Cheech Tremendous

I'm surprised that you are wasting your time posting on an internet wrestling message board instead of running a baseball team. You should not waste such genius.

The spring of 1997 to the summer of 1998 was the absolute apex of writing/booking in a major promotion of the past twenty years. For about 18 months, the company shot amazing angles, developed great characters and feuds and put on a compelling product that changed the landscape of the industry. It became cool to hate on Russo by late 1999, but the stuff he was doing at first was innovative and immensely entertaining. The development of the Austin character has as much to do with the writing from that period as it does with the man himself.

Lost in all the frenzy regarding Boston's recent slumps, and whether or not Theo or Tito should be worried, is the security of the pitching coach(es). If you look at the performance of the staff the past two years, not only has it been wretched, but nearly every one of their acquired pitchers has been far worse in Boston than they have been anywhere else in their careers. At some point, you have to look past the scouting department and usage patterns and figure out why the same trends are creeping up every pitcher (Beckett, Clement, Tavarez, Seanez, etc.). Even their rookies (except Papelbon) have had peripheral numbers far different than those posted in the minors. Someone somewhere needs to explain what's happening to these pitchers when they get to Boston.

Ummm who won? Not the fans.

It's the NL. Jason Johnson could probably be an all-star.

Jason Johnson was DFA'd by the Sox following another splendid performance this morning in Game 1. Keith Foulke was reactivated (I sure hope he's got something left in the tank, but I'm not holding my breath).

He's still shredded, just not to the obscenely large nature that he was. It'll probably save his life some day, even if it causes him to lose his job. He's young though, so he has time to recover and make something of his career.

Hopefully the Sox are just getting this shit out of their systems and they will pick it up the rest of the weekend. They should get some retribution on Ponson tonight, at the very least.

Why is that, Al?

Yeah, that's the first thing I saw too. He's a fucking movie star! I wouldn't be caught dead in a Saturn.

Surprised you need a log-in. It works for me. The article is basically 3 pages of scout ass-kissing. Not that I have anything against scouts, but Plaschke takes every chance he can get to rip the DePo era and tout the old school. They make Ethier sound like some low A-Ball nobody that some old scout discovered. He was hardly a can't miss ROTY, but he was the A's Minor League Player of the Year in 2005. Any person with a pulse on the minors probably knew his name.

I miss the days when a topic like this would be ripped to shreds and the noob poster would crack under the weight of the insults being hurled at him. What has this board come to?

http://www.latimes.com/sports/baseball/mlb...1&cset=true Holy shit, Bill Plaschke, are you f'n serious? You do realize that Ethier was arguably the best OF prospect in the entire A's system, right? In fact, a lot of people slammed that trade when it happened because the A's were giving up too much for Milton Bradley. I doubt you snuck him away in the night because some old balls scout thought he was good.

Getting off the roids tends to do that to you.

Wow, the new Cardinals stadium in Glendale has to be the most phenomenal looking stadium in all of American sports. Its spectacular.

Just found out that the Blue Jays are paying Hinske's salary for the rest of this year and half of next year's as well. So Hinske is only going to cost about $2.5 million. That's a lot more palatable given the lack of bench depth at 1B, 3B and RF and the overabundance of right-handed hitters in the lineup. I change my vote from thumbs down to mild thumbs up.

Nothing like swapping your shit for someone else's shit. In all honesty, it sort of works for both teams. New York has the chance to get out from a few bad contracts and a player who can do a few things. Philly can take the Sacramento route and use the pieces acquired for other potential deals.

Perhaps he isn't a 4th outfielder. Perhaps he's Nixon's replacement for next season. They already have Nixon's replacement and his name is Wily Mo Pena. If they are even considering the thought of playing Hinske over Pena then I've lost all my faith in this current regime.

Hinske makes $6 mil next year. That's an awful lot to pay for lefty bench bat or 4th outfielder, especially in light of the Carlos Pena signing that took place literally two hours before Hinske trade was official. I certainly hope the FO office wasn't giving into the recent Boston uproar over not making any deadline deals. But I'll give the guy a chance. At least we can stop with this 13 pitchers crap by moving him to the main roster.

That was a decent list, except for the glaring omissions of the Geto Boys' debut and Aquemeni. Aquemeni is so superior to everything else in their catalogue, it's not even funny, and I like everything they have done.

In all honesty, yes, I would prefer to have Crisp to Damon. Everyone knows that Damon will be the superior player this year and next year, but I'd rather have a guy six years younger entering his prime than a quickly aging Damon. He makes about $10 million less per year, and will adequately hold things down until Ellsbury is ready to take over in '08. Coco has struggled this year with injuries, but should be a candidate to bounce back. It's all a moot point though, because the Sox never had a chance to sign Damon. He got his offer from the Yankees and never let the Sox try to counter or match. So you he can take his shitty biography, Queer Eye tape, girly arm and go suck off Jeter for the next four years. He's dead to me.

Is it just me, or have the Reds acquired roughly 50 bullpen arms this season. It seems like they make a trade every 3 or 4 days.

On the other hand, the Undertaker gimmick, at least on the surface, is a shitty gimmick. He was booked strongly, but was also a good talker and a great worker (at least for his size). He was a good prospect before he even came to WWF, so I'd give him an above average chance at succeeding in WCW. If nothing else, they could have called him the Gravedigger or something like that and just totally kept the gimmick intact.

The only thing Jeff Hardy is going to spark is his crack pipe.

Back in the 80s, McMahon used to hang out with Hulk Hogan a lot in social situations. You know doing coke, drinking beers, womanizing, etc. I know that he now spends a lot of time with Hunter these days, and thinks of him like a son. I can't think of any others off the top of my head that were his favorite on a personal level. As far as wrestlers he marked for, you can throw in Billy Graham and Andre.