CWSGuy406

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 25, 2008 -> 09:02 PM) The legend grows. It's like people who say Rowand was an unbelievable fielder. I can't wait to hear Hawk state every game how Crede should have 3 gold gloves by now. The only thing dumber is when he says Ozzie should have 3 World Series rings with the Sox already. Even at Crede's best, I doubt he was as good as Brandon Inge and Pedro Feliz. I'd even bet that there are several who are right on par with him, such as Ryan Zimmerman, (a healthy) Eric Chavez and Mike Lowell. The legend will only grow once Crede is gone, by the way. By the time I'm 40, I'm pretty sure Crede will have hit 50 homers during the 2005 season and had range going all the way to the second-base bag.

QUOTE(iamshack @ Mar 25, 2008 -> 08:55 PM) If there is anything minor league pitchers can do, it is throw "average" fastballs. It's the secondary pitches that they can't throw. My comparison of Fields to Howard was not a comparison of the situation. My comparison is that a guy who had "mastered" the minor leagues FAR MORE than Josh Fields has managed not to have his career stunted or retarded, or any other ridiculously hyperbolic verb you want to attach to the situation. Josh Fields AAA at-bats - ~670 Ryan Howard AAA at-bats - ~320 Howard got a cup-of-coffee in Scranton (Philly's AAA affiliate) in 2004. In 2005 -- the year Thome got hurt -- Howard started off the year in AAA, which is justifiable given how much the Phillies had invested in Thome and also given that Howard only had a little more than 100 at-bats above AAA. How, again, are these situations comparable?

QUOTE(iamshack @ Mar 25, 2008 -> 08:44 PM) When are you guys going to address the fact that he can't hit an average fastball and he has major strides to make defensively? How is working on those things going to retard his growth or "ruin" him? Ryan f***ing Howard stayed in Scranton (Philly's AAA team) until the age of 26, while the big league club figured out how to move Thome, and it certainly didn't ruin him. As a GM, you have to maximize your resources, especially considering we don't have a whole hell of a lot in the farm system right now. We have a guy coming off an injury that just a few years ago, was a pretty damned good player. For the most part, he's not going to see "average fastballs" in AAA. He's going to see below average fastballs, outside of your occasional top prospect. He'll be seeing lots of the Tim Reddings and Wade Millers of the world (for the most part). There's so many things wrong with the Ryan Howard situational comparison as well. First there's the fact that Crede isn't even close to comparable as Thome. A healthy Crede, at his best, is probably the guy we saw in 2006 -- average-ish bat (slugging % heavy) with plus defense and well below-average baserunning. That's a very replaceable player and certainly not someone who should be blocking your top prospect. Thome, quite obviously, is a top-30 bat in the game when healthy. And there was a LOT more invested in Thome than there is in Crede. Talk about an apples and filet mignon comparison there.

What a miserable organization -- absolutely f***ing pathetic. And seriously -- someone's arguing about Fields' defense in LF? Even if he's terrible out there, who gives a damn? He'd have to be a statue -- a complete statue, not moving for any ball hit to him -- to make up for the difference between his and Owens' bat. (I don't advocate Fields in LF, BTW -- he should be at third-base. Starting in Chicago. Every GM in baseball called your bluff w/r/t Crede, Kenny, time to cut your losses.)

To be fair... you know that, at the very worst, this team would've mustered at least an extra 2-3 points if #19 hadn't been out six weeks, but as with the points lost a few weeks ago... not much use in b****ing about it now. And whenever I start getting angry about points missed here and there through the season, I go back to a majority of expectations that were laid at the beginning of the season -- if everything goes right, a middle seed in the playoffs but -- a more likely scenario -- competing for the 8th spot in the West. That I'm/we're still scoreboard watching and it's a week from April 1st tells me all I need to know about whether we're "competing". There's 12 possible points left on the schedule. The good news is that Detroit is now seven points up on San Jose, the number two team in the West. There's a non-terrible chance that Detroit could have first place locked up by April 2nd, the first of two remaining meetings left between the Hawks and Detroit. As such, I'll be rooting for Detroit for the next week.

Anyone see the West Virginia press conference(s) after they beat Duke? Some fantastic quotes. Here's some of them: http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/mocking-duke/

I don't know why I'm torturing myself by continually looking at this picture, but Christ, man... what a shot. And with that I promise I won't bring anymore of my sadness into these threads.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Mar 22, 2008 -> 10:49 PM) Georgetown or Davidson, its fun to get to sit back and know that your team will be playing next week. I'm supposed to hate the Badgers but I don't. I guess my proximity has to do with it -- things may have been different had I been born-and-raised in Wisconsin. I think part of it was because there was a smugness among Marquette fans about the Big 10 -- they enjoyed bashing the hell out of it, basically nothing different from what a lot of other people were saying but arrogant nonetheless. So in that sense I'm happy to see MSU and Wisconsin in the Sweet 16. That's not to say I'll be rooting for them when they play (hopefully) Georgetown next weekend -- far from it. Not that you care who the hell I root for in the first place... Ah, I see I'm rambling at this point. So yeah, I don't hate the Badgers and still feel like my balls are in my stomach from that MU/Stanford game. Ugh.

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 23, 2008 -> 01:07 AM) Sorry Keith, I was rooting for you. Thanks. ---------------------------- I feel ill. I really have no sense of objectivity right now and as such can't really analyze what went down. But just a few things: - Those first couple OT possessions were key. Shame on Marquette's coaching staff for having Burke 'half-front' Lopez. He had nothing when he had to make a move towards the lane, and must've had at least 10 points off that two-foot layup. I understand that they're very good but some of those buckets were way too easy. - McNeal had some great looks in those final possessions. Then again, he played a phenomenal game, though, so for me to pick out two shots is nitpicking. - The not-as-good-as-his brother Lopez -- Robin? -- is a f***ing prick. This one hurts.

QUOTE(Texsox @ Mar 22, 2008 -> 09:40 PM) Not much Duke coverage here. I'm not throwing stones in a glass house here -- I think I filled out a couple of brackets where I had them getting past this round (not to mention a bunch of other absolutely dumbass picks by me -- USC over K-State, for one). I didn't mean to throw it around as an insult, either. I just can't believe how much joy I take in watching Duke lose.

Ehh -- if you watched even a bit of college basketball this season it was fairly easy to see Duke wasn't really a #2 seed. It's also amazing what happens when the refs decides to pull their heads out of Coach K's ass and actually call fouls on Duke.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 11:54 PM) 13 fouls on Belmont, 3 for Duke. Nice. Some of that has to do with style of play, but a ten foul differential? Give me a f***ing break.

Bring it on, Stanford! I'm growing more and more fond of this match-up -- the Lopez brothers will almost assuredly get theirs, but someone besides those two is going to have to step up. Our guards are much better and as a team Marquette is much more athletic -- if Stanford can't stop MU's transition game I like MU's chances.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 09:31 PM) You picked Kentucky over Marquette???? Or did you pick Kansas over Marquette cause one is KU, the other is UK I did, but it was a half-hearted pick. I'm not one to fill out seven different brackets, but this year I did. In most of my brackets I basically flipped a coin on MU/UK (yeah -- I meant UK, not KU) and had them losing in the very next round to Stanford. In one bracket I had Marquette getting to the Sweet 16 before losing to Texas. And the first bracket I filled out had Kentucky facing Stanford, so that's why I said I had Kentucky pick. I hate picking my team when I'm emotionally attached to them (a superstition thing). -------------------- Did Bilas say anything about why there wasn't an intentional foul called at the end of the game when Kentucky kept fouling our big man away from the ball? Cripes, that's a rule-book intentional foul -- this isn't the NBA.

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 09:27 PM) Hey, I had Marquette moving on....... You're one of the few -- well done. Even I picked KU...

QUOTE(Heads22 @ Mar 20, 2008 -> 06:53 PM) Kentucky gives up scoring for lent. I mean, they started this self-denial thing late, but they're just refusing to score against Marquette all of a sudden. Any credit to Marqette's defense, which ranks sixth in the nation according to Pomeroy? Wooh! First tourney win in my time here so that's nice. McNeal and Hayward are catching fire at the right time as well. Stanford's going to be tough as hell, though. I agree with 101 -- maybe not press, but Crean has to preach that the only way they're going to prevent the brothers Lopez from going off for 50 is by pressuring the s*** out of their (mediocre?) guards. They're also going to have to play in transition -- see if those Pac 10 kids can keep up with our athleticism.

QUOTE(gbuk @ Mar 17, 2008 -> 03:34 AM) Gillispie is gonna own Crean so hard. Phh -- bring it. I look forward to playing the team that, IIRC, ranks 291st in the country in turnovers. Seriously, though, I'm not very confident. I'm happy with the Kentucky match-up, but I realize my boys are rather beatable. I think MU is a bit better, but it's one-and-done so anything can happen.

QUOTE(Rex Hudler @ Mar 17, 2008 -> 02:08 AM) 5. Pitt/Mich St in a 2nd round game is a great matchup. It is? Pitt should wipe the floor with the Big Ten's 4th best team.

Marquette -- easy.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 16, 2008 -> 07:48 AM) I'm guessing you have a massive collection of MP3's and Videos because thats probably what you'd have to delete. I also am just curious but in this day and age of massive hard drives, what in god sakes do you have on your computer (or is it just a smaller hard drive). Bottom line, you've hit a limit so you'd either have to delete some of your saved files (mp3's, video's, or video games as those are the three things that you'd have on your computer that take up the most space) or add a new harddrive. That's the thing -- it's rather puzzling. Relatively speaking, I don't have that many MP3s -- I can't have more than 1.5K on there which really isn't a whole helluva lot. I know people with upwards of 10K on there computers. Videos? I doubt it's that -- I never bought a video iPod. And I'm not a gamer, either -- or at least a computer gamer -- so it's not that. I'm hoping this cached files thing does the trick. It sucks because I can't even download the new iTunes and subsequently can't buy anymore songs until I update it. And I want to fill up my current iPods on that desktop (about 200 more songs) before I move to this laptop with my music.

Okay -- I've done the defrag several times, that doesn't seem to do a whole helluva lot other than give me a marginal amount of space. Delete files... I've went through "Add/Remove Programs" a handful of times and deleted a whole lot of crap that I don't use anymore. Even that, however, only adds a marginal amount of space. Anywhere else I can delete stuff? I figured out to delete the cached files -- I'll see if that does anything worth a damn.

Can someone who knows a bit about computers help me out? It says I only have about 150 MB (I think it's MB) on my computer left and basically I can't download anything without a message popping up that the space left is at dangerously low levels. I was told that clearing out "cached" files was something I should do but I'm not sure how to do that. Can someone help me out? FWIW, I'm running on Windows XP (don't know if that helps any).

QUOTE(fathom @ Mar 15, 2008 -> 09:29 PM) BTW, after listening to KW's interview, Jason B. will start the season in AAA. Which is a shame -- he's easily a better player than Ozuna is, but the Sox have to justify the (terrible) decision to give guaranteed money to a bench player.

LFC draws the Gunners in the next round of the Champions League. They also play in the EPL fairly soon, so they'll be seeing a lot of each other over the next month.

Also -- congrats to Felix.