TruffleShuffle

earmuffs

how about we just throw all the incompetent umps out of baseball and keep all the good ones?

oh hell yeah, i'd forfeit my right to vote for the rest of my life if i could have an iPhone for it. not because i don't like voting or because i really really covet an iPhone, but my vote never matters, so i wouldn't really miss it too much.

well three months is still a long time. and while it's true that premium is primarily to support the site, you have to acknowledge that the reason that a lot of people paid for premium was that it came with the understanding that premium members wouldn't see ads any longer. I direct you to a thread created by the guy who founded and runs this board. Name of thread: "What's is so good about Premium, anyway?" so with all due respect, you people who are saying that paying for premium does not come with the understanding that there wouldn't be ads... you're flat-out wrong. The thread about Premium does not state "this goes to helping me with the site, thanks for your goodwill;" it lists a number of perks that come with giving Tim $50 a year. I'm not trying to come off as a dick here. I appreciate that Tim hosts and runs the site, that he has often done so at a significant cost to himself, and that the site has been very reliable over the past year or so. But I think when you make a promise as a business owner, you have to uphold it.

yeah i know these things take time, but how many months has this been now? five? i know there are a lot of premium members here, and it probably wouldn't be good to lose all of the premium income. but really, a big reason people paid for premium was to get rid of the ads, that was part of the agreement, and if someone really is unhappy enough about having to look at ads, they could claim a breach of contract. i'm just saying, might be a good idea to get this done sooner rather than later.

they never should have moved out of Rec Hall. It was their own version of Cameron Indoor; student standing a foot out of bounds, packed to the rafters, loud as all get out. now they're playing in an airport hangar with the first 10 rows reserved for boosters/alumni who never show up moving out of rec hall would've been a good move if the basketball team didn't suck every year. people don't go to games because they don't want to waste 3 hours watching the inevitable slaughter of a team that probably won't even make the NIT (and that's most years, obviously this year they're not going)

MacPhail new who the owner was when he took the job. That invalidates your point. yes, but i don't recall angelos meddling in player acquisitions, and especially trades, like he has done this offseason. i can see macphail possibly not knowing the extent to which angelos will meddle. i don't really understand why anyone with any sort of positives on his resume (and yes, macphail does have some) would put himself in a situation where he literally cannot win.

There's a difference between "dumb" and "disastrous". Hendry has made plenty of mistakes when it comes to acquiring players, be it through trades or free agency. If you want the most egregious ones, I'm willing to throw out names such as Jacque Jones, Jeromy Burnitz, and Jason Marquis as examples of higher profile signings which he screwed up. Considering Pedro Feliz would have been a bench guy, names like Damian Jackson, Neifi Perez, and Lenny Harris all immediately come to mind. Those are just through free agency. I can happily throw out some great names he's traded for during his tenure. Jose Macias and Juan Pierre bring back all sorts of fond memories, don't they? Come on, you don't think this team would even have considered Feliz, given Ramirez's continuing nagging injuries and our perceived lack of RH power off the bench? You don't think Hendry would have considered giving Feliz a one year contract? You think Hendry would have been fine letting Theriot, DeRosa, and Fontenot fight over the backup 3B role? You have more faith in the man than I'd have expected. Calling him mediocre is a compliment. damian jackson played 12 games for the cubs. lenny harris made $800K and the cubs didn't have ARam at the time. neifi was idiotic, but i suspect that dusty had a lot to do with that acquisition. jose macias made $1.7m over two years. juan pierre was acquired to be the starting cf, and he sucks. hendry overrates speed, everyone knows this. i don't think there's a good parallel to hendry acquiring a guy like feliz. he hasn't paid $4.25m per year for a guy who has nowhere to play. if you're worried about hendry signing a lousy utility player then that's a legitimate concern, but he wasn't going to sign someone like feliz for that sort of money. and feliz wouldn't come here when there were at the very least some platoon opportunities around the league.

a new low for psu hoops

actually i could care less about the penguins. they're a distant third on my hate list behind the devils and rangers. and pens fans don't really give flyers fans crap, because they usually suck a lot worse than we do. i think you're wrong about the hit on downie, but i know you're wrong about the laraque play. i don't know that i've ever seen a player intentionally fall down and then slide into a goalie's legs. i've seen guys hit goalies on purpose, but probably never seen a dive at their legs.

if i were macphail and i made a trade that i thought was good for the organization, and angelos vetoed the trade, i'd hand him my resignation. the team's performance on the field will be the determining factor in whether the GM stays or gets canned (see pat gillick, frank wren, syd thrift, jim beattie), and if you have a meddling owner who doesn't know much about the ins and outs of baseball, and is notorious for becoming too attached to certain players on his ballclub, then it's time to walk away. angelos is a complete disaster of an owner. i feel bad for orioles fans; even the cubs aren't this inept... and that's really saying something.

giants are feeling confident

fortunately meyer is a great coach, with the sort of talent that he's coaching, no way the gators could have a 4-loss season

i dont mind that play at all i think most teams have a guy who would step up if a goalie was doing what biron did earlier that game, i know if a goalie did that to a kane or havlat id hope someone would stand up for them.. what the hell did biron do earlier in that game to deserve being taken out by crosby (maybe accidental) and laraque (completely intentional)? and it's good to know it's okay for a guy to dive at the feet of a defenseless goalie. that's a good way to increase scoring, let teams blow out the ACL's of good goalies so you're left with AHL and ECHL products in net.

if that's the case then scott stevens should've spent half his nhl career on suspension. and as with stevens' hits, downie's hit was not delivered directly at the head. he might've caught mcammond's chin, but most of the hit was delivered to mcammond's chest. (a) why should the nhl just accept this? "oh guys are going to get buried headfirst into the boards and get their neck snapped, it happens." (b) randy jones should've been suspended for more than two games for his hit. bergeron suffered a grade three concussion and his season is probably over. yet "these hits are bound to happen"? No. you send a message by suspending players a minimum of 5 games, and more often at least 10, for hits when a player is a few feet from the boards and he gets buried into them. i don't care if downie or bergeron put themselves in vulnerable positions; there are other ways to defend them, like wrapping them up and riding them into the boards. the nhl can get rid of these hits if they commit to real punishments, but bettman (moe) and curly (campbell) are too incompetent. then they wonder why this **** keeps happening.

here's another good example of the player that george laraque is. some tough guy.

he barely shoved downie it looks like. too bad downie couldn't really get a taste of his own medicine, but laraque was smart to hold up. maybe a 1 or 2 game suspension, downie definitely knew he was coming and put himself in that position while playing the puck. laraque definitely held up, if he went full out downie would be in the hospital. these types of hits are more dangerous than the one put on dean mcammond. 20 games for charging? that's a joke. it's mcammond's fault that he had his head down; downie did deserve a couple of games for leaving his feet like he did, but hits like the one laraque put on downie are the ones that can result in a guy not walking ever again. and you have to be crazy to think he "barely shoved him" - you can see on the slow-motion that his arms are fully extended as he delivers the check. he could've easily grabbed downie and ridden him into the boards, instead he delivered a check with the intention of putting him headfirst into the boards.

well, bush-league penguin george laraque (who admitted after the last flyers-pens game that he intentionally slid into the legs of our goalie martin biron) gave a clear premeditated check from behind against steve downie, who's lucky he doesn't have a broken neck. laraque is a great fighter and a good tough guy, unfortunately he's also a dirty player. let's see if the nhl shows any consistency. laraque should get 5 games minimum. here's a guess that he gets 2 or 3. here's the video:

abreu walks a lot more than fukudome, though. i think ray lankford and luis gonzalez in his 30-37 years (minus the one huge year) are good parallels. he'll probably put up billy williams-type numbers, which won't be as impressive as when billy did that, because this is a more offensive era.

well holy cross has now lost back to back home games to the service academies, which frankly is pretty hard to do

Us? How in the world do you have a connection to the Giants? I refer to myself as us because I'm a fan. The "us" refers to the Giants fanbase. so, giants, cubs... what else?

http://mlb.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pMLB2-2743330dt.jpg note: this is available here on the mlb.com website.

by the way i'm still going to have an interpreter

the only one that looks at all interesting to me is the one in minnesota.

ah so i guess because the team that one follows sucks, you inherently know nothing about the sport? looks like when it comes to baseball, we are all ignorant.