Tracer Bullet

there's very little chance that Harry hasn't seen her without her shorts on. The horn dog.

Value and production are different things, though. Kosuke is likely to be just as productive as Crawford if the Cubs hadn't decided to bench the superior player for an extended period of time - that's not Kosuke's fault. Out of the 200 extra AB's Crawford has over Fukudome, 140 of them have been against left-handers. Kosuke would likely have a decent drop in his numbers if he had to play as much against left-handers as Crawford has. are we positive that Fukudome is a flub against lefties? He's been very good this year (few PAs) but it's not like he has hundreds of MLB PAs on which to base the conclusion that his ability to get on base plummets against LHP.

starting? stark differences in graduation rates between black athletes and white athletes is also troubling. win at all costs. one thing i credit your irish for not doing, notre dame at least has a sense of dignity in terms of being an academic institution. players attend class and don't get arrested. these schools have a couple down years, fire their coaches, bring in new ones and tell them that they don't care how it gets done, as long as it does. florida will eventually pay. yeah, i didn't become a fan of ND b/c of the way the program is run. I became a fan b/c of Tim Brown and Rocket Ismail. But now that I'm old, I take pride in the program. Even when they're having down seasons, at least the players are being arrested for drinking at a party rather than beating up their gfs or taking money from agents. And if SB and the SB police didn't hate Notre Dame with every fiber of their being, there would probably be half as many arrests b/c they'd let the piddly crap like a few guys drinking in a house across from campus go unnoticed. I really want to beat MSU.

If he appears to be serious about it, then it eliminates any possibility of an acquiring team re-signing him after the contract. Any team trading for him is guaranteed to only have him for two seasons (2011 and 2012). That said, I don't think it kills his trade value since teams probably don't make trades for near-30 pitchers largely on the basis that they will re-sign said pitcher two years later. It could hurt his value to some extent, however. right. so it doesn't kill his trade value. it might hurt it a little.

Are you being serious? Or is this an attempt at sarcasm? Ok, your right, love going to a good CC meet but other than that I don't like college football and the NFL isn't interesting until week 14, and I don't do the "fantasy thing." I rather be doing yard work or going for a long run. Baseball is at its best right now, I can't see baseball fans watching anything else Oh...you're not being sarcastic...you're just trolling for a response. I'll pass. No trolling here, you asked, I answered. I love baseball and, for me, this is the best time of year for it. Even the Cubs are a lot more enjoyable and gives me hope for next year. No, you said "no other sports are on this time of year" when obviously football, which is arguably the most popular sport in America, just started. He asked if that was intended to be sarcasm. Your explanation made it clear you were trolling.

why does it kill his trade value?

Between the arrests at Florida and the indiscretions at USC, I'm starting to think that educating student-athletes may not be the top priority for some of these institutions.

If Sandberg leaves and doesn't immediately start winning WS somewhere, he would come back to Chicago for the managers job if he were offered. If not, who cares?

If Crist is healthy, should be a good win in a tough environment. Any time Floyd wants to stop fumbling and dropping passes that hit him in the numbers would be great, thanks.

You don't see a difference between the team with Crist and either Rees or Montana? Crist marched the team down the field for scores on his first 3 possessions. His bomb to Rudolph was perfect. He is not as accurate as Clausen last year, no doubt. But he's got less than 2 full games played so far. And much like last year, I expect the UM QB to be hurt by the end of the year as the wheels fall off. Robinson can't take that many hits every game.

Crist missed half the games, Andy. Jesus. And 8-9 wins would be great for this team.

ND is going to be awesome in the next couple of years. Kelly is a good coach. He made a terrible decision by not kicking the field goal at the end of the 1st half, but he's quality. At that point, he didn't know Crist was going to be back in the 2nd half. How could he be sure he'd ever be on that side of the 50 again. Wish I could have seen the game with 60 minutes of Crist instead of Rees and Montana throwing picks on the wrong side of the field. If Crist can stay healthy, we'll be an 8-win team against this schedule, I think.

Be concerned about Denard Robinson. Our RB's have about 14 yards combined so far and our defense is still scary. Plus, we're going up against Nate freaking Montana right now instead of Crist. a scary 17 pts allowed in 6 quarters Crist marched ND down there pretty quickly on the first drive. You've faced a 4th string ND QB that left for UCONN and a guy that couldn't complete 50% of his passes at Pasadena State CC (or whatever). Even Kelly admitted that if Crist can't come back, we're essentially F'd.

or unable to see out of his eye.

Have you watched Florida play so far this season? They look pretty average so far. and i'm loving it. fall gators, fall

did Chris Fowler age 15 years since last week or was I just not watching close enough? yikes

I wonder if he's really called every BCS team in the top 25 or something. This quote seems to suggest its something less than that: “It’s been surprising how many big schools have not been receptive of us coming to their place,” Bleymaier said. Either way, he was calling in Nov 2009 looking for a game in 2011. I don't know how early schools have fixed those schedules, but as I said before, it's pretty early. PSU, for example, currently has 2011 and 2012 scheduled. Same with OSU and Iowa. And those are just the first 3 teams I looked at (and the only years I checked, they may go out further yet). Most BCS schools only have 3-4 OOC games and often have those schedules done at least 2 years in advance (and frequently done and not announced earlier than that). Sure there are exceptions, but not being able to get a big school to throw you in less than 2 years out isn't shocking to me. Even ND, which has a number or long term contracts, but doesn't have the 8-9 team conference schedule, has 2011 and 2012 done (though not announced, sounds like they're going to WF next year). Heck, they're almost done with their 2017 schedule at this point. As I said before, it makes little sense for a BCS school to schedule a team like BSU that far in advance b/c if they're a 2-3 loss team when you play them, it's not worth the risk. And you're not going to know they're a top-25 team until the year or two before, when your schedule is almost done. I'm not sure if that's a flaw or what, but I don't think it's fair to say that all the big BCS schools are chicken for not having an open date for BSU next year.

did anyone else think the refs sort of stopped calling any penalties, including what looked like a blatant hold or two by WVU there at the end?

it's true

Right, BSU has a very difficult choice. I guess that's unfortunate, but everything isn't fair in CFB. Almost every year there's a team that got left out of the title game or another BCS game that complains that they should have been in over another team. Frequently they have a legit argument. But is BSU better off in the current system where they play 1-2 decent OOC games and go to a BCS game but probably won't get to the title game? ETA: I don't agree, dew. For example, I think ESPN would give OSU/BSU the same recognition as OSU/Miami, esp when BSU is a top 5 team. As long as they're scheduled just a year or two out, I think those top-10 BCS teams would gain just as much from playing a BSU as they would another top BCS team. They might even get more recognition at this point for being the biggest school willing to play them. Most writers/coaches aren't sleeping on BSU at this point.

I can't see any way Notre Dame would want to be aligned with pretty much any of the Big 12 schools with the exception of Texas (and maybe Oklahoma) I don't think they'd accept an invite into whatever the Big 12 will be called. Agreed.

Also as you mentioned earlier, they "run" that they're on is relatively recent in the scope of things. At the time they would have had to schedule these games, they'd only had a couple of years of success. I imagine in the next 4-5 years, they'll have much better options for non-conference games. That doesn't help them in the argument this year, but frankly, I don't imagine they much care about the crying of other teams fans much. :) Probably not. Though they're care about their own crying fans if they get jumped by a 1-loss BCS team that played a few more quality games.

I guess my point is that Boise and TCU can only schedule the teams that will play them. Telling them to go out and "schedule harder teams" is pretty disingenuous. Harder teams need to be willing to play them to improve the SOS. True - they can only schedule teams that will play them, but it's not disingenuous to ask that they play a harder schedule. They don't have to play USC, Alabama, and Florida every year. Scheduling Va Tech and Oregon State is a good move. But I think they have 4 OOC games and 2 are Wyoming and Toledo in 2010. There's a huge gulf between Wyoming and Alabama. I have no idea how difficult it is for BSU to schedule games and how much of the talk is genuine. But I have to think you could find at least 1 more BCS team willing to do a Home/Home or 2/1 with BSU at this point. If I were BSU and being considered for the National Title game were my top concern, I'd take 1 home/home with a BCS school, and 2 BCS games against top programs any way I can get them, even if it means only road or neutral site games. I'd probably even schedule the 4th OOC game against a BCS team (not necessarily top program), home/home if possible. But $ also has to be a concern for their program, so they can't have just 5 home games without getting big bowl payouts every year. It's a tough spot, I won't argue that.

back to re-alignment, this is interesting: http://texas.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1123563

so BCS teams have to know 2-3 years in advance (when most scheduling is done) who the top non-BCS teams will be in those years and try to schedule them? Sure, it works for BSU right now b/c they're on a run for the last few years. But it's not like you're always going to know which non-BCS team is the biggest threat to go undefeated.