the pinjockey

I know we all enjoyed seeing Utley crank one 448 feet last night. The only real question going into this season with Utley would be the glovework, but his defense seems to have improved greatly since his stint last year (the crowd was going to go insane last night if he could have snagged the one off Wooten's glove). I wouldn't mind seeing them put Thome on the DL and let Utley play first for a week to keep him in the lineup. Thome needs the rest and he hasn't played in a few days, so it can be retroactive.

I just want to vent my frustration with the NL league. I hold onto Chase Utley for a month, I finally cave in and drop him to get an OF in Preston Wilson's spot, and the day I do that Placido Polanco goes down and Utley kicks all sorts of ass in his spot. FUCK, I knew al would be the one to get me on that one.

From my own personal experience I didn't hate him for running Barber out of town (that was the team, he took the bullet). I hated him because he sucked. Do I even need to bring up the mantra the announcers had during last year's playoffs of "Primeau is the best player on the ice who hasn't got a point yet".

Let's look at the other side of the coin. Juan Pierre (2004) .329/.387/.411/.798 Juan Pierre (car.) .309/.360/.374/.734 Hee Seop Choi (2004) .238/.355/.552/.907 Hee Seop Choi (car.) .218/.342/.445/.787 Mike Lowell (2004) .343/.417/.643/1.060 Mike Lowell (car.) .277/.345/.480/.825 So they have three people playing above their career averages in the starting lineup as well. (I could be douchey and include Cabrera, but it is a pretty safe bet he isn't going to regress).

On the philliesphans message board, the ball is starting to roll on a Byrd/Floyd for Beltran trade rumor. IIRC, this is where the Nomar/Abreu talks started in the winter. I wonder if this one will have the same legs. Side note: how shitty does that trade look in hindsight? Two gimps (one in his contract year) for Abreu who is having an all star season.

I don't think Primeau is the type of player for a tourney like this. He is built on toughness and leadership. My experience with tournaments like this is limited, but the toughness issue doesn't seem to be a priority. And as great of a leader as he is this year, when you have Sakic, Yzerman, and Lemieux on your team, I don't think players would be looking at Primes for the leadership.

So KC would trade their stud FA to be center fielder for a decent FA to be pitcher? Seems like it kind of defeats the purpose of trading Beltran if they get nothing for the future.

Shit, by the time those of us in the first batch retire, there is going to be a five year wait for our second people.

I am going to give my nod to Turbulence 3, with an honorable mention going to Death Mask.

Ryan Madson's career opening streak of no earned runs allowed ends at 21 1/3 IP as Tim Worrell allows a sac fly.

Phillies have their track shoes on tonight. After having only 7 steals going into tonight, they have three in four innings (and they should have four Lieby was called out when he was clearly safe).

Phillies beat Arizona 4-1. Good start for the road trip to beat Randy Johnson. Thome hits his 10th homer and Wagner picks up the save and pops his K/BB ratio to 21:0.

Eagles - Reggie White Phillies - Mike Schmidt Flyers - Bernie Parent (never saw him play, but by all accounts he was the lynchpin of the title teams)

I think they have been airing various shows the last few weeks. I am pretty sure they showed footage from the 2001 and 2002 grand prixs over the last week or so. It looks like they have been using that as the filler programming for nights with no NHL or NBA playoff games.

This movie sucked. Andrew pretty much summed up all of my what the hell?!? thoughts. She dies from a fucking spear?!? Way too many CGI characters just bouncing around every which way.

I just fail to see the difference between the bases and the ads that are on the outfield walls and behind homeplate. I think it is silly to say that the ads on the bases are so absurd, while the much bigger ads in the field of play still exist.

Drew Rosenhaus (I'm assuming this is who you are talking about) is the one who drummed up enough hype around Willis McGahee to turn him into a 1st round pick last year. Yeah, I sure wouldn't want him as my agent.

Good. I was worried that when they made the Cingular call to the bullpen to bring in the Rolaids relief pitcher while showing a replay of the Citizens Bank play of the game we might barely stumble upon the Spidey adds in the corner of the screen.

Today's Abreu Report (yes, Eskin is doing a daily report) He is relishing in the fact that Abreu went 0 for 7 the last two games. The best part was him mocking Abreu's RBI today. The whole mantra of the Philly media has been that they have not been able to get a man on third home with less than two outs. Well Abreu did just that today. He grounded out to short with one out, driving in Byrd who was on third. If I was Abreu I would demand a trade at this point, it's not worth it.

I want to take offense at the Philadelphia fans are morons part of that statement, but considering 95% of the people that call WIP agree with Eskin I find it hard to counter.

Just thought I would give everyone a glimpse of what happens if the Philadelphia media starts to not like you. Yesterday afternoon (the day after Bobby Abreu hits 2HRs): On his radio show Howard Eskin ripped Bobby Abreu pointing out that neither of his home runs put the Phils in a tie or the lead. Then he accused, in a negative manner, Bobby Abreu of coming up in the 9th looking for a walk. Even though a walk would have loaded the bases for their best hitter it was apparently wrong to do.

Considering at CBP you can see Pat Burrell make a catch at the wall next to a huge Legg Mason ad, I don't have an immediate problem with this. My problem will likely be when that weekend comes around and we hear Spiderman mentioned 10 times a game to really drive it home.

Little interesting note. Tampa Bay went 4-0 against the Flyers and did it by beating four different goalies (Little, Hackett, Esche, Burke).

I am thinking on the completely opposite side here. I have maintained from the outset that the bad draw for the Flyers was Tampa. The Flyers simply do not have the speed to match up with Tampa. If the game gets physical then it will be all Philly, but I just don't see an outcome other that St.Louis skating wherever he wants. Especially with how ugly the next one or two Toronto games look like they might be (a game at Toronto coming off a 5 goal loss is going to be nasty).

I just used AI as an example. There is no way in hell they can get away with leaving him unprotected. The fans may be turning on him and open to trading him, but they can't get nothing for him and have the fans accept it.