Precious Roy

I never count the Yankees out, they're the F'n New York Yankees, they haven't missed the playoffs in over a decade, they have the talent to get on a sudden hot streak at any point and the potential to win a series against any team in the league. That said, it's hard to be as confident as I usually am at this point. The injuries are one thing, even with losing their ace and franchise catcher for the season, the potential future ace for most of the season, and Joba now hurt too, they still have a lot of firepower but the offense just hasn't gotten it done consistently this year. The bullpen isn't perfect but has come together pretty well since they moved Joba to the rotation, the rotation is patchwork and flimsy but they haven't really been the problem lately, the offense just isn't coming through. Melky and Cano have killed us this year, Girardi can sit Melky but Cano has to play because he's just potentially too good to take out of there. Losing Posada hurt us a lot because even though nobody expects him to have a repeat of 2007 he's a tough, professional hitter and a fixture in the lineup for the last decade. Jeter is having, for him, a bad year, putting up the lowest OPS of his career so far, and he hasn't run very much either. This is actually worse than the year where he started out in that long slump, because once he got out of it he was red hot for the rest of the season. This year he's just been average all season. So that's 4 spots in the lineup where we're not getting the production we need, everyone else has been good, but when you rely on your offense so heavily it's not enough. So yeah, we've got some issues, and things aren't breaking the way they have the last couple years when we got hot after the all-star break. If Joba misses too much time we're probably in serious trouble. Hughes coming back and pitching well would be huge, but he can't be counted on at this point.

That deal makes some sense for all 3 teams. Milwaukee needed to shed some salary, Mo Williams is probably overpaid, and they got back a couple of expiring contracts (Jones, Griffin) and an ok replacement. Ridnour has his faults but he's a good distributer who could compliment Redd/Jefferson like he did Allen/Lewis in Seattle. And he's only on the hook for 2 years. Plus, you know, they signed Tyronn Lue, and Tyronn Lue gots to play. OKC made themselves a better team by adding Smith and Mason, and they're both expiring contracts too, so they're in prime free agency position over the next couple years and the lure of the "new" franchise should be able to net them a star player. And Williams is a big upgrade for Cleveland. He can be the #2 scorer and reliable shooter that LeBron needs. It's not the elite sidekick that he ultimately needs, but it's a much better fit than Larry Hughes was.

NEWSFLASH: They were booking god damn retarded shit way before Russo came in. If anyone needs to go it's Jeff Jarrett. I don't want to derail a thread about Mick Foley, but anyway... Russo has been booking the company for the last two years, and he had a couple lengthy stints before that, so over their near 6 year history now quite a bit of it has Russo's fingerprints on it. And yeah, the Dusty, D'Amore/Tenay and Mantell stints all had some crap, but the good generally outweighed the bad and overall they weren't even close to the levels the show is at now. Jeff Jarrett can share the blame, but he isn't ever going anywhere, so that's a moot point. And you know, even if marketing is an issue that will hold them back from competing with the WWE, there's really no excuse for 1.0 ratings and nothing even close to a single six figure buyrate. Dave Meltzer does these PPV conversion numbers where he compares the size of the TV audience in a given month to that PPVs buyrate, and they're just laughably bad. All the marketing in the world won't do anything if the shows continue to be so lame and can't convince the people that watch them to spend money on the product. Ultimately TV wrestling is an advertisement for the product, and TNA's TV rarely comes off as something that looks like it's worth $35 bucks or whatever. Months of a terrible soap opera where the audience has no reason to care about or be sympathetic towards any of the players, gimmick matches all over the place with no rhyme or reason, a babyface champ who got over by killing people in the ring booked like a whiny moron, the ridiculously heavyhanded and cliched (the lights go out, really?!?) Sting/Jarrett stuff, Stone Cold Shark Boy, the complete waste of Tomko when he was looking like the coolest character in the company, the complete misuse of Matt Morgan who could be a breakout star if they actually DID something with him, I could go on and on, but the point is there are a lot of wrestling fans out there who see shit like this and opt not to watch TNA because of it. They obviously aren't drawing the elusive casual fan, to turn off so many actual dedicated wrestling fans is criminal. Don't get me wrong, there's some good stuff here and there, but most of it owes to individual performers making the best out of a bad situation. Ultimately, Mick Foley comes in and within a month he'll be just another guy lost in the shuffle of underdeveloped, rushed and just plain bad writing.

If Foley can get himself back into the kind of shape he was in for the run with Orton I'd like to see him wrestle on a semi-regular basis for TNA, but if he's in the kind of shape he was in for his last couple WWE matches why bother? Also, Foley wouldn't be able to make much of an impact. Sting, Angle, Booker T...they've all helped the company's star power and sell house show tickets, but TV ratings and PPV buyrates won't change until the product is better, and that won't happen until Russo is gone or they stop booking such god damn retarded shit all the time. If Foley really wants to help TNA he should lobby for the booking job.

The Yankees need to stop losing so many games if they want to make the playoffs. I can already hear the Orioles creeping up behind them.

I'm not watching the show, what happened? He pulled a Rey Mysterio mask out of the bag?!??

He has AIDS

Maybe they can trade him to Europe

Because at this stage, the Bucs are more of a contender then the Jets... Sure the NY media would bust a load with Brett Favre coming there, but that's not what Favre wants, he wants to win. And with Tampa he has the best chance at doing that. Plus he doesn't have to play in a hard divison like the Jets. The AFC East is anything but hard. Sure, you've got the two Patriot ass-kickings to look forward to, but Miami is terrible, and the Bills are pretty mediocre. Looking at the Jets' schedule, there's a lot of winnable games on there. The AFC is the tougher league in general, and has dominated in the Super Bowl this decade. I think Favre would rather take his chances against Rodgers, Romo and Eli in the playoffs than Brady or Peyton. I just want to see him in Tampa to see how many interceptions the change in climate will cause. Can he throw 30 interceptions? Yes, I think he can.

No. JBL is awful. Kane would have been a great choice for the SS challenger, as Kane is entertaining on TV now with his weird bag, is a better worker than JBL, and there is some history between Kane and Punk on ECW. Its not like WWE gives a shit about their world titles on this PPV, so why not have Kane for the title shot? He can lose the match, then take out whatever is in the bag, and go insane even more. Kane is a better worker? Carrying around a burlap sack makes him entertaining? You can't be fucking serious. Kane can pull the mask out of the bag whenever. But you think they should overshadow CM Punk's first successful PPV title defense with the angle. Yeah, that's a great idea. Hahahaha, you do know that wrestling is scripted right? I don't even know how to respond to that.

Jericho is a midget. It makes him look bigger muscle wise, the long trunks made him look skinnier and hid the size of his legs. It was an unexpected change but I thought he looked fine, it didn't seem to affect his work, and it goes hand in hand with his storyline. Um, Punk ISN'T ready to main event a SummerSlam, not the way they've treated him as champion thus far. He doesn't have a single clean win over a "main event" level challenger yet. Even his win against JBL was the result of chaos outside of the ring. This is a chance to give him a clean showcase win over a former world champion who just pinned John Cena at the last PPV. I'm really failing to see any better choices at this point. Jericho? Involved in the feud of the year with Shawn Michaels and they're on the verge of building to the blowoff match. There's no reason for him to do a job to Punk right now and there's no reason to put the belt on him yet. So what would be the point of that match? They're going to use the Shawn Michaels announcement to build up to a match for the September PPV, and that's perfectly fine. Cena? Why? Cena isn't doing a job for Punk, so unless you want him to get the title it would be another Punk match with a bullshit finish. Kane? Kane fucking sucks. JBL > Kane in almost every way imaginable.

"lolz tag champs that don't get along! i made a funny! WOOOOOOO! I MISS RIC FLAIR!!" What? http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?...t&p=2728414 I have no idea what's going on right now and I'm not even going to start to read that thread It was a very good show I thought. And Freddie Prinze Jr. Etc.

"lolz tag champs that don't get along! i made a funny! WOOOOOOO! I MISS RIC FLAIR!!" What?

Noble v Regal matches could be great if this is their way of 'humbling' Regal

Freddie Prinze Jr must have booked this show

I'm probably done trading at this point. My teams biggest weakness has been driving in runs and the long ball, Griffey and Wells give me some much needed outfield depth and hopefully some decent run production. Statistically and head to head wise I have one of if not the best pitching staff in the league, knock on wood, and I'm in good shape as long as I can go .500 or pull some ties on offense in a given week. I'm also pleased with a couple of FA pickups I made last week, grabbing Brandon Inge to platoon with Kurt Suzuki at catcher, and picking up Matt Capps to fill a DL spot. Suzuki has been serviceable, mostly just helping my weekly OBP tossing in a couple of runs and rbis and not killing me anywhere else, but Inge playing every day has a chance to be a nice upgrade with his power potential. Rivera has singlehandedly won me the save category many weeks, and Isringhausen got his job back so I should be ok as long as he doesn't completely lose his shit again, I don't even care if he gives up some runs and has a high whip as long as he gets saves, my starters generally carry me in the percentages anyway. Capps is good insurance if he comes back down the stretch though. Looking at potential keepers, it's possible I might go 90-100% pitching. Webb, Joba, Garza and Floyd are locks at this point. Rivera is close to it. I don't have a single sure thing on the hitting side. Chipper, Giambi and Damon were picked with one and done intention, Pena has been a disapointment, I'd like to keep Cano, but his first half slumps and high price might turn me off unless he goes absolutely bonkers the rest of the way. My Hawaiian duo of Victorino and Suzuki look like the best bets right now, and neither one blows me away.

Man, if that's true Houston just got scary good on paper. Battier AND Artest to guard opposing wingmen, and they picked up Brent Barry to come off the bench and be Brent Barry. If Deke comes back they're like two deep at every position.

I don't know, personally I think people are sleeping on Jersey. I really like Sean Williams and Josh Boone as far as young bigs go, and Brook Lopez could be something special. With those 3, plus Yi and Eddie Najera, do they really need Nenad Kristic? Kristic gave them nothing last year anyway, and even at his best he was almost exclusively a face up big man. This is a rebuilding year for them, for sure, and a lot depends on which Vince Carter shows up and if Harris can stay healthy, but there's some really good young talent on this team, especially at the bigs, and some solid veteran role players like Najera, Dooling, Jarvis Hayes and Bobby Simmons. Rod Thorn is one of the better GMs in the league IMO, they could be a a playoff team if everything breaks right, and I wouldn't be terribly surprised if they're better than the Knicks, again. Speaking of the Knicks, they traded Renaldo Balkman to Denver for Tureen Green, Bobby Jones and a 2010 2nd rounder. Hrm.

I felt bad for Uggla, and it was pretty brutal that Buck started telling a story about how it was his father's greatest wish to see him play at Yankee Stadium in the midst of his epic failing, but at a certain point I stopped feeling bad for the guy and started getting pissed off. It was "The Story of Uggla" (I know that at least Czech will get that one)

Ripper is emphatic about Camby being a shitty defender, and it's just not true. Eddy Curry is a shitty defender. Camby has long, disruptive arms and is a GREAT weakside/help shot blocker. He's stronger than he looks, but he's not strong enough to be a great low post defender. He's got good timing and some burst making plays on the ball, but he's not laterally quick enough to be a great rotational defender. But he is a great shotblocker with long arms and a great instinct for the ball, and that alone makes him a positive contributer on the defensive end. And he's a great defensive rebounder. You don't think the fact that NOBODY played perimeter defense for the last couple years didn't expose Camby's weaknesses to the highest degrees possible? When you ask a guy to be the sole protector of the rim, the primary rebounder, account for the other team's best inside player AND make rotations to the outside when guys get lost on screens, of course he's going to get beat a lot, it's too much to ask of all but a few players. Camby should be planted underneath to challenge at the rim and grab boards, he shouldn't be asked to do much of anything else, and whether it was personnel or the fact that Karl hasn't managed to put together a good team defense in a dozen years, don't put all that on Camby. And for a second round pick? What a ridiculous deal for LA. Even if you have questions about how well him and Kaman will be together, which I do, that's a steal of a trade. Denver should seriously consider giving up and rebuilding immediately, I can't foresee them being a contender before Iverson is over the hill, might as well trade him before he loses his shit, and trade Anthony before he has another thuggish incident (underground gangster rap video, marijuana, on court fight, DUI....we're probably looking at a gun charge, stat rape/infidelity or the first NBA steroid bust next) and the Nuggets fans turn on him.

The Chevy post game show?!? Are you fucking kidding me?!? They should just euthanize King George out by Monument Park and call it a night. aaaaaaaaaaaand nevermind, the Albany Fox Station isn't even bothering with the post game, they went straight to the pre-taped "10 o'clock" News. Who got MVP?

Wow. Thank fucking god we actually got a winner.

He's getting ready for the afterparty.

Ludwick, you cocksucker! It would be fitting for Navarro to win this though. If Kazmir doesn't want to pitch anymore Francona should have to take the mound.

You know, I'm enjoying this, but I do feel bad for the fans at the stadium who were drinking their $8.50 Budweisers and got cut off 7 innings ago. What a buzz kill. If I wasn't drinking or had started and then been forced to stop I probably wouldn't be enjoying this game as much. And this whole ending the game in a tie bullshit sucks just like it sucked 6 years go. Fuck that. I want the AL to win but if they run out of pitchers first they should have to forfeit. Or we should have reserve pitchers in the wings waiting for a situation like this. We had this same fucking problem and debate 6 years ago, WTF Bud!