EVIL~! alkeiper

One of my great frustrations in watching a Vince Russo booked promotion is a match where the rules change to suit the booking. Let's take a look at War Games 2000. Sting and Jeff Jarrett start off for their respective teams. Of course the matchup states that one wrestler must win the title, this negating the team concept right off the bat. And Jarrett had to wrestle two matches already; evil commissioners I guess. Steiner is out next. Within the concept of the rules, the three are not doing a bad job of things. Next is Kronic, both of them. Steiner gets to the second level, and has bolt cutters?! Nice crack from the announcers. What can be more dangerous than Scott Steiner with a pair of bolt cutters? A microphone. Kronic makes it to the second cage. Here comes Vince Russo in hockey helmet and jersey, with the Harris Brothers. Joy. The Harris's climb the outside of the cage. They invade the second level of the cage and fight Brian Adams and Bryan Clark. Sting takes the opportunity to beat up Vince Russo. Of course Russo can not sell properly, so he makes Sting's offense look like a joke. Kevin Nash is out, the present World Champion. Russo makes it right back up of course, because you can do that after you have been in the Scorpion Deathlock for over a minute. The Harris Boys and Kronic are now brawling outside the cage, on the floor. Booker comes out as Russo's team argues amongst themselves. You know what would make this match better? If it were a four on four competition. It's essentially four on two with Booker T and Sting on the floor. "Boring" chant from the crowd, with good reason. Or maybe they are chanting Goldberg. Ah, there we go. Baseball bat from Russo puts Goldberg down. And now he's handcuffed to the ropes. This was a recurring problem for WCW. Sometimes, the fans want the FACES to look good. Steiner and Sting are on the second level as well. Steiner is on the outside, using the cage door to his advantage. So you can leave the cage, essentially. Remember that. Booker climbs the outside of the cage to the roof of the top level, and acquires the belt. He has to get past Jeff Jarrett, and he strikes Jarrett with the belt. Next he strikes Steiner with the belt. Let's pause the action a moment. Booker T has the belt. From where I sit, he has two options. A: He can attempt to fight his way past the heels going through the cage. Kevin Nash is standing at the door waiting for him. B: He can climb down the outside of the goddamn cage. Since this is Vince Russo booking, Booker must take option A, the option that makes less sense but is necessary to fulfill the tired and retarded booking. Of course, Sting is handcuffed, and Scott Steiner gets ahold of the belt on the second level. Steiner drops the belt to Vince Russo on the fist level. The Cat interferes and KO's Russo. It would be great if you could somehow lock a steel cage. Nash knocks down Cat, people attack one another, Goldberg breaks the cuffs and gets the belt. Of course, Bret Hart has to slam the door on Goldberg's head. The heels argue over who gets the belt. It was a SWERVE~! Russo hands the belt to Kevin Nash who walks out the door for the win. Let's review again. Vince Russo is the booker and on-screen power. He wants Kevin Nash to retain the World Title. He can... A. Book a convoluted War Games match with stupid rules. Make it a three-tiered cage, fill the second with weapons, hang the belt 50 feet above the ring, allow nine people to enter the match and get three people to interfere on his behalf. B. Not book Kevin Nash in a title match at all. This is generally why I refuse to watch a Vince Russo promotion today. Nothing means anything, except the crap Russo is throwing against the wall this match to get someone to take notice. Terrible.

Was McDougal one of them? My next player is a left fielder who was better than Jim Rice, dammit. Roy White produced OBPs of .380-.390 in his prime seasons. He stole 233 bases in his career, and had a fair bit of power for a righty in that ballpark. He pushes Keller to the DH role, and occupies either the 1st or 2nd slot in the lineup.

I wake up for work at 6am. Many games end past midnight, even games played in the eastern time zone. That's galling, and unnecessary. Here's where it gets frustrating. The Pacific side needing to get home from work, that has merit. But they do the 8:30 start times on Saturday and Sunday! There is no reason a weekend game can not start at a more reasonable hour. The Super Bowl starts at 6:30, and they certainly have no problem attracting viewers. Personally, I find baseball much more entertaining the less people are interested in it. All-Star game? It'll start at 8:45, broadcast by Fox, announced by Buck and McCarver, and tickets start at several hundred dollars apiece. NY-Penn League? Doubleheader starts at 6, you can walk up and buy a grandstand ticket for $5, and they actually assign two players to the concourse to sign autographs pre-game. It's no contest.

Gil McDougald A utility infielder who spent time at third, second and shortstop, fielding well at all three positions. (Casey Stengel loved moving his players around.) McDougald hit .276/.356/.410 in ten seasons for the Yankees. He made five all star teams and won the Rookie of the Year award in 1951. Yankee Stadium killed his home run power. He hit 56 home runs from 1956-60, only 12 of them at home. While McDougald can play three infield positions, I anticipate making him my starting third baseman.

WarGames '98 actually wasn't that bad for awhile. Once Hogan entered and they did the Warrior crap, THAT completely sank the match.

Thanks for the heads up. I usually miss these things.

It's all better now! I'll take a positive over a negative any day of the week.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=1365 The U.S. Olympic roster was announced. Congrats to Phillies' prospects Lou Marson and Jason Donald for making the club. Of course, I think it's 50/50 at best that Donald is still a Phillie by then.

The All-Star game itself was awesome. My only complaint is the start time. Pitcher usage, I don't think you can reasonably criticize managers for not having a contingency plan in case the game goes 16 innings. That never happens.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/16/markets/oi...sion=2008071615 Oil is down $10 a barrel the last two days.

I'm pretty sure Arn was legit hurt at the time.

You get into dicey territory because obviously no pitcher is perfect. I don't know how Podsednik took him deep. Game four Lidge got beat by two singles, and he came back for a scoreless ninth. Game three he was outstanding. None of them were games he obviously should have won.

After this pick let's establish a time limit of 12 hours for a pick.

Every time I've seen him come up in pressure situations on a big stage he's sucked. He may be having a great year but that situation was custom-made for failure. There is a lot of luck to pitching but when I've seen Lidge implode in the past it's been because his stuff was flat and getting a lot of the plate, and that's not bad luck, it's bad pitching. Honestly, can someone cite an example besides the Pujols home run? He had a bad season the next year overall. He has a 2.52 ERA in the postseason though, in 25 innings. Had he gotten Pujols out, he would have tied Dennis Eckersley's record for saving all four games in a series win. Lidge does not have this tendency to blow up. He gave up a huge home run in a single game and any fault since has been tied to that hit, true or not.

Another blogger did a mock NBA draft from the board, inserting himself into the spot of one of the participants. I decided to do the same thing with the wrestling draft in the General Wrestling folder. One twist, instead of taking a spot I am simply going to take a pick at the end of each round, picking last each time. Let's see how this goes. 1: "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers. Wrestling's top heel in the 1950s into the '60s. An iconic figure for fans of that era, and a top draw. 2. Bruno Sammartino. Too popular to be ignored, despite relative lack of working ability. 3. Magnum T.A. Extremely popular babyface attraction. 4. Nick Bockwinkel. Top heel, both as a talker and a worker. 5. Classy Fred Blassie. A tremendous heel in his day, an outstanding talker as well. 6. Lou Thesz. 7. Bobo Brazil. 8. Mil Mascaras. A top babyface whose aerial offense could excite the crowd. 9. Jim Londos. A handsome undersized greek would make a tremendous babyface. 10. Killer Kowalski. 11. Mr. Fuji & Toru Tanaka. The beginning of a tag team division. 12. Billy Robinson. The worker/shooter of the promotion. 13. Ken Patera. Undrafted after 400+ picks? Get on the ball people! 14. Johnny Valentine. 15. The Fabulous Kangaroos (Al Costello & Roy Heffernan) 16. Antonino Rocca & Miguel Perez. A popular, main event, ethnic tag team. 17. Red Bastien. Top worker and face in the early 70s. Could occasionally team with Robinson. 18. Doug Somers & Buddy Rose. 19. Whipper Billy Watson. One of the biggest stars in Canadian wrestling history. 20. Jimmy & Johnny Valiant. 21. Don Leo Jonathan. Large, agile heel. 21 picks in, that looks like an extremely stacked promotion. Not a great workrate promotion, but most of these guys are no slouches in the ring and they know how to work a crowd. I'll fill in picks as they happen and later on unveil a fantasy wrestling card. Three more picks. 22. Mr. Wrestling II. Popular performer in Georgia in the 1970s. 23. Superstar Bill Dundee. 24. Jay Youngblood. Great young babyface, passed before his time.

The MSG '79 show has "Bad News" Allen Coage, with hair!

It must be great to rely on the media and mass opinion rather than watch the games. Lidge has not blown a save this season, has a 1.13 ERA and has yet to allow a home run this season. I think one thing people need to realize is that there is a great deal of luck involved in pitching. The key is whether a pitcher is getting trounced, or whether he's having balls fall through. Ask yourself, if a fielder were right there on a ground ball or a fly ball, would it be a remarkable hit? Likewise, a pitcher getting by on hard drives snared by fielders isn't having the best of days. Lidge gave up two hits and a walk, but they weren't peppering him all over the field. If he gave up hits to the gap, that's another thing. Similarly, Cook gave up four hits and three walks. A couple of those hits were seeing eye grounders though and one was a soft fly ball. Two of the walks were intentional. Only the double was really a hard hit by the opposition.

Morneau was safe. Easily the best All-Star game since 1994.

What the fuck do you need a Red Bull for when you're out of the game and off tomorrow?

Curiously, if they used Sherrill for his last out they would hit the limit in the middle of the 18th. Jeter, fraternization with the fans mid-game is prohibited by MLB rule. Wait, that's a rule? So what's Kazmir's pitch count? Three innings. Any pitch count is self-imposed. Fuck people who go to the ballpark to drink. Seriously.

Curiously, if they used Sherrill for his last out they would hit the limit in the middle of the 18th. Jeter, fraternization with the fans mid-game is prohibited by MLB rule.

It's a DH game. How likely is he to need the bench?

The tag followed Pujols as he slipped off the bag though, so he'd be out regardless.

Yeah, hit up TSMBaseball on AIM, or ask me for an invite. I'll give it a shot for awhile.

Listed start time is 8pm. Anyone want to take bets on when the game actually begins? My money is on 8:38.