EVIL~! alkeiper

At a glance I'd say Ruth wins in 1920, '21, '23, '26, and 1928. Voters then wouldn't have known about OBP or OPS, and Slugging was a novelty stat. Batting titles were extremely important. 1922 would probably have been George Sisler (.420 batting average for a Browns team that barely missed the pennant). 1924 perhaps Goose Goslin, who led the league in RBIs. 1927 they give it to Gehrig who had a higher batting average and more RBIs. 1929-31 they probably bypass Ruth for the Philadelphia A's.

There were awards but they weren't the same as today. Ruth won the MVP in 1923 for example. Why didn't he win another? Because the voting rules at the time excluded prior award winners from winning.

Gold gloves did not exist in Ruth's era of course. For most of his career he was an average fielder, not a liability. His defense did become problematic late in his career, especially in those last months with the Boston Braves. What's interesting about Ruth's defense is that he usually moved to left field on the road. He couldn't do that in Yankee Stadium because of Death Valley, so he played right there.

In Ruth's era batting averages were 22 points higher, OBP 31 points higher and slugging percentages were 9 points lower. Overall Ruth's era was better for offense than today. If you bring steroids into the discussion, the debate is going to be framed by your personal beliefs and there is no use in trying. You're not going to change someone's mind and there is little concrete evidence to go on. The Barry Bonds argument is fueled by the fact that in two seasons, he broke the single season OBP record. Steroids or not, those statistics resulted in real wins for his team. Bonds in 2004 was perhaps more valuable at the plate than any player in history. There are a few points in Bonds' favor in the discussion. One, the quality of play is remarkably higher in this era. The league in general is tougher, with players coming from a greater segment of the population, better structured to ensure the best players are in the majors, etc. In Ruth's time you could find dozens of players in the Pacific Coast League just as qualified to play MLB. Second, Ruth was an average fielder at best while Bonds won eight gold gloves. Third, Bonds aged better than Ruth. You can argue steroids for Bonds in that regard, but regardless Ruth was not in playing shape in his late 30s. Ruth was probably better than Bonds overall. But Bonds entered the debate the last few years, and blasting McCarver and Buck for simply entering a popular debate is a stretch.

Working on the Bonds/Ruth debate, meanwhile the Phillies are back!

Helms is 2nd on the Brewers' single season 3B list. Tommy Harper hit 31 home runs in 1970, 26 while playing third base. Helms hit 23 home runs in 2003. That of course ignores the problem that they said Milwaukee, in which case the top ten are all seasons Eddie Mathews had with the Milwaukee Braves. It's an awful question. Are you asking what current Phillie holds the non-existant record? Is it the record for home runs hit WHILE a Phillie in Milwaukee? Is it a Milwaukee player who hails from Philadelphia? I noticed this a few days ago when they asked about Pirates hitting home runs from both sides of the plate. They got their list from Baseball Almanac which is incomplete, as Orlando Merced had pulled the trick as well (their answers were Bobby Bonilla and Dale Sveum). I hate when they get things wrong on the trivia question.

"Which Philadelphia player holds the Milwaukee record for most home runs hit in a season by a third baseman?" Umm, what?

Isolated power is probably the best pure power statistic. It's simply slugging percentage minus batting average, removing guys who have high slugging percentages due to high batting averages. CAREER ISOLATED POWER ISO 1 Babe Ruth .348 2 Mark McGwire .325 3 Barry Bonds .310 4 Albert Pujols .296 5 Lou Gehrig .292 6 Hank Greenberg .292 7 Ted Williams .289 8 Manny Ramirez .286 9 Jimmie Foxx .284 10 Jim Thome .283 11 Carlos Delgado .275 12 Ralph Kiner .269 13 Albert Belle .269 14 Alex Rodriguez .267 15 David Ortiz .267 16 Ken Griffey Jr. .266 17 Juan Gonzalez .265 18 Lance Berkman .263 19 Sammy Sosa .263 20 Frank Thomas .262 I'm surprised Mickey Mantle didn't make the top twenty either. Mantle, Mays and co. fare better if I cut off the list at 32 years old, avoiding their decline stages. It's forgotten what a great player Aaron was, apart from home runs. He was a .305 lifetime hitter, stole 240 career bases, walked more times than he struck out, and still holds the career record for RBIs. Earlier Rich Dubee came out to talk to Adam Eaton on the mound after Eaton surrendered four runs in the first inning. What can Dubee possibly say at this point other than ask, "why do you suck so much?"

Jimmie Foxx was a prestigious home run hitter who once managed in the AAGPBL. Most events beyond that are creative license. My favorite Foxx tidbit is that he hung on until 1945, playing for the Phillies with the rosters decimated by World War II. He played 40 games at first, 14 games at third base, and pitched in nine games, starting two. He compiled a 1.59 ERA in that span. Foxx's 13 straight seasons of 100+ RBIs is an MLB record he shares along with Lou Gehrig. Foxx also holds the record for consecutive seasons of 30+ home runs, with 12.

Two and a half hours. Astounding patience.

The real purpose of the brand split is to run split house shows. It was different in the days of television tapings when you only needed to get everyone together once a month. Nowadays it makes things easier on the talent.

Czech's a good guy to respond to in these discussions. The presence of performance enhancing drugs is unfortunate. The problem is that Bonds is hardly alone in their use. He is singled out because of his accomplishments, but their are many other players in the game who took advantage of PEDs, everyone's favorite players possibly among them. MLB needs to do what they can to eliminate PEDs, but I've never been quite comfortable vilifying the players that used them in the past. Fans need to remember that the home run record is just a number. It says nothing more than that Barry Bonds hit 755 home runs in Major League Baseball games. It does not make Bonds the greatest home run hitter of all time, more than Hank Aaron had the honor before. And World's Worst Poster, it is hardly a stretch to ask whether Barry Bonds is the greatest player of all time.

What makes it insane? Aaron had a career slugging percentage of .555, Mays' was .557. Aaron had 95 more career home runs and would have the lead even if Mays didn't miss a year and a half due to the Korean War.

Nobody thought Horowitz had a chance against Skip, either. I did. They started talking up Horowitz's long losing streak two weeks in advance in preparation. I thought it was coming the previous show actually.

Alex Rodriguez needs just 256 home runs to break the record. Sound easy? It's no easy feat in itself. CAREER AGE >= 32 HOMERUNS HR 1 Barry Bonds 400 2 Babe Ruth 358 3 Hank Aaron 357 4 Rafael Palmeiro 336 5 Mark McGwire 306 6 Willie Mays 292 7 Andres Galarraga 283

I think his plan is to cash in on his self-built customer base. Seventeen children = seventeen customers!

If you don't go back, can they not fire you? Go, punch in, and hide.

I'd say Hulk Hogan knows a ton about the business, having positioned his character to stay popular after all these years, working promoters to maximum effect without burning bridges, etc. The thing is a new promotion has been talked about before, even initial tapings run but nothing comes of it. To me, the question isn't whether Hogan will job or not, that's irrelevant. It''s how much of a personal sacrifice he's willing to make to get it off the ground. There will not be much money in it at first.

Is that doors open or belltime? If the doors open at 7:30, figure an hour before the show starts and then two and a half hours or so for the show. Since it's a taping they likely won't end at 11pm as usual. You don't get the first amendment I'm not gonna divert this thread into a first amendment argument but unless your belief is that using foul language constitutes hate speech/encourages violence then I'm not seeing your point. All I'm trying to say, as Mecca stated, the WWE has been big on audience expression in the past (ex. asshole chants @ Vince which I saw kids as young as ten participating in), especially the attitude era, and trying to discourage that is ridiculous. Its just another example of groupthink within the WWE that we have to think as they do or something is wrong with us and not them. I didn't interpret it as a rant against those who don't like Cena as much as behavior in general. Remember that Ross might not necessarily agree with WWE policy in this regard. Likely he feels that some is ok, but there are fans who have crossed the line at events. He may have found that fan behavior has reached the point of actively turning fans off of attending shows, as some fans feel they can show up, abuse alcohol consumption, and make the experience unpleasant for those around them.

Freedom of speech does not give a person the right to use foul language at a public event. If I started spewing repeated obscenities, I would expect to get tossed and I hope others would be treated as such. The ticket you buy for a wrestling event is quite clear that management has that right.

Probably not specifically, but the only quirk is the scoring. Generally a ball in play that goes into the stands is a base, maybe two. So awarding the extra base in this situation is sensible.

By the way, love ESPN2's coverage of the Home Run Chase. They show the "syringe" incident along with SCARY music. Of course it was an ink jet refilling tool but syringe sounds so much better.

The Arizona D'backs claimed both Jeff Cirillo and Byung-Hyun Kim off waivers.

Keep an eye on that Morris deal if the Pirates don't manage to shell out the cash to sign their top draft pick.

Can we stop with this silliness? WWE.com still lists Chris Benoit in their title history sections. It's not like they're pretending he never existed, they've just made sure not to mention him unnecessarily. Given the situation, it's the right move.