blake61

LULZ WHUT It's an Arrested Development reference. But I certainly apologize that offends anyone. Figured it was nonsensical enough to not ruffle any fathers.

Do you honestly think umpires have Bradley on the same level of respect that say, Derek Jeter? Hes not going to get the benefit of the doubt with the umpires. Wow...first, when an umpire makes a call, it doesn't just effect the batter, the pitcher has a pretty deeply rooted interest too (as well as both teams). But obviously your aware of that. Keeping that and your apparent view of an umps job, let me see if I can summarize your thoughts on what an umpire actually does before and during every pitch. 1st the ump sees who is pitching and decides just how much he likes/dislikes and respects that pitcher. Than he does the same for the batter. But, since he's not the only umpires on the field, he prolly needs to find out the like/dislike and respect factors that each of the other umpires has for each player. That's prolly what the umpires do before the game. Next the plate ump decides who should get screwed (&conversely helped) and waits for the pitch, which by your numbers would be coming in b/t 75-95 MPH, often times with incredible movement. Then, if the pitch isn't obviously a ball or strike (something that is often impossible to determine from TV b/c the angle of the camera), the ump adds up all this info. and decides the pitch on his feeling is a split second. Wow, I always just thought they were professionals (with a pretty great jobs actually) whose careers depended on 2 things, being accurate and impartial. And I just figured they relied on their years of training/experience with strike zones to make a split second decision. Can't believe I overlooked all this other stuff. (Not to mention their jobs are a lot harder than I had thought...that's a lot of factors to judge in a split second, but I guess that's where years of training to get to this point comes in.) Maybe I should reexamine my thoughts on who exactly is responsible for 9/11 and whether or not the Jews invented dinosaurs/fossils and scattered those fossils throughout the world in 1924. Can't believe I have been this naive.

if the bill of your cap touches the bill of the umps cap? Yes. You can't touch the ump. It's really a simple, hard and fast, reasonable rule. he didn't touch the umpire. the bill of the cap that he was wearing touched the bill of the cap that the umpire was wearing. Almost never post, but this just really bothered me. In the context of a baseball game, the player's clothing is an extension of that player. That's why when a pitched ball catches the player's shirt(or the bill of the helmet), that player is still awarded the base. It's an HIB because the clothing is part of his body. Same reason you can tag a player out by grazing his shirt(or for that matter the bill of his hat). See Rule 5.09. (And in case there's anyone out there not following, during a game, the Ump's cap is also part of his body by extension of this rule.) So in the context of a baseball game, Bradley made contact with the ump. It's really that simple I figured someone with over 30,000 posts would have watched enough baseball to know that rule, but you know what they say when you make an assumption. As to this thread in general, there really can't be any doubt that the ump made that call because it was MB up there. Its just common sense. If course whenever there's a player up to bat that has had as many problems with umps before (such as MB), the umps are clearly thinking "man if this pitch is anywhere near the zone, its a strike. This jerk player definitely needs to get screwed." It would be foolish to think otherwise, its not like their reputation (and ultimately career) hinges on their impartiality. And it is unbelievably easy to call balls and strikes at the major league level, how dare am umpire ever make a bad call. Milton should have reacted the way he did, how else would we know that he 1. cares about winning, 2. is mad, 3. is a man, 4. is tough, and 5. that the ump got it wrong. End Rant/

I too am from SA (and have lived here for close to 20 years) and tend to think a baseball team could thrive in SA as mid-market sized team. While the city may not have a mass of corporate sponsors to take advantage of there are enough. The SBC acquistion of AT&T will make the SA headquarted company even stronger and richer, HEB grocery stores will certainly be a major sponsor, and lets not forget that Toyota just opened a huge plant in the area which would seem to make Toyota a possible major sponsor. On top of that San Antonio is also home to USAA insurance, the LaQuinta Hotels chains, Tesoro Energy ( a fortune 500 company), Valero Energy (one of a largest independent energy companies in the nation). San Antonio is also home of Clear Channel Communications, which is the largest media conglomerate in the US. Clear Channel would certainly have interest in boardcast rights, as well as sponsorship, to many MLB team in the area. Also, because SA is such a tourism town Southwest Airlines, which is one of the three major sponsors of the Spurs along with HEB and SBC/AT&T, would surely be interest in supporting an MLB franchise here. Add of these companies up and San Antonio would seem to have plenty of corporate sponsorship to support a MLB team. While it is true that much of a city's estimated population is poor, almost everything north of 410 and I-10 (both I-10 west and east) is experinencing a population and likewise a realestate boom. This area cannot grow fast enough to keep up with population demand. This area is a high income area that is growing exponentially with a new high school or two opening every year. Add to that the booming populations of the metro-area cities of Live Oak and Converse as well as others and you can get an idea of how quickly the city is growing. In these areas the median income is high to very high. While much of the city's estimated population of 2 million people is on the low side of the income scale, many being illegal, the city's median household income is still over $43,000/ year according to the SA Express-News which is comparable to Dallas and Houston. What I am thinking is that a stadium located 10 to 15 miles north of San Antonio, perphads in between I-35 I-10, which would put the stadium close to both Six Flags Fiesta Texas and Seaworld of Texas, would draw in many people from the booming areas of San Antonio, as well as drawing in tourists (which is the city's major industry). A stadium in this genreal location would also seemingly bring in fans from the Austin area which would be less than an hour from the heart of Austin with minimal traffic (I know that there is never minimal traffic, but one can dream can't he). Put all of this togather and I think that it is very reasonable that a MLB franchis in the San Antonio area could thrive. (Also, I think that a team in this area would certainly draw corporate sponsors from the Austin area, such as Dell) (Last thing, with the way San Antonio is expanning north, in 20 years I see San Antonio and Austin forming a metroplex in the same fashion as Dallas and Fort Worth, and with the Latin influence down here I can certainly see baseball in this area being more popular than anything, including the NBA and NFL)