SouthSideRyan

Not super bowl related, but I HATE the 2nd wild card idea. It was already touched on earlier, but it seems like people who complain about the wild card talk about how division titles mean nothing anymore. Now you've got 2 out of 3 divisions where the 2nd place team makes it or a 3rd place team making it. All adding another team does is make the playoff races even less meaningful. The race for 5th place in October!! And then what happens when you have a tie for 5th place. Now you have multiple one game playoffs between teams that the usual wild card hater deems inappropriate for postseason play. Catch the fever as the teams that tied for 3rd in a mediocre division battle it out for the right to play the 2nd place team from their division!! If you don't want the wild card to win in the playoffs, why bother with having one at all? If you're so set on things staying with tradition, get rid of divisions and declare an AL champ and an NL champ, but don't bastardize the playoffs with gimmicks like 4-1 and 5-2 playoff differentials. If the Dodgers beat the Mets, would it really be just to give the Cardinals 5 home games despite being an inferior team to the Dodgers over a 162 game season? If the plan in question didn't call for adjusted home schedules in the LCSes then why bother with them only for the DS?? Is that when the wild card team can finally prove their worth is by winning 2 road games out of 4? Not by having (the possibly) 2nd best record in baseball over 162?

wow, none of those things are particularly important for a 1 or 2 hitter. Are you kidding me? Have you watched the Dertroit Tigers? Granderson gets on base, then Polanco moves him over with a bunt, or the hit and run. Works out pretty well for them. Whitesox used it in 05 also. Yeah, so Polanco had 8 sacrifices this year. The Tigers also had 60 steals as a team, good for 11th out of 14 AL teams, with leadoff man Granderson, who must be a stolen base threat since he's a leadoff man and plays for the AL pennant winning team, uhhhh 8 stolen bases. In the ALCS, the most impotant games of the year for the Tigers, 1 sacrifice. From Neifi Perez.

Is there any reason for the random Duke game in '07?

Yeah, that's pretty much the goal. What an awful philosophy! Didn't thiey just go to the ALCS without Mulder or Hudson?

I haven't heard this before, just read on ESPN about ND's '08 schedule, and how in addition to going to only 4 road games, they will have 1 off-site "home game" per year, mentioning Florida, Texas, and New Orleans as possibilities. Seems like a pretty smart recruiting idea.

Purdue or Penn St. will likely be the 2nd. And Air Force has a decent shot at being the 3rd.

So Vandy officially gets added to the list of SEC teams that would destroy ND right?

Evidence that a player's production goes up 20-30% during their contract year? I guess I don't have any hard evidence, but observation seems to point to much better production during a player's contract year. All of a sudden .260 hitters turn into .300 hitters, guys who average 25 HRs hit 35 HRs, and pitchers who win 12 games suddenly become 18 game winners. That's because it sticks in your memoery a lot harder when a guy has an amazing year in his contract year than when a guy does the same as always or disappoints in his contract year. I wanna say there was a study done that showed no real improvement in contract years. I don't doubt that it's possible that a guy knowing it's his contract year takes the time to get himself in peak physical condition, realizing what's at stake (HI MOISES!!), but I don't find it to be the norm.

Louisville's gotta be the biggest West Virginia fans in the world.

I second the Go Penn St.! My favorite Big 10 football team after Illinois. So I guess my favorite real football team in the Big 10.

I miss when Baseball Tonight was "have to see" I don't know if it was becasue I was young and stupid, or if the show's really gotten that much worse, but man I loved that show when I was younger.

I don't get U of I fans' hatred for Bo Ryan. I'm a big fan of his and his Wisconsin teams. A fact that kills me nearly every March Madness.

Evidence that a player's production goes up 20-30% during their contract year?

This is insane.

Why should the players get capped when I have to pay $8.00 for a beer and $5.50 for a hot dog? Lets say I have a family of 4. Tickets are $20.00. Then I decide we are all gonna get a drink and some dogs at the above rates, substituting pops for the kids. I just spent $134.00 Now take that times 40,000 like the cubs get a game. Where should that money go? All of it to the owners, or a nice slice for the players who we all came to watch? Good for Gil Meche. On a side note, can anyone believe a kid from the Domincan Republic can turn down $70 million dollars? Must be some kind of feeling to tell your boss nah $70 million just isn't gonna hack it. I'd say you should stop buying 8 dollar pops.

Hi, I'm Gary Bettman.

There's no real hurry. Not that it would be that great of a loss, but someone might claim Walrond. It's probably better to wait until right before the Rule 5 draft that way a lot of other teams will be trying to clear roster space. More DFAing Les Walrond.

Riggleman did nothing with little payroll.

Freddy Garcia's 26 and cheap?

Beltre's pre-career year career is nowhere close to Soriano's. He was also a free agent after age 25. At that age Soriano was playing his first big league season, .268/.304/.432 It's revisionist history, but hasn't time shown that wasn't simply Beltre breaking out?

Beltre's pre-career year career is nowhere close to Soriano's.

Can somebody tell me why the Yankees would be interested in Freddy Garcia? Did they lose in the postsesason due to a lack of mediocre pitchers?

This is why I'm down on the entire team.

The Sox fan stereotype is right to an extent. There are a lot of ignorant south side hillbillies. The best part is you get the rich people in the south suburbs and they carry the same air of superiority that the north siders do. It's just the best of 2 obnoxious worlds!!!

Words of wisdom from Piniella tonight. Applauded the Tigers sac bunt with no outs and a man on 2nd in the 2nd inning. About 40 seconds later as the inning goes on, he talks about not liking the infield in because it's the innings with multiple runs scored that win/lose games for you. THEN WHY THE HELL ARE YOU APPLAUDING GIVING UP 1 of THE 3 OUTS IN THE INNING?