XZero771679666304

With all the Baker apologizing Hendry has been doing, I think the streak would have to hit 15, and both would be fired.

I'm sorry Roast, but generally TKD just isn't as effective in real life situations as many other practices. I'm not talking out my arse on this, and I don't make statements like this unless I know what I am talking about. This has nothing to do with stereotyping, just the fact that TKD is generally watered down and artistic in nature. I explained why as succinctly as I could, and I'll stand by that assessment. Just to refresh: Practices like Judo, Jujitsu and Hap-Ki-Do focus almost entirely on technical aspects like grappling, submission, disabling, disarming and flat out maiming. TKD focuses on a couple of those things, but not entirely. In fact the average TKD student will spend well less than half of his time on these along the way to black belt. The majority of what they do focus on is practically useless, and that's just the way it is. Now I am not saying all TKD schools are like this, but the majority are. Now I qualified that statement by saying that somes schools may choose to focus primarily the more practical aspect, hosinsul, but the vast majority do not. And I am not denying that a serious student in a good scool could tailor what they have learned to suit real defense situations. TKD is a worthy activity, and I am not trying to denegrate it's value as a form of discipline. But having said that and knowing a thing or two about hand-to-hand combat, if left with a choice between fighting a Judo, jujitsu, Hap-Ki-Do, Kung-Fu or TKD black belt, I choose the TKD 99.9% of the time. This isn't because of stereotype, just that knowledge tells me that gives me the best chance of not getting broken and defeated. You can say that TKD can be effective if the student properly applies what he has learned, but that is true of anything. Judo, Jujitsu, HDD, etc. are effective by their very nature, and do not require tweaking to be practically applicable. They are very straight forward and brutally effective. For the record, I attended a couple of schools, but not for very long. There was a family freind who was an Army Ranger who told me that the best form of hand-to-hand was mixed martial arts. (most special forces practice a mixture mostly comprised of Judo and Jujitsu, IIRC) He said that if I wasn't going to go to a school, to study manuals and spar with anyone I knew who practiced matrial arts, so I did. I learned what I know about TKD from reading books and sparring with my two TKD student friends, both of who were black belts. That and running into many TKD students in different places. Like I said before, I am not some kind of badass. And while one of the most important rules of fighting is no to underestimate your enemy, TKD generally doesn't instill fear in me, to say the least. I would avoid a confrontation with high level students of Judo, Jujitsu and HKD, If I had any kind of choice. P.S. If anyone here is a practicioner of Kung-Fu, I'd like to discuss it. Kung-Fu is far less common then most others because it requires such an enormous commitment, if you are a serious student. I always wanted to take it, but finding a good school in the states is difficult.

Okay, I hated that trem during the election campaign, but this snippet from the Sun-Times is kind of funny: Policing the players is your job, Dusty.

Bull. You obviously know little about TKD. Joint locks, Pressure points, Ground fighting, Sparring, and other fighting tactics are huge parts of tkd. I know quite a bit. A girl I went to school with was the Junior World Champion in the mid 90's. I had a couple friends who were black belts from a reputable academy. Neither could defend themselves worth a damn. Hosinsul is a principle of TKD that includes grappling and locks, but generally pure TKD is almost exclusively artistic in nature, focusing more on kicks and forms. Hosinsul generally gets watered down by the more prevelant flowery aspects of the discipline. Your school may be different, but this is generally the case. Relative to Jujitsu, Judo, Kung Fu, Hap Ki Do and others that more focused are nearly totally applicable in a real life combat and self defense situations, TKD is pretty weak. In fact, the instructor at my friend's school taught both TKD and Hap-Ki-Do, and told new students that if the wanted to learn how to defend themselves, they should choose Hap-Ki-Do. When I was younger (and far less cerebral), I used to get in my fair share of fights. Now this is going to offend some people, but there were always two kinds of guys who were the easiest to beat: Wrestlers and TKD students. Both vastly overrated their fighting ability. Now I'm not some kind of badass, but if a person knows how to fight, TKD isn't going to save you. Against a clumsy bar room brawler type, probably. Judo, Hap ki do and jujitsu would be the best for the average person to take for self defense, IMO.

I remember having this same debate about Wood years ago. Wood and Prior are very different pitchers. Kerry has always been higher risk.

I'm confused. Prior is so good you can't trade him but other GM's would laugh at you for wanting quality in return? Prior isn't good enough yet to return what you feel he will be worth. The A's dealt Hudson and Mulder because they were at the end of their cost effectiveness. Waiting until Mark nears his free agency to entertain trade ideas is the prudent thing to do, both to maximize his value, and minimize the loss to the tam.

An 0-16 streak will only set him back as long as Baker's in charge. I recall a certain HOF 2B that started 1-23..... I'm sure a lot of guys who never made it for long had a 1-23 stretch. Did DuBois have one of those? For the record, Murton looks good. I just want to see what he does over a couple hundred at bats versus both lefties and righties. With Burnitz looking awful, I hope Murton gets a shot in the St. Louis series. Time to put him in the deep end of the pool. Oh, trust me, I'm not saying that just because Ryno weathered a bad start that Murton can. Dubois, I'm sure, had a long streak like that. However, given where we are in the standings, now is the perfect time to see exactly what kind of player Murton could be, especially considering that there's no clear cut alternative that's better.. Exactly. No pressure, we're out of it anyway. Let's see what the kid can do. But that would mean, with Corey coming back, in order for Murton to play Lawton or Burntiz would have to sit. Dusty wouldn't sit a vet liek Burnitz, and Lawton isn't sitting, so Murton will rot on the bench for the rest of the year. Yeah, unless someone gets traded, this debate is all about principle anyway.

At this point, the team is a lost cause. Had there been a better manager in charge from day one, things would likely be quite different. As for managers, I like Jim Leyland ans Larry Dierker.

Being a great hitter doesn't mean you will be a great hitting instructor. Dusty's prowess as a MLB player and his ability to assess and instruct can be mutually exclusive things. Dusty was a good hitter so he automatically knows what's best for Murton? BS. It's like that in all facets of life. For example, I have met awesome golfers who couldn't teach you a thing about how to swing a club effectively. I knew awesome mathematicians who couldn't help me at all with my math. I am a pretty damn good writer, but I have a hard time imparting writing knowledge on to students I tutor. The notion that if two people are analysts/managers and the one who has had success as a player automatically has more insight is a total and utter crock. The Cubs are one of the best slugging teams in the NL, and Baker's the same guy who managed Bonds. I don't like Baker, mostly due to his incredible stubbornness and constantly changing lineups. However, he's not as bad as some on this board say. He probably knows a lot more about hitting than many of the armchair coaches on this board, who probably never got past high school ball. Bonds was great before Baker got anywhere near him. Slugging is great, but what about the other facets of hitting? We have a poor and inconsistent offense. And Dusty's faux concern over R/L matchups is very transparent. It is funny how his view of it changes depending on the experience of the player. Remember how eager he was to pull Dubois when a RHP came in, but ver did the same to Holla when a LHP came in? Or today when Mercker came in to fave Burnitz while Murton watched. There is zero reason to think his keeping Murton away from RHP is anything other than an excuse to play his pet vets. Matt hit RHP and LHP with equal effectiveness in AA, so there's not reason to expect him to be suddenly traumatized by them now. There is no better time to see what Matt can do than the present. As I pointed out in another thread, the Braves brought Francouer up from AA at the same time as Murton was brought up, and he has had more AB's against RHP than LHP. And Bobby Cox sure knows a heck of alot more about winning and successfully managing a team than Dusty ever will. But since Dusty was a good hitter, he must know more about it than Bobby, huh?

Well at least we could see what the kid can do (or not do) without there being any real ramifications for the team if he does badly. I don't think too many people are thinking in terms of getting back in the race at this point. Now is the perfect time to test our kids out, so we have a better idea of what we have to work with going into the offseason. It would be the prudent thing to do.

Being a great hitter doesn't mean you will be a great hitting instructor. Dusty's prowess as a MLB player and his ability to assess and instruct can be mutually exclusive things. Dusty was a good hitter so he automatically knows what's best for Murton? BS. It's like that in all facets of life. For example, I have met awesome golfers who couldn't teach you a thing about how to swing a club effectively. I knew awesome mathematicians who couldn't help me at all with my math. I am a pretty damn good writer, but I have a hard time imparting writing knowledge on to students I tutor. The notion that if two people are analysts/managers and the one who has had success as a player automatically has more insight is a total and utter crock.

And this is why he can't play center, for those who wanted him to.

YES, Great movie, hahaha I feel like some combination of the drunken old men who don't care at this point.

isn't there a guy on the bench with a .400 average and .490 OBP? i think he has red hair. We also have a guy who has a .490 OBP in Iowa. But he has no tools. He would sure be nice off the bench.

Has anyone here seen the Kentucky Fried Movie?

Coming off the DL, Scott should not have pitched 3 out of 5 days. Predictably, he had nothing out there.

Wheeee! Hollandsworth! :roll:

He'd have an aneurysm. Hell, I might have one.

I'd think about pulling Scott. Soon.

He's pitched a couple times, including last night. Having said that, he should be shut down.

Dusty better not pull a Chad Fox with Williamson. He should be an integral part of the pen next year.

Len seems to be getting fooled by the long fly balls.

Ah, the genius that is Dusty Baker! Is he not the worst manager in the major leagues? Every day is just a little further down the rabbit hole with Dusty around. I can scarcely imagine how happy I'll be when he's gone.

Analyzing a situation doesn't mean you take cheap shots when not warranted, and it also means that you think critically, not be critical. Thinking critically, you would say that Aramis is playing through pain and thus shouldn't be expected to run flat out to 1B on a ground ball to third. His bat is more important that making it a close play, given the risk. Critical thinking tells you that Murton has command of the zone, and thus could be a valuable ML player, and at the very least is the best option in the OF right now when put against Holla and Macias. Critical thinking tells you that it's stupid to call up a guy who's missed 9 weeks with a bad ankle injury just for the sake of it. Critical thinking. Not just criticism. I realize that one makes for better talk radio, but I'm tired of people taking Stone's word for gospel. It's not, and it's seeming more and more obvious that he has a big axe to grind with this organization. Excellent post and very well said. His bitterness isn't hidden by his claims of objectivity. Please show me Bruce Levine's career MLB stats. I really like Stone and agree with him most of the time, but that was as superfluous a statement as there is. Being a great ballplayer doesn't make you a great analyst, nor does having no experiece make you an inferior one. There are plenty of great players who don't have an ounce of insight. And somehow I'm not surprised you turned this into a WSCR/ ESPN 1000 thing.

What did it say? REAL CUBS FAN (I know the words)