EVIL~! alkeiper

The Cardinals today scored more runs than in their first five games combined.

Carlos Ruiz pinch-hitting for Rod Barajas. This is a great sign that Manuel believes Ruiz can handle a starting job.

Top Prospects - International League SP Phil Hughes, NYY SP Homer Bailey, Cin SP Matt Garza, Min SP Adam Miller, Cle SP Jeff Niemann, TB OF Adam Lind, Tor 1B Joey Votto, Cin OF Ryan Sweeney, CWS 3B Josh Fields, CWS SP Glen Perkins, Min SP Kevin Slowey, Min These players made the Top 100 in either the Baseball America or Baseball Prospectus Top 100 list (in fact, all made both lists). This month, the only top 100 prospect set to come through is Philip Hughes, and my friend is already bugging me to get him a ticket to Wednesday's game. And thank god I just made a spot check on that ticket online. Today's game has been cancelled due to "snow and cold." Babies. The fun thing is that Norfolk will not return to Scranton the rest of the season (they make up the game in Norfolk). I planned to publish this later, but with no game tonight that concludes this entry.

The way it works is that minor league teams don't actually own a team, they own a AAA franchise. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for example is guaranteed a AAA team. So there are 30 AAA affiliations to match 30 MLB teams. If teams do not reach agreements, baseball assigns minor league teams to those franchises. For this reason, the Mets wound up in New Orleans (otherwise they might have located their AAA club in Brooklyn, NY). Independent teams usually saw their minor league affiliations sold and relocated if they originally had one. For other clubs, an independent team is a way to get in the door, so to speak. It's worth mentioning that most independent leagues are better than the lower organized minors.

Marlins up 4-3. Really we would have been out of this with one run if Victorino started in right field today. (Of course Jayson Werth hit a big double on offense, in fairness.) I worry that Zach Segovia is really not a major league caliber pitcher. He's only in there because he's already on the 40-man roster.

Hanley Ramirez is hurt. The Marlins really lack credible hitting talent if he's gone for any length of time.

Two quick runs off Scott Olsen. He's a good pitcher but the Phillies have his number. Coming in, Olsen is 1-4 with a 5.53 ERA against the Phils.

K-mart is advertising the Horsemen dvd (out Tuesday) for $14.99.

Slaughter/Samoans vs. Albano/Murdoch/Adonis was quite the fun match. Good wrestling and a very hot crowd. Midnights/LOD I've commented on before. That booking meeting must've been fun. Isn't it enough to ask two guys to fall 20 feet from a scaffold onto a mat without asking them to blade too?

Wild game in Rochester last night. http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/st...ottaaa_rocaaa_1 Brian Mazone gave up four unearned runs and Matt Garza gave up three unearned runs. Down 9-4, the Lynx scored 7 runs in the ninth inning. Rochester scored three in the bottom to win, helped by three walks from pitcher Kane Davis. Twins fans, don't sweat Garza's short outing. Managers in the IL have been using their pitchers in short outings due to the extreme cold.

The standard agreement runs two years, and most teams re-up their agreements. Some teams like Pawtucket and Richmond have retained their parent organizations for thirty years. Usually it's a question of geography. A league like the Pioneer League, run around Montana/Wyoming, will see more changes than the International League where many clubs are close to Major League cities. This was an odd year as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre club split with Philadelphia after 18 years. Norfolk split with the Mets after 37 years. Columbus had the Yankees for 28 years. So those were three long term agreements ended. So the answer is that it depends based on geography and stability.

It's easy to look at it all in retrospect, but it's worth noting that no acquisition of a wrestling promotion has resulted in a successful invasion angle. WCW/UWF fizzled out as well, and I'm sure there are a couple other examples. The problem was that several top stars had prohibitive contracts, so including them in the purchase would've cost WWE more than they would have made from the angle. So of course the remaining talent was watered down. Also, you have a problem when it comes to face/heel alignments. Do you turn one promotion face and the other heel? You'd have to turn Vince face, and that would cause the promotion to lose steam once the angle was over. In a dream world you could create some dream matchups. But in reality something like the invasion is very, very difficult to pull off.

Wrestling wise the Monday Night shows were a notch better, as you'd expect. NWA had better promo work. Watching both though, NWA had more compelling storylines. You had a few well-defined feuds and each week they did a good job of presenting and selling them. WCW had so many wrestlers under contract that too often matches existed simply to kill time.

As some of you might know, I have a side engagement scoring baseball games for a company called Baseball Info Solutions. I score occasional games in Scranton, mark hit locations and trajectories, and send them in via computer afterwards. I get to watch the game from a good vantage point for free and I get some money on the side. This is my third year. The first two years Scranton was the AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. This year however Scranton is now the affiliate of the New York Yankees. The transition of teams comes with higher attendance, as there is simply more interest in this region for the Yankees. * I joke that Yankee fans are obnoxious. Some are, some are not. Honestly, you get unbearable dopes in nearly every large baseball crowd. This game, four guys sat two rows behind me, consumed large amounts of alcohol and proceeded to make a show of themselves heckling the players. ALL game. It really gets on your nerves after a while. There's no respite. * The weather is absolutely brutal. Game time temperature was 35 degrees, easily the coldest professional game I have ever attended. You can stand that kind of weather if you dress for it, which I did. After three hours though, the cold digs into you. It snowed about three times during the game, never sticking to the ground but creating a nuisance. The wind picked up at times, and in the configuration of the stadium it swirls. * Even though I watch a lot of games, my scouting eye is not discerning enough to reveal much more than the statistics. I can tell you that Garrett Olson at one point retired seven straight batters on fly balls. Olson is just 23 and has struck out over a batter an inning in the minors while walking 70 and giving up just 13 home runs in 220 career innings. In my view, he is one of the unheralded pitching prospects in baseball. * Something was missing overall. My enthusiasm just wasn't there for this game, and I wasn't sure if it was the loudmouths, the team or the weather. There are few legit prospects on the Yankees' farm club behind the rotation, and the Norfolk Tide had even less. I want to do less AAA games this year and maybe hit some other local teams (Harrisburg, Reading, Sussex County, etc.).

Brett Myers is not having a good outing. Even a few outs have been long, hard hit balls. Josh Willingham is now a single away from a cycle.

I sat in 35 degree weather today to watch Scranton/Norfolk. It snowed at times (but didn't stick). It wasn't bad for a time but the cold gets to you after three hours in it. It's not very fun to sit in. Jimmy Rollins hit an inside-the-park home run off Dontrelle Willis. De Aza took a bad route trying to cut it off and it got by him.

I was about to post the same thing. Look, the Undertaker is over, he's credible, he's a good worker and he has now been with WWE for 17 years. I'm betting he'll have a permanent backstage position when he retires, and quite honestly I think he deserves an extended run. There aren't any wrestlers right now ready for their first World title. Better to keep an established name on top and give the contenders a slow build.

Tonight Jon Lieber pitched rehab and performed reasonably well. Edgar Garcia started in Lakewood and pitched seven innings, giving up just one run. Kyle Drabek relieved and struck out the side, a great sign following his shaky 2006 debut.

The umpire just ruled Matt Treanor did not attempt to get out of the way of a HBP. So for those of you who bitch that it's not called, there you go.

Ok. I'd like to know at what point Vince Russo stood up at the booking meeting and said, "Hey guys, I know how to make the Hart/Benoit match better!"

As they should. Honestly, whoever heard of not going to a baseball game just because sitting outside in this weather is insanely stupid?

With the Hall of Fame now at 60 members, I thought it would be fun to run a tournament of only those wrestlers/managers/promoters/etc. in the Hall. Vote for a winner in each matchup, first round will run two days (ending this time Sunday). The members are divided into four groups based on their date of birth, so wrestlers are roughly grouped with their peers. Bracket One (b. 1949-) Hulk Hogan (bye) Eddie Guerrero vs. Paul Orndorff Junkyard Dog vs. Tito Santana "Rowdy" Roddy Piper vs. Sensational Sherri Jerry "The King" Lawler vs. Jim Ross Mr. Perfect vs. Jesse Ventura Greg Valentine vs. Bob Orton Jr. Bret "The Hitman" Hart vs. William "The Refrigerator" Perry Bracket Two (b. 1943-49) Andre the Giant (bye) The Iron Sheik vs. Bobby "The Brain" Heenan Sgt. Slaughter vs. Tony Atlas Superstar Billy Graham vs. Jimmy Hart Harley Race vs. Johnny Valient Superfly Jimmy Snuka vs. Nikolai Volkoff Magnificent Muraco vs. Big John Studd Dusty Rhodes vs. Johnny Rodz Bracket Three (b. 1934-42) Nick Bockwinkel (bye) Mr. Fuji vs. Blackjack Lanza Gorilla Monsoon vs. Jimmy Valient "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd vs. Blackjack Mulligan Pedro Morales vs. Sika Ivan Putski vs. Mean Gene Okerlund George "The Animal" Steele vs. Afa Pat Patterson vs. Pete Rose Bracket Four (b. 1911-33) Buddy Rogers (bye) Vince J. McMahon vs. Chief Jay Strongbow Bobo Brazil vs. Capt. Lou Albano Argentina Rocca vs. Baron Mikel Scicluna Classy Fred Blassie vs. Arnold Skaaland The Sheik vs. The Grand Wizard Killer Kowalski vs. The Fabulous Moolah Verne Gagne vs. James Dudley

The fan/Malenko deal was an angle. Mayhem was just god awful bullshit with almost non-stop nonsensical booking. Seriously? What the heck point did that serve? Just to clarify, this is during the Filthy Animals/Revolution match. A fan gets close to Malenko waving the Canadian flag, Malenko yells and the fan appears to jab at him with the flag.

Miguel Olivo was just thrown out at home trying for an inside the park home run.

This weekend is going to be fun. Two games in Scranton, tomorrow at 1:30pm and Sunday at 5pm. High temperatures of 38 and 40 degrees, respectively.