TruffleShuffle

how old is darren oliver? 63?

about as close as nick morneau :lol:

who the hell is nick morneau????

not exactly... it's bob cousy playing in the 1947 ncaa championship game against oklahoma

I just wanted to point out that it isn't always bad to swing at the first pitch as long as you can make good contact. I'm okay with good hitters doing it, but if Izturis does it, he'll just ground out weakly to short. I'd rather have him take his chances standing there with the bat on his shoulder until he strikes out or walks.

jeez... compared to this, soriano might be a bargain.

z is losing it, get the pen up now

oh good, now the post-dispatch will be able to talk about how awesome he is for "playing through the pain" all season

so what we know so far: soriano is a bust zambrano will win the cy young the cubs' fielding sucks

if Z keeps this up, maybe he can pitch the first complete game shutout in spring training history

An ESPN article made me think of this - say we've considered hockey and basketball over this year. So looking ahead to the next fantasy draft in each of the four major sports - no snide comments about hockey, please - if you were participating in fantasy leagues for each, which would be the easiest #1 overall pick to make? If you wouldn't take any of these guys #1 overall, say who you'd prefer.

I think it's a lack of security thing. For example, if Briggs were to tear up his knee this year, the Bears wouldn't franchise him again, and his open market value would probably take a big hit. ah, good point. I guess when you get franchised multiple years in a row, like Walter Jones was doing for a while, you have to perform at a top level and stay healthy year after year.

Friggin Sixers, beating teams like the Suns and really threatening to move out of the bottom three in the NBA. Why'd they actually have to get back a productive player (Andre Miller) in the Iverson trade? Now they're going to blow their shot at Oden/Durant.

Who was the one guy that was signed as a franchise player? The thing I never understood is why players get so pissed off at being franchised. The only people it hurts are those who are clearly the best in the league at their position. For a guy like, say, Asante Samuel, he'll be guaranteed almost $8M this year. Generally it's a good thing to be paid the average of the top 5 salaries at any given position. Carolina signed Sean Gilbert as a franchise player from the Redskins about 10 years back-it was called "the worst move in franchise history." Ouch... yeah, that was an awful move; Sean Gilbert was not the best at his position and Carolina was not a good team. They really shouldn't have been in the business of giving up two first round picks. Especially when those picks turned out to be top 5 picks - the first of which was traded for every single pick that New Orleans had in the '99 draft, plus their first and third rounders the next year. If I'm looking at this correctly, they used the Sean Gilbert trade to draft Champ Bailey, Lavar Arrington and Chris Samuels. Way to go Carolina. Not that that did Washington any good to draft those 3. well, except for the nine pro bowls that they made as members of the redskins

sounds like a patriot league game, at least judging by the score WSU was up on UCLA 23-22 at the half yesterday. good stuff! by the way, UCLA has to be on track for the #1 overall seed, right? 25-3, with 21 of their 28 games having come against top 100 RPI teams. I'm really impressed with what they've done this year.

to show how big that GT win was yesterday, the ESPN bracketology guy now has them as the second to last team in, and now leaves Drexel out of the tourney. I do disagree very strongly about his choice of WVU as the last team in. -Their non-conference schedule was atrocious, even with the UCLA game (#272 in non-conf RPI) -The 7-7 road/neutral record isn't bad, but looks a lot worse when you consider that their wins have been over Montana, Western Michigan, Duquesne, Marshall, Rutgers, Seton Hall and NC State (the last one being a "neutral" game in Charleston, WV) - the best RPI among that group is NC St at 113. -They're only 3-7 in games against top 100 RPI teams, with home wins over UCLA (okay, great win), Georgetown and DePaul. Meanwhile, they're 16-1 against teams with an RPI over 100. That doesn't look like a good profile to me.

From Coach Ralph Willard: I think he has a point, but I do still like conference tourneys. In a situation like this year, with HC and Bucknell both 13-1 in conference and splitting the head-to-head games, there would have to be a postseason game between the two teams - it wouldn't be fair to put HC in the NCAA tourney just because of a higher RPI. I think a good compromise would be to let the top half of teams in a mid-major go to the conference tourney, and keep the duds out. I mean, beating Iona (2-27) might be a formality, but an awful team does not deserve a chance to play for the national championship.

Who was the one guy that was signed as a franchise player? The thing I never understood is why players get so pissed off at being franchised. The only people it hurts are those who are clearly the best in the league at their position. For a guy like, say, Asante Samuel, he'll be guaranteed almost $8M this year. Generally it's a good thing to be paid the average of the top 5 salaries at any given position. Carolina signed Sean Gilbert as a franchise player from the Redskins about 10 years back-it was called "the worst move in franchise history." Ouch... yeah, that was an awful move; Sean Gilbert was not the best at his position and Carolina was not a good team. They really shouldn't have been in the business of giving up two first round picks. Especially when those picks turned out to be top 5 picks - the first of which was traded for every single pick that New Orleans had in the '99 draft, plus their first and third rounders the next year. If I'm looking at this correctly, they used the Sean Gilbert trade to draft Champ Bailey, Lavar Arrington and Chris Samuels. Way to go Carolina.

I don't think it's too early to call this a must-win game.

sounds like a patriot league game, at least judging by the score

Who was the one guy that was signed as a franchise player? The thing I never understood is why players get so pissed off at being franchised. The only people it hurts are those who are clearly the best in the league at their position. For a guy like, say, Asante Samuel, he'll be guaranteed almost $8M this year. Generally it's a good thing to be paid the average of the top 5 salaries at any given position.

yeah, i mean marshall faulk and edgerrin james were dealt for second round picks, and they're pretty good. Bears would at best get a first round pick from a team with a low first rounder. First and third I definitely don't see happening. Most teams aren't as dumb as the Raiders were (in the Randy Moss trade).

I'm also hoping I can be up for the deciding game in the Big South, featuring Winthrop versus VMI, which upset High Point. As with any VMI game, it'll certainly be entertaining and high-scoring. I think Winthrop belongs in the tourney regardless of the outcome - there's no way in hell they're not one of the 64 best teams in the country, even if the RPI doesn't support that. Their schedule was very weak, but their only losses came on the road to the #3, 6, 11 and 15 RPI teams, and two of those games were very close. Anyway, they ran the table in the Big South during the regular season, and VMI isn't all that good, so it'll probably be a moot point. On a side note, maybe the most interesting team in terms of an at-large bid is Philly's own Drexel Dragons. They've had some great wins (@Syracuse, @Villanova, @Creighton) and some bad losses (@Rider, @William&Mary). Their 13 road wins are more than all but a few NCAA teams, and their conference has been pretty tough this year (Colonial Athletic, with a #13 conference RPI and four legitimately good teams in Virginia Commonweath, Old Dominion, Hofstra and Drexel). That conference will probably get two bids, with Drexel and ODU having the strongest arguments for an at large. That will be an interesting conference tourney to watch, especially if those big four all make the semis.

He's not upset about money-he's still upset about Payton holding him out of the NFC Championship game. I think it's still the coaches call on allowing injured players to play, but Horn has done so much for them that if he says he's ready to go I'm not sure that they shouldn't have just trusted him and at least go out there and try for a quarter. If the coach thinks that the receiver isn't healthy enough to be as good as the team's other WR options, then he shouldn't put him in the lineup. You don't want to be experimenting to see if a guy is good to go in the NFC championship game. Plus, it'd be a guy with a balky groin, playing in cold weather on a terrible field. I wouldn't have felt too good putting him in that situation and feeling like he'd succeed.

By the way, most important result from last night, by far, is huuuuuuuuuge GT win over UNC. They're #41 in RPI now, which means they've got a solid shot for an at-large bid. They've got a strong 7-8 record against the RPI top 50, including wins over UNC, Memphis and Duke. On the negative side, they're only 3-9 in road/neutral games, and 1-9 in pure road games, including losses to the two worst ACC teams (Wake and Miami). This makes their home game against BC on Sunday a really important game for them and for other bubble teams as well. If Tech wins that and then doesn't gag against a weaker first round opponent in the ACC tourney, I'm pretty sure that's enough to cement a place in the field of 65.