EVIL~! alkeiper

There's one big problem with the ERA comparisons. The pitchers chosen for a national team would usually be the ones who had exceptional prior seasons, and thus likely to regress in the first place.

Next pick. Let's go with Dory Funk Jr.

4-0 yet after eight, so no mercy rule. It's interesting to see some of the subtle differences between a strong fundamental team and one that is not as experienced. China gave up a run on a balk earlier in the game, and their catcher has made a couple of ill-advised throws.

I find the opposite. Smaller capacity stadiums tend to invite higher priced seats for the remaining tickets, which are filled by corporate types. It's easier for your common fan to be a diehard when they can buy $5 outfield seats and attend more often.

Apparently China's first major international win was 2008. That would be nice if baseball did not already have a World Cup every two years. They went 2-5 in 1998, 1-6 in 2003 and 3-5 in 2005. Baseball really has international competitions all the time. It's just here where MLBers compete. What I don't get is that no one raises a fuss about AAA players (who would have the same kind of conditioning/readiness issues), or when MLB players go on postseason exhibition tours or play in the Caribbean World Series.

China's been flashing some good glovework so far. Only down 3-0 after four innings.

I don't think this tournament is tremendously important, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed for its own sake.

Boogeyman was perfectly fine, a modern version of the Missing Link or someone of that ilk. That's useful, especially on the house show circuit.

Let me touch on Pool A a moment. Tomorrow morning sees China vs. Japan, Friday is Korea vs. Taiwan. I think the real excitement of the first round is seeing if any of these lesser teams can pull off upsets. Last year Panama came within a hair of toppling Cuba. China really doesn't have a prayer in hell. Taiwan though has some real talent, and could steal a win. Pools are double elimination bracket. Here's the silliest part of the tournament. The top two teams of each Pool advance. However, they are still going to play a final game to determine a pool winner. Now, given that tournament games are neutral site, how hard are you going to play in a game that merely determines seeding?

The first IC Champion! Pat Patterson

I generally avoid the news cycle outside of ESPNews and I'm much better off for it. Hyping stars doesn't bother me. What does bother me is then said stars differ from the legitimately good players in the league. Joe Mauer, Hanley Ramirez and a few others are all but ignored despite being among the ten best players in the sport.

I bought the first one, don't plan on buying the second. I'm finding a lot of these Bill James/Baseball Info Solutions corroborations have a ton of barely usable information, and not a great deal of substance when it comes to the writing.

Re: Bret/Michaels. They got into a famous locker room brawl prior to the event, and WWE scrapped the match.

Tomorrow's the day. At 4:30am. There's one of the tournament's big problems. How do you expect to draw excitement when you start in the middle of the night with the tournament's least competitive game?

I've got seven openings yet in the Yahoo TSM Fantasy League, and now opening them up first come first served. League ID: 134921 Password: tsm Draft is Mon. March 16 at 930pm ET.

This is something that's been delayed for awhile, but it could be time to get it off the ground. I have a couple ideas on running this thing. First off, I plan to run it much faster than usual. Instead of serpentine, it will be a straight draft. Each drafter will get a designated time slot, and every day will make a selection at that time. That will set a pace of one round per day, and we would finish this thing within a month. With that format in mind, I intend to accept any interested poster into this draft. If 40 posters want in, that would require 1,000 baseball players all time. That's no problem at all. Respond if you're interested, or if you have any suggestions. Edit: And in case I've been unclear, I intend this to be an All Time draft.

If you were hoping to build your team around Willy Aybar, I have some bad news.

Trish Stratus was an awesome pick. I can easily find a replacement for about 90% of the wrestlers drafted. Very few females reach the level/skill of Trish.

I'm working on ways to even the playing field. One definite is that there will be a separate draft for venues, managers, etc. That will run in reverse order. I plan on picking last, by the way.

Cedeno can't hold a starting job with that talent, which indeed shows the importance of fundamentals. My argument is not that they are not important, but they are so prevalent that you can't win by focusing on them alone.

Like Scott Kazmir? And enough with this crap that the Phillies were a lousy team. The Phils have finished above the Mets in the standings seven of the last eight seasons. And they were defending division champions. 95 wins on paper? Who assembled that team on paper? As for 2006, that was a team with a 91 win pythag., facing a team who had won 100+ games the previous two seasons with much the same core.

With the best workers from the '90s and 2000s taken, time to take the best worker of the 1960s.

The number three prospect in baseball is still available. This is a guy who could be the next Grady Sizemore. OF Colby Rasmus

I wouldn't even say half-assing it. Just every single heel seemed to use the same crowd heat tactic.

Here I was thinking that losing a 7 game lead with 17 to go was a historic collapse because everyone in the media told me it was. And then they followed that up blowing a 3.5 game lead with 17 left the following season. It's nice to know that that stuff happens all the time and that everyone was just overreacting because it was a NY area team. Seven with seventeen to go was bad. 2008 wasn't unique in the slightest. Edit: And just for fun, since we're talking about collapses. Can anyone name the GMs of the '78 Red Sox, '64 Phillies, '51 Dodgers or '95 Angels? How much of the blame did the GMs take for those failures?