EVIL~! alkeiper

Not if the count was where I had it.

Just to make sure, here's my last minute vote. Venkman King Czech Al

Nah, Cole Hamels was the Phillies' #1 starter for a mere $400,000.

Possibly the greatest Transaction Oracle post ever. http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/..._juan_gonzalez/

The Pacific Coast League did it for a long time, they had a team in Honolulu.

That and his IP address.

Joe Podnanski on his blog wrote a piece about RBI opportunities. Baseball Prospectus in their book Baseball Between the Numbers wrote about worst players who drove in 100+ RBIs. I figured to take a look at guys who drove in 130 or more runners in a season, to see if anyone actually had a bad season in the process. One clearly did, Moose Salters. Salters in 1936 drove in 134 runners with the St. Louis Browns. His numbers look superficially good, but the entire American League that season hit .302. Of the six left fielders in the league who played more than 100 games, Solters ranked fifth ahead of only Joe Vosmik. Solters undoubtably saw many RBI opportunities thanks to three hitters on the team who produced a .400+ on base percentage (Harlond Cliff, Lyn Lary and Beau Bell). Oddly, Salters' year was a down year between two good ones. While we are having fun with the Play Index, let's see who the worst pitcher was to win 20 games. Before I run this search, I am almost certain it will be a player from the 19th century, probably very early in the existance of the organized leagues. Indeed, we find Jack Lynch, who went 23-21 with a 3.61 ERA for the New York Metropolitans. A 3.61 ERA is bad? When the league average is 2.79, yes. One thing to note about 19th Century baseball. While Lynch allowed 152 earned runs, he allowed 243 total runs, 91 unearned runs. Teams committed so many errors that team defense contributed perhaps more to run prevention than team pitching. Moving forward to the 20th century, we come up with Henry Schmidt. Schmidt went 22-13 with the Brooklyn Superbas, his 3.83 ERA leading to an 83 ERA+. He had the best win/loss percentage on his team, though they finished fifth overall in runs scored. Schmidt never pitched an inning in the majors outside of 1903. Modern time, it is Lew Burdette. Burdette pitched 289.7 innings, walked 38 batters and gave up 38 home runs. Admittedly the ERA+ totals are not impressively low, showing that most 20 game winners have legit talent, particularly if they do it more than once. (I did not say Hall of Fame talent, so don't jump the gun on Jack Morris.) Coming up in the near future, best swansong seasons of all time. You can probably guess #1.

And the genius behind that post is.... Alfdogg? WTF?

Nah, I could come up with quite a few worse than Cobb, scary as that sounds. Violent behavior like Cobb's was commonplace in his time. The NFL tends to have stronger commissioners. I think Landis overall was a good commissioner despite the integration stuff. He took care of the Black Sox scandal and fought to preserve the minor leagues.

BTW, the Steiners' entrance is either the U. of Michigan fight song or is supposed to mimic it.

She wanted to fuck Trish. Who doesn't?

So much for Bud guaranteeing that he would step down in 2009. This new extension will bring him to the tender age of 78. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On one hand, the game has never been in better financial shape. The sport has grown by leaps and bounds under Bud's watch, with revenues now topping the NFL. That's no small feat. However, the public's perception of the sport is awful. The strike and steroid scandal are two of the game's biggest scars and they both happened as a result of his laissez faire attitude. Many of his creations, such as interleague and the Wild Card, have watered down the game for long-time fans. It's definitely a mixed bag. How do you feel about Bud? Awful. Since I don't have a financial stake in MLB, I could give a damn about their financial health. And the Strike didn't happen because he was laissez faire about it. It happened because he sided with the labor hawks.

Ah hell. I've got some time to kill and since I'm ordering the Rumble anyway. 1. Who will win the 2008 Royal Rumble? (2 pts.): Triple H 2. Who will be the runner-up? (3 pts.): Kennedy 3. Who will be the iron-man? (5 pts.): Shelton Benjamin 4. Who will have the shortest time? (5 pts.): The Miz 5. Who will have the most eliminated opponents? (3 pts.): The Undertaker 6. Who will draw #1 and #2 (3 pts each, 3 bonus for accurately naming both): John Morrison and Cody Rhodes 7. Who will draw the most successful winning entry of #27? (5 pts.): The Great Khali 8. Who will draw the #30 spot? (5 pts.): Kennedy 9. What will be the eventual winning #? (5 pts): 18 10. Will there be any surprise/unannounced entrants? (No point value), If yes, who will they be? (3 pts. each): Yes, Bobby Lashley 11. Will the endurance record of 62:12 set by Mysterio be broken? (No point value), If so, what will the new record be? (Closest to the supposed new record gets 10 pts).: No 12. The final six men eliminated will compete in the second chance Elimination Chamber next month, who will those people be? (3 pts. each, 10 pts bonus for accurately naming all): Kennedy, Undertaker, Khali, Finlay, Batista, Kane, Shawn Mochaels 13. How many instances of interference by non-active competitors will we see? (3 pts.): None 14. How many people will Hornswoggle eliminate? (3 pts.): Zero. 15. Will anyone bleed? (no point value), if so, who? (2 pts): Yes, HHH.

Andre died at 46, Big Show is just 35 yet.

Wanted to come back to this real quick. Can you imagine being a seven year old girl, knowing there's a crazy 90 year old woman who wants to fight you in ten years?

Not in WWF, but ECW had a big feud.

Kerry Von Erich was just 20 years old at the time, legitimately. If I'm not mistaken, Paul Diamond (of Badd Company/Orient Express fame) played Max Moon. You might recall that when Shawn Michaels launched his comeback in his own promotion in 2002, he fought a guy named Venom. Again, Paul Diamond under a mask.

Does it really? Quite possibly, for the sole reason that we can keep it away from the rest of the discussions.

I don't know if you guys have seen this. Pro-Football-Reference.com relaunched recently, and the site now looks really good. A great historical reference for football fans. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/ NBA as well. This site was previously in good shape, but now includes current statistics as well. http://www.basketball-reference.com/ I can't emphasize enough how nice it is to have a currently updated site that isn't graphics heavy like the major or official sports sites.

Those are the pre-set titles, which depend on post count. You can change it yourself to anything you wish.

Usually just the VOD stuff. I think it is difficult to make good copies of the online product, if even possible at all. Streaming video has some issues, but the folks in the Computers folder would know more about that than I would.

MLB: I would pick the 1987 Twins, a team with the fifth best win/loss record in their league and a negative run differential. The '06 Cardinals get the benefit of a doubt because they came off two 100+ win seasons. Otherwise I can't really think of a truly bad champion in the other sports. Even teams with subpar seasons who won generally had good seasons on either side. Which extinct/relocated franchise would you like to see return?

I just have the VOD version, we have a dvd burner downstairs but I never tried it before, usually I VHS the interesting stuff. PWTorrents often picks up the content so someone there might have it in a day or two.

From the "when it rains it pours" department, Miguel Tejada's brother was killed yesterday in an auto accident in the Dominican.

He was complicit, and accepted money for the purpose of throwing the series. I'll let this question carry over.