erik316wttn

There's a ton of spots left, guys. GR is running it this year. I'm sure he has more time and energy to devote to running the league than I do, although I'll still play in it.

Very sad story. However, (not to make light of it) there are a lot worse ways to end your life than hitting the game-winning basketball shot. It wouldn't shock me at all if it was an enlarged heart. It seems like you hear about a basketball player dying from that somewhere about once every year or so.

Geez, that has to suck. I'm pretty sure 5 random NSBB'ers could at least hang with the Cavs.

As opposed to the awesome weeks 15 and 16 right now where the good teams totally don't do that! edit: I meant GAMES number 15 and 16, which would translate to weeks 16 and 17.

I love the 18 game idea for basically the reasons CCP has outlined. More (non-preseason) football is a good thing. 18 weeks, 2 byes, every contract is increased by the 12% or whatever the season will be extended by, better benefits to retired players, and then stop the bitching and prepare for next season. I ought to be mediating this thing, dammit. haha.

I IM'ed you about it.

Probably. Will Zombo replace him, or am I completely missing someone? Bishop? Didn't he play there most of the year anyway? And play well enough to make Barnett expendable? I WAS missing someone. Like I said earlier in the season: So many guys stepped up and did well replacing injured starters that Thompson and McCarthy are going to have some very difficult decisions to make.

Last year's league kind of sucked, plus everyone here pretty much hates me so I didn't even think people would want to keep it going.

He has the Titans taking Patrick Peterson at 8. No way he falls that far, but I cannot express how happy I'd be on draft day if the Titans got Peterson. So they're completely giving up on Claussen already?

Probably. Will Zombo replace him, or am I completely missing someone?

He certainly can't begin the year any worse than he did last year.

Packers released AJ Hawk today. Hopefully he's re-signed to a more cap-friendly deal.

Beat you by 2 minutes!

After the first inning of today's game, Carlos Silva and Aramis Ramirez reportedly got into a scuffle in the dugout. Silva was the starting pitcher, and gave up 6 runs in the 1st inning with the help of 3 errors, one of which was by Ramirez. It is unclear who the aggressor was. http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=6175209 Make of it what you will.

I don't have a quote for you, but he pretty much already alluded to doing just that. Good. As he should.

This has probably already been asked, but how much comes off the books next offseason? Because if it's not much, I don't see the Ricketts family opening up the bank vault for Pujols when they didn't expand the budget much this offseason.

and if you don't think that feud is staged, you're probably a wrestling fan. It probably is, because Vince McMahon loves him some publicity. Or it's just two guys bitching at each other on twitter that will have no affect on anything.

Yeah, the dude really got a bad break with all the injuries. Watch him win 20 games this year for the Yankees.

Don't mess with CM Punk.

Unfortunately that won't be happening.

I just got 3 tickets to the April 10th Cubs/Brewers game at Miller Park.I'm going with my dad and brother. Woohoo! Cubs games in Milwaukee are always the best because the place is half full of Cubs fans and it pisses the Brewers fans off so much.

I'll bet the field Once it plays out you could very well be right, but I think those are the two strongest teams in each league. Of course we all know what can happen in a short series in October.

I'd love for each of the 6 divisions to have 5 teams, but then that leads into having interleague play year round (GOD FORBID) and I know there's a lot of opposition against that for whatever reason. I figure if they can swing it in the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc then baseball could figure it out, too. I just don't see baseball doing it. It's too big of a change, and baseball doesn't seem to like change much.

"....especially Willie, Mickey and the Duke" I love that song. Duke was a great. RIP.

Yes, but Lucas Oil is a football-only stadium, isn't it? I have no knowledge of the dimensions of the place or anything, but I do know that when the Dodgers played in the LA Colosseum for a few years there were some crazy dimensions (something like 270 down each line and 510 to CF or something like that) so that probably wouldn't be the best idea. I wouldn't be opposed to a team in Indy, however, if they could get a new stadium for it. I am really not sure of dimensions but when I was there it looked absolutely huge on the field level... I could be wrong though. It probably wouldn't work at the moment. Like Erik said, the dimensions would be weird, plus Lucas Oil also holds so many events every year that it would be tough to add a baseball team on top of that. I'm not sure if there would be enough of a following (Dan) to support a MLB yet... For example, NW Indiana got White Sox/Cubs/Brewers, SW got Cardinals, S (around Jeffersonville/Louisville area)/SE got Reds, NE got Tigers/Indians. That's 7 teams in one state. Is there another state that follows that many teams and doesn't have a MLB team? Also a lot of these teams are driveable in their area. Heck Indianapolis to St. Louis is under 4 hours (probably closer to 3 hours). A lot of these teams have been around for a long time and it's been passed down from generation to generation in the family. Like I'm 4th generation of Cubs fan (Great-Grandpa was a Cubs fan and was alive when they won their World Series) and pretty much my whole family is Cubs fan (except for like 3 people). That's gonna be tough to overcome. But again, Central Indiana is a mish-mash of fans of different teams (at least from people I know that lives there) and it's why it support the AAA team. Pacers are having a heck of a time trying to draw fans to their arena right now. Another reason why I don't see enough of a following, unless they start off the first year winning. Now if you ask me 5 years from now (I believe it's still growing at a great pace) about having a MLB team there, I think it'll be very possible to do it then. Right now, I'm just not sure. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to see a MLB team in Indianapolis. Actually, if it happens, I will probably move there (I grew up 100 miles NW of Indianapolis). It's a great city and has tons of things to do there. Say MLB wants to put a team in Indianpolis within the next 2 years (due to like relocation of the Rays team or something), but not enough time to build a stadium. Realistically I can see it 2 ways until they get the stadium built. First is to add on more seats to Victory Field (from like 12,500 seats to like 20,000 if possible) or probably the better way is to renovate Bush Stadium to hold a MLB team while a stadium being built. Another question to ask is where would you build the stadium? I'm not sure if there's any places/lots in or around downtown that's big enough. The area for the RCA Dome would've done it, but they made that for a huge convention center already. I'm trying to think of a place in that area that would be suited for a MLB stadium, but I'm drawing blanks. You could put it in one of the suburbs, but again, which suburb? Also... will the taxpayers be willing to pay for another stadium (I believe Colts only paid $100 mil out of $720 mil for Lucas Oil)??? Plus if Indianapolis do get a team, they're gonna have to do some serious realignments in the their NL/AL divisions... Hopefully it would be in the AL so it'll become the AL team to root for for me... There's a lot more that I can talk about, but I'll stop there... This is getting way ahead of ourselves here, but if you move Tampa to Indy, you put them in the Central, and move the Tigers to the East. Geographically I think it makes the most sense. However Detroit might not want to do it because of their built-in division rivalries (Cleveland, White Sox, etc).