Sammys Boombox

Great then give it to CBS. They seem to know how to handle the situation with their March Madness coverage. Fox and TBS are under contract for 2012 and 2013.

Or, skip all that, keep things as-is with the postseason, and simply add a trophy that commemorates the regular-season champion in each league. Or you could give the Giles and Harridge Trophies to the regular season winners, rather than the LCS winners. If winning the regular season is deserving of a trophy, then give a trophy. If you expand the playoffs, you have to shorten the season to 154 games unless you want Game 7 of the WS to be on November 15th. And do away with the stupid "All-Star game determines WS home field advantage" and just let that be determined by regular season record. Nah just take out all of the off-days in the postseason and you'd be fine. These guys are used to playing 162 games in 182 days. So let them play a 7-game series in 7 days, with an off day after the series concludes (or more than one, if you finish in less than 7 games). In 2011, the regular season ends Wednesday Sept 28. First round: October 1-5 (best of 5, 2-2-1 format) Second round: October 7-13 (best of 7, 2-3-2 format) League Championships: October 15-21 World Series: October 23-29. TBS and Fox would have a fit.

This is all because of the AL East problem and it's making the rest of baseball suffer. The season is 162 games long. We don't need any more games to decide who should get a chance at the WS. Here are some scenarios that are not far-fetched and will likely happen at least once in the next five years: 1. WC #1 beats WC#2 by at least 4 games in the 162 game season, but loses a 1 (or 3) game playoff and misses the playoffs. Therefore, September was basically meaningless for WC#1. 2. The two best teams in one league are in the same division. They have to play a tie-breaker game because there is no way that you can just give the division to one team and force the other to go to the play-in game. So, the two teams with 95+ wins are playing each other before the playoffs start. Then, the loser has to go and play a do-or-die game (or games) before being allowed to go on the road (if they win) in a best-of-5 series against a team that has a worse record than them and was able to rest for at least two extra days to line up their rotation. Meanwhile, the winner of the divisional tie-breaker had to use one of their starters (possibly their ace) to get to the playoffs against a team that had a worse record and did not have to use their ace pitcher. We all know how important pitching matchups are in a best-of-5. In general tie-breaking scenarios become ridiculous. What happens when three teams tie for the wild card or the division? In 2007, the Padres, DBacks, and Rockies came within one game of tying for the best record in MLB. The Phillies, Mets, Padres, DBacks, and Rockies were all within 2 games of each other, with 3 of those teams at 89 wins, one at 88, and one at 90. If the Mets had just beat the DBacks one more time, they would have all been tied. What would MLB do if they all tied? The 5 best teams in the league get to slug it out for a week while the Cubs sit on the sideline and watch? I'm sure there are more scenarios out there. These are off the top of my head. There are way too many issues to be ironed out here, and almost all of the solutions involve the best teams getting screwed. Most likely we will see automatic tie-breakers at the end of a 162-game season. No thank you.

I'm still trying to figure out how we don't have a better option in our organization to be the 7th starter.

Only one legitimate hit since the 4th inning. Technically, Kosuke has two hits, but one was the popup that the catcher lost in the wind.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-snc4/71027_62284178085_494701_n.jpg This magazine was in my hotel room in Milwaukee a few weeks ago.

I'm so glad we saved the arms of Mateo, Stevens, etc. so Marmol could face 4 batters tonight.

Castro is going to have a slump in the near future unless he stops swinging at every pitch. Nobody will ever throw him a strike.

I was hopeful that Quade was going to be a good manager and was going to give him every chance before I became angry with him, but not pitching around McGehee yesterday and running Dempster out there in the 7th tonight were some pretty horrendous moves. Not to mention the SB attempt in the 9th yesterday. Not impressed at all. He seems to be going from the gut instead of the brain. Reminds me of somebody else. Win the game tonight. You can't worry about slightly increasing your chances at a win tomorrow by severely decreasing your chances tonight.

Colorado's splits are ridiculous. .576 Home W% .402 Road W%

They had $99.99 for premium back in December or something. Nothing since then.

Conspiracy theory? No. Star treatment? Yes. It happens in college sports. Don't deny it. I clearly said that I don't watch enough A&M games to comment on them. I guess that means I think they're on the up-and-up. That leaves ISU (of which I don't watch many games either). But, I do know that most of their games are over at half, home or away. There are going to be less fouls in general in the second half of games like that. As to why they have less on the road instead of home? I don't know. Anomaly? They are so far out of it on the road that they aren't fouling at the end of the game? I could also care less. I don't watch them get ridiculous amounts of bad calls go their way in close games. As for sleeping at night, I can assure you that kU/Mizzou basketball has not cost me one moment of sleep, ever. The Cubs and Packers are so much more important to me.

I agree, the oop play was not a foul. I think the fact that the fans were so angry about that play shows that they were frustrated with all the other calls occurring during that stretch of time. Which you also stated. Also, nearly all the questionable calls were made by one official, which really sets a crowd off. However, I do think that horrible stretch of officiating made a difference because that stretch of time is where Kansas really spread their lead out and it forced Mizzou to play catch up basketball. Again, it is very hard to say that it would have changed the outcome because nobody could know that. Mizzou could have gone up 8-10 points in that stretch instead of going down 13 and still could have lost the game. Everything would have been changed. But, the period with the horrible officiating is also the period where the game got away from Mizzou. I disagree the officials tried to make up for it in the last 8 minutes. But, we can agree to disagree. By the way, foul number 5 on Ratliffe was possibly one of the worst foul calls I have ever seen. Not that it means anything, but I'm not even sure Reed was attempting a shot on that play (obviously it went in so it counts as a shooting foul) but was attempting an oop. As I was at the game, I would be curious to know if the announcers made any comments about the officials.

http://www.cowboysrideforfree.com/2011/2/4/1974863/big-12-basketball-officiating-home-away-splits Oh, look, kU actually gets less fouls called against then on the road than they do at home. This is true for 3 teams in the Big XII (A&M, ISU, and Kansas). Whereas, most of the other teams have huge spikes in the percentage of personal fouls called against them on the road. I don't watch enough A&M games to make a hypothesis, and I'm sure a good chunk of ISU games are not decided by the officials.

Huh? there's so much wrong with that post, i didn't even bother to highlight any one portion. What's so hard to understand? Most teams in the Big XII have much better home than road records and a major reason for that is that the refs in the conference are very homerish. However, kU doesn't have to deal with the same problems. Listen, kU is better than Mizzou and they are the best team in the conference year in and year out. However, they get a lot of help in close games. When every road conference game is a tough win (because of the parity in the Big XII), but kU gets more benefit on the road than every other team, then they will likely steal extra wins along the way. Not that difficult to understand unless you want to be blind and just say, "You're just whining because my team is better." Upon rereading, a better way to state it would have been, "Not saying it was the determing factor in Mizzou losing the game today, but the officiating at a certain stretch in the game was a major factor in the game that may have changed the outcome. Nobody could possibly know."

Huh? The "not saying it made a difference in the outcome of the game" was a disclaimer in the vein of "No offense, but you are a dick". Or, it's saying, that I don't know what the outcome of the game would have been had the officials not been absolutely horrendous for a stretch in the second half. But you keep reading into it all you want.

Mizzou shot terrible today. But, a major reason they lost was some horrendous, one-sided officiating midway through the second half. Not saying it made a difference in the outcome of the game, but it definitely would have made for a closer game down the stretch. The Big XII has some of the most homer refs, but kU gets the benefit on the road. The conference is good and the officials make it so difficult to win on the road for every team except Kansas. No wonder they run away with the conference.

I have an interview in Milwaukee next Friday, but I have a few hours to kill before my plane departs. Does anybody know of the best way to get to Miller Park from either downtown or from the airport? I have never been there and would like to see the stadium.

Prior was my favorite player on the '03-'04 teams. Hope he does well with this chance.

Yeah Royals had their single game tickets open this morning at 10 am Central. I got a single tix to the Cubs/Royals game (by the time I got in after about 45 minutes, the only 2 tixs side by side I could get either the really expensive ones or way the all back on the upper level)... The Sunday June 26th game... Section 102 Row D... $41 after all the taxes and whatnot ($31 face value). Then I got 2 tixs in Section 250 Row EE for the Royals/Red Sox (I waited maybe 15 minutes to get in for this game) game on August 19th... That was $74 (after everything and $30 face value). Figured I would throw this out there for you guys to compare what other places (Kauffmann in this case) are going for their tixs... I'm surprised you had so much trouble. I had about 15 windows open on 2 computers (30 total) and was in right at 10:00 on many of them. Still, there were no dugout box tix available for Saturday (must have been bought up by season tix and all the 15 game packages and stuff) and only the very worst dugout box tix were available for Sunday. I ended up getting 2 tickets in 236 for the Saturday game. After all charges the total was $104. I figure I'll just get some Dri-Duck tickets or other cheapies for the other two games if I get the chance to go. I didn't buy any Wrigley tix this year because I didn't want to plan that far in advance without being able to know I could get my money back if I sold my tickets.

I would basically get the best tickets I could to whatever game I wanted to go to. I would buy 4 instead of 2 and then sell the other 2. Sometimes I went to the game for free or close to it. I never lost money. I don't think you could do that anymore.

Is anybody else going to attempt to get Cubs/Royals tix this morning?

I will never forget watching Dusty throw away the last week of the 2004 season. For this and many other reasons, he is probably my least favorite person ever to be involved with MLB. He is right about one thing, the critics in Chicago are pretty bad. However, as a professional he should be able to handle the criticism and teach his team how to handle it as well. Stop making excuses.

I skipped the first 10 minutes of a class today to get my tickets for the Rays Opening Day game. I just checked (7 hours after they went on sale), and they have only sold 4 of the sections in that price range. I could have waited all day and I would only be a couple of sections over from where I got my tickets. They really can't sell tickets down there.

NICE!!! I am also hoping to get good seats for the Royals-Cubs games (June 24th-26th). KC is only about 4 hours from here (Fayetteville, AR) and my bday is June 27th so I'm hoping that my parents would either pay my hotel or tickets for that weekend or just pinch in some money for that weekend. I'm hoping to see 2 of those Cubs games, if possible, along with maybe 2-3 more games (Rangers/Twins/Rays/Yankees/Red Sox are my top 5 other teams with Angels/Cardinals (just to see Pujols and hopefully Theriot go either 0-4 with 3 errors or go 4-4, all singles and get picked off every time)/White Sox behind those 5... Does anybody know where to sit in the Kaufmann Stadium? Any recommendation on the stadium and the surrounding area? Like what to see and where to eat and etc...??? It'll be my first time in the KC area. Well, the games you want to go to will be pretty full. Otherwise I would just tell you to buy the cheapest ticket possible and sit where you want. But, the Pepsi Party Porch in RF is a very fun place to be if you don't mind standing. Those are first come first served standing spots, so if you plan on doing that buy a cheap ticket. One nice thing about KC is that you can buy the really good seats at very affordable prices and you don't have to wait hours when the tix go on sale. Really, it's whatever you like. Another cheap way to get in is the $7 day of game only dry duck seats. They are above the fountain and are a great place to watch the game. The stadium is awesome now that they have renovated. The hotels around the stadium are a little pricy on game days, but if you're trying to figure out where to stay, remember that staying at one of the close hotels will save you $10 in parking. Finally, check the promotions schedules as just about every game has something unique about it. ie, Fireworks Fridays, Early Gate Openings on Saturday (I think 3 hours before the game starts), and the much recommended Fun Run on Sunday.