vivalaultra

I'd imagine Eric Bruntlett gets the call from AAA; either that or Chris Burke plays out of position AGAIN and shares time with Loretta. Whichever option they go with, I'm not sure if what they gain on offense will make up for what they lose on defense. Eric Bruntlett would be the best option, I think. He's nearly as good as Everett at short and at least a bit better offensively. Or, Hell, maybe Gar will get his 12-man pitching staff back and just call Chan Ho Park up straight away.

Gee...someone's excited... Anyway, in Houston, the diagnosis on Adam Everett is a fractured right fibula. A broken leg. Too bad for him.

Yeah, but ya can't sit a guy with his own statue in front of the ballpark...although the Astros could literally rip the Biggio statue out of the ground, bat it leadoff and it would probably get on base at a higher clip than Bidge.

Baseball: Get rid of the fuckin' DH! I love David Ortiz, but if he's getting paid $10 million a season, he should play the field. I would say something like get rid of interleague play or stop with the 'this time...it COUNTS!' thing with the All-Star Game, but if you get rid of the DH, that would eliminate some of the disparity between divisions so it wouldn't be so slanted toward the AL all the time. I'm tempted to say something about setting a salary cap, but looking back over the last few years, the Oakland A's have gotten to the playoffs with a small payroll and other teams on the lower end of the payroll have been competitive (ie: the Marlins) while the Yankees and their $250 million dollar payroll have not won a WS despite their free-spending ways. I do think, perhaps, a minimum salary should be instituted which would force owners to spend more to make their teams more competitive.

Adam Everett just either twisted or broke his ankle after tripping over Carlos Lee in the outfield. He's getting carted off the field. It looked comprable to HHH ripping up his ACL after tripping over Chris Jericho a few years ago. I don't think it's THAT serious, but it still looked bad. It's too bad, too; If Everett doesn't have his legs, he's just a .220 hitter with no range. I hope it's not THAT bad and that Mark Loretta fills in admirably while he's out.

I think Dan Wheeler's just made himself expendable. After coming in in the 8th inning after Sampson pitched 7 innings, he gave up 3 ERs. After being pulled, Sampson went over to Wheeler in the dugout to tell him not to worry about it and Wheeler totally pushed Sampson like a little girl. That shit might fly in Chicago...but not here in Houston, pal.

It's funny that the Yankees had to go 'on a roll' to get back to .500 and get to 9.5 games of the division leading Sawx.

My favorite part of Mr. Wizard was how he obviously thought all of the ethnically diverse children that helped him with his experiments were complete morons. They would say something dumb or act like complete morons and you could totally tell he was waiting for the the scene to be over so he could smack the kid and go take a shot of whiskey. RIP Mr. Wizard. Neither Beakman nor Bill Nye could ever hold a candle to you and your wacky experimentations.

Mr. Wizard's dead? Say it ain't so!

I'm all for sending the entire Phelps clan to jail (or worse), but, legally speaking, is there really a case? Is it illegal to stand on an American flag as an act of protest (however twisted and ridiculous the protest might be)? I totally agree with the child endangerment charge; any parent that willfully places their child in such a hostile, potentially violent atmosphere deserves to be punished and not be around children anymore. I also agree with anybody that says that they're disturbing the peace, etc. However, that entire damn family is made up of lawyers and it seems like every time they do get charged with something, they find some way to get around the charges or some loophole to squeeze through. Is there anything that they can do short of murdering/attacking someone or embezzling millions of dollars that would get them locked up from the rest of the civilized world for the rest of their natural lives?

Didn't they hit like...5 in a row off of Hoffman last season? That was...who? Nomar, Drew, Kent, Betemit?

Fuckin' ridiculous. Lidge has like...a 0.72 ERA since the second week of May. He got his first save opportunity since Opening Day and he proceeded to give up a homerun to Mark Kotsay and then a ground-rule double to the next batter, Mark Ellis. There's got to be voodoo involved.

For my Yahoo! fantasy league gameday thing, after each game it gives the top performer for each team. For the Detroit/Milwaukee game it reads: Top Performers: Detriot-Brandon Inge 2-2, HR, 2RBI, 2R Milwaukee-Craig Counsell 0-4 I would've given it to Billy Hall. I mean, nobody had a hit, but at least Hall had 3 BBs.

I hope that I'm watching the Verlander no-hit bid on ESPN hasn't jinxed it. 8 1/3 innings...2 strikes to Graffanino...Strikeout. 12 Ks. JJ Hardy up next. Strike 1! Foul, strike 2! God, I hope he gets it... Foul...Hardy's tardy but stays alive. I really like Verlander... There's an Al Kaline sighting. High fly ball. He got it! Congrats, Justin Verlander for the first non-White Sox no-hitter this year!

He has 'at least' five children with four different women. And his wife recently got a restraining order against him after he tried to murdilate her. Was Dukes the one that threw the bat at the ump last year or was that Delmon Young? I get all these trouble-ridden D-Rays prospects mixed up sometimes.

So, Elijah Dukes got a 17-year old girl that was staying with him pregnant and, when she told him about it, he "threw a Gatorade" at her. Ah...gotta love the D-Rays prospects.

Not as bad as the Phils signing Joe Table, but the Astros have signed Chan Ho Park to a minor league contract. Uh-hmmm.....

That joint's hot, yo. Now do "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" with "Get Low".

And that was the best Woody's pitched all year, too.

Jose Mesa probably found out that the Phillies had a series coming up with the Giants and he paid them to get on the team so he could repeatedly throw at Omar Vizquel.

...is he gonna start? Or are they going to pull a reliever into the rotation?

I love the mental image of Darin Erstad flopping himself onto the outfield grass, the grass scowling up at him as if to say 'Hey, man! Take it easy!!' and Erstad bending down slightly to lovingly rub Grass, shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Hey...I'm just playing baseball."

I knew you were a closet Erstad fan. How can anybody not be an Erstad fan? He was a punter for the 'Huskers, don't ya know? Punter is the grittiest position in football, much like crappy centerfielder that runs into walls and flops around the outfield like the fish in that Faith No More video is the grittiest position in baseball.

I didn't see it, but I heard Clemens gave up 3 runs over 6 innings. I saw that he had thrown damn near 50 pitches through the first two innings. I can't wait till he goes up against the Sawx or the Tigers or some other AL team.

I can get you Guilty as Charged 2001..possibly. See my thread below for details.