False Alarm

of course cerbaho can speak for himself, but i don't really think he was bashing y'alls' bands for being popular. that'd be pretty contradictory with such super-obscure bands as sigur ros, REM, and radiohead on his own list, not to mention the show i talked about where they're opening for this up-and-coming indie group named the cure. i think those guys have a bright future. go ahead and yell at him for being elitist as much as you want, but popularity and mainstream recognition have nothing to do with it.

but it's pretty reasonable to say that batted balls have a much better chance of dropping or finding holes than do unbatted balls. yeah, Ks'll run up your pitch count, but that's part of the reason there are so few perfect games and no-nos: guys wear down and it gets broken up. i'm pretty sure if you look at the types of pitchers who've recorded games like that, there are more guys with sick stuff like prior than savvy finesse guys, which is what buehrle's considered. i don't think any of this is a knock on buehrle, but there are people who would. there's a big movement (mainly cuz of sabremetricians and moneyball) glorifying strikeout pitchers because some studies have concluded that a pitcher has absolutely no control over what happens on a play in which the bat gets on the ball. this is intuitively bulls***, but numbers seem to say otherwise. personally, i prefer crash davis's advice: groundballs are more democratic. all that said, buehrle has been striking out a lot more guys this year, so the report was kinda ignorant to characterize him according to past reputation.

godspeed and sigur ros were two of the first bands mentioned. that is a pretty kick-ass list though cerbaho. i take it you'll be going to curiosa (mogwai and interpol opening)?

no signs, but i disagree, kid. i suspect mo's inability to throw out baserunners this year was attributable more to our pitchers' (except for MB) slow deliveries and being terrible at holding runners. he had improved steadily at the plate in the minors and his first two seasons up here, so i think it's reasonable to think he'll develop into a pretty effective batter. if he does, with his tools...not johnny bench, but still a pretty rare commodity--and cheap for a while longer.

follow-up: http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticl...52&section=news

i agree; keep crede out there. i like uribe, but i can't honestly see how he's ever had any success in the bigs with that swing. i mean he almost falls down every time he swings. i don't know much about the mechanics of swinging or whatever, but it seems a lot more likely to me that crede'll be able to adjust his relatively smooth approach at the plate than that uribe will. hawk and DJ talked about it some last night and basically said uribe'll be a streaky player throughout his career because of his, well, odd swing, and i'd tend to agree with 'em.

i thought phil rogers put it well today: "Sosa's hops, the ones that render moot any question of how long Edmonds stood at the plate to admire his monster shot to right field onto Sheffield Avenue, will be all too hollow when there are finally some empty seats at Wrigley." amen to that.

i do remember numerous occasions where rooney and farmer mentioned maggs was rehabbing elsewhere or coolin' on the fan deck with kenny. i remember him being absent from the dugout for more than just 2 days.

there wasn't rock in the 60s?

i'm not too optimistic. i don't think he'll be this bad, but i think hitters proved they'd adjusted to his cutter in september last year. he wasn't very good that last month, and it continued into april this year before he moved away from the cutter some. i'm not sure going back to relying on it's gonna help a bunch. but i do hope so.

hilarious sig, cubssuck. good disc too; that was before thom yorke's head got so big. not a lot for me to recommend. haven't gotten much lately. the new magnetic fields has been growing on me i guess.

our top 3 are not even close to their (healthy) top 3. yes, when our guys are at their best, i think they can at least compare. but garcia's been erratic throughout his career--sometimes dominant, sometimes mediocre--buehrle's slipped some the past coupla seasons (though i still think his numbers'll improve this year), and we have no reason to think loaiza's '03 was anything but an aberration. that said, i'd be somewhat surprised if both brown and moose are healthy in october. but, then, i'd also be surprised if those jerk-offs don't add randy johnson or someone like that by then. and yes, i also agree that just cuz parts of their team (or their entire team) are better doesn't mean we can't beat 'em in the playoffs. anything can happen there.

i always liked BOC's "don't fear the reaper" in halloween.

we're gonna make money off the new deal? last deal was made in conjunction with the bulls--when they'd just won like 389 straight NBA titles. i guess there's inflation and whatever to consider, but s***, i'll be happy if we're even on TV.

i like nomar, and he's still good. it's wrong to say he'll never be decent again. but it's also questionable to say he's in his prime and as good as ever, and in fact there's a pretty good case to be made that he's in mild decline. his stats over his last 4 full years (throwing out '01 cuz he was hurt and didn't play much) show a steep drop-off in OPS: 1999: .357 AVG, .418 OBP, 1.021 OPS 2000: .372, .434, 1.033 2002: .310, .352, .880 2003: .301, .345, .869 still good numbers? definitely, especially for a shortstop. but not necessarily as dominant as we'd like. and his performance isn't likely to improve, IMO. but more disturbing if the white sox were looking to acquire and keep him are his home-road splits in 0'2 and '03: fenway: .343 AVG, .384 OBP, .970 OPS everywhere else: .266, .314, .773 i still think nomar'll stay around .300 and be a very solid shortstop for at least a few more years. but, looking at those road numbers, i wouldn't wanna trade maggs for him.

rooney and farmer just said mags is leaving after the game to get evaluated in chicago. might need surgery and be out 4 weeks.

not MLB, but i'm pretty sure anaheim minor leaguer bobby jenks has hit 103. shockingly, he's also out with arm trouble.

i like cougar and agree with you, mreye, that he's a poor chice to give a keynote address at a graduation. i thought the same thing of bono from U2 doing harvard's. but E L doctorow shouldn't be grouped with those two. for one thing, though i don't think he's teaching right now, he has taught at yale, princeton, and UC irvine, among others. also, important literary writers like him are more appropriate to an academic setting than MTV faces. lit writing is mainly an academic pursuit these days anyway. i agree that it was grandstanding and that doctorow shouldn't have politicized his speech so much, but comparing a TV celebrity like mellencamp to a man of letters like doctorow doesn't seem quite parallel to me.

for the record, i do agree with cw and hammerhead that the bears would've probably beaten the dolphins if, as they should have, they'd met in the '85 super bowl. i was just talking junk. but i do think it would have been a much better game than the one vs the pats. and it's not crazy to think the dolphins would've pulled an upset; their only other meeting that year wasn't even very close.

heh, finheaven's the only other message board i ever visit. not nearly as good as this one though.

and what's more, the bears should be damn grateful to the dolphins for flopping against the pats in the AFC playoffs! they didn't match up well at all with the '85 dolphins. that ferocious blitz of theirs would've never gotten to a young marino. at the top of his game, with that release, he'd've eaten you guys alive in new orleans--just like he did in miami.

i'm a diehard dolfan. this offseason's giving me an ulcer.

i love ootp and would love to join the league...but i can't. i found the game so damn addictive i had to quit cold turkey cuz it was taking up all my time. how is 6 anyway? i've consciously avoided looking into its features and reading reviews cuz i didn't wanna be tempted. but yeah i agree with fotop that it's pretty much the perfect game.

also, about the ichiro comparison, i believe (but am not positive) reed is a much more patient hitter and will draw a lot more walks while hitting for a lower average than ichiro.

i don't really get annoyed easily at the ballpark. i agree with everything said about people getting up during at-bats and innings. but the cell-phone thing...i usually don't understand why people care so much. i don't do it myself (don't even own a cell phone, in fact), but if someone wants to look and sound like an ass to those around them, let em. if they're really loud or obnoxious, then yeah someone should get on em, but that just falls under general bad manners to me, not cell-phone-specific bad manners. as for drunks, i get fairly tanked pretty much every time i go to a ball game ( ). but i'm also really shy, so even drunk, i don't think i bother people much. except that i'm a little dude and have a tiny bladder and DO have to get up to piss a lot. sorry if i'm in the middle and having to get up between half innings ruins your game-day experience. being sober ruins mine. oh except one time a couple of years ago i did jump up and pump my fist in celebration when paulie hit a go-ahead HR, and i drunkenly tripped and fell and draped myself over this 350-lb guy. i felt terrible about that and would've deserved it had he picked me up with one hand and flung me over the edge of the upper deck. on the other hand, we had just come back from down about 8 runs vs the cubs, and dude was a cub fan. maybe i don't feel so bad.