Cheech Tremendous

I agree. In hindsight it looks like some guys could have used the rub by beating Hogan for the belt (Piper, Orndorff, Hennig, Dibiase), but part of the Hogan mystique was that he was unbeatable. Being champ for four years was part of what made him so special. I'm not sure flipping the belt between him and Piper would have been good for either character or the credibility of the title.

Why is it dumb? Jones deserves to be suspended for a year.

I think you're off on your analysis. Payton had at least ten years where he was above 16 and 6. The majority of those years he was around 20 and 9. Not only were those good enough numbers to be an All-Star, he was All-NBA NINE times during that run. That's unheard of for a point guard. It's really only been the the last two to three years where Payton has fallen off. Those have added to his counting totals, but the majority of work was done during his superb run during the nineties. KJ and Timmay were good players with similar numbers, but you are discounting the the biggest point in GP's favor: his defense. He was an absolute, lock down defender during the nineties. He was the best defensive guard in the league and was a total game changer. I was never a big fan of Payton's but I'm not going to deny that he was one of the best players of his era. There was a couple year run where he would have been considered the best player in the league had MJ not been around. Like Malone, Ewing, Miller and Barkley, he missed out on his ring and glory by playing the same time as Jordan.

So I misspoke when I called him the Jim Brown of TSM. He's actually the Roger Clemens of TSM.

It shouldn't take him very long to win that job from Jake Delhomme. Smart move there by Carr.

Eaton did win the DPOY of the year award twice, but that's about where the comparisons end with Mutombo. Mutombo was a better defender for longer, was far superior as a rebounder and had a better offensive game around the basket. Eaton went to one All-Star game, whereas Dikembe went to eight, in addition to multiple appearances on the All-NBA team. Dikembe is something of a one-trick pony, but not to the degree that Eaton was. He's also been extremely durable, which is a rarity for men with his size and style of play.

So I understand that it is a minscule sample size, but the Red Sox bullpen has looked excellent through the first 3 games of the year (2 runs on 5 hits through 10 innings of work). Granted it's just Kansas City, but I'm trying to find any glimmer of hope in a bullpen that looked like it would be the drizzling shits coming into the year. Relief pitching may very well be the difference between a division title and a disappointing finish. I got caught up at work today and didn't see of the game, but it looks and sounds like Matsuzaka had a dominating performance. Scouting reports seem to indicate that his stuff wasn't that good (91-92 MPH fastball), but the location and pitch selection was excellent. It looks like his ability is in confusing the batter rather than blowing by him. It will be interesting to see how the league responds to him as they become more familiar with his approach.

Super gritty gamer Johnny Damon is injured already and no-heart, sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber JD "Pussy" Drew is not. Feel free to make your own jokes.

Not that it's a big surprise, but Noah, Horford, Green and Brewer are all turning pro and will sign with agents.

I find it really amusing when these so-called powerhouse programs, be it football or basketball, get left with egg on their face when trying to poach talented coaches away from other programs. Nobody is entitled to anything anymore. It's so arrogant of them to think that everyone wants to come to their program and that anything less than multiple championships is a failure.

Baseball-reference.com keeping up to date stats throughout the year is maybe the most awesome thing ever. Nothing like seeing that Dustin Pedroia has an OPS+ of 270 through one game. I also will try not to misuse this tool in arguments throughout the season. Okay, so I probably will, but I'll try to try not using it.

Riiight. By the way, I am so happy that Extra Innings is going to be on cable this year. Hopefully they have it running by this afternoon so I can watch Matsuzaka pitch. John Kerry finally did something right, I guess.

In regards to Mania IX, you'll never convince me that it was a bad decision to do the Hogan title switch at the end. I know in hindsight it didn't really work out the way they wanted it to, but that was one of the most creative, interesting ends to a PPV ever. There was no way to know going in that Hogan would disappear after the show and the entire storyline would flame out. From 1985 to 1991 the WWF was making money hand over fist. The year Hogan leaves (1992) becomes their first year of financial mediocrity. If I'm Vince, I put the belt back on Hogan every time.

Egg-sactly.

This referenced quote is something I read in humanoid92's post in the Old School Questions Thread. In it, he described how wrestling fans have just come to accept certain opinions about wrestling's past as fact, even though we might not necessarily agree with it. I started watching wrestling in the mid-80s and didn't get the internet until 1999. Since then, I've noticed that a lot of opinions I had about the era I grew up with changed with the popular sentiment on internet sites. Please use this thread to give examples of opinions that you had that have slowly eroded over time. For example, I thought Chris Benoit and Eddy Guerrero were extremely bland, undersized wrestlers in WCW. I didn't think they offered much and would usually change to something else when they came on because they never gave compelling interviews and their matches lacked interesting spots. By 2004, I was practically screaming for these underappreciated superstars to get world title regins. Other examples?

He's been to a World Series and came within a couple outs of winning the whole thing. The Dodgers haven't won a playoff game in 20 years.

I'm not so sure about that. The Dodgers have been looking up at the Giants in the standings for 90% of Barry's time there.

Seems like it has. I don't watch MTV or listen pop radio, but I've heard this song countless times. All you have to do is leave the house or turn on a tv to be exposed it.

Between Morrow and Wells, we could develop an All-Diabetic Pitching Staff. Just kidding Al, but this Morrow kid has electric stuff. I bet he's the closer in Seattle before the year's over. Fantastic as he was last year, I'm not sure I buy into the JJ Putz hype.

It's near impossible to predict what teams will be good in 4-5 years because so much can change. It all depends on what moves they make in free agency, who they acquire in the draft, who matures and who gets injured. You can't extrapolate future performance based on the quality and age of the players they currently have. You know who will probably be the best teams? San Antonio, Dallas, Phoenix, New Jersey, Indiana, Detroit, etc. These teams are run well from top to bottom with good decision makers in important positions. They are more likely to develop and maintain good squads than some young, upstart team that has a GM that doesn't know it's ass from a hole in the ground (New York, Boston, Atlanta, LA Clippers, Golden State).

What do you know, Steve Phillips thinks it's a good idea for the Twins to go with Ponson and Ortiz in the rotation instead of the better, younger pitchers because of their veteran experience. How did this man every fail at being a GM?

What kind of hole do you guys live in?

They'll be fine. They can have David Eckstein pitch in his place. He's just gritty and scrappy enough to make it work.

But at 6'1" and 235 lbs. he's going to have to be amazing on the mic and in the ring. That's really small to try to cut in WWE.

From that one pic he looks really indy. Hopefully that doesn't hold him back, but I have my reservations.