EVIL~! alkeiper

Without a strike in 1994? Let me come up with five educated guesses. 1. Tony Gwynn does not hit .400. He was in a stretch where he hit .372 over a three-year period, which is insane. It's not .400 though, and Gwynn would have needed to hit BETTER than he was doing in his career year average wise to reach that mark. Note that George Brett hit .390 in the year where he missed 45 games (1980). There are many out-of-context percentage statistics that year, and that is a direct result of not having a full season to level the field. 2. The Montreal Expos do not win the World Series. It's still an eight-team tournament, and there would have been six other good teams. The Expos had a fat record thanks in part to a 12-0 mark against the blatantly non-competitive Padres. On a similar note, the New York Yankees would have slaughtered the Cleveland Indians had their records stood and the teams met in the first round. The Indians had no left-handed pitching at all. I think we get a White Sox/Braves World Series. 3. Matt Williams does not hit 62. One of the forgotten stories from that year is that Williams hit 43 home runs over 112 games. Over 162 games, that's a pace for 62 home runs, which would have then been the first to top Roger Maris's single season home run record. Again given that Williams never hit 50 in a season, I doubt he does it. For what it's worth, in the first 50 team games of 1995, Williams hit 13 home runs before falling to injury. 4. Mike Mussina wins 20, twice. This needs to be stressed, particularly when Mussina becomes eligible for the Hall. Mussina was 16-5 in 1994, 19-9 in 1995. Given ten more starts in '94 he likely reaches 20. Given three more in '95 he also reaches 20. When his name comes up in Hall balloting the point will arise that he never won 20 in a season. He should have. 5. Harold Baines, Hall of Famer? Baines did not make the Hall of Fame, not close. Give him 68 games back though, and that's another 70-80 hits. That puts him at 2,950, and who knows what happens from there?

I think the last ten years of Kane demonstrates that Issac Yankem wasn't a useless wrestler. It was a bad gimmick but Glen Jacobs is a capable wrestler.

I can't help but wonder if the original PPV version of Summerslam '89 would make it. Fuck it.

There are six relievers on the team. Both Webb and Oswalt should be on the team. Webb is slightly better, but I won't complain about Oswalt's placement on any All-star team.

Smoltz is hurt so that's why he's out. Oswalt is one of the best pitchers in baseball on a year-to-year basis.

Jack Dempsey vs. Luis Angel Firpo (MUST WATCH FIGHT) Honestly, I think Dempsey was overrated as a fighter. His big wins came against either large fighters with little boxing skill, or much smaller competitors (Georges Carpentier was like taking on Oscar De La Hoya). The advantage Dempsey had was that he could knock down a fighter, swarm over him and punch him immediately when he rose, before the downed fighter could even reposition himself. Check out footage of the Jess Willard fight for an example of that. Gene Tunney was the most skilled boxer Dempsey fought, and Tunney dominated the action in 19 of 20 rounds. Not to discredit Dempsey. Boxing was just fought differently in those times. I'm not certain a fighter could come from that era and win today without adjusting his style.

I frequently boo small children during between-inning promotions. It's fun.

Prime Time Wrestling this week gives a rare US appearance by the Crush Gals!

Does that include the buns? That's about 460% of your daily recommended carbohydrates as well.

The idea of the monthly 24/7 threads is to prevent the threads from becoming to unwieldy. Starting the August thread on the fourth of July is ridiculous and potentially confusing. You can discuss next month's offerings in the current thread.

Shouldn't Super Crazy get the title shot? He won his match in the shortest time.

John Wilkes Booth was a stage actor of some esteem when he shot Lincoln.

Benoit/MVP is gone from Wrestlemania 23.

Bad call but I'm not going to spend my life worrying about it. The bigger question is why Jose Mesa is still pitching meaningful games for this team.

I can't imagine taping entire runs of Nitro/Raw in the first place. Quite frankly, those shows aren't interesting enough for me to watch at all. Soap opera approaches to wrestling make it more interesting in the present, but it does not age well.

I only got to see Ramirez pitch once. He faced four batters and struck out three of them. He threw 16 pitches, 11 for strikes. His stats in AAA aren't just good, they're ridiculous.

I think it's apparent Kennedy isn't ready to wrestle quite yet.

I think winning goes unsaid.

This format doesn't fit well for old Resthold Randy. Nah. Before Yokozuna it was extremely rare. The Monday Night Wars brought us frequent title changes, which we're only now getting away from. I'd rather see long championship reigns, since it makes the title seem more important.

They need a face King of the Ring. King Eugene has its merits.

He's not over. He wins all the time and gets boo'd. What are you talking about? I don't know. Reality perhaps?

Cena has the crowd chanting. This is going over very well.

They're running all three shows tonight?!

Johnny Nitro > Justin Credible

I visited Yankee Stadium for the first time on Sunday. It was a reasonably good experience. That said, they can tear down that dump and the only thing better than a new stadium would be getting it entirely out of the Bronx. Goddamn New York City is a nuthouse.