EVIL~! alkeiper

Since we'll be short on news for a bit, a poll. 1. Would you like to see your favorite team acquire Alex Rodriguez? 2. What is the largest contract you would offer as G.M. of said team?

Only Eric Byrnes can crash into a wall and fall down on a ball that clears the fence by 15 feet.

I get the impression Hart's book is only coming out in Canada this week.

The Letterman appearance yes. Andy Kaufman made himself look like a complete dick on national television for the sake of Lawler's career.

For the record, I've sat through worse. And don't let Costas fool you, he got a catered press box. I sat through some cold, awful games this past April and Scranton. And I wouldn't have traded it because it's BASEBALL.

I think the idea that a so-called baseball fan didn't care for a good game in progress. The only problem was that it was cold and the Indians fell apart in the ninth. He used it to merit a book fixing some completely unrelated problems. That's probably not too clear. The simplest explanation is that I took exception to the tone of the writing. I have no objections to a wild card team winning the World Series. The divisional format opened the door for a lesser team, and often the wild card team is still the second-best team in the league. Nor do I care much about what it does to the pennant races, which are fairly overrated anyway. (The Phillies/Mets wasn't exhilarating, I spent most of the last two weeks wringing my hands.) The problem I have is that I dislike increased rounds of the postseason. I stated before that the pleasure of the baseball season is it's availability. For five months of the year I can choose to travel and watch a game at any of a dozen major and minor league parks. The Majors add another month. Postseason baseball is ok, but it's a chore compared to the regular season. When you increase the teams involved, you add teams of a lesser quality and you decrease the quality of the storylines (as I noted earlier in the thread). Call me crazy, but I would ADD seven games to the regular season and knock off a round of playoffs. One note, often those who complain about the wild card suggest adding another wild card and creating a "play-in" game. This would add the possibility of a fifth-best team in a league winning the championship, which is the opposite of what they want. It's illogical and unnecessary.

The TSM moderating staff always provides a full explanation upon request. Since a request was not posted on this board within the required thirty days however, the statute of limitations has expired. Sorry.

Seriously, read the prologue of "Fair Ball" and tell me you don't want to slug Bob Costas. Can you summarize that for those of us who lack access (and/or desire) to a copy? Pretty simple, Bob Costas talking about broadcasting the Marlins/Indians game in the cold and snow. Costas looks at Bob Uecker and both concur that the games suck. And thus baseball needs fixing.

What's odd is what bothers me really is not that there's too much baseball, but there's too little. The great thing about regular season baseball is that I have 15 major league games to chose from. Which is why I dislike the idea of shortening the season. There should be more regular season, less playoffs as a rule.

I don't think it's fan fatigue except as far as the time of game is concerned. I do agree with the best teams not making the World Series. These days the World Series is just a pairing of two random teams rather than the culmination of months (and sometimes years) of development. Let me point out one big problem at work. Before the wild card era, the postseason format always pitted west vs. east in the LCS. Over the years we got good matches and rivalries out of that. Yankees/Royals, Dodgers/Phillies, Reds/Pirates, etc. Fans and the media cared about the west coast teams because you were going to see two of them on the big stage. Now we have Boston/Cleveland (east coast only) and Arizona/Colorado (west coast only). It doesn't bode well for national attention. In the old format, you'd see at least one familiar team. Had we had the divisional format, the Indians and Red Sox would have played a one-game playoff for the division title. The Phillies would have won the division title on the last day, as would have the Diamondbacks. That's plenty of late season drama without a single mention of the wild card.

SECOND ROUND Boston 10 Nashville 2 Minnesota 3 LA Dodgers 2 The Twins scored two in the seventh to take the lead for good. Johan Santana allowed two runs and struck out eight in 7 1/3 innings pitched. San Diego 9 Florida 2 Scott Olsen allowed seven runs (five earned) and walked five and threw two wild pitches in less than four innings of work. Chi. Sox 3 NY Mets 2 Eight innings and two earned runs allowed for Mark Buehrle, while Bobby Jenks picked up the save. Paul Konerko and Jermaine Dye hit home runs in the victory. Kansas City 3 Arizona 2 Brian Bannister drove in his own go-ahead run with an RBI double in the 7th, and the Royals held on to win against Brandon Webb. Chi. Cubs 6 Omaha 5 Atlanta 17 Texas 5 NY Yankees 6 Pittsburgh 2 Alex Rodriguez hit two home runs for the Yankees in the win. Melky Cabrera drove in three. LA Angels 4 Tampa Bay 0 John Lackey pitched eight shutout innings, striking out nine. Oakland 7 Milwaukee 4 Travis Buck broke a 4-4 tie in the ninth with a two-run home run. Colorado 10 Baltimore 6 The O's bullpen imploded, allowing seven runs in the final two innings. Washington 7 Detroit 3 San Francisco 12 Portland 2 Buffalo 5 Seattle 4 Ryan Mulhern's home run in the first inning gave the Bison a 3-0 lead. The Mariners fought back, bringing the tying run to third in the ninth, but Ichiro struck out to end the game. Ichiro did drive in three of the Mariners' four runs. St. Louis 7 Toronto 1 Cleveland 2 Sacramento 0

Seriously, read the prologue of "Fair Ball" and tell me you don't want to slug Bob Costas.

Agreed. It's a nuisance when MLB and Fox try to position their games to ensnare "casual viewers." With dvds, DVRs and hundreds of channels on cable and satellite, fans aren't going to tune into a game because there's nothing else on. Position your game in a good spot and market it with the message that fans have to watch, because this is an EVENT. The Super Bowl starts at 6:30pm ET, that doesn't seem to hurt viewership. There is no reason for a weekend game to start past 8pm. ESPECIALLY when that game takes place within the Eastern time zone in Boston or Cleveland. Fall weather isn't bad but it gets really f'n chilly later at night.

A bit of older news. The 2007 World Cup of Baseball is in November. This event is held every other year and has been around much longer than the World Baseball Classic (created after the maelstorm of press about how baseball needed an international event, ignoring that they already exist). In any case, team USA's roster. http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=613 This group I think could honestly beat Cuba.

A bunch of the Memphis footage was used for the Andy Kaufman "I'm From Hollywood" documentary. Not sure where the rights came from there, but it certainly seems Memphis stuff is more freely available than any other promotion. (Except maybe the Dumont footage from the '50s.)

The big criticism of Dusty Baker is that he has almost never in his managerial career successfully developed a young player. William Van Landing in 1994 finished seventh in the Rookie of the Year voting, and Ryan Jensen finished sixth in 2002. In 14 years, they are the ONLY Dusty Baker managed players to receive votes. I think the concern about the pitching is a bit overworn. Baker never came close to leading the league in complete games while in San Francisco. Kerry Wood had arm problems perviously, and NO amount of overwork makes a pitcher as fragile as Mark Prior.

More accurately, the injury that led to the Tommy John surgery. On the subject of Gagne, first off the two pitchers after him were even less effective. But beyond that, I really hope you guys learn to separate Gagne the performer from Gagne the person. He's not trying to lose games out there. If you want to dispute Francona's usage of him, that's fine. And again, I couldn't stay up for this. ANOTHER game that ends after 1am on the East Coast. This is absolutely ridiculous. And game four of the NLCS starts at 10pm on a weeknight.

When? I see a game that's 2 and a half hours old and in the 5th inning.

Only thing that's bugged me tonight is cutting it very, very close on commercial breaks.

Real simple here. Just fill out the ballot, and we'll count the votes in about a week. We use the same categories used by the Baseball Writers' Association of America. In the case of the MVP, points are awarded on a 14-9-8-7 etc. system. Points are 5-3-1 for the other categories. What follows is the MVP instructions sent to the voters, followed by the ballots. Dear Voter: There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier. The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931: 1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense. 2. Number of games played. 3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort. 4. Former winners are eligible. 5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team. You are also urged to give serious consideration to all your selections, from 1 to 10. A 10th-place vote can influence the outcome of an election. You must fill in all 10 places on your ballot. Keep in mind that all players are eligible for MVP, and that includes pitchers and designated hitters. Only regular-season performances are to be taken into consideration. AL Most Valuable Player 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. NL Most Valuable Player 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. AL Cy Young 1. 2. 3. NL Cy Young 1. 2. 3. AL Rookie of the Year 1. 2. 3. NL Rookie of the Year 1. 2. 3. AL Manager of the Year 1. 2. 3. NL Manager of the Year 1. 2. 3.

Since they mentioned Ortiz's postseason so far. Surprisingly Ortiz's ALDS was not the best postseason hitting performance of all time. Gary Roenicke of the Baltimore Orioles hit .750 in the 1983 ALCS. Five walks, a double and home run gave him an OBP of .900 and a slugging percentage of 1.750. Roenicke followed up the ALCS performance with an 0 for 7 against the Phillies in the World Series.

Lofton's an interesting case. He had a handful of great seasons, and has now stuck around as a good player into his early 40s. Lofton only finished in the top ten in MVP voting once though, and it's tough envisioning a player without the MVP votes making the Hall. On the subject of Lofton, it's amazing that we've only had two Lofton-less postseasons since the strike. He's been in the playoffs for six different teams (maybe that's a record). The first inning will be over by the time James Taylor finishes the lineup.

It's 8:12 and the game hasn't started yet. Does the west coast have work on Saturdays too and we need to wait for them?

It's European so I think most bets on the brands are off. It's just a matter of filling out the cards.

Due to the sheer number of games, no details unless necessary. Red Sox 28 R-Phils 2 Nashville 11 Richmond 3 Minnesota 6 Indianapolis 5 Torii Hunter 3-run HR LA Dodgers 4 Norfolk 1 San Diego 7 Round Rock 1 NY Mets 7 Charlotte 6 10 Innings Chi. Sox 11 New Orleans 2 Arizona 13 Ottawa 9 Kansas City 5 Iowa 2 Omaha 7 Houston 5 11 Innings Shane Costa tied the game with an RBI double in the 9th and Mike Aviles put the Wranglers ahead with a two run shot in the 11th. Atlanta 6 Pawtucket 1 Texas 15 Louisville 1 Pittsburgh 7 Durham 5 NY Yankees 15 San Antonio 6 LA Angels 8 Trenton 0 Tampa Bay 10 Toledo 1 Milwaukee 8 Tacoma 2 Oakland 5 Albuquerque 2 Colorado 4 Memphis 0 Baltimore 3 Fresno 2 4 2/3 scoreless innings of relief from Dan Giese. Detroit 6 Syracuse 2 Washington 4 Salt Lake City 1 Portland 7 Philadelphia 6 Figures. Jamie Moyer allowed four runs in three innings. San Francisco 9 Rochester 7 Trailing 7-5 in the ninth, Kevin Frandsen hit a grand slam home run to win the game. Rochester walked Barry Bonds intentionally to load the bases. Seattle 2 Columbus 0 Buffalo 4 Cincinnati 1 Buffalo's Adam Miller struck out seven batters over six innings of work. Bronson Arroyo struck out eight in the loss. Toronto 11 Colorado Springs 5 St. Louis 6 Oklahoma 5 13 Innings Chris Duncan hit a three-run, game tying home run with two outs in the ninth. Four innings later, Duncan's RBI single won the game for the Cards. Sacramento 7 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre 1 Cleveland 9 Huntsville 0