhardt is the greatest driver in Nascar history. I

Silver Medal (+250 points): Mothman405 and Wisconsin Sports Fan I Geovanny Soto will be the NL ROTY I

Bronze Medal (+100): king3895 and bobbylovesfootball I Who will have the better year Chad Johnson or Tj Houshmanzada I

Honorable mention to other top nominees: FearTheElf88, the answer (twice), lil_au912, zjd9797 and NELLY19
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Poll of the Week

Gold Medal (+500 points): EC4EVER I In your opinion which is the bigger upset in World Series history??? I

Silver Medal (+250 points): Owner I Your building an MLB Franchise from the ground up, what type of player would you chose with your first pick? I

Bronze Medal (+100): hail2daredskinz I Current RootZoo pet peeve? I

Honorable mention to other top nominees: CW2CME, hail2daredskinz (again), Owner (twice) and Special K
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Thread of the Week

Gold Medal (+500 points): drapp I RootZoo...Why do we love sports? I

Silver Medal (+250 points): miss_lorelei I Giants Fan....One Final Thread I

Bronze Medal (+100): Brangberg I Who on your favorite teams do you hate the most ?? I

Honorable mention to other top nominees: titan_4life, dougbies, e9celtics, boogss03, Sabatage and drunkencane
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Article of the Week

Gold Medal (+500 points): boogss03 I Dale Jr----Best Move Of His Career I

Silver Medal (+250 points): baseballnerd423 I Welcome To The Thoughts Of A Depressed Mets Fan... I

Bronze Medal (+100): MacDaddy TLC I NHL 2008-09 Western Conference Preview I

Honorable mention to other top nominees: calripkenboy08 (twice), halftimesportscards, pennywise, patiiee, wiZo and Terdpherguson27
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RootZoo News Update

1.  Congratulations to all left in any Survivor Contests.  I'm officially out of all of them.  Guess that's what happens when you spend more time building a website than talking sports with the rest of you.  Anyway, I need to get some pride back so you can be sure to see a few new Survivor Contests this week.  We'll put up an alert  on the site when each is ready, but we won't be sending out an email about them - so just be sure to check in here and there if you'd like to join.  Congratulations to ole miss rebels and pattylcake for each making it through 7 rounds of MLB Survivor.  One of the two will become our first ever RootZoo Survivor winner as they're fighting it out for the winning spot as we speak (if the Angels win, ole miss rebels takes it all.  If not, we have a tiebreak situation on our hands).

2.  In the coming days, you'll see some updates to your RootZoo profile page.  Among these updates will be a customizable background image and the ability to customize some of the color on your page.  We'll be continuing to develop the profile page in the weeks ahead and you'll see additional updates made as they're ready.

3.  Congratulations to BronxBlogger for officially winning the RootZoo World Series Giveaway...and a trip to Games 3 and 4 of the 2008 World Series (airfare included).  Which teams will he see?  You sure about that?  We'll have a futures question up as soon as all Divisional Series are completed.  I'll be looking to see some big point bets.

The rest of our time is being spent on fantasy development.  We'll update more as soon as we have something to share.  Until then, we're working for you...have a great week.

-RZ