EVIL~! alkeiper

The first IC Champion! Pat Patterson

I generally avoid the news cycle outside of ESPNews and I'm much better off for it. Hyping stars doesn't bother me. What does bother me is then said stars differ from the legitimately good players in the league. Joe Mauer, Hanley Ramirez and a few others are all but ignored despite being among the ten best players in the sport.

I bought the first one, don't plan on buying the second. I'm finding a lot of these Bill James/Baseball Info Solutions corroborations have a ton of barely usable information, and not a great deal of substance when it comes to the writing.

Re: Bret/Michaels. They got into a famous locker room brawl prior to the event, and WWE scrapped the match.

Tomorrow's the day. At 4:30am. There's one of the tournament's big problems. How do you expect to draw excitement when you start in the middle of the night with the tournament's least competitive game?

I've got seven openings yet in the Yahoo TSM Fantasy League, and now opening them up first come first served. League ID: 134921 Password: tsm Draft is Mon. March 16 at 930pm ET.

If you were hoping to build your team around Willy Aybar, I have some bad news.

Trish Stratus was an awesome pick. I can easily find a replacement for about 90% of the wrestlers drafted. Very few females reach the level/skill of Trish.

I'm working on ways to even the playing field. One definite is that there will be a separate draft for venues, managers, etc. That will run in reverse order. I plan on picking last, by the way.

Cedeno can't hold a starting job with that talent, which indeed shows the importance of fundamentals. My argument is not that they are not important, but they are so prevalent that you can't win by focusing on them alone.

Like Scott Kazmir? And enough with this crap that the Phillies were a lousy team. The Phils have finished above the Mets in the standings seven of the last eight seasons. And they were defending division champions. 95 wins on paper? Who assembled that team on paper? As for 2006, that was a team with a 91 win pythag., facing a team who had won 100+ games the previous two seasons with much the same core.

With the best workers from the '90s and 2000s taken, time to take the best worker of the 1960s.

The number three prospect in baseball is still available. This is a guy who could be the next Grady Sizemore. OF Colby Rasmus

This is something that's been delayed for awhile, but it could be time to get it off the ground. I have a couple ideas on running this thing. First off, I plan to run it much faster than usual. Instead of serpentine, it will be a straight draft. Each drafter will get a designated time slot, and every day will make a selection at that time. That will set a pace of one round per day, and we would finish this thing within a month. With that format in mind, I intend to accept any interested poster into this draft. If 40 posters want in, that would require 1,000 baseball players all time. That's no problem at all. Respond if you're interested, or if you have any suggestions. Edit: And in case I've been unclear, I intend this to be an All Time draft.

I wouldn't even say half-assing it. Just every single heel seemed to use the same crowd heat tactic.

Here I was thinking that losing a 7 game lead with 17 to go was a historic collapse because everyone in the media told me it was. And then they followed that up blowing a 3.5 game lead with 17 left the following season. It's nice to know that that stuff happens all the time and that everyone was just overreacting because it was a NY area team. Seven with seventeen to go was bad. 2008 wasn't unique in the slightest. Edit: And just for fun, since we're talking about collapses. Can anyone name the GMs of the '78 Red Sox, '64 Phillies, '51 Dodgers or '95 Angels? How much of the blame did the GMs take for those failures?

Indeed. And considering that Carlos Delgado played extremely well down the stretch, he's hardly responsible either. What really gets me about the Mets' wailing is that the Phillies lost the playoff chase in the last two weeks of the season every year from 2003-06. What the Mets have done is not unique in the slightest. And to say that they should have won because hell, it's only the Phillies is insulting. The Mets finished below .500 every year from 2002-04. Since they hired Minaya, they have averaged 89 wins a year. In the three years Minaya was GM of the Montreal Expos, they finished above .500 twice. And that was a team with NO ownership support whatsoever. And the Mets' minor league system is starting to show the fruits of Minaya's labor. Even if the oh my god championships aren't there, Minaya has made the Mets better.

Responding to a query in the last thread. Christian/Swagger started with some stalling, but developed into quite the good match. Swagger won clean but it was extremely competitive. On the whole, the wrestlers employed stalling tactics in every single match. That got frustrating.

I can't give many details, but prowrestlinghistory.com indicates what shows aired on PPV.

Sgt. Slaughter! A tremendously underrated worker who can compete equally as a face or heel.

I gotta wonder about some of these "draft plans." Were you really just assuming your fellow drafters would pick utter crap?

I don't think Daniel Murphy was ever the second baseman of the future. He's stretched defensively there and the Mets tried it because they had a weak spot. Obviously they aren't pursuing it. I think Minaya's greatest strength will become apparent in a few years. As much as he's joked at for his love of Dominicans, there are some DAMN good looking prospects coming up through Brooklyn right now. Wilmer Flores, Jefry Marte, etc. The Mets are two wins away from having three straight playoff appearances under their belt.

Went out to the house show in Wilkes-Barre tonight. Spotted Edge at the Cracker Barrel before the show! Melina p. Beth Phoenix Kane p. Santino Marella in 12 seconds Mike Knox p. Goldust Fit Finlay p. Mark Henry in a Belfast Brawl William Regal/Boogeyman confrontation Jack Swagger p. Christian Chris Jericho p. Kofi Kingston Shawn Michaels and CM Punk d. Randy Orton and Edge (Michaels pinned Edge)

The Royals signed type A free agent RP Juan Cruz to a two year contract. Given that they lose a second round pick rather than a first, this may be a decent move.

Here's how I view fundamentals. They are hugely, vastly important. If you do not have them, you will no doubt lose many games. The problem with harping on them is that at the major league level, every team already HAS fundamentals. So it then takes talent to separate the good teams from the bad. Fans who insist modern players (in any sport) aren't fundamentally sound aren't watching closely.