Cheech Tremendous

I think the match listing was accurate. It's a two-disc set with a bio and a handful of matches.

No one gives WM XIII a free pass. That's considered one of the worst Wrestlemanias of all time that is only remembered because it had one of the historically great matches/moments of all time. If you want to talk about overrated WMs, I nominate X and XII. Wrestlemania X had two good matches and nothing else really (although I love the Bret title win). It was a fun show overall and I still like it, but it's not one of the best of all time. WM XII had a boring main event that took up half a show and was completely forgettable otherwise.

That always happens with the Observer stuff. Something like "Arn thought Punk should slow down" becomes "Arn is burying Punk." It's like a crazy game of telephone with the way Meltz' stuff gets interpreted by the net.

The Cleveland Indians are a baseball team.

You do realize that this is the backbone of the entire argument against having a proven closer, right? Not quite. There are really two different arguments at work. The need for a proven closer, and how you use that closer. James never argued that a team did not need a closer. He argued that closers were not used in an optimal fashion. The crux of James' arguments was that closers were better utilized in tie and one-run games than in leads of three runs or less. I totally understand this and I guess my argument was lost in the minutia of the thread. It stems back to the Papelbon comment that started the argument. If Paps was healthy and kept in a traditional "closer" role it would be a grave misuse of his talents. If they wanted to use him in the more flexible "relief ace" fashion, pitching two or three innings when needed to put out fires, I could live with that. The problem is no manager has the balls to get away from the current trend of save situations. The whole 2003 fiasco, which is now incorrectly remembered as the "closer by committee" was Theo's attempt to use the best relievers in the highest leveraged situations. Grady Little was not quite smart enough, or forward thinking enough to apply that philosophy properly. Now, as I was saying, if the closer is going to be a ninth inning, three runs or less pitcher, there is no need to go get a proven one. Mike Timlin could handle that role. There's no need to spend ten million a year for a guy, or trade three elite prospects for a middle of the road talent like Chad Cordero. Relief pitchers are a volatile bunch. I like that they'd rather make one out of the options they have. Mariano Rivera, Joe Nathan and Billy Wagner are a freak bunch and it would be a misuse of resources to try and hunt down someone on that level.

I'll get over the loss, as long as the '46 Sox beat the piss out of the '98 Yanks.

14-2 on the day. Better than I thought I would do.

You do realize that this is the backbone of the entire argument against having a proven closer, right?

I don't think the closer role is undervalued at all by statheads. In fact, it is probably more undervalued by actual baseball managers. A relief ace is possibly the most important member of the pitching staff, provided they work in situations where their skills are needed. The problem is most guys get defined as "closers" pitching one inning in save situations instead of the true high leverage situations. That's a terrible use of a good pitcher. Boston supposedly had closer problems in 2003 and 2005 and they still made the playoffs. Last year we had the best closer in the game and didn't sniff the playoffs. Detroit got by with Todd f'n Jones as their closer. St. Louis won a World Series with a late season stop-gap rookie. Not every team has a Rivera or Nathan. Bullpens are a crapshoot. I'd rather get a good, long career out of Papelbon than blow out his arm tyring to get saves.

Except for the company line is that he can't close because of a degenerative shoulder condition that prevents him from working on short rest. As of today, he is not even being considered as an option to close. Besides, if he's a quality starter he's more valuable pitching 200 innings a year than 60 out of the bullpen, especially when used in a rigid pattern (i.e. as a closer).

Scott Keith is still trying to claim that Butch Reed was booked to win the IC title in his newest WMIII rant, years after that myth was totally debunked. What's the point of even trying to keep up the facade anymore?

I've missed two games already today, which is about the worst I've done on the first day in quite a few years.

It's like a mother having to pick her favorite child.

Interesting if true. I wonder what the Raiders are getting in return. Does this mean they look at Calvin Johnson with the no. 1 pick?

Already posted. You're a day late.

The NBA, who is ridiculously over-the-top at protecting their stars at any and all costs is out to get Kobe Bryant, who happens to be one of their biggest and most marketable stare. That one doesn't make a lot of sense to me. The whole thing is simple: stop elbowing people in the face!

There is no way they cut even one of these shows. The PPVs still turn a profit. There is no way they are going to cut off a revenue stream in favor of giving more time to build a show. If anything, they're likely to add shows in the coming years to offset losses they might experience in other avenues of the company. As long as those shows make even a $1 of profit, there is incentive to keep doing them.

No more OTs. This is taking too much out of me.

It's possible. Dirk seems to have most of the support right now, and he wouldn't be a bad choice, but it only takes about ten seconds of a Suns game to see how incredible Nash is. That team would die without him at the point.

Did Steve Nash just win himself another MVP?

I'm not Ripper, but I'm sure he's getting tired of this argument, so I'll give this one a go. 1. They had the best record in the western conference and made the conference finals each of the past two seasons. This year's teams is even better, but unfortunately still trails Dallas by a couple of games. That qualifies them as a championship level team. With a couple of breaks they could have had a championship by now. 2. As I pointed out earlier, they are near the top of the league in defensive efficiency. Defensive efficiency measures how many points you allow per 100 possessions. That's how you measure defensive ability, not by rebounding (which is inversely related to your team's field goal percentage). You are far too caught up with the talking heads version of the Suns.

That would be a terrible idea.

By defensive effeciency, the Suns have been on the cusp of being a top 5 defense all year long. I don't really see anything in their perfomance that indicates they are a bad defensive team. Nash isn't the greatest defender in the world at the point, but the defense hardly crumbles around him. What makes you say they are bad defensively?

That's a perfectly acceptable contract in this age. Its acceptable but I still think its borderline too much. Hes barely maybe a top 10 2b. Hes good defensively and he can steal bases. The power in his bat in 2005 was an anomally.. Looking at VORP, Brian Roberts was the best overall 2B in 2005, and was 6th last year, but was only a run worse than Dan Uggla and Jeff Kent, both of whom are looking at regressions in the near future. The only 2B I would definitely place ahead of him is Chase Utley, and maybe Robinson Cano if I'm feeling generous. Name me ten 2Bs that are better.

The Suns to me are telling of the NBA's current state. The Suns now are the Denver Nuggets in the '80s, the difference being the league was too good to let a team like Denver be more than first or second round playoff fonder back then. Those Nuggets team were all run and gun, with no semblance of defense or half court set offense. They aren't really comparable in any sense other than they score a lot of points. By the way, those Nuggets teams made the playoffs every year from 1982 to 1990 and had appeared in the conference finals once and the semis three other times. They weren't exactly chumps in what was a pretty tough conference.