Danville_Wrestling

Well Cueto pitched good tonight for Cincy until he gave up 3 in the 6th. Aside from that minor blowup, I like the energy and determination I'm seeing out of the ball club right now. I'm just glad Adam Dunn didn't pull a strikeout with the bases loaded in the eighth and instead got a walk to get a go-ahead RBI. Plus, with the Pirates getting knocked around by the Cubs the Reds are a step closer from escaping the cellar of the NL Central.

I always find that Cubs victory song a little catchy. What is it with the Pirates that they just can't beat the Cubs? This makes them like 0 for 7 on the year vs. Chicago.

I think Kevin James is the perfect poster child for why the GOP is in such shape its in. Coming in and yelling for no good reason and making absolutley no sense to boot. It's people like that which give conservatives a bad name. And yea, MSNBC is pretty lame. I grew up as a fan of Fox News starting in 2001 but I consider it very unwatchable today. Their election coverage has gotten worse [CNN blows them out of the water with that big electronic board, I think that thing is very cool] and their late night hosts have gotten worse in interrupting/yelling at each other. I just prefer NPR these days because at least I can get some quality journalism out of that.

I'd agree with that assessment. The one thing that I have liked out of the Cubs today is that they have been moving along the basepaths very well and moving runners over/knocking them in when they get in scoring position [but granted 3 HR's will help you in any game]. Edit: And yikes, Lance Briggs singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" (if you want to call it singing) was atrocious.

Alfonso Soriano is playing out of his mind right now with 2 HR in the first two innings of the game, knocking in 4 runs. His first home run was just sick with him taking the first pitch of the game, a fastball low and inside, over the left field wall.

Although I may not be a fan of the Arizona commentary, I got a good chuckle out of Sutton saying "right back at ya Colorado Rockies" when BJ Upton knocked in two runs off a triple shortly after he avoided being hit by a pitch earlier in the at-bat.

It was a tough call, almost a tie. I think either out/safe was a fair call in that situation. Initially I thought that Coste was safe but on a closer replay I believe that he slid into the bottom part of the plate and his foot only graced the tip of it after the tag had been applied. So basically in the real time that the play happened I thought he was safe but on closer inspection I think he was out.

Yea, I noticed that. The Rays have surprised me thus far this season but it's about time they've gotten a lengthy run of some sort. I still don't believe it will last past the All-Star break but it's good to see someone different in the hunt at the moment. Edit: On another note, let me say that I'm just not a fan of the Arizona commentary team.

In everyone's opinion what is the game to watch tomorrow?

Well as bad as Chuck James pitched tonight, Cole Hamels was outstanding fooling batters with a nice changeup/fastball combination and pitching a complete game shutout (only 4 hits given up total). Major problem for the Braves this evening was their inability to work the count and willingness to swing at too many first pitches from Hamels. To be quite honest, the Braves never truly threatened to score in this game and seemed demoralized by the end of it.

Chuck James is throwing one stinker of a game tonight for Atlanta and this definitely won't help his 7+ ERA on the season. He's walked 5 and given up three HR's as the Braves trail early 5-0.

This is a very painful loss to take. We had our chances (such as Okur's three pointer to tie from his favorite 3 pt. spot on the floor) but giving up those offensive rebounds to LA down the stretch really doomed us (with Odom and Gasol's second chance pts. to boot). I'm still angry at how LA was picking up touch fouls at the end and we couldn't get a foul call when three guys are mauling Boozer and company in the post but that's no excuse. This was a game that Utah could have won and we let our chances slip away. I'm confident we can take this to 7 though and roll the dice there.

I agree. I'm not one to criticize officiating but Utah is getting none of the calls down the stretch here. I'm practically yelling @ my TV after some of them. I think the only person that might be more angrier than I am is Jerry Sloan.

This has been a really fun game to watch. It's too bad most of the country isn't watching it since its on so late (and that's just my eastern date time biased talking there).

Since most voters probably have no idea who Reid and Pelosi are...exactly what policies are you referring to? Well I'd say that if it was true most voters had no idea who Reid/Pelosi are that shows how inept the GOP machine has been. It's hard to rally voter sentiment if you have nothing to oppose (especially a political figure to oppose). The GOP has simply failed to categorize Reid or Pelosi in the same light the Democrats did with Newt when he was Speaker of the House which was the last time we had a tough battle between a divided government. The GOP needs to be more vocal on a few fronts. First, the GOP needed to have a much better solution to the housing "crisis" than what the Democrats proposed which is in some respects a glorified bailout package (but it could be worse). For example, a way to speed up the foreclosure process might actually allow people who are looking for a home to enter the market and allay fears that if you foreclose a property it will be vandalized/become an area of crime and then lower others property values (which Bernanke expressed concern about in his testimony before Congress). Also, the GOP has been TOTALLY inept at selling the idea of free trade. In fact, on most economic policies in general the GOP has just shut up and allowed things to run their course and THAT IS NOT HOW TO GOVERN. It seems as if the GOP is just devoid of any ideas in how to take power, reminding me of the Liberal Democrats in Great Britain, and parties that are like that stand no chance of being elected. The GOP also could be a more vocal proponent of strengthening borders, reducing the federal deficit (and showing more oversight of the budget process, go look at Tom Coburn's rants from Oklahoma as an example of what the GOP should be doing), and education reform. The GOP may have ideas but voters are not seeing them and the ideas they have presented are total garbage, like their joke of an immigration bill several years ago. The GOP is getting a backlash due to Bush's FP but also because of their gross incompetence in doing nothing of what was asked of them from their constituents. If you promise an amendment on gay marriage you have to deliver. If you promise fiscal responsibility you must deliver. However, the House GOP did none of this and wasted time except to get in with lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and they are facing massive consequences as a result. I just think the GOP needs a complete shake-up from top to bottom. The top isn't good and the bottom is not as well as state GOP parties are in terrible shape. Look at KY, this state is basically devoid of major GOP figures outside of our 2 Republican senators, Anne Northup who couldn't oust a governor under fire for a hiring scandal and who lost her seat in the House in '06 (although she's trying to get it back), Trey Grayson, our sec. of state, and Richie Farmer (ag. commissioner who was a former UK basketball star). Other than that, the state GOP is horrible. Also, the GOP needs serious change because the shifting population of the country as well as changing demographics (such as rising Latino populations) in several states are getting ready to push it into being a marginal party if it isn't careful. This is just not going to be a very good election cycle for Republicans, and especially conservatives like myself who feel as if we've been abandoned by the Republican Party.

Dude, Ross Perot won everybody's mock election in 1992. Well, and this should probably have been linked up with the elementary thread but I'll quickly put it here, Perot finished dead last in our mock election in 1st grade. I think he got like 2 votes. I voted for Bush because my parents liked him so I got biased commentary during the debates. I remember watching that first debate between them in 1992 and being very engaged in it. I guess that's where my interest in politics began. Anyway, Clinton won by a LANDSLIDE (did the same in '96) but then again, my class was like 55-60% black and they all voted as a block for Clinton, just like the real world I guess. It astonishes me that an ethnic group votes like that en masse but hey, Clinton was cool for the kids with the saxophone bit. As far as middle school goes.... Sixth Grade: I absolutley hated sixth grade, I mean I absolutley hated it. We had six periods but only 3-4 teachers because they did some dumb schedule idea where a math or science teacher would teach BOTH math/science or a social studies or English teacher would be both social studies/english. This was horrible because the science teachers didn't want to teach math and vice versa. Coming in as a straight A student from elementary school I thought I was something and didn't do as much work/put as much effort into things as I could so I still got lots of A's but then also started to get B's in science until 4th nine weeks when I just quit paying attention and landed a C in science (the only C I got on a report card grades 4-college). My parents about killed me over that. I also remember in Home Economics class I had to do lots of sewing and I hated that too. Some of these kids (boys and girls alike) just flew through it but I'm so dexterically challenged that I didn't even know where to begin. How I ended up with an A on that unit that lasted about 2 months I'll never know. I also remember having a TERRIBLE Drama teacher because the Shop teacher got fired in the middle of that year. She had no classroom management at all and was very afraid of students who caused trouble so she'd do nothing to them as they ran around the class, cursed and screamed, etc. but god forbid a good student like myself would whisper in class because we got the book thrown at us. I still remember being sent to the office because ANOTHER STUDENT pushed me into a set of desks and I almost broke my neck. Never made sense to me then and will never make sense to me. Only time I ever got sent to the office for something bad. The only highlight of the year was this Christian band from South Africa came and played in the gym. Looking back, I have NO idea how the school got away with having these guys come in and preach the gospel but it was my favorite assembly in middle school. They had some catchy songs and good rhythms and I still remember a lot of them to this day. Too bad I don't remember their names or anything. Seventh Grade: As much as I hated sixth grade, I LOVED seventh grade. Before the school year started I came to the conclusion that it was time to put my nose to the grindstone in classes. Not sure what really led me to this decision but the work ethic I decided to put into schoolwork beginning on the first day of seventh grade has carried over for the rest of my life. The only class that gave me lots of trouble was Pre-Algebra. We had a older teacher who was a very nice lady but the tests were very high stress. You had homework each night but all of it was only worth 4-5 points. However, the tests were worth like 50. So do the math and you can understand that if you don't do well on the tests then you bomb the class. I struggled early on because it was like I had to learn math all over again after I kinda took a year off in sixth grade. I got B's for the first 3 nine weeks in there, with my average steadily climbing from an 82 to a 86 to an 88 and then the last nine weeks I got an 89.5 and she rounded it to an A. To this day I think she gave me the extra .5 just because she saw I was doing everything I could to get an A so she just gave it to me. However, getting an A in there for that 4th nine weeks made me feel like I won the lottery. The B that I got in there in the third nine weeks was the very LAST B I ever got in school. Straight A's in 8th, straight A's in high school, and then straight A's in college. So I'll always remember that class for giving me a good work ethic/study habits and because it was my last B. Unfortunately, the teacher that I had (who I didn't like at first but she grew on me to the point that now I think she was one of the best teachers I ever had) battled cancer off and on and passed away several years ago. Very sad, especially because no one at the district has done anything to honor her since. Academics aside, I loved 7th grade because I got to work in the library the last 9 weeks of school which was party time. I love organizing things so I was in my element in the library. Also, we had an Accelerated Reader program that you got points for reading and taking tests on books and at the very end of the year we got a trip to Lexington and got to go to the mall and went to the University of Kentucky for a tour. Great way to spend the day with a lot of my friends, we spent most of our time in the mall playing the Smackdown! 2 game for Playstation and then checking out wrestling magazines (I think I got one of the WOW magazines, loved those things). Also, our academic team qualified to state for the first time ever and we made a run to the quarter-finals before we lost to a team from Paducah so that was a good memory. Finally, I fell head over heels for this girl that was in my honors classes and still have feelings for her to this day but she never would go out with me due to what happened in eighth grade... Eighth Grade: Eighth grade was so easy it was a joke. Our school was going through a lot of construction so it was a weird year but none of my classes ever stressed me out on the level my seventh grade ones did. I remember my Honors English teacher had no control over the classroom and I got the English award at the end of the year I think because I was the only person who didn't give her grief. That class was also the site of where people kept clowning on me for liking the girl I liked in 7th grade and she eventually got pissed @ hearing it and I think that convinced her never to go out with me. To this day I don't know why she didn't because we had a lot of stuff in common and had the same interests but I think she just got a bad impression of me based on those jackasses. Plus, not having a lot of experience with women I was socially awkward so I can see why she never wanted to go out with me. The big thing I remember from eighth grade was that my social studies teacher, who was a great guy, had me enter a Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest. We had to do an obituary of George Washington and believe me, I researched the hell out of that thing and made a very good obituary. I won the local contest and went to read it and the other 2 people in the top 3 read theirs and it was BORING. They didn't write obituaries as much as whole biographical profiles. I was like "where's the competition?" However, didn't do anything @ the state level which made me mad but whatever.

I echo the frustration with Bruce. I'm getting quite tired of seeing the strikeout show that is Adam Dunn game in and game out and I echo the sentiment that Griffey needs to be dealt away as the tread wore off of those tires a long time ago due to injuries. Pains me to say it because I'm a big Griffey mark but his time has passed and new blood needs to come to this organization that can build for the future.

Hillary is trying to have it both ways right now with her saying she'll support the nominee and that she'd be better against McCain. However, she still believes she's going to be the nominee evidenced by her comments to the press today about how this race is going to go into "overtime" where she might be able to heave up a "3 point shot" and win it. Also, Terry McAuliffe was adament today that Hillary will be the nominee by Denver so it doesn't look like she's giving up and is really going to play this whole thing out and try to game the FL/Michigan delegates to win it. However, I think by May 31st Obama may have good enough numbers to the point that even if those delegates are reinstated in full he still wins the nomination and hits the newly adjusted magic number. What can help Obama from Edwards endorsement is Edwards can urge his 19 delegates to back Obama which could net Obama about 20 or so additional delegates at the end of today and put him close to/over the 1,900 mark. All I can see the DNC justifying on May 31st is that they reinstate possibly 50% of FL/Michigan's delegates. The out for them is that the RNC made that their penalty for FL/Michigan so it somewhat mitigates the political fallout that has erupted over this situation. 50% won't really help Clinton out all that much so she'll probably oppose it but it's probably the most that she's going to get because the "elite" part of the DNC is starting to gravitate to Obama and does not want a messy floor fight in July. By the way, I'm surprised no one has commented yet on the GOP losing yet another House seat in Mississippi's 1st Congressional district. The GOP needs to seriously re-evaluate its election strategy because right now they are doing NOTHING to sell to voters. At this pace they are going to be isolated in the House and the prospect of them losing upwards of eight to nine senate seats still looks like a possibility. Here in KY I think Mitch McConnell is going to be in for a fight from a Democratic challenger. Overall, I think he'll win but it's going to be a tougher contest than some expect (and he might even have lost if Ben Chandler had decided to seek the seat since he was trailing McConnell 45-44% in test polls). A massive defeat by the GOP on election night would probably evict both John Boehner and McConnell from their leadership positions (which may not be a bad thing) and create major upheaval in the party. If I'm the GOP at this point you need to craft something to sell to voters other than "well I'm with Bush but I'm not with Bush" because that is NOT selling. What would definitely help the GOP is to craft some type of energy strategy that thinks both long-term and short-term. For example, the GOP can promise that we are going to invest in alternative energy sources BUT can really make a case that it's time to start drilling in the states again to get oil. Also, I think a case can be made to build more oil refineries since we haven't built one of those since 1974 and our infrastructure needs an upgrade. How you pay for these things at a time when we have a massive deficit I can't say but making the case for oil refineries/domestic oil with a twinge of long-term thinking might be able to put some Congressional Democrats on the defensive and the GOP can try to portray the issue as a "working people are suffering at the expense of environmental hippies/extremists" battle because many of the people that I talk to in the Midwest seem to echo these same ideas but for some reason those ideas are not being replicated at a national stage. It might also help if the Congressional GOP rediscovered its backbone and started being more vocal in its opposition to some of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid's policies.

Thanks for the correction Dandy, I misheard what was said by the commentary team on FSN Ohio (which I enjoy listening to). I agree that I was having flashbacks of the last few years with the bullpen collapse in the 9th. I think pitching Arroyo on fewer days rest might be better since he tends to like to pitch that way and keep his mechanics in shape but you don't want to wear down a pitcher this early in the season. I'll take the win but a dominant one would've been sweeter.

Well the Reds escaped tonight 7-6 in the 10th after getting a hit from Paul Janish in his first big league at-bat. However, that bullpen's job tonight isn't going to inspire any confidence in the club house or in the fan base. I guess its just typical Reds baseball of scoring a lot of runs and hoping the other team just doesn't match that number.

Damn it to hell, leave it to the Reds bullpen to blow a 6-0 lead in the top of the ninth. If I were Arroyo and pitched seven shutout innings tonight I'd be absolutley pissed off.

Through the sixth inning Cincinnati is putting on one of their better all-around outings of the year against the Marlins. Currently up 3-0 the defense has been fantastic and after struggling to get the runners around in the early innings, the Reds are finally capitalizing on some runners on base. Maybe Keppinger going out of the lineup is what this ball club needed to get in gear.

I echo this. I just saw the clip on MLB.com before I was getting ready to renew my mlb tv subscription since I can now watch the games since its the summer time and school is over with. On another note, Bronson Arroyo is doing pretty well tonight on only 3 days of rest.

It's really too bad that Edwards chose to run as VP last go around because I could see him and Obama on a ticket together. The big flaw in that ticket would be the lack of experience both of them bring to the table but they have very similar messages of "change" and look good in photo-ops together. However, Edwards has already been classified as a "loser" due to the '04 campaign w/Kerry so I very much doubt he's going to get the VP slot. Attorney General is a possibility though (which would be anathema to big business).

I don't think this would have many legs at all considering that all Obama has to do is throw out the words of all the other major Democratic candidates who supported the DNC's decision on FL/Michigan including Hillary Clinton. If the voters are going to get pissed off at anyone they should get pissed off at their state governments because those governments chose to violate the DNC's rules and got their votes annulled as a result. The whole notion of the DNC, Barack Obama, or any other actor that is not the state governments of FL/Michigan "disenfranchising" voters is ridiculous. And I'm not surprised the Clinton team has said that they aren't going to compromise on FL/Michigan. Losing an election won't keep Hillary from the White House god forbid. The cynic in me just wants the DNC to go ahead and give her all the wide margins victories she won in those states and then some so we have a major riot in Denver, it'd make for great TV anyway.