Cheech Tremendous

That needs to be someone's user name.

It's simple, really. The board doesn't do anything to ingratiate itself to new members, and most of the older members have moved on to other things in life. As has been stated elsewhere before, TSM still positions itself as a wrestling message board, but very few of the established members really follow wrestling. There is no identity. The ones who still come do so out of habit, and eventually they too will find a day when TSM no longer offers enough to make it part of their daily viewing habit.

I am trying to stay optimistic about the rest of the series, but it's tough. On one hand, I have the recent memory of the Red Sox coming back from 3-0 and 3-1, but on the other I see a team that is hurting (physically) and struggling to find an identity. The Rays have had the superior pitching, hitting and defense and the game outcomes have reflected as much. The main difference this year is that even if the Sox were firing on all cylinders (and they aren't) I'm not positive that they are the better team. All that being said, the Rays are treading in dangerous water by switching to Kazmir in game five. A team in control of a series should not be making the adjustments. Put the team away when you have a chance. If the Sox come out and win game five, the entire outlook of the series changes with Beckett and Lester on the mound for the final two. The Sox won't be as bad as they were the last three and the Rays should know that.

I smell a TSMeme.

Wakefield experiment? Man, the Sox have looked just awful the past two days. I don't think that I can sit here and watch this.

Francona is shaking things up for tonight's game. Ellsbury to the bench for Crisp and Drew moved up the leadoff spot.

A one-year contract to carry the gatorade cooler around right? Because it couldn't be as a running back. Terms were not disclosed. It'd be hard to carry anything with that monstrous fork sticking out of his back.

Betts is out for the next three weeks with an injury. Shaun will fill in for him while he's out.

What the hell does Ringo have to do? Guy hasn't done anything remotely important in close to 40 years.

Just read on espn.com that the Redskins signed former MVP Shaun Alexander to a one-year contract.

I guess I was expecting something different. I wanted Olney to discuss the factors that lead to the team's downfall. Instead it was all Steinbrenner's great, I love Paul O'Neil more than my own wife, Torre is a God, Jeter is Jesus and so on. Olney's thesis appeared to be that the team was so great that they collapsed under the weight of their own greatness, or some such bullshit. It was horrible.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon working my way through Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond. The theories put forth in this book are just fascinating, but I wonder how they hold up to intense academic scrutiny (and from checking the internets, not that well). Oh well, it's still a fun read. Can't wait to finish it. As the warm air fades into the chilly and rainy winter, I'll start getting back into my reading. Blood Meridian and Confederacy of Dunces are both waiting to be tackled next. I just finished reading Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty as well. I thought this was supposed to be some important work discussing the construction and maintenance of a winning club. Instead it was just 300 pages of Yankee ballwashing.

Salem isn't a part of the Portland metro area, but as far as sports allegiances are concerned it might as well be. I'll even take that one step further and say that the Mariners and Seahawks are very much the "local" teams for people in the Salem, Eugene, and Bend areas. Sure, the physical distances are large, but all of those cities definitely fall within the sphere of influence of those mentioned. That's why we get local feeds for their games and beat writers covering them for our newspapers. Also, I grew up outside of LA, with family residing in both Anaheim and LA proper. I never found there to be any distinction between the two areas, real or imagined. The Dodgers and Angels were both LA teams, even before the weird LA of Anaheim nonsense.

BJ Upton played most of this season with a torn labrum in his shoulder. This injury was responsible for sapping all of his power. He'll have to have surgery in the offseason. That doesn't really explain why he's hitting it deep now, but the truth is this guy has 30+ HR power when healthy.

It's not a professional team, but I can't believe we've gone two pages without a single mention of the UC-Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. The Banana Slugs! Talk about instilling fear in the hearts of men.

You're right. It's probably better that I'm not watching it. Saturday night was the heart attack game. Today looks like the break everything in sight and bemoan the construction of the team game. It's remarkable how level-headed I am towards sports for 95% of the season, only to completely losing my rational thinking capability at times like this.

People get Columbus Day off?

7ET start times. Even with a three or four hour game, most east coasters should be able to stay up. West coasters will miss the first hour or so, but it seems like a fair compromise to me.

The only professional sports team within a 150-mile radius is the Portland Trail Blazers, so I guess they win by default. If we expand this to include college sports, then it's Oregon Ducks football and it's not particularly close. Technically we also have the Portland Beavers and Salem Volcanoes, but no one really pays attention to them. Minor league baseball is barely a blip on the radar in this area.

It really bothers me that they are playing this game in the middle of the day. I hope that someday MLB figures out how to schedule games so that both coasts can watch.

We should have a TSM Roast Thread. Could be fun.

They are? What can't you comprehend?

I feel like an idiot, because I don't get it. When you hear Owen and Twin Towers, you would expect some joke about falling to their respective deaths. The joke here is that they are referencing the Twins Towers tag team, who debuted alongside Owen in the WWF in 1988.

Even before I moved to the area I thought that Portland had one of the best team names in all of professional sports. It has regional significance and sounds cool. It's what every team should strive for when picking a nickname.

Well, at least something positive came out of Hall's appearance.