EVIL~! alkeiper

FYI: - What happens in the event of a tie for a Division Winner, Wild Card spot, or home-field advantage? Tiebreakers for a 2-way tie are, in order: - Head-to-head record - Run differential - Coin flip Tiebreakers for a 3-way tie are, in order: - Best record vs. teams within division - Run differential - Coin flip

Nine games up with fifteen to play. Unless Bored's team sweeps tonight, I can practically start setting my playoff rotation.

One month in, would you change any of your preseason predictions?

Check the criteria, it's a list of STARS. Nothing to do with in-ring ability, promo work, etc.

Next month is indeed Gold Rush month. Highlights: WWE Hall of Fame: Nick Bockwinkel. Awesome. WCW Great American Bash '92. Fuck yeah. Vader wins the WCW World championship, and the NWA Tag Title tournament is concluded. WWE MSG: 1/23/84. A historic card as Hulk Hogan defeats the Iron Sheik for the WWF title. We've seen it before of course, but here we get all the festivities. TV Classics, Gold Rush: Five shows featuring championship matches from different promotions/eras. Saturday Night's Main Event, Championship Wrestling from Florida, WCW Thunder (wtf?), and Stampede! Shorties are Jericho presenting shocking championship clashes. This sounds like a great month.

It is quite likely that the FBI would just use the name Ashley Massaro, and the Rolling Stones author jumped to a conclusion. Two things jump out at me. 1. Wrestling fans are fairly obsessive. Why didn't we hear about this before? 2. Wrestling is a touring gig. It would be very difficult for Ashley to carry a dual career as female wrestler and escort.

Mexico no. AAA into LA is interesting, did they draw favorably among english-speaking fans or did they draw large portions of the spanish speaking community? I honestly don't know. I don't think the majority of American wrestling fans are familiar with AAA, but living on the east coast I'm probably not in the best position to know.

I can't. What it comes down to is that it is simply a crowded field, and every successful act can't quite crack the list. What holds the Midnight Express is that they never cracked the wall from wrestling into mainstream recognition. You can argue them over the Rock 'n' Roll Express, but they are not the strongest candidates on the list either. There are maybe 5-6 candidates on the list they could bypass, but that's not terribly strong.

There's a difference between a popular nostalgia act and true stardom. The Bushwackers fall into the former. If there's an obvious determination it's whether they could main event a major show. The Bushwackers never did, and I don't believe Chyna ever did either. Ted DiBiase is a good choice, and a tough cut if not on the list. Eddie Guerrero I'm not certain, I don't know if he has much mainstream exposure. Mil Mascaras was a star for decades on the regional circuit. If he toured a territory, he came in and wrestled on top, and drew money. Guerrero was a main event star for a year, a mid-card star otherwise. Great wrestler yes. But how big a star was he? Buddy Rogers is not well known today. In 1961 however, his match with Pat O'Connor set a record for a live gate and drew the biggest crowd for a wrestling match since Jim Londos. Rogers' mannerisms set the stage for wrestlers in the future. When Andy Kaufmann came into wrestling for example, Buddy Rogers was his template. He really was THE biggest star of the early television era.

That's a good qualification if you were arguing for Morton to be included as a singles guy, but it doesn't do anything for the RnR's as a team. As for the Midnight's inclusion, I think their main event program with Bill Watts and Stagger Lee in Mid-South makes a good qualification; it drew $1.2m for 14 dates, set gate records in every city but one, which was New Orleans at the Superdome, and even then they only missed out on the record by $6,000 with a crowd over 20,000. Good argument for the Midnights. The problem I think is that the big star in that pairing is Bill Watts, and Stagger Lee (Junkyard Dog) is on the list as it is. The Junkyard Dog and Bill Watts had many other main event feuds in Mid South. The Midnights did not. Looking things over though, I can see dropping the Rock n Roll Express in favor of Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. I think that switch needs to get made. One deserving wrestler I overlooked entirely is Bobo Brazil.

After my last trip to Citizens Bank Park, I would never take advantage of another cheap ticket deal. It attracts too many college kids who spend the money they saved on alcohol, getting pissed.

Tulowitzski's out until the All-Star break at least. I can't see the Rockies making another push this year.

Only half the crowd would have seen it at best, it was in one of the corners. It wasn't a throw, more of Taker stomping Holly and legitimately trying to push him down. No audible crowd reaction that I remember from the live broadcast.

Korean Byung Hyun Kim. I blame Bob Brenly for the fiasco. Kim threw 61 pitches in Game Four, culminating with Derek Jeter's walkoff home run. Brenly brought back Kim the next night where he again blew a save thanks to Scott Brosius' home run. Kim did not actually surrender the game-winning hit in game five however. Alfonso Soriano won it with an RBI single off reliever Albie Lopez in the 12th inning.

The Rock 'n' Roll Express had the teenage girl dynamic. And as good as the Midnights were, none of them headlined a stadium show against Ric Flair like Morton did. If I were to select another team, it would actually be the Fabulous Kangaroos.

What the Yankees need to do is take guys like Shelley Duncan, Kei Igawa, etc. Plug them in and find out exactly what they can do. It should not be the end of the world if the Yankees miss the playoffs, though their fans will certainly think so.

HUGE sweep of Bored's Oaks. Leaves me six games up in my division with 27 games to go. Right now no other team is further ahead in the playoff chase, even Smues.

Czech, I knew where you were going with that even before I checked the link. There's a great Onion article waiting to be written.

Good post from FireJoeMorgan on the subject. http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2008/04/few-w...n-internet.html

Unless this is just one chapter, is this really something you're interested in reading?

Two quick comments about the All-Star balloting. -I really wish they would designate a center fielder, instead of just voting three outfielders. There's a clear difference in the ability needed at all three positions. -There's no reason not to let fans designate a starting pitcher along with the rest of the lineup.

"All the suggestions sucked" is a usable subtitle in its own right.

Undertaker actually threw Holly over the top rope at one point, that got ignored by the referees.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20...sp&c_id=mlb John Smoltz thinks his starting days are over, though he can still pitch out of the bullpen. I'd love to see Smoltz, Glavine and Maddux all retire after this season and go into the Hall of Fame the same year.

Irs.gov actually has a payment schedule and refund estimator. It's quite handy.