EVIL~! alkeiper

Jesus God, no.

Fuck Loria. He sold the Expos down the river in order to buy the Marlins, and now he's thinking of moving them because they have the nerve not to gift wrap money for him?

That is, without question, the stupidest trade rumor I have ever heard in my life. Oakland would trade a pitcher not due for free agency until 2005, for a first baseman making $15 Million a season, on the wrong side of 30? Never mind that Beane prefers players leave by free agency anyway because he prefers the draft picks. And never mind that ace pitchers are harder to find than first baseman who can hit but barely play defense. I mean, who the hell comes up with this shit?

Tyson's 37. Yes, he hasn't beaten a world class opponent (outside of Golota) for a while, but he's hardly gotten the opportunity. His three losses in the last decade came to two fighters who will make the HOF on the first ballot. I think its impressive that Tyson, his skills far eroded, can still hang on. Remember, at Tyson's age alot of HOF heavyweights were DONE. At 37, Joe Frazier fought Floyd Cummings to a draw. At 37, Ezzard Charles was TKO'd by Donnie Fleeman. At 37, Sonny Liston was TKO'd by Leotis Martin. At 37, Joe Louis was TKO'd by Rocky Marciano. At 37, Ken Norton was TKO'd by Gerry Cooney, in the first round. At 37, Jack Johnson was KO'd by Jess Willard. At 35, Jim Jeffries was TKO'd by Jack Johnson. All great fighters, all washed up. Tyson is still competitive. He's not an elite fighter anymore, but people have forgotten how great he was.

The big heavyweight bout between Vitali Klitschko and Corrie Sanders is tomorrow night. RING Magazine will award world title recognition to the winner, as will I. Personally, I think Vitali wins by KO.

Interesting series to open up this week. The Florida Marlins visit the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies have struggled lately against the Marlins, but the Marlins are much worse on the road than at home. Dontrelle Willis and Vicente Padilla pitch the opener at 7:05. The Astros (9-4) host the Cardinals (6-7). In my column, I bash the Cards lack of bench depth. They really need to pick up some wins here to avoid facing a big deficit early in the season. The Astros are on fire. Boston (7-5) faces off against Toronto (3-9) Tuesday at the Skydome. With Pedro Martinez vs. Roy Halladay, this is as good a pitching match-up as you'll find in baseball.

They didn't?

Well lets look at that situation. Bottom 9, no outs, runner on second. You have three chances to gather a safe hit, which will bring the runner home. Now lets say we sacrifice the runner over. Now its one out, man on third. But now he can score on a sacrifice fly, but for the next batter only. Those multitudes of extra scoring situations are only good for ONE batter. If he doesn't succeed, you're back to square one, with one less chance to score.

To clarify, this is not about Mondesi wanting more money, or wanting out of Pittsburgh. Because of a court case in the Dominican Republic, Mondesi has not been paid AT ALL. That's frustrating for any worker, and it certainly must be frustrating for Mondesi.

Maybe if they had an All-NBA 12th team, Sprewell would get some recognition.

Its an old trick. Give us a new stadium or we will move the team.

If Loria doesn't move the team, he's still on my shit-list. In fact, using moving as leverage to get a stadium built is bad enough. Its blackmail, pure and simple. Build your own goddamned stadium and quit trying to ride the coattails of the taxpayers. Montreal didn't fall for your schtick, and neither should Miami.

Lets judge it fairly then. McGrady played 67 games. So did Baron Davis. Duncan played 69. Bryant played 65. Shaq played 67. Brad Miller played 72. Elton Brand played 69 games. Jason Kidd played 67 games. Should we bump all these guys from consideration?

Well Marlins' fans, Loria looks to sell another city down the river. If he does this, he's easily one of the three worst owners of all time.

Indeed. The Marlins don't get to play against the Phillies every day.

I disagree. Moving the runner from second to third adds situations which are marginal at best. They are certainly not likely enough to warrent giving up an extra chance to gather a hit, in my opinion. Moving the runner from first to second is a better option. But usually I'd rather not see sacrifices at all.

Tracy McGrady should have made first team. Just because his team had a bad season doesn't mean he did. He LED the NBA in scoring. Brand should have made second team. I think Miller played most of the season at power forward, so I can't see placing him. If he played center, then he might rank.

And the streak is over on the first batter. Mark DeRosa hits a HR.

I'm watching the game as well. Hopefully we see a good matchup.

Usually I don't think threads need to be pinned. If a thread falls off the front page, it probably wasn't all too good anyway. Exceptions can be made, but when we have 5-6 pinned threads, its too much. I think the fantasy baseball threads can be unpinned. Correspondance in those leagues should be encouraged on the draft pages themselves. Better to use Yahoo's resources than ours.

Vitali was ranked one, and Sanders third. Who else were they going to rank anyway? The problem with that is that Tyson outweighted Holyfield in their first fight. Holyfield started out as as cruiserweight. He's hardly a big guy. As for bigger fighters, Tyson beat Bonecrusher Smith (233 lbs.), Tyrell Biggs (228), Tony Tubbs (238), Larry Holmes (225), Frank Bruno (247), Razor Ruddock (238 in second fight), Frans Botha (233), Lou Savarese (241), and Brien Nielsen (259). The theory that Tyson couldn't beat bigger men is nonsense. I don't think ANYONE at Tyson's height could beat Lennox Lewis. Buster Douglas was a special case, and Evander Holyfield certainly didn't tower over him.

Looking through the game log, I spot two. Tosca attempted 13 all last season. I can live with it. The sacrifices occured in extra innings, where one run will win the game. So in that situation, a sacrifice is acceptable.

Honorable mention to Kyle Korver. By no means the best, but a fun player regardless.

I don't think any of us could make it through another John Ruiz fight without passing out.

I just picked up Chris Hammond. What radical sabrmetric strategy have I found now? Wait and see, suckers!