treebird

Alou is obviously implying that the White man is the devil. He must be fired. Seriously though, is that much different than the logical leap that led to Cream of Wheat being deemed offensive? It's a smaller leap. I don't understand why the South Park satan bit causes the firing? Are they not to mock ridiculous statements by Alou anymore out of fear of being fired? If this same thing happened in Chicago, it'd be ridiculous and chalk it up to Dusty's thin skin. Just cause Alou's a grumpy old man, and you haven't had to deal with his IQ of white rice decision-making(NOT CALLING HIM UNCLE BEN, JUST SAYING HE'S REALLY DUMB) in person, he gets a free pass and can say whatever off the wall thing he wants and not be held accountable? They were clearly in trouble from the beginning because of the comments. Even if they felt they'd done nothing wrong, they knew they were in trouble. SO WHY DO A COMEDY BIT ABOUT THE SITUATION? They probably just wanted to look like martyrs or something.

I'm going to the Cubs game for some reason, but I've got tickets to the Chiefs game tomorrow night as well. The seats are real good (second row, directly behind home plate), and if somebody PROMISES that they will use them, I guess you can just have them for nothing. The Chiefs website has a ticket transfer thing, so I'm pretty sure I'd be able to set it up so you can pick them up at will call. Any takers?

flesh-colored body suit okay?

ahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahha actually i just bought these sunday. oops?

AND HOW LIKELY IS IT THAT I HAVE A FOOTBALL HELMET AND SHOULDER PADS come on guys

oh god i think i have to any dissent?

You know, I'm liking this idea now that I think about it. You could even expand it to include terminology, a base hit=first down, Pitcher gives up a walk=he got sacked, full count=going for it on fourth down, first pitch=kickoff. i dont think i have a bears jersey, but im checking

So let's all think of some hilarious things for me to do rather than pay attention to the horror on the field. All ideas will be entertained.

im pretty sure they had no choice to fire them after morning show comedy routine they did. what the heck could they have possibly been thinking?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v386/edstevensiscool/johnnya.jpg im cool

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA oops

Then luck plays a massive part in almost every players BA from year to year. Edmonds, for example, has had between .030 and .040 BA swings every year since 2002...sometimes up, sometimes down. Even Pujols, whom I think is the model of consistency, has had a .045 swing in his batting average from one year to the next. Attribute that to luck if you want, but if you do, then it applies to everyone's swings and it shouldn't be tagged on just one player. Ramirez, Lee, Garciaparra, Rolen, Sanders, Patterson...tons of players have had their BAs swing significantly from year to year at least once in their career...and usually more. Was it luck when Patterson went from .253 to .298? From .298 to .266? From .266 to .233? READ MY POST luck plays hugely into batting average for all players. you can look at ld% and babip to see that. and i already said that it doesn't just apply to cardinals and not cubs.

oops, ignore list expanded

if you're basing how good a GM is only on trades, your boy doesn't exactly have an advantage. Jocketty has acquired the following players via trade: McGwire Rolen Edmonds Walker Woody Williams Vina Kile Will Clark Chuck Finley Kline Hermanson King Marquis Notable players given up: Drew Polanco Timlin Jack Wilson Coco Crisp Adam Kennedy Are you saying that Hendry's trade record is better? im not particularly impressed by either hendry or jocketty's trade record. most all of each gm's big deals were merely a matter of having the ability to take on payroll. the angels knew they weren't getting full value or close to it when they traded edmonds, just as the pirates knew they weren't getting full value when they traded lofton and ramirez. it's not like jim and walt are out there brainwashing people.

And luck could have nothing to do with the fact that a guy is performing 50 OPS+ points higher than his career average. :roll: Fine, explain how you think luck is playing a role. Are defenders tripping? Is he closing his eyes when he swings and just getting "lucky" when he hits the ball squarely? I could only find statistics for his first 212 ABs for this, but his line drive percentage is 17%, which is just a shade under the MLB average of 19%. He hits slightly more ground balls than the average as well...47% to 44%. All in all, he's doing the things that an average MLB hitter should be doing. His career OBP is about .07 higher than his career BA...this year his OBP is .064 above his BA, so no surprises there. Neither his IsoP nor his secA are career highs, or even all that much above his career averages. The only things that have increased significantly are his BB/SO (at .90 now, career average .55) and his BA (up .065 points). Even his BB/PA is about the same. The difference between his career BA and his one extra hit every 13 ABs or so...hardly miraculous stuff. I don't have his line drive percentage from years past, but it's possible he's raised that this year (I speculate because his GB/FB ratio is the lowest he's ever had in a season with more than 100 ABs), thus leading to that one extra hit every so often. The two seasons he's had with the most games played and most ABs also happen to be the ones with his two highest seasonal batting averages. It's been shown that the more he plays, the better he does...and now he's on pace to beat his career highs in GP by 12 and his ABs by about 50 so the increased playing time could certainly be a factor in his success. Line drive percentage, playing time, enjoyment of the game, hitting in front of Pujols so he's getting better pitches to hit (he's hitting .422 in the #2 slot in 64ABs...everywhere else he's batting .279). There's just too many realistic possibilities to blithely chalk it up to luck. In fact, a lot of things are entirely within the realm of possibility...why does it have to be luck? when all of a guys numbers stay the same but his batting average fluctuates, we almost always attribute that to luck. this is a fact whether we are discussing a Cardinal or a Cub or a Devil Ray.

oops the a's were horrible tonight 7-0 angels after two. harden gave up a grand homerun to vlad in the second. not good. final score: 9-2 angels. a's are one game back.

i wouldnt have said that was the most unlikely line for him with the cubs for this season. optimistic, but probably what i was hoping to see from him : (

I can bid for you, Tree! Unless you spent all of your jersey $$ on the Cubs tickets. :mamoru: (I had to pass on the Thursday Cubs game because I'm going to the Friday game.) i'm giving it some thought. i really like sam fuld. i'll get back to you.

What do you mean believe in luck? Nobody's saying that the Cardinals did something special (catch a leprechaun) to get this luck, just that things have happened to go their way in such a manner that they have score more runs that would have been expected to score.

I saw a commercial on tv for these, but was on the computer so I only caught the end and missed the date they were doing this. Should be awesome. I wish I was going now, I would've been all over it, but stupid Serena sold me stupid tickets to see the stupid Cubs.

Then your problem is with the seeding of the playoffs, not necessarily the WC itself. explain how to seed the teams with a wild card so that won't happen. this wouldn't happen if there were four divisions or no divisions or two divisions or whatever. If you seed the teams based on win-loss record without regard to division, then it won't happen. that would help in scenarios in which the a's and angels both have better records than the red sox, but . . . White Sox have best record. Red Sox have second best record. Lesser record of A's/Angels gets the White Sox.

Then your problem is with the seeding of the playoffs, not necessarily the WC itself. explain how to seed the teams with a wild card so that won't happen. this wouldn't happen if there were four divisions or no divisions or two divisions or whatever.

mark it down as another at bat in his new streak he wasnt even trying to hit the ball in the air, what a jerk

I hate the Wild Card. Here's an example why. Let's say that the A's and Angels both get hot and are on pace to win 100 games each in mid to late September. Let's also say (this is not realisitic, but go with me) that Curt Schilling moves back to the rotation and gets HOTHOTHOT for the Red Sox. The Yankees and all the other Wild Card contenders fall off. Here's how things play out. White Sox have the best record in the league and will play the Wild Card team. Boston will play the winner of the west, regardless of the number of wins they have. Who would you rather play, the White Sox or the Red Sox? Suddenly, both the A's and Angels have pretty substantial incentive to lose as much as possible. That's bad.

Don't worry; you'll fall in love again someday. not if i have anything to say about it.