strummer

wow, the Cubs are KILLING the D-Backs 14-3

Do Tony Gwynn and Sutcliffe ever say anything negative? "The Diamondbacks will be a force" Umm, they lost 111 games last year. The Cubs are the obvious force in this game and all they are talking about is the "new" Diamondbacks. And as I type this they are verbally blowing Jeff Moorad. I shouldn't be shocked, I mean it is ESPN

it's official, the Reds NEVER lose in April Bad loss for the Mets, but Pedro pitched great and Beltran was awesome, so it wasn't a killer. Bullpen needs serious help

Pedro Martinez has struck out 7 Reds in a row

Carlos Beltran hits his first homerun as a Met, 3-3 game in Cincy

Yes, and you need a hell of a lot of people to make the game interesting. Myself, my brother, our friends and basically all the neighborhood kids once played a pick up football game on our street, it was awesome. But when not everybody was around, and we played like 2 on 2 or 3 on 3, it was just brutal. We played wiffle ball on our street, but it didn't have the feel of a game. Baseball is very hard to play on pavement and playing 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 just isn't as fun as having a full team Basketball was BY FAR the easiest to play, one on one GREAT, 2 on 2, 3 on 3, it was much easier and had the feel of a real game. All we needed was a ball and a hoop in the front yard, and we didn't need the entire neighborhood to play to make it interesting. People play basketball more because it is more accessible, not because it is more popular than the other major sports

Basketball is the easiest game in the world to play recreationally, all you need is a ball and a hoop, in the other major 3 sports you need a lot of equipment, more players, fields, and in-door stadiums. I've never heard anyone say "Let's play a game of pickup baseball" People play basketball more because it is more accessible, not necessarily because they like it the best

notes from Scherer: In addition to the information sent out earlier today by WWE in their press release, there are some other tidbits about their new deal with NBC Universal that were included with the filing that WWE turned in to the Securities and Exchange Commission. - Raw begins airing in October on USA, Telemundo and possibly on Mun2. - In addition to the two 90 minute specials on NBC, there will be at least one yearly, one hour special on the USA Network. - WWE will receive rights fees for their programming. USA will sell all of the advertising and keep the revenue from the sales. WWE will no longer sell the advertising. - WWE expects revenues of about $37 million from advertising sales for the fiscal year that end on 4/30. Of that, they will net around $13 million. That will be gone on the new deal. - NBC Universal has committed at least $8 million to a multi-platform ad campaign to promote the launch of the programs on USA. - WWE will remain on Spike through the end of September, then start on USA.

Mets put Chris Benson on the DL with a torn pec muscle, just great, welcome back Aaron Heilman!!

Due to the Time Warner/Cablevision turmoil and ESPN local blackouts, I will be unable to watch the Mets opener in Cincinnati. This royally sucks. It's back to the 1950s as I will have to listen to the game on the radio (and I probably will have to the whole season as there is no end in sight to the Time Warner/Cablevision fiasco). I'm still psyched for the start of the season though.

Thumbs up for me. I really liked HBK/Angle. The story of the match for me was that Angle was focused with an actual gameplan and was going to bust out everything in his arsenal to beat HBK if need be. Angle became frustrated when his initial gameplan didn't work and he had to alter it mid match. I thought it was a nice touch for Kurt to bust out the Anglesault, showing he needed to dig deep in his bag of weapons to find a move that might beat Shawn. Simple, yet effective storytelling. Kurt played his role to perfection, screaming and swearing in HBK's face after he wouldn't tap out, really getting over the intensity of the match. IMO, Kurt outworked Shawn and showed he might be a better storyteller in the ring. Shawn's low blow didn't fit the role he was playing, and him playing subtle heel messed with the overall story of the match. Shawn's best moments were his selling of the ankle lock in the closing minutes, very dramatic and believable. There was more depth to the story of this match that I thought there would be. The only negative was Shawn for some reason playing a subtle heel when he should have been playing the heroic face. Great peformance by Angle, and hopefully he plays this "badass" heel in the ring more often. Rey/Eddy was disappointing. Eddy looked depressed for some reason and seemed to be moving very slow. It looks as if Rey is in line for a big push. Eddy was not as over as I thought he would be, especially in a West Coast market. Seemed like more of an exhibition than an actaully wrestling match, both guys were just getting their spots in. No one playing a heel in the match really hurt the storytelling IMO. Solid match that lacked a real story Bradshaw is an underrated worker. He carried Cena in their match. JBL might not do much in terms of moveset, but the moves he does look believable and are done very crisply. I also think his selling has improved dramatically in the past year. Cena needs to work like he did in his feuds with Undertaker and Benoit, where he sold like crazy and timed his comebacks perfectly. His comebacks in this match seem forced and were not believable. JBL was the star of this match. I really liked the six way ladder match. Benoit was just awesome here, with the most realistic selling I've ever seen in a spotfest ladder match. Benjamin showed tremendous athleticism and got more over in the match even though he didn't win. Christian was in the match to do what he does best,take bumps, and he did that quite effectively. Kane didn't do much, but didn't squash the little guys like I thought he would. Edge didn't do anything out of the ordinary and it was obvious that they were protecting him from taking any real big bumps. It did fit his character to sort of swarm in at the last second and steal the victory. Jericho was solid, but should have played more of a dominating role, since the match was his idea in storyline. No outrageous bumps, but the ones they did looked devastating in their own right. HHH/Batista was better than I thought it would be. H got too much offense, but Batista's comeback was great stuff. It's no coicidence that the crowd was silent while batista was selling and on fire while he was on offense. Good bladejob by H and he did show ass towards the end of the match, but should have been from the start of the match. Liked this match mainly for Batista's awesome comeback, where he played the monster role to perfection. Undertaker/Orton continued Taker's streak while still getting Orton over. This match did more to get Orton over than any one thing in the HHH feud. Both worked hard and Undertaker still can lead people in the ring when need be. The spot of the night was the RKO out of the chokeslam. Plus I marked for Ace's cast shot! Good match. 2 great matches, a solid opener, one solid World Title match and great peformances by JBL and Undertaker make this a thumbs up for me, although I wouldn't say it was worth 50 DAMN dollars. Good show.

NBA national TV ratings have been on the decline the last couple of years while baseball's numbers have been climbing. How anyone could argue that today's NBA game with isolations, zone defense, slowed down half court offenses and 87-82 scores is more exciting than baseball is beyond me, but to each their own. At one time I was a big NBA fan, but the game is just not as exciting as it once was IMO. Or it could be that the Knicks really suck now and I have no reason to watch And let's not forget the NBA almost folded in the mid to late 70s because of drug scandals and just the general unpopularity of the game. It got so bad that the NBA Finals were shown on tape delay The day the World Series is shown on tape delay is the day I admit basketball is more popular than baseball. But again in the end, to each his own.

last year's DVD had Slaughter and Patterson doing commentary on their MSG "Boot Camp" match. As I said earlier, I can't wait for the extras on this year's HOF DVD, for anyone who was a fan of 80s WWF this will be a must buy

that was great, hopefully the DVD is out by June or July. I can't wait to see the extras. Last year's HOF DVD was great, but I expect this one to be better

Val Venis and Godfather as "Supply and Demand"

HTQ, when did Meltzer go from "Public enemy # 1" to "Ok, let's deal with this guy" in the WWF. Trying to figure out Meltzer's code is tough, but it seemed like he and the company had real big problems in the 80s, but like I said they sort of died off in about 94 or so. Any idea what happened?

I'm pretty sure it was probably either about steroids or the sex scandals, not sure though. Meltzer has stated that he was public enemy # 1 for the WWF in the 80s. Dave hated the direction wrestling was going (well the way the WWF was going) with the cartoonish booking and big muscleheads on top, but he sort of mellowed out by the early/mid 90s. The Observers that I've seen from the early/mid 80s are VERY anti-WWF and I can see why the company had a problem with him

Always wondered about this, why were there so many squash matches at WM 2? I had just started watching wrestling casually in 1986, so I didn't know what feuds that were really being built up in that time frame. There just didn't seem to be any long term programs going on at that time.

Al, you would have loved Mike and the Mad Dog today, during their season predictions, Chris Russo predicted the Dodgers to win less than 80 games because they have no "team chemistry" and have "bad karma" But of course he predicted the Giants to win 95+ because they have players with more "intangibles"

seeing Jimmy on Leno last night, it didn't seem like he knew that much about baseball at all, doesn't seem like anything more than a casual fan. I've never heard he liked wrestling though. The only celeb that I know for certain is REALLY into wrestling is Andy Richter, he even subscribes to the sheets. Wonder how many celebs are closet fans of wrestling?

I'm still in shock over Mitch Hedberg dying, I haven't felt like this since the day Owen died. The first celebrity death that truly got to me was Farley's. It feels weird to be this depressed over someone I never knew or met, so has anyone else just been devastated by certain celebrity deaths? RIP Mitch, you'll never be forgotten RIP Owen, you'll never be forgotten RIP Farley, you'll never be forgotten

I actually think Jimmy is an underrated comedian. When he is focused and has material to work with, he does just fine, and he's naturally funny, something the roster on SNL these days lacks considerably. I'm going to try and see this next week.

from Meltzer: --There will be a 30 man Battle Royal, with 15 wrestlers from Raw and 15 from Smackdown, added to Sunday's Wrestlemania show. I don't know if it's fully decided, but the working idea as of this morning was for this match to be on Heat and not Wrestlemania.

I bought this for maybe .5 seconds before I realized it was April Fools

That would be George Scott. As well as being as smart as the people around him let him be, because people are always trying to talk Vince in and out of things, he's also, nepotism aside, usually astute enough to know when someone has started to slip. Scott's importance to the 80s WWF product cannot go overlooked, Vince adopted a lot of his booking philosophies, especially the credo that "Only main events matter, you just fill in the undercard" Once Scott left, and Patterson got his job, you could see the transition to almost a completely cartoonish product.