EVIL~! alkeiper

I listen to the baseball talk on XM 175. In this area, there really is no terrestrial sports radio except for the station that carries ESPN. Oddly, XM has a sports talk radio channel out of Cincinnati. Local talk is hit or miss. Occasionally you get a real waste of human life like Howard Eskin.

Wang is not the most dominant pitcher, but he's effective because he has a good offense and does not allow many walks or home runs. Since he's a groundball pitcher, he will have days where he gets hit, particularly when the grounders roll to Jeter's left. I don't worry much about the definition of an ace, it really doesn't matter. With Willy Aybar hurt, Evan Longoria is in the Majors for Tampa Bay.

I'm almost through it. Good show, IMO. Most of the matches are fairly long, even the quasi-jobber matchups. It was interesting to see Gorilla/Graham praise a relatively unknown masked wrestler, even moreso knowing who that wrestler was. The show also has Curt Hennig before they adopted the "Mr. Perfect" gimmick. You have to love the under-the-breath comments about Hennig finding a tougher caliber of competition.

Observations from last night: -Alan Horne left the game after two innings with a biceps injury. -Jay Bruce needs to work on his baserunning yet. Twice he was thrown out at home in the series, last night he ran through a stop sign at third to do it. On another occasion, he failed to score from second on a single that would have meant the tying run. -Gary Majewski is absolutely toast. When your stuff loses a step in the majors, you get hammered. Most pitchers on that level can still get out minor league batters with guile and deception. When AAA batters hammer a veteran, there's something wrong. -Remember Jimmy Dugan's speech in "A League of their Own"? With two on and a 4-1 lead, center fielder Chris Dickerson attempted to throw out the second runner trying to score at home. He had no shot, and the batter advanced to second on the throw. That batter scored on a wild pitch and balk. -Think Shelley Duncan got upset at getting demoted? A home run and THREE doubles.

Attachments don't work for me Czech. What song is it?

Last night's loss was a bit frustrating. I guess Ted Barrett had better things to do than umpire a 13th inning.

Fixed.

The Phillies signed Steve Kline to a minor league deal. There might not be anything left there, but as Kline is a local product it's a nice pickup to see. Kline's personality is perfect for Philly. He's gritty and doesn't bathe.

Not the worst match in history, not even in Wrestlemania history. Mr. T/Roddy Piper from Wrestlemania IX takes that honor. This was just a bad, boring, plodding match. It didn't expose the business, and there was not really a point where the match fell apart. That's what makes a match transcendingly bad in my book.

Baltimore and Texas in a double header? What's the worst that can happen? I'm not intending to make fun. I just find it fun that I was at the game.

Ha! They're cursed, they are. And last year when Ottawa went 55-88?

Meanwhile, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs have lost seven straight games to open the season. They are still looking for their franchise's first win.

I'm strangely at piece with this for some reason. What an ugly game though. Seven walks, four errors, 90 minutes and not even through the 3rd inning.

Kendrick really sucks tonight. The smoke and mirrors have lost their magic.

Kyle Kendrick is the luckiest f'n pitcher alive. 2 IP, 6 BB, just one earned run.

Wow. The Mets fucked up another double play ball.

The latter.

Here's the deal guys. With the board reset, anyone who was unbanned, registered or had a name changed in the last several weeks was undone. PM or IM one of the staff members and we'll set things back if there's a problem.

Regarding the '49 Cardinals, I think making the playoffs is a prerequisite. Otherwise it just proves that the slow start did them in.

Jerry Crasnick has an article on espn.com about teams who started slow and yet reached the postseason. '05 Astros are good, as were the '07 Rockies (three teams from last year is overkill though). No mention of the 1914 Miracle Braves? It's not like it's an obscure footnote in baseball history.

Six miles to work. If I want to take advantage of public transportation, the closest bus stop to my home is in the same plaza. It's about 35 miles to Scranton when I work the baseball games.

TNT with "This is your life" was one of the strangest wrestling shows I've ever watched.

Here's the catch Czech. Minor league affiliates are not controlled by the parent clubs. The team in New Britain is owned by an entity there, and they have the rights to a AA franchise. Ditto for nearly all minor league clubs (there are exceptions such as Richmond). In order to move teams to those areas near Chicago, the teams there would need to convince an existing AA/AAA club to sell out. Since Rochester for example has held an International League team since the days of Stan Musial, that's unlikely. Proximity to the major league club may be important for the AAA club, otherwise how often do you need to bring in a player from A/AA? Not often. The bigger problem is that if you move around the affiliates due to travel costs, it becomes more expensive to travel among those leagues. It's expensive enough for the Southern League without expanding to run from Huntsville to Gary. For those leagues, longer series (five games instead of four) is already on the docket. The bigger question from me is why worry whether a minor league club is affiliated? Those teams in Schaumburg and Gary are at least as good as most AA clubs. You don't get the prospects, but the quality of play is still good.

Roddy Piper and Jesse Ventura haven't been mentioned, but obviously those guys have huge mainstream exposure.

Interesting question. I'm just going to put these in alphabetical order. David Bowie Jeff Buckley Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) Ray Davies (The Kinks) Nick Drake John Lennon Morrissey Stuart Murdoch (Belle & Sebastian) Robert Smith Al Yankovic