SoxFan562004

Great PR spin by A-Rod and his people, admit to only using in the years that were going to be on the backburner of your career anyways. No way I believe he only used them between 01 and 03. He uses the pressure as an excuse, like what, the pressure went away somehow when he went to th Yankees? He had two of his best years of OPS+ and RC/G with the Yankees. I also love how he said something along the lines that he was young and naive, sorry when you're 25 or 26 and have been in the majors for parts of 2 years and 5 full years and you are commanding quarter billion dollar contracts that excuse doesn't fly with with me

QUOTE (FlaSoxxJim @ Feb 8, 2009 -> 09:29 AM) Great book, really the first thing that got me into New Orleans culture. I'm impressed. If the prof is familiar with the book you could do it in two parts, a very short one that would be realistic then a second part in the style of how Ignatius wrote in the book

Ignatius J. Reilly

Well if this is true than chalk another one up for Jose Canseco

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templa...27&zoneid=2 Strikeforce bought ProElite's assets and inked a deal with Showtime. First event is 4/11 with Frank Shamrock

If you build your team like the Twins and play 81 games at the Cell you will be a very bad team

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 12:47 PM) Bobby Abreu at $8 million is a steal, btw. completely agree, obviously someone has to be moved, but he's a great #2 hitter

I know it necessarily doesn't mean anything, but has AM 1000 or WSCR reporting anything on this?

QUOTE (fathom @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 12:01 PM) For most teams, I'd say speed is important at the top of the order. For the Sox, I think it's extremely overrated with the current middle of our order. If we start shaking it up and replace people like Thome and Konerko, then I would change my opinion. The last thing we all need to see is bunting in the first inning because Ozzie has one of his speedy guys on base. Also the Cell has a lot do to with the lineup the Sox should pursue.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 10:33 AM) They've been speaking with his agent for sure though, its a fact. Whether or not this was a recent conversation is outside of my knowledge. And as some other folks on here know, they have also been talking to another slugger's agent as well. Don't tease me with the chance it might be Dunn!!!

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Feb 3, 2009 -> 10:29 AM) Called it. And he prob still wont take it. But he is an ideal target. yeah, I agree with you, I don't see him taking this. I see KW coming out pretty quickly and denying it. Hopefully that's just me being pessimistic because if KW has another move up his sleeve this would be a good move

Interesting, obviously the Sox would have to move someone to have this move make sense, but with his OBP he would be a great #2 hitter for this lineup.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Feb 1, 2009 -> 01:56 PM) ESPN2 use to show K-1 matches nightly around 7pm a few years ago. Very fun to watch. Kinda funny to see Bob Sapp wreck top K-1 guys for 1 fight before losing his stamina for the second round matches. Yeah, I prefer MMA, but it seems like the things many people like about MMA are more prevelant in K-1

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Feb 1, 2009 -> 12:51 PM) I'm sure glad I didn't buy that PPV, and instead watched it online. Penn looked pathetic, and the first three matches were boring as hell. I'm guessing Machida is Japanese, although he was apparently born and raised in Brazil. Can anyone confirm this? By his looks, he seems asian, but that doesn't necessarily mean he is. I'm basing this on his name, his father's name, and the fact that he's trained in Karate and Sumo. He's half Japanese and half Brazilian. IMO the Diaz/Guida fight wasn't boring, not FOTN material but a lot of good ground work. The Bonner/Jones fight wasn't boring either, a spinning back elbow, numerous flush knees, it was Jones breaking out as a potential star and Bonner taking a hell of a beating. I don't mean this to be sarcastic or to sound cool or anything, but I really think people would enjoy K-1 kickboxing more than MMA, I just don't think it's been marketed right in the U.S.

GSP pure and simple domination, amazing, didn't see it playing out like that. Works out for UFC in the long run having the belt on 2 people. Machida!!!!!!!!!! On a night of decisions who would have ever thought that he would get the KO! Good fight with Guida and Diaz, Guida suprised me, he did an excellent job. Bonner took an ass kicking. OK card

QUOTE (knightni @ Jan 30, 2009 -> 04:48 PM) I wonder how many of you copy/pasted or read the mlb list there so that you could spell "Samardzija" correctly. I will admit that I did, I even tried to look at it, memorize it and spell it first and messed it up, and I have an excellent memory

Crede on that rock hard field for 81 games will probably mean a few games missed due to ouchy back

QUOTE (sircaffey @ Jan 30, 2009 -> 11:49 AM) I find 37-50 to be very questionable for the most part. I don't follow prospects very much but Samardzija at 50 seems very questionable to me. I remember everyone saying the Cubs reached even taking into account his questionable status due to football. Also, there's obviously reasons people could give, but in September he was awful, flat-out awful. http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/pspli...1&year=2008

It's great having Mac gone, I can actually listen to AM 1000 in that time slot. I normally listen to B & B if I'm not listening to the Stern replay on Sirius, but I can only listen to B & B I would say 70% of the time

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Jan 30, 2009 -> 12:12 AM) IMO, the best way to tackle Zuffa if you really want to is the old territory style of pro-wrestling. Back before McMahon began swallowing up all the territories you had wrestlers who would go from promotion to promotion and in the old NWA system there were even common titles. With these local promotions out there for sale and not turning a huge profit or anything, a company with the backing of Affliction could easily jump in and immediately dig into a local market where local promoters are packing the house. Add a TV deal to that and it would be golden. If Affliction did something like that, especially with HDNet around wanting to run MMA programming but not being granted footage from Zuffa, Affliction could have captured enough of the small show scene to strong-arm HDNet into give them favorable coverage over anything else. They could have had their own titles under a system like that as well and wouldn't have had to use WAMMA, plus they wouldn't appear to be quite as threatening to Zuffa that way which would have prevented Zuffa from spending money to counter them every time they wanted to put a show on. The odd thing and difficult thing with Zuffa's success is their insanely loyal fanbase. Look at the numbers they get from TUF, the countdown shows, and Fight Nights, they are not crazy high numbers. The thing UFC has going for them is an insanely large percentage of their core viewing audience buys the PPVs and their key demo is the most coveted Look at TNA or even WWE. TNA is on Spike to and get similar if not better ratings than the UFC, but get significantly less PPV buys. Same as WWE, they'll pull double the UFC ratings but, except for their major shows, get less than half of UFCs buy-rate. I have to review some of the meltzer numbers, but usually a good UFC PPV does about 400k, give or take 100k, while a great card does around 900k, again give or take. Actually, if GSP/St. Pierre II does around 900k that will be 3 out of 4 ppvs that do a mega level (Lesnar/Couture, Big Nog/Mir and 94). Both with ticket sales and PPV buys the UFC has yet to be really touched by the economic downturn. With all that said, it's going to be extremely difficult for any promotion to make a significant dent in the UFC empire. For better or for worse, the UFC = MMA in the U.S. so there's not a lot of casual fans to grab. PRIDE attempted to do it with shows in Vegas and a weekly show on FSN, ELITE XC tried a gimmick fighter and a show on CBS and now Affliction is trying by running shows at a loss. If anyone challenges UFC in the future it will take a regular show on TV, such as ESPN or the like, with quarerly big cards on CBS, HBO or Showtime. I heard CBS was still interested in MMA so there's a possibility someone can grab them. Even with that there has to be some luck mixed in, UFCs huge break came in that the first season of TUF did good ratings then the Griffin/Bonner fight was off the charts exciting, even having the weird phenomenon of ratings increasing during the 15 minute fight. Let's say the stars allign for Affliction or another promotion and they get a CBS show, if most of the fights are lay and pray borefests it could cripple them.

http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templa...9&zoneid=14 Penn Machida Kim (That's if "The Heat" shows up and doesn't have another panic attack!) Bonner Diaz Fitch I agree that Fitch should be on the televised card, but Bonner has name recognition and they think the Diaz/Guida fight will be more exciting. If there's anything to the Fitch fight that will be the first undercard fight they show on the PPV. I love Guida, but I think Diaz via submission early in second. Diaz is very good. Machida with another "elusive" decision. and Penn via decision.... Mhizzle, how do you have the main event ending?

I'll make a wild guess for the future and say the Sox sign a club record FA contract next year. I haven't looked at the list for FAs next year, so ignore that if there's crap out there. It seems like they can manage the good young players they have and still have a reasonable payroll

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Jan 30, 2009 -> 11:32 AM) It sounds like he'll be ready and pain free on Opening Day. The bullpen is one area where the Sox could/should have a big advantage in the division, but that advantage won't be there without an effective, healthy Linebrink. True, with Jenks, Linebrink, Thorton and Dotel the Sox can run out some good arms. They'll need it with a young guy at 5 and the crapshoot that will be Colon's health.

Owens and Wise? You have to be kidding me. That is an absolute joke

QUOTE (SoxFan1 @ Jan 29, 2009 -> 12:07 PM) Is that a shot at me? It's a shot at no one. I don't take arguments over this personally