Rex Buckingham

YOU DAG GUM RIGHT WE ARE PLAYING THIS GAME UNDER PROTEST! Please tell me this is a Clint Hurdle thing, because I can't stop reading it in his voice and not laugh Hawk Harrelson

I mean, St. Louis sucks so I don't blame him. In another note, we could really use a quick inning from Lester here.

Accurate throw might have gotten Diaz there

Anyone else feel like they've made this so much about the Cardinals tonight?

Heyward definitely gets to that one if he's in right.

A bit behind, but so like a Cardinal to honor guys who killed people because they were driving vehicles while impaired.

I honestly think I'd rather see Javy catch than Schwarber. Not because he would be better, but because of how fascinated I would be to watch him behind the plate. edit: obviously not in a game that matters, but when we inevitably are blowing out the Reds in the middle of August, why not let him play all 9 positions?

I think that infield is more "athletic" than the Cubs'. That obviously doesn't come close to equating to "good at baseball" though. I read "athletic" there as "good at football", which is as meaningless a metric as any that's been used to describe any form of White Sox aptitude in recent years. Yeah, I think they might be overall, but thought it wasn't the clear, without a doubt proposition he was making it out to be. Not that it matters at all, because like Bukie said, they suck at baseball and our infield (and I was thinking with Javy in place of Zobrist, which proabbly needed clarified) features possibly the two best hitters in the NL and two middle infielders who can hit like pretty good 3rd basemen

Read this in an article over on The Ringer and immediately thought, that probably isn't even the clear most athletic infield in Chicago.

Yeah, it's not as easy to be mad about it after we won the series, but it seems like they got off pretty light.

The longstanding backstory to the W presidency was that Cheney made all the plannin' and Bush was there to convince the yokels he was somebody they could have a beer with, and therefore agree with what Cheney pushed. And what Cheney pushed was WAR WAR WAR, MURDER MURDER MURDER, DEATH DEATH DEATH. Thanks for filling me in.

Curious where the "Cheney is evil" talk is coming from. Not doubting it, but just wondering if there are specific stories I can be pointed to.

Like jersey said, this is two different things. Games above or below .500 is how many games it would take for you to get back to the fixed reference point of .500 in either direction. But it's a different measure with another team where the point of reference is always changing based on the other teams record at the time. Right, and over the course of the year I get that, I was really only thinking in terms of an end-of-season record and didn't specify that.

But if you're 44-48 it will take you 4 wins to get to .500. yeah, I guess I was just thinking in terms of end of season records.

Does anybody else hate how games above/below .500 is calculated/referenced? If you finish 85-77, you're not 8 games above .500, you're 4, because you are exactly 4 games better than a team at 81-81.

I don't think being made public will improve ballots, after all ballots like these were made public:

Yeah, I think it will be more likely that the weaker teams will get weeded out sooner, because you'll have the top 16 teams seeded (rather than the 8 currently) and will avoid most "group of death"scenarios. That means that the top teams will likely go through on top of their groups and have easier routes through as weaker teams advance. I agree in some ways, but I see these two scenarios. If they don't do any differentiation among the top 16 seeds, it makes it more likely that two of the best teams in the tournament could meet in the round of 16 even if both teams win their group. Second, with only two group games, it only takes one bad game to finish 2nd or even a risk of being 3rd in your group. You don't necessarily need a group of death anymore to have potential of at least not finishing 1st in the group, and if they don't finish 1st you could see two top 10 teams meeting in the round of 32 (one group winner versus the 2nd place of the next group). So while I think the odds are greater of a top 8 team making it out of their group, I think their chances are smaller of making the quarterfinals than they were before. They have to win two win or go home games instead of one, and one of those games could easily be one of the other top 8 teams. The teams that it help most are the 9-16 teams. Their chances of getting out of the group get better as they will now be the best team in the group, and they have an almost 50% chance of avoiding a top 8 team until the quarters even if all the top 8 teams advance. Good points, could make some of the knockouts really interesting

Seems to me this will make it easier for the 8 best teams to make it through to final 8 as potential cinderellas will be knocking each other off along the way. Interesting but flawed teams who stand a chance at upsetting the best teams will find it harder to get to the final stages as they will be beat by some weaker teams that really don't have a chance of a major upset. Yeah, I think it will be more likely that the weaker teams will get weeded out sooner, because you'll have the top 16 teams seeded (rather than the 8 currently) and will avoid most "group of death"scenarios. That means that the top teams will likely go through on top of their groups and have easier routes through as weaker teams advance.

College QB ypc numbers are skewed by the fact that sacks are counted as rushing attempts and negative rushing yards, so if he's sacked 3 times for -15 yards in a game, it can take a game of 4 carries for 20 yards to 7 carries for 5 yards. So in an instance like that, the true ypc would be more like 5.0, not the 0.7 that shows up in the stats

I felt like he floated too many throws last night, though maybe that was kind of intentional because he knew that either Williams could go up and get it or nobody was going to get it.

Yeah, this is stupid. Yeah, don't think we really need 16 more bad teams in the field. Also, seems to me that qualifying is way less important now for the better teams, more teams = less pressure to get in.

I know Illinois is one of the lower ones, maybe one of the ones in the 20s, and Indiana is 120 I think... Is Rutgers a way lower number than they should be also? Oh, and I'm pretty sure Indiana will be Illinois by about 20 this Saturday, but then Illinois will inexplicably beat a good team and the Groce era will continue as it has until it inevitably ends after a First Four or NIT loss.

I'm not saying I wouldn't vote for him, but with more than 10 worthy candidates I'm fine excluding him for a year Yeah, that's absolutely a fair perspective.

I think the character thing with Schilling is laughable. Is he a moron (of whatever other term you want to use)? You bet. Does that mean his playing career was not HOF-worthy? By no means. Plus, the amount of fantastic racists and segregationists in there should kill that argument.

Yeah, not getting the whole "Let's get upset about guys who stand to make millions skipping a meaningless bowl game." Let's ask Jaylon Smith if he wishes he would have skipped the Fiesta Bowl last year. That injury cost him millions already due to the drop in the draft, let alone what long term effects it might have on his career. Nobody is going to care if McCaffrey played in the Sun Bowl or if Fournette played in the Citrus Bowl. If it were one of the playoff games, sure they would play, but these games are meaningless for their purposes.