Balta1701

QUOTE(Jimbo @ May 18, 2006 -> 02:01 PM) Pierre k's at a huge moment...god he really sucks Down by 2 with only 1 runner on base for the leadoff hitter is a huge moment?

Mets Rookie Pitcher Brian Bannister left a rehab start after 5 pitches. Carl Pavano also left a rehab start.

Right now, you're basically betting that Crede's back won't stay healthy or that Crede will slump. It's not a terrible bet, but with the way he looks at the plate right now, I wouldn't make it.

Ramirez just made a pinch hitting appearance and got a 2 RBI single off Rauch.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 18, 2006 -> 11:10 AM) Wow am I really behind. I didn't know Borchard went to the Marlins. I guess I missed the Mariners/Marlins trade. He almost just hit one out. Warning track power. No trade, the Mariners put him on waivers when Matt Lawton came back from the steroid suspension list.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ May 18, 2006 -> 09:39 AM) Now my dilemma: do I stay here and read the paper, or do I get my ass out the door and head across the state to get to the Trop in time to watch some White Sox BP?? Dude, it's a Nature paper. It's not like it's going to take a lot of time. Read it in the concession line. Oh wait, you're in Tampa, sorry forgot, no lines. Read it between innings.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ May 18, 2006 -> 10:40 AM) Good for Pujols. The media tries to destroy half of these players careers just to sell a story. And while it might not mean much to you, Im sure it means a lot to Albert when people demean his accomplishments with no proof. Just like it probably annoys Contreras and others when people constantly accuse them of lieing about their age. I doubt if even Contreras knows how old he actually is. No offense to him, but that's just the quality of Cuban record keeping.

QUOTE(Texsox @ May 18, 2006 -> 10:23 AM) Racism is in all corners of our society. Some corners are hidden better than some others. It is impossible to label one group as more or less racist. Goddamned Whitey...

So, there were a couple of other newsworthy notes on the immigration front today. First off, some more details on the fence they approved...the 3 layered fence is something like 350 miles long, and the bill also called for 500 miles of vehicle barriers. That covers almost half of the border. Secondly, there was another clause approved by the Senate yesterday I'm less sure of, and I'd love to hear more comments. So, this seems to me like a needless beurocratic step, and I find it hard to believe that it won't make the program a lot more expensive. I also wonder what criteria they're going to use for that...it could change depending on who's doing the enforcing of the law, and so it could really work to sabotage any guest worker program. Next, a lot of states are pretty darn unhappy with Bush's guard proposal, and rightly so, since it seems that, well, unsurprisingly, Michael Chertoff, head of the DHS, has absolutely no idea what's going on. It's probably worth noting that Arnold is right here, this looks like another management debacle in the making...sticking troops there with no idea what they're supposed to do, having to learn everything in 2 weeks and then suddenly be replaced, and having a constant state of people moving in and out, which will mean that a lot more than 6000 troops will be needed. The first year would involve an estimated 156,000 national guard troops, out of the 400,000 in the country. They're also supposedly going to try to make participation by states voluntary, which seems like it will cut heavily into the amount of men available. The mess is probably going to be made worse by the fact that the President is not going to take executive control over the guard, to avoid the "Militarizing the border" complaints. So the Guard units who are on duty will actually still be under the control of the governors of their states. And I don't think anyone really has a clue how that's going to work. So anywho, this looks like another management mess in the making for these folks. Finally, The LA Times sent some people down to the border to talk to the folks bringing people across, and discovered that as summer is coming around and talk is heating up in the U.S., business for border crossings have declined by as much as 50%. So first of all, this shows that the "They'll rush up here for the amnesty" argument doesn't work that well, but secondly, it reinforces my opinion that there is no "Crisis" to spur the use of the guard, the situation right now is getting better, not worse, so we have time to fix the problem. Of course, we only have so much time to fix the real crisis that is making the President use the Guard:

QUOTE(greasywheels121 @ May 18, 2006 -> 10:12 AM) I just think our expectations are the problem. There's too much blame being placed on the hitting coach IMO. I can't think of a team that's knocking on all cylinders for an entire season. The season's long, and unless your name is Albert Pujols, you're going to have slumps to go with the good times. Yeah, but you can't tell me that some of these slumps aren't overdone. A slump is something like what Pods went through to start this season or what Konerko and Dye went through to start last season. But Uribe and Anderson struggling like they are right now, that's a little more frustrating. We're talking about 100+ at bats, instead of the 50 or so for the other guys that really slowed them down.

You know, Walker sometimes just drives me nuts. He works with Uribe in 2004, Uribe goes insane. He works with Crede in 05, Crede goes insane, but Uribe and Rowand both fall apart. Works with Crede, but Anderson can't figure things out, and Uribe gets even worse. Somehow he keeps having these hitters just suddenly make massive improvements, but he just can't keep them staying consistent. ARGH!

So...on the other topic that's mentionned in that article...Albert not really being 26, who the Hell cares at this point? Whether he's 26, 18, 35, 47...he's doing some amazing things with the bat.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 18, 2006 -> 09:43 AM) Yeah possibly, I just had a thought. I didn't say if it was a good one or not, it was just an interesting thought to me. I see where the thought comes from, and if I'm wrong and Congress is playing with the pursestrings too much then it would make sense to have the SecDef able to negotiate with Congress for border patrol funds...but aside from that, I don't know where the benefit would be. As far as I know, the border patrol is already able to use military style resources, moving them to DOD wouldn't suddenly change their training, and it wouldn't suddenly make more manpower available. Plus, there's the downside of again having the Mexicans complain about militarizing the border if suddenly the border patrol is loosely considered part of the army, and for some reason we seem to care about that complaint.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 18, 2006 -> 09:19 AM) This is kinda off the discussion going on, but I was thinking yesterday and heard the border patrol mentioned and thought that it might be a decent idea to make them a new branch of military or put them in the Cost Guard like the Marines are with the Navy. I know there are National Guard troops going down there, and I don't know if it would end up saving money or not, probably not. I just had that thought though. Well, here's your question...where is the "border patrol" less likely to have people screw around with its budget? If its budgeted by Congress, or if it's a part of the Defense Department and subject to the whim of the SecDef? I think it'd probably be much more likely to wind up having a few billion dollars borrowed from it to prepare for random invasions if DOD had control of its pursestrings than if Congress did.

Ok, this sort of thing drives me absolutely nuts. I'm sitting at the Table of Contents for Nature, the volume for May 18th, 2006. There's no paper by that author, and as far as I can tell, no article on this subject.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ May 18, 2006 -> 08:19 AM) Winner Threads are great. Bickering like little girls is not so great. Bickerling like little girls in winner threads...priceless.

They're getting better, but they're still quite slow on giving some of the calls. I really hate having to sit around and wait until a play ends for them to tell me what is happening. Just talk me through it as it's going.

QUOTE(WilliamTell @ May 18, 2006 -> 08:56 AM) Dmitri was geting jealous that his brother was getting all the attention, he had to do something in return. Actually, according to the police report, the choking happened before the bat throw.

QUOTE(FlaSoxxJim @ May 18, 2006 -> 07:30 AM) So did the Russell Tice testimony to Armed Services happen yesterday. I haven't heard anything. Beats the hell out of me, there's not a single story mentionning his testimony on Google. Maybe it happened behind closed doors?

Tigers' DH Dmitri Young's ex girlfriend has accused him of choking her. The charge carries a max penalty of 93 days in jail and a small fine. No word whether or not he also liked to throw bats at her.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ May 17, 2006 -> 06:58 PM) Its good to see him have a quality outing like tonight but he still is off to a very shaky start this year. Oh yeah he's off to a shaky start, I just get sick of being reminded of it every time he gives up a hit.

QUOTE(NUKE_CLEVELAND @ May 17, 2006 -> 06:55 PM) B-B-B-B-B-BUT THIS GAME WAS CORPSEBALL!!!! And Jon Garland sucks! No one should ever give up 2 runs to ANYONE! Who cares if they have 2 of the top 10 RBI guys in the AL in their lineup?

Man, I can't believe how much Jon Garland sucks! 2 runs in 7 innings? How ridiculous is that! Seriously, nice work Jonny boy. Good job JD, Bobby, Neal, and a few others here and there as well.

Bobby's last 6 outs? All strikeouts.

What's Jenks throwing on the gun? Is there a gun tonight?