The Man in Blak

I can't imagine it topping $500, just because the inclusion of Panzer Dragoon Saga may scare off prospective buyers who don't have a Saturn. I wonder how much my mint copy of Suikoden II would go for. EDIT: Er, what happened to SJK's post about the eBay auction with PDS, Suikoden II, and Valkyrie Profile?

And Wainwright closes it out in the ninth. The magic number is one and it's do-or-die for the Astros tonight.

One positive difference between this club and the 2004-2005 vintage of the St. Louis Cardinals: guys like Scott Spiezio on the bench who are actually able to hit in a pinch. Just think, last year that would have been Roger Cedeno. Or maybe, if we were lucky, John Mabry.

Not that it should surprise you, but the new Tommy Lasorda commercials for the MLB playoffs are really, really bad. How can this league have so much success without having a single clue about marketing?

And then Jose Capellan comes in and blows the Cardinals away for a 1-2-3 seventh anyway. Classic Bad LaRussa.

Unbelievably stupid move by LaRussa to "unintentionally" walk light-hitting Mike Rivera to load the bases with two outs for the pitcher's spot, forcing Yost to take Ben Sheets (100 pitches) out of the game. Unfortunately, Tony's master plan failed to account for the reality that a pinch-hitter (Jeff Cirillo) would be put in the game in Sheets' stead. Cirillo sends one back up the middle to drive in two. 2-0 Brewers.

A story on the AP reports that Randy Johnson has a herniated disc and may not be able to pitch in the opening series of the playoffs: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-y...p&type=lgns If Johnson is truly out for the whole series, Santana, Bonser, and an emotional start behind Brad Radke may make for a more interesting best-of-five than you think.

Boston started Kyle Snyder for ten games this year. Six starts for Lenny DiNardo. I know I'm reaching here, but perhaps getting Clemens on the roster would have kept the Red Sox in playoff contention.

The writing is absolute garbage with some quippy one-liners to mask the complete idiocy of most of the characters. It's like some infernal cocktail of ER and Gilmore Girls, served at Hooters. The first season was somewhat tolerable because the Gilmore factor was high, but once they decided to break out Code:Black for the Super Bowl and have Izzy's storyline almost single-handedly compromise every character in the cast, there was really no coming back. That second season finale might as well be under the Wikipedia explanation for JumpTheShark.com.

Phil Garner is a galactic motherfucking idiot.

I'm not sure I understand how the Rams managed to get another snap out of that.

It's paradoxical, I know, but both should probably apply. If it really bothers you that much and there doesn't seem to be any change coming to fix it, then do something about it and go somewhere else. The people that run the show around here don't exactly see a glaring need for change when it's always the same people doing all the griping. And, if you're not willing to go somewhere else, then it might help to reassess why it's worth griping at all, if you're just going to stick around anyway.

I don't even really know the guy, outside of hearsay and what he's posted at NMB. And, upon further inspection, he's probably less important in the scheme of things than the fact that you've got admins doing stuff without telling other admins and giving a whole bunch of posters and moderators a collective panic attack. But, once again, it's not like this kind of stuff is unprecedented. Which leads me back to my original point: If people actually cared enough about this stuff to go to another board and stay, this place would have dried up long ago. Nobody's going anywhere.

It changed up recently - http://nmblues.thelevel-x.net .

What I really want to know is how you still manage to parrot Banky so efficiently, even after all this time. It's got to be tiring, right? Or is there some kind of tracking device involved?

Okay. Anyway, where was I complaining about anything? I was just trying to bring some perspective to some of the folks who were implying that there was some sort of message board apocalypse around the corner because some astroboy fan that fucked a weight bench got unbanned. And, since I run one of these "splinter boards" that people were talking about, I thought I'd chip in my two cents.

What the fuck is "posting South"?

Somebody who's been around longer than the Czech Republic?

Yeah, point taken. I was focused primarily on the "hometown job" aspect of it, as well as the fact that Sabean has a strong tendency to fill the roster with veteran signings anyway. Whether he'll still be applying that strategy without Bonds on the roster - or if he'll even still be the Giants GM - is up in the air, of course.

Banky's actually ahead of schedule. I guess we should move up "if you don't like it, then leave" to Monday and pencil in the resignation of the disillusioned moderator to some time in the middle of the week. Hunter's Torn Quad, what's your calendar look like on Wednesday?

I think so, even though the community around St. Louis is really weird about him. There's a very loud sect of fans here that openly despises him, for his mistreatment of Ozzie Smith and constant tinkering (batting the pitcher eighth, for example). The thing is, I'm not sure LaRussa is going to hang around much longer. He still lives out in California and the Giants job will probably open up after next year, assuming Alou sticks around with Bonds next year. The Cardinals are headed towards what could be an ugly period in 2008 and LaRussa is not known for his rebuilding skills (just look at his last few years in Oakland.)

That's probably because the TSM template is "a message board." Unless you're putting together a place to dick around with friends with zero expectations, you're going to be dealing with "topic-oriented material" because that's what people get on the internet to do - discuss topics with other various and sundry folks. There are thousands of internet communities structured like TSM. And there are thousands of communities sitting out there, dormant, because they don't have anybody around to discuss. The reason these satellite boards don't go anywhere are because the people that start those boards in revolt/frustration/boredom care much more about said drama than Joe Internet Guy who hops onto TSM/wherever for an hour during Raw to chat about Randy Orton. This Wildpegasus shit may seem like a real drag for ten or twelve vocal contributors around here, but it means less than shit to RonL21 or NWAJuggaloSirOwen or a hundred other posters around here. It's probably even harder for long-time posters to defect because they've already developed posting habits, made friends, and all that crap. People despise change. So, unless another board puts forth a more palatable alternative, nobody's going anywhere. And that's why everybody else has failed - because nobody has ever consistently nailed having a better place for long enough to get people to jump on board for longer than a month or two. WDI did it for a while, SNKT did it for a while, and even the Pit and NMB have had moments, but none of them have ever remained around/strong long enough to have establish the community that Scott Keith and that fuckwad Shannon did when they started the remnants of this board how many ever years ago.

It's not that they don't have cash to spend - it's that there's not a lot of faith in the ownership to actually spend it. The Cardinals haven't landed a big-name free agent in years - virtually every big name has come through trade and a long-term extension (with a "hometown discount", as the ownership leverages "the best fans in baseball" to keep folks around.) The other part of it, though, is that they have an absurd amount of holes to fill...so, even with more cash from the New Busch, they're in a jam. They're likely looking at a starting pitcher, a centerfielder, and a ton of help in the bullpen. And that's assuming that they'll go in with Duncan as the starting left fielder next year (won't happen) and that they'll resist the temptation to bring in another veteran starting pitcher to push Reyes and/or Wainwright (they won't).

And, considering that it's on WDI's old web host with Josh behind the wheel, wouldn't The Pit basically count as a WDI-group resurrection anyway?

If people actually went to other boards and stayed whenever stupid shit happened around here, this place would have dried up long ago. Nobody's going anywhere.