EVIL~! alkeiper

I see this argument raised all the time, and it always comes to the arbitration system. Well then FIX THE ARBITRATION SYSTEM. What does it have to do with a salary cap? And last I checked, the Oilers had several consecutive winning seasons. Player salaries have nothing to do with ticket prices. And I don't think fans should turn out just because. If the owner is a clueless jackass who can't run a team, they SHOULD stay away. Nope. In theory, this would drag win/loss records further apart. However, in major sports leagues, win-loss records tend to gravitate towards .500. The only franchise I've seen this phenomenom with is the Yankees, and that dates back to Ruth. Otherwise, I've never seen it. I'm sorry, but I've never seen a salary cap increase parity. And owners certainly don't give a damn about championships, as long as they turn a profit. A salary cap is NOTHING more than a desperate grab at artificial restrictions on player salaries.

Bullshit. Nobody forces a team to spend anything. Option A seems to drive teams into bankruptcy, so that seems an undesireable option. Option B seems to desire over-spending for the sake of over-spending, without receiving an acceptable return on investment. I would switch to option C. Grow your organization via a good farm system, and jettison players when they reach free agency, which at 28, is conveniently when their skills peak and begin to decline. Because the era of free agency in baseball has led to MORE parity, not less. When baseball had the reserve clause, restricting player salaries and encouraging player loyalty by restricting movement, by favored franchise finished above .500 once in a span of thirty years. And if the small market teams have passionate fans, shouldn't the small market clubs receive some sort of revenue from those fans? And if they have a lot of passionate fans, don't they cease to be small market? Didn't Montreal make the playoffs last year? I dispute that the NFL is that much more popular than baseball. And considering the Eagles and Patriots seem to dominate their respective conferences, I don't see how the NFL is this model of parity. The NFL's "parity" is due to short schedules and non-guaranteed contracts, not the salary cap. If any sport had a 16 game season, I guarantee you'd see parity. Look at what the salary cap has done for the NBA. No sport has less parity. Meanwhile, in the cap-less, parity-less MLB, where small-market teams have no chance, two of the eight teams slated for possible contraction for that reason have won the World Series, and two more have won at least three division titles in that span.

More Buster Olney goodness... http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor...ster&id=1992665 The FUCK? The offense finished third in the league. Hah.

Some games used "SF LF" or something. MVP Baseball gave him the name "Jon Dowd," and make him a white, right-handed player. Dowd is the name of the prosecutor who investigated Pete Rose.

With the MLB taking over fantasy leagues, there's a little vaugeness about what's going on this season. ESPN, Yahoo, and CBSSportslines are the only places that have outright permission to run fantasy baseball leagues. Its assumed Yahoo will be free as always. The leagues start up tomorrow, so when they are, I assume Tom and others will look over options and get things set up. We've got lots of time left.

Why is it that Bonds is villified, but Sheffield gets a free pass for exactly the same bullshit story? On another note, Travis Blackley of the Mariners is out for the season. For what it's worth, it opens a potential slot for Felix Hernandez.

Umm, that's not a salary cap. The only thing that prevents most people from making above that amount is the amount of labor available at that price range. But that is set by the market. It is NOT artifically restricted. A salary cap sets salaries below market value. If there was some sort of salary cap at $15,000 when your job deserved a $40-60,000 wage, then you would have a salary cap. Honestly, I think the last minute salary cap proposal was a P.R. move. And they didn't waste months and months. They made good faith offers. Which group is losing money hand over fist again? On to Canadian Chris... Exactly. The players' have leverage during the season, while the owners have leverage over the offseason. It's a cruel reality of the business of sports, but that's how it works.

Hockey is the best! I love Russle becuase he is the only American on Radio who has thr guts to call the NBA garbage, which it is. Other that the Suns, Sonics, Kings and Mavs, the NBA is boring as hell and too many people who play it are egomaniacs who would rather roll with their crew than work on thier jumpers. FG% and FT% DO show how pathetic the league has become. Hmm. I wonder then why FT% has increased in the last ten years, and Three point percentage has increased steadily since the line was introduced. In fact, NBA players make three points such 10% more often than they did twenty years ago. The reason field goal percentage dropped is because improved defensive coverage is forcing players to take shots further from the basket. Notice that the top ten FG% players are all centers and power forwards. Is Eddy Curry really one of the best shooters in the league? I maintain that NBA players are unfairly criticized. As a group, they're better than they were 15-20 years ago.

He's older, but his defensive reputation is good, and his offensive stats are similar to what Hideki Matsui produced in Japan.

Ben Sheets Do you have any idea how much you sounded like a Yankee fan right there? I've been a fan of Ben Sheets for 3 years though. If it makes it any better I want Doug Meinketuqhagefd back and Kevin Millar gone. Keep a close eye on Roberto Petagine during Spring Training. He could be the Sox' first baseman this season.

Gonzalez hasn't played more than 82 games in any of the last three seasons. I wouldn't hold my breath.

My favorite was Canseco's complaining about being blackballed. Apparently, it was because he brought in steroids, and since they paid A-Rod $250 Million, and since so many people were putting up similar stats, they had to give them all similar cash. Hence, they wanted to get rid of the cause. Riiiight. It had nothing to do with hitting .188 in Charlotte.

Don't buy the conventional wisdom. Sosa and McGwire were not chiefly responsible for most of the fans returning, nor was Cal Ripkin. While I'm on the subject, Ruth's HR explosion occured BEFORE the public learned about the Black Sox scandal. I'm disappointed to see the cap, but the foremost concern is getting something done, so hockey fans can watch hockey. I'm glad to see it happen. Slightly better? The umpires utilized a disasterous negotiation tactic. The NHL players attempted to prevent MAJOR cuts into their benefits and salaries. As for ESPN, fuck them. They never did anything to promote the NHL, and then they trumpet how much better their replacement programming does. Well, of course.

I'm fine with the Phillies as they are. I just hope to see improvement from the current players.

Andre, Austin, Rock, Hogan, Flair. Alot of people nowadays who don't watch wrestling did watch in the 80s, and they remember Flair. Randy Savage had the Slim Jim commercials and the Spiderman cameo, so he'd likely make the top ten. Jesse Ventura's governorship merits him a placement on the list. Jerry Lawler would probably make such a list due to the Andy Kaufmann feud. As long as we assume retired/dead wrestlers, Gorgeous George is more well-known outside of wrestling than most current wrestlers. The last spot probably belongs to Bill Goldberg, although he'll decline in recognition as time goes on.

Most baseball fans returned in 1995. Most statistics quoted from sportswriters use the attendance numbers of the pre-Strike year of 1993 as a basis of comparison. The problem is, those numbers are skewed because baseball's attendance in Colorado hit nearly 4.5 Million, and Florida drew a hair over 3 Million. The National League averaged more fans per game in 1995, immediately after the strike, than they did in 1992. The Strike probably stagnated attendance, but it hardly killed the game, and baseball recovered fully within five years.

That is exactly the problem with any "intangibles" argument. People just throw it out there in absence of real statistical evidence, to shorten the gap when they have no argument otherwise. Mays and Dimaggio's OPS+ were almost the same. Mays played in a much tougher era. Dimaggio could never have hit .381 in the 1960s. Mays was a better fielder (although Dimaggio was great), Mays stole bases (although Dimaggio's era never had basestealers). The difference really is those six years where Mays played All-Star caliber baseball at a point where Dimaggio hung them up. Intangibles don't carry much value once you've left the team.

The experts are idiots. The Twins did advance into the ALCS in 2002. I do think the Conventional wisdom of the Twins is that they make the playoffs because they play in the Central. The last three years, they've lost to teams with better win/loss records. That's not choking. That's running into better teams.

This is going to mirror MLB's situation ten years ago. At some point the NHL will declare an impasse, and impose their own rules. They will doubtless bring in replacement players. The NHLPA will challenge that the NHL has not bargained in good faith, and sue. And they will win, because the NHL was done NOTHING to attempt to bring about a fair arrangement. They keep sitting on that bullshit salary cap. It's not going to happen. If they can't run a successful business, it is NOT the job of the players to accept lower salaries because their employers are a group of clueless jackasses. The NHL fell into a losing situation. They have two options, either raise revenue, or cut expenses. Successful business raise revenue, and both sides win. The NHL decided to piss on their sport. The players offered to cut salaries by 24%, much more than I would have offered. If the owners can not accept that, fuck them.

I'll miss the start-up of the XM channel unfortunately, but I get to tune in starting Tuesday night. Larry Bowa will host the morning show. As for Johan Santana, this is a HUGE, huge signing. Congrats to the "small market" Twins, who have somehow managed to re-sign two of the AL's five best starters (based on last year's Win Shares) in a single offseason.

The Reds' organization and Rose soured in the late 1970s. Times change. In the future, fans will forget any feud, and remember that 1990 World Series flag.

How about both? Arvydas Sabonis is available.

Worse players have been elected. Ventura was quite good for awhile, hitting 292 home runs, and winning six gold gloves. I wouldn't vote for him, of course.

You won't hear much about 2,000 hits or 300 home runs, but they are recognized as milestones when they occur.

No, that was it. Track it down, and blast it in your dorm, and dance in your underwear. Trust me, the chicks love it.