Dogbert

Of course Gretzky is the best player to ever play the game, but I think that if it hadn't been for injuries, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr would have been considered greater. Had Lemieux played as many games as Gretzky did, at his current PPG and GPG, he'd have 2 845 points right now, and 1 142 goals; that's not even mentioning the seasons he played injured, when he could have had many more. Orr's stats using the same criteria shoot up to 2 070 points and 611 goals; again, those stats are skewed by his various injuries over the course of his career.

Link (yahoo.com Sports) Well, that's it. 35 years of Expos baseball is about to be for naught. Thanks, Claude Brochu and Jeffrey Loria, for trading all of our players away. Thanks, René Levesque, Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard, for driving the English Quebecers (and the baseball fans) out of the province. Thanks, Bud Selig, for making sure that baseball in Canada would have its last legs blown off time and time again. You all helped to kill a once-beloved franchise, and one that I've been a fan of for 13 years. A part of me has died with the Expos.

Actually, it's 78% as much now.

With Tampa not willing to spend the money and Baltimore heading down the crapper once Washington gets settled, I think that the only team that could challenge the Yanks and Sox in the near future would be Toronto. They've also got a strong nucleus of young players, except unlike Montreal, Tampa and others, they have an owner with deep pockets in Ted Rogers. He can pony up the cash to keep theese players around. No more Delgado couldn't hurt, either.

Ever notice that the Expos have looked a lot better without Everett than they did when he was on the team?

Well, there's the last home game. I watched it on The Score. I'm not ashamed to say I cried at the end, like a lot of the fans in the park did.

Don't forget the PQ government in Quebec. Ever since the resounding loss in the 1980 referendum on sovereignty, the Parti Québecois did everything in its power to drive the English-speaking Quebecers out of the province, so that the sovereignty-backing French-speakers would be the only ones left, and the province could separate. The thing is, the anglos were the ones supporting baseball, while the French ignored it (it's an English sport, you see). Once the large majority of the English-speakers were gone, baseball was doomed.

That seems a lot higher than when I was in the States this summer, and gas prices were around $1.40 per gallon. We pay a lot more up here anyways. If you do the math, you pay about 57 cents Canadian per litre at $2 a gallon, while we're paying 83 cents.

Well, I always bled red, white and blue as a Habs fan above all before this year. Then, the Flames' gutsy play and energy won me over from the Habs' lackadaisical efforts.

Did anyone else think that the ball deflected off of a hand? It certainly looked like it.

Maybe a season-long strike is just what the league needs. The teams with no money or fanbase would be gone then, leaving only the teams whose cities give a damn. Then, they could add teams in cities that want one, and things would be all hunky and dory again. So, of course that won't happen.

Is it official that your bullpen sucks when your second baseman fares better on the mound than your most experienced reliever? (I know they weren't trying against Menechino, but I'm positive that he'd still have done better than Ligtenberg, Chulk, Frasor, Speier or any of the stiffs the Jays have out there now.)

I believe I speak for all of us Jays fans when I say that Kerry Ligtenberg should be dropped from an airplane cruising at 30 000 feet. Even better: drop him onto the spiky part of the CN Tower, for shits and giggles.

Did the "My BUTT's hungry" comment remind anyone else of South Park?

Um... Noodles signed with Florida. He isn't with NYR anymore. And I love this trade from the Flames' perspective. It gives us room for Phaneuf to move into the lineup, and gets us a reliable centre to play on our 2nd line, maybe 1st if Rhino's still out. Losing Sappy hurts, but he had 6 years to develop into a scorer, and I guess we just ran out of patience.

Here in Calgary, we have a few radio stations that aren't half bad. 92.1 (CJAY FM) is the rock station that mainly plays stuff like the original post in this thread pointed out. They'll play a good song once in a while, but I don't listen to it much. 95.9 (LITE 96 FM) is your easy-listening station, playing stuff from the 50s all the way up to today. Their morning crew, "Don, Joanne and the Coach", is awesome, but I still don't listen to it much beyond that. 96.9 (JACK FM) plays 70s and 80s music. It's an alright station, and I give it a listen when I can. 98.5 (VIBE 98.5) used to be a rap/hip-hop/R&B station, but it's moulded into a top-40 station ever since they yanked PEAK 107.3, leaving Calgary with no top-40 radio station. I liked it fine that way, but the teenyboppers of the city didn't. What we got is this tripe. The only good thing about it was its frequent airing of parody songs extolling the virtues of the Flames during the playoffs. 100.9 (EAGLE 100.9) plays hits from the 50s to the early 90s. By and large, my fave in Calgary. It plays everything I like, and hardly anything I don't. 102.1 (CBC RadioOne) is a classical station. I like classical, but I don't listen often. 105.1 (Country 105) is country. Duh. I'm indifferent towards it. 107.3 (Q-107) is an album-oriented rock station that plays all the tracks on "classic" albums, instead of just the hits. It's good if you like all the songs, but most people only know the hits, so I don't think it'll last long. And that is the state of Calgary radio.

Holy McCrap, Benoit Gaudet got screwed against the Korean guy.

I think it was Demetrius Underwood, or something to that effect.

I guess if the Billy and Chuck thing worked, HHH had to go that route eventually. Wait... Never mind.

Expos: Pedro Martinez Javier Vazquez Vladimir Guerrero Orlando Cabrera Wil Cordero Larry Walker Marquis Grissom Ugueth Urbina Brad Fullmer Bartolo Colon Cliff Floyd Moises Alou Michael Barrett Carl Everett (yeah, right) Flames: Joe Nieuwendyk Al MacInnis Brett Hull Doug Gilmour (we all know he'll come back again) Rico Fata Martin St. Louis Cory Stillman Fred Brathwaite

I think he managed to blackball himself from the CFL as well... Yeah. When you manage to get yourself turfed from the 2003 Calgary Stampeders, a team that will stand as one of the most inept on the field and off in the history of the CFL, you know you've had it. Didn't he bail from the Montreal Alouettes as well? Like Teke said, karma's a bitch. Yeah, but Calgary... they had the GM's son play QB in front of Crandell, right? Last year, GM Fred Fateri signed owner Mike Feterik's son Kevin. He wasn't all that bad, but the Stamps refused to play for him; the O-line would visibly let the opposing D-line get to him. Still, he was a lot better than Marcus Crandell.

I think he managed to blackball himself from the CFL as well... Yeah. When you manage to get yourself turfed from the 2003 Calgary Stampeders, a team that will stand as one of the most inept on the field and off in the history of the CFL, you know you've had it.

Yours truly has just reached 500 posts at TSM. Only took me from early February in 2002 until now to do it. And you thought Choken was a post whore.

Toronto Blue Jays: 1) Kerry Ligtenberg, for reasons already touched on. 2) Carlos Delgado. He had the chance to do the right thing and leave town so the team that has given him everything he has could save some money, and he refused. Thanks so much, Carlos, for your selflessness. As Scott Taylor said, there's a lot less pressure making 17 million bucks off of a non-contender than a contender. 3) Chris Woodward. The supposed shortstop of the future for Toronto, he's played himself out of the lineup and is a step away from AAA. When the "shortstop of the future" is being outplayed by two has-beens and never-weres (Frank Menechino and Chris Gomez), you know there's a problem.

Because when crap like this is the stuff that's up for awards, then you know the downward spiral is starting to get out of control.