YASNY

I sure as hell hope KW just moves on from here. He shouldn't want anything to do with a Randy Johnson deal now, unless it's to get Vazquez or to pick up the table scraps.

I think RJ's main objective is to reach the 300 win plateau. He'll pitch for at least another 3 season is he possibly can.

I heard the Yankees had informed Arizona that their demands for Johnson were outrageous and they weren't interested unless 'Zona lowered the stakes.

Missing the point seems to be a common occurace today.

I feel that for the most part, Kelly's efforts were appreciated by Sox fans. I hope he knows that.

Former Bears offensive co-ordinator Gary Crowton (sp?) is rumored to be fired as head coach of BYU today according to ESPN's bottom line.

:headshake

If they brought that lowlife back to the southside, the Cell would be like a morgue.

In 2000, we had a young team coming off of a bad year. Nobody really believed they'd win the division until that road trip to NY and Cleveland. Then, about the time that people started to believe, the pitching staff started breaking down and the team played about .500 ball as they cruised to the division title. By that time, everyone knew the Sox didn't really have the pitching to make any noise in the playoffs. The team played exciting winning baseball for about 2/3 of the season. It's been slightly better than .500 since then. Put a winner on the field, and you could have a team full of guys like Aaron Rowand, and the fans will come out. You don't have to have "superstars". Just a damn good baseball team.

You can't steal first base.

Maybe. I'll grant you that. There have been a lot of "flash in the pan" type players. Joe Charboneau, Kevin Mass, Mike Caruso, Ron Kittle. Guys that came up, took the league by storm, then gradually faded into oblivion.

It has nothing to do with what players you want vs. what players others want. It's all about attitude and the way you talk to people. I tried to open your eyes as to what's going on here as it pertains to you and all the battles you get into. Whether you take it in that light, or get defensive, well, that's up to you. Good luck to you.

I was comparing Singleton's .300 season to Podsednik's rookie year. Knowing what Singleton became, I feel SP has a chance to do likewise.

There's smoke ... still waiting to see if there's any fire.

Sorry, man.

Maybe the Seattle paper is wrong, maybe Gammons is wrong. I don't believe either of them "lied".

I don't exactly recall this being Bing's next big hit. It was on one of his Christmas specials, and then several years after he died, VH1 and/or MTV started playing the video from the show. But, it's damn good.

Then again, this was in today's NY Daily News:

Ditto

It's simply this, in my opinion, Lee has more value than Castillo. He's not untouchable. He may not be on the "3 year board". But as of today, he has more market (re: trade) value than Castillo.

From today's LA Times: I talked to Dodger outfielder Milton Bradley on Tuesday. I got the full conflicting treatment. I got the Milton Bradley that I like, smart and engaging, and the Milton Bradley, handcuffed and arrested on the edge of throwing away his baseball career, who thinks everyone is out to get him, especially the police, umpires and the media. I got the Milton Bradley who said, "I don't have an anger-management problem," and the Milton Bradley who told me 10 minutes later that he not only had an anger-management problem and spoke regularly to a counselor, but that it was something he'd have to work on for "months and years." I got the Milton Bradley who always has an excuse for losing control of his emotions, and the Milton Bradley who becomes upset when told the obvious: "You cannot put yourself in the position ever again where you're singled out for causing a problem." Mt. Bradley's testy response: "This is what irritates the hell out of me — you explaining to me that I can't do that. I know that. I don't need you to tell me that. You're the last person I really care about. I listen to my mother or someone close to me — not an average journalist in the paper." And we get along. He agreed to talk with me, and apparently no one else, because we've had these little chats periodically and I was the first to ask him why he's such a jerk at times. I told him Tuesday I thought he was a "dunderhead" for interfering with the police in Ohio, and he said, "I do too." A few minutes earlier, he had described himself in almost noble terms, defending himself and explaining why he had gotten into the hassle with the police. At one moment he's agreeable to being called a dunderhead, the next he's defiant in explaining why everyone has him all wrong. "The perfect imperfection," as Bradley described himself. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BY NOW, it's pretty well documented that Bradley has been bedeviled by his emotions. The latest incident occurred last week in Ohio after a traffic stop. Bradley said a female friend of his was riding as a passenger in the car behind him, which had been stopped by the police. Copley Township Police Chief Michael Mier said the woman had been driving the car when stopped by one of his officers. "There was one female in the car, by herself," Mier said in disputing the story Bradley had told the Dodgers. Everyone agrees the woman had been drinking. Bradley said that she was a Columbia Law School student, a friend, and that he didn't want her to get in trouble and jeopardize her future. So he got out of his car to help. "I came out with my arms outstretched to show the cops they didn't need to pull their weapons or anything like that, and I yelled, because I was 30 yards away, it was raining and there were cars whizzing by," he said. "The cop told me to get back in the car, and I didn't get in the car. "I should have gotten back in the car; I know that," he said, the human teeter-totter leaning toward repentance this time. "But I didn't lose my cool. It was a very calculated scheme on my part. I had a friend, and she needed help. You help out a friend, regardless of the consequences." Mier said Bradley used obscenity and "was somewhat challenging as he got closer" to the officer. Bradley said, "I didn't break any law." And yes, he said, he told the officer to go ahead and arrest him. "Why not?" I tried answering his stupid question, but he didn't want to hear it. "I told him to arrest me," he said, "and you might think that's the dumbest thing, but it let me get my friend out of trouble. And it did." He said he was heroic that night, while everyone else reading the newspaper was reminded of the ticking bomb playing for the Dodgers. "There really shouldn't have been any headlines, because it was so ridiculously minor," he said. "I was speaking up as Milton Bradley, a friend, and not Milton Bradley the baseball player. My friends will be there long after baseball, and that's what is important to me. "Morally, I don't believe I did wrong. Legally, I did the wrong thing." Bradley said he would not have to appear in court — he will be represented by counsel — and all he must do is pay a small fine. The police did not believe the woman was intoxicated, and so she was not charged. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IF IT had been anyone else, it probably would have been treated as something ridiculously minor, but it's Bradley, a tightly wound stick of Dodger dynamite, who every once in a while explodes. "Who is my anger hurting?" he asked. "Don't put me in the Ron Artest category or the Mike Tyson category. I was playing poker the other night with Marty McSorley, and I don't hit people over the head with a stick. Those are serious problems, biting people and running into the stands. "I consider the things I do that are wrong — not on that level. Artest was out of control; I showed restraint [in throwing the bottle to the ground in the stands]. Never in my life have I gotten into a physical altercation with anyone. Never in my life have I harmed someone. My anger is a completely different type. It's not directed toward someone." He makes it sound, more often than not, that he doesn't have a problem, because the battle is to move forward and anything else is surrender. "That's the way it is," he said. "That's how I live my life. I've risen above and beyond expectations, coming from where I come from and what I've gone through. I'm not supposed to be where I'm at, but I'm here." But for how much longer? "I'm going to live my life the way I want and not by any guidelines or what the moral majority might want," he said, the human teeter-totter this time tilting toward defiance. "I'm my own person. If it's not meant for me to play baseball, whether I bring it on myself or it's brought onto me, OK. I feel there's something ultimately in God's plan that is bigger or better for me to do to help people. I don't look at myself as a major league baseball player. I look at Milton Bradley as the man." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRADLEY SAID he met regularly with a counselor, who might want to schedule a few extra sessions after the Ohio incident. "What I do is talk to a guy and go over every incident," he said. "I tell a lot of stories and talk about anything that's bothering me. There are a lot of things going on in my private life. I talk about my dad and his temper, and my family and their tempers. It's in my genes. So far, that's all I've done, is talk to a guy for an hour, and then he comments on what I told him. "It gets into my head, and eventually it's going to somehow make my brain go the other way when I get into trouble." Bradley said he'd sought counseling on his own earlier in his career but was told, " 'You reacted the way more than 50% of the people would have reacted in those situations,' and so I was thinking I didn't have a problem." Apparently, he still feels that way most of the time. He said the umpires have him all wrong. He said they purposely antagonize him, bait him and "just come off the wall with something" to get him upset. "They poke and poke and poke at me because they can," he said. He said the media, the majority of the media, had him all wrong. "They come up to you like smiling friends and then bash you in the paper," he said. Everybody seems out to get him: "If I didn't play baseball, no one would be saying I have an anger-management problem." He might have a chance to find out if he persists in getting in trouble. Cleveland dumped him. So far, the Dodgers are sticking behind Bradley. "In the past year or two, I've gone away from the church," he said. "The first 18 years, I was in church every Sunday with my mother. I started getting into pro ball and I didn't want to go to church anymore. I've gotten away from that Christian background and upbringing that got me this far, and God might be using these police, umpires and media people to get focused back on me and the Lord." The full conflicting Milton Bradley treatment can be exhausting and frustrating until he volunteers the obvious: "A regular average guy doesn't get into the problems I get into all the time. It's something [i must] be doing." No kidding.

I'm not talking to you, you UK hater!

Ah yes. The dilemmas experienced on a daily basis by a GM ... which some people happen to think is a very easy job.

They don't need Castillo at the cost of Carlos Lee. No way. No how.

Didn't UIC give Ga Tech all they could handle?