EVIL~! alkeiper

The Reds weren't trading Jay Bruce anyway. You guys act like the Bedard trade was a bust though. They got a potential star center fielder out of the deal, along with their current closer. They have three pitching prospects as well. Chris Tillman is currently 6-0 in AA with a 2.59 ERA. I'd be happy with the trade thus far.

They tried that once already.

David Crockett throwing down his microphone rather than talk to Jim Cornette is great stuff as well. This is a tremendous show for angles. With the Crockett Cup done, the NWA set up their big feuds for the Great American Bash tour.

Oddest segment is certainly Buddy Rose's "blowaway diet" commercial on the Shawn Michaels Vault dvd.

When was this? I'm looking all over the internet and can't find it at all.

This week's show has footage of the infamous Flair/Morton beatdown. Jimmy Garvin keeps calling out Wahoo McDaniel. All he's asking for is a match or showdown and while he's a jerk about it, Wahoo never answers. It makes Wahoo look bad after weeks of it.

I noticed they had a bit with Heenan teasing some big news as the show folds. They likely knew Warrior was gone at that point and edited it into the show.

Nope.

Ah good. Hopefully CC will get back soon for his next pick. I have two upcoming in this slot. Selection #1. Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard - Steel cage, I Quit Match (Starrcade '85) The next match I better take here as the 24/7 discussion will have people thinking of it. Wargames 1992 (Wrestlewar) No good image for that one, unfortunately.

Two on the Great American Bash tour in '87 (Dusty & crew vs. the Horsemen). One in 1988, also Dusty vs. the Horsemen. 1989 saw the Road Warriors and Midnight Express battle the Freebirds and Samoan Swat Team. 1991 had Sting, Pillman and the Steiners against the Horsemen. 1992 was Sting's Squadron against the Dangerous Alliance. 1993 had Sting and company against Vader's team. 1994 was Dusty and Dustin against Colonel Parker's stable. 1995 saw Hulkamania against the Dungeon of Doom. 1996 is WCW vs. NWO. 1997 had the Horsemen against the NWO. 1998 was that three-team abortion that DDP won by pinfall.

It's funny. People look at on pace and they never notice that greater percentages always come in fewer appearances. You see it nowadays with "Can Chipper Jones hit .400" stories, which I will touch upon in the near future. To answer the question, Eckersley in 1990 was even stronger. 0.61 ERA, 73 K's, 4 BBs, 2 HRs allowed. His peripherals over a full season were every bit as good as Wagner's. Wagner's ERA this season is boosted by four of his five runs allowed being unearned.

Cabbageboy expresses my own sentiments well. The wrestling on this show is absolutely superb, top-notch. Look at Hashimoto/Hase vs. Windham/Rhodes though. The crowd is absolutely dead because there is no strong heel on the show. There is no crowd heat all the way through, and that really hurts the product. Sting/Vader in a vacuum though is a great match.

That's a sweet MSG show. *Bob Backlund vs. Bobby Duncum is actually a match to re-establish Backlund as champion. Backlund dropped the belt in controversial fashion the previous month to Antonio Inoki in Japan. *Hulk Hogan's MSG debut match against Ted Dibiase. *Dusty Rhodes vs. Harley Race is on Dusty's dvd. *Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu, Seiji Sakaguchi and Tatsumi Fujinami wrestle on the show. Inoki faces the Iron Sheik pre-gimmick, Sheik was then known as Hussein Arab. On the Boston Garden show, Hogan and Bossman had a great series of cage matches. Rockers/Brainbusters is a 20+ minute match. WarGames is a fantastic Shorties concept. For Nate's information, there are at least 12 WarGames matches.

Cawthon has Yokozuna's first match on the Saskatoon Oct. 12, 1992 television taping. That was the same show where Bret Hart won his first world title.

ESPN.com has a poll assessing the HOF chances of 25% players. I was one of just 2.8% who identified Billy Wagner as a "first ballot lock." If you draw up a list of relief aces (I came up with a list of all pitchers with 200+ career saves), Wagner and Mariano Rivera leap to the top in ERA+. No other pitchers are even close. Wagner is as dominant a per-inning pitcher as anyone in history, and he is the most dominant left handed reliever of all time. His playoff performances might hurt, but I can't see leaving a guy out because he had 10 1/3 bad innings. Also, less than half think Pedro Martinez is a first-ballot lock? (He's overwhelmingly in though.) Martinez is THE most dominant starter in history, again by a large margin.

Any thought to ranking these guys by win shares? It might be fun to come up with an "ideal" draft ranking.

I could swear that's the proper order.

NCAA.com has fantastic gametracker coverage of the games.

I mentioned the NCAA tournament earlier this week. Bucknell indeed pulled off the biggest upset in school history, beating national #2 Florida State University 7-0. It is a double elimination tournament however, so FSU is not finished. They need to beat Florida, then the Bucknell/Tulane loser, and the Bucknell/Tulane winner twice. Bucknell's only real claim to fame as a baseball school is that they produced Christy Mathewson. I think XM Radio will come up with something as the Sirius merger means there is no other satellite radio provider, so MLB has nothing to gain by shopping the contract elsewhere.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/29/k...obit/index.html Most of you likely know Korman from "Blazing Saddles." Korman was probably one of the best deadpan, straightmen in film. Tremendous talent.

So let me get this straight. Six gallons at .23 a gallon, you waited 45 minutes to save less than a buck fifty on gasoline? Oil fell $4 a barrel today, prices are beginning to fall back.

Baseball America is running a bracket contest for the NCAA tournament, which begins on Friday. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/colle...challenge/2008/

Does a bad minor league club usually mean the farm system is really terrible? Does St. Lucie sucking so hard mean that there's no one on St. Lucie right now who could potentially be a respectable major league ball player? In the same way that bad teams have good players, bad minor league teams can absolutely have good prospects. One player can't be a difference maker. On the flipside, sometimes a dominant team has no/few prospects, just a good collection of minor league veterans. You can't gauge much of a farm system's quality from its win/loss record. So don't worry, I think this Pedro kid can make the majors.

Agreed. I may do a sub-idea in the blog, but another MLB one needs to wait until the offseason.

Also, the Marlins' big test comes this weekend. The Phillies have moved to a half game out, and the Marlins are in town beginning Friday for a three game set.