IlliniKrush

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 01:33 AM) I'm in no way saying it was the wrong call according to the rule book. That isn't my problem with what happened. My problem is with the rule itself, which is what I said to begin with. All I'm saying is that the umpires should be able to take intent into account. If the defender was purposefully trying to interfere with the base runner, then it definitely should be obstruction. In the example you gave, if Middlebrooks was clearly not making an attempt to get off of the baserunner, then it definitely should be obstruction. In the case of the call today, I feel the call should not have been based on the fact that Middlebrooks was lying in the base path, but whether or not he purposefully attempted to trip Craig on his way home. Intent can't, and shouldn't matter. The runner has a right to an unobstructed path to home plate. I explained this in my first post, so I won't re-hash the advantage/disadvantage explanation. QUOTE (danman31 @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 03:50 AM) It's a f***ed up call because the Cardinals are the only team is baseball that gets that break. That franchise doesn't deserve the luck they get. It's sickening. I don't see how the fielder is punished for trying to make a play on the ball. Why is the runner inside the base line anyway? The more I think about it, the more I just think baseball is a stupid sport. So many dumb rules like this that are weird judgment calls with good arguments going either way. Hard to defend the sport when a game is decided by that. Why should the base runner be punished for trying to run home to score a run? The runner wasn't inside the base line, he was right in the base line. The white chalk isn't the base line. You can't just say oh it looks like everything is an accident here, guess we'll let everything go. People are just upset that the winning run wasn't scored on a routine base hit or something. It's not a big deal. If this happens in game 45 for the White Sox and it's an easy call, no one says a word. Or better yet, everyone here goes nuts if it was a Sox runner was obstructed and no call is made. Just because it's the World Series doesn't mean rules go away. The players' actions decided the game and the result of the play.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 01:10 AM) Try us. Ya, we "win" this one

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 01:13 AM) Why have it be so absolute? Baseball is so full of judgment calls that something like this should apply as well. Huh

QUOTE (Soxfest @ Oct 26, 2013 -> 06:06 PM) No way Tim Beckman gets a 3rd year. Wrong QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 27, 2013 -> 12:20 AM) Nobody knows pain like a Mizzou fan knows pain. Par for the course. Congrats Miami for beating wake forest. Hardly

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 26, 2013 -> 11:11 PM) I wondered that as well. Who would you rather face...a decent hitter in Jay or a guy who hits like a pitcher in Kozma with a force at every base? I think the answer is pretty damn simple there. Pedroia more or less bailed out Farrell, but Salty's throw screwed everything up. FWIW, I thought it was obstruction the moment the play happened and I thought they'd actually call it at third base. The fact the home plate umpire had to call it later was so anti-climactic. Joyce did call it, but it's a delayed dead ball at that point anyway.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 26, 2013 -> 11:33 PM) The obstruction call in baseball is fairly stupid. If the fielder gets into a bad position from trying to catch a throw (like in the case of Middlebrooks) and he just happens to be in the basepath, it's obstruction. I know it's hard to judge intent, but I really feel obstruction should be a judgment call based on the fielder's intent. I remember a play at second where on an errant throw into CF, the SS would stay on top of the diving runner to prevent him from going to third base. How the hell is that not obstruction? This makes no sense. So just because you make a play on the ball, but don't actually get it, you should gain the advantage instead of the baserunner that should be able to advance? You're in an advantage/disadvantage situation there. You can't reward a defense for not making a play when the offense has every right to make one of their own. Let's make this play a little bit more drawn out. Middlebrooks jumps up for the ball, misses it, lands on Craig and is lying on top of him. It takes him 5 seconds to get untangled and is thrown out at home. Just because he's "making a play," which wasn't made, oh well, that's the breaks, you can't score? That defies all logic. Anyway, the rule is what it is. You can like it or not like it, but by the the rule book and case book, it was the right call without question. First of all, intent is 100% irrelevant (which, btw, it seems Middlebrooks did try to trip him and maybe thought he'd get away with it). There's no "well where should he have gone/what should he have done?" It doesn't matter, the fact is that he's lying in the base path and obstructed the path of the runner. There's a ton of things in baseball (and other sports for that matter) where intent is irrelevant. If you want an answer to "what should he have done" my answer to you would be he should have caught the ball and it wouldn't have been an issue. Or make a better throw from behind the plate. If you "don't want a game decided by a call" then don't have umpires or rules. The players decided the game based on their actions. Umpires respond based on the actions of players. If you think this is controversial, you have no idea how controversial it would have been if they didn't make the obstruction call there. Making a non-call is the same as making a call there. What, it's the world series, they can only make ball/strike and easy safe/out calls now? Action happened, you rule one way or another. As if they'll just walk up to the press conference and say "well, it was obstruction, but we don't want a game decided like that, so we just let it go." They would have decided that game that way as well. He was clearly in the basepath, it's not like Craig ran way out of his way or tried to do anything to just draw a call. Here's something else. Do you know that if Craig had to simply jump over him, that would have been obstruction as well? You don't even need contact for obstruction. That's obstruction 100 times out of 100. It's really not even a question.

The instant I saw this, I ordered one. So much win. JFG. http://jfg.bigcartel.com/product/jfg-preorder

Mid season big ten team http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/8...ll-big-ten-team

Hand check rule preview? Yeesh http://i.imgur.com/LxzyzDh.jpg

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 23, 2013 -> 07:35 AM) NOT Frank Thomas or Paul Konerko. Let's stop the nonsense before it starts. Fine, Jim Thome. We're all just waiting for the "that's so White Sox" move.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 09:22 PM) I feel like Kenny Williams, I'm 2 and 5 so I should probably sell and load up on keepers but since I have the most points in the league I refuse to. I feel I have the best team in the league but I'm just not winning, I am Kenny Williams aren't I? I don't know, are you about to go acquire Roberto Alomar for your flex? 2 and 5 isn't done, 2 and 6 depending on your playoff set up and where teams are, likely is.

QUOTE (Mr. Showtime @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 05:22 PM) Thanks Jason, I'll send a PM later. She sent me a text message a little bit ago saying she got a call back today about something, but she didn't tell me what/where yet. She's gotten a few calls before that we're companies who wanted her to sell insurance or some crap because they got her resume off CareerBuilder. So, I hope that isn't the case this time. Appreciate the help. PM SnB, his wife works as a nurse at a hospital downtown.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 12:43 PM) 1% was clearly an exaggeration. You were making it sound like people that go to law school do so after evaluating the cost of going to school. I totally disagree. The focus is on salary potential and employment rate post-graduation. If it cost 100k a year and you think that you can get a good paying job afterwards, you're going to do it. Whether you can afford it is irrelevant since you're taking out loans anyway (or, at least 80-90% of students will) I think you're right on here. We just went through this with my brother-in-law - he had the choice of staying in state, and having most of college paid for, or going out of state to USC, and paying a lot more out of his own pocket. Then we got into the discussion of a graduate degree. 18 year old's don't have a good concept of money and what it will cost later, what the loans will look like, etc. Until you're living it, it's hard to really understand it. I also doubt most people's parents explain it as well as we did to my brother-in-law and went through numbers, etc. They say great, more school, I'm proud of you, but the kids don't have any idea what they are actually getting themselves into.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 12:19 PM) So the outcome will be less people who need loans go to medical/law and more people who have money do, regardless of how smart or talented they are. Im not sure what you guys are arguing here. When your parents are offering you 3 more years of vacation, you dont really have to worry about your friends at the iron plant or what they are making. I don't know that we're really arguing anything, just having a discussion. Badger I get it if your parents are paying for it - but in our case, we're paying for 100% of it. So she wasn't lucky enough to be 3-year vacation person.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 12:12 PM) On average this really isn't true over the long term. It might seem that way when you compare 22 year olds but basically every study finds that the added earnings from a Bachelor's degree compared to a high school degree over a lifetime is at least a million dollars, if not up to 3 million. Yes, that definitely does vary by major, but the data still says that the payoff for education is enormous. Oh, I know over the long haul it's better. But it takes a long time to get there, and some of those people get promoted and earn decent salaries, like the below example, and meanwhile you don't always make 200K as a lawyer or whatever. It's just interesting to consider. The degree is still not a guarantee for much, much more money down the road, but my main point was that it takes a long time to get to "even" and you don't have the stress of a ton of student loans, and had money earlier in your life. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 12:15 PM) Oh man, this is me on a weekly basis. Taking deps of City employees who are dumb as s*** making 60-70k/year (plus their pension, plus the 2-3 bogus WC claims during their 20 years with the city), etc. For 31, I make decent money and my wife makes decent money. But we're aren't living like kings either paying 15-1600/month on loans. Yup, this is exactly it.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Oct 22, 2013 -> 09:21 AM) +1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 I regret law school every day (and I regret my wife getting a masters), and will continue to do so for another 12-15 years. At least once those payments go away we'll be able to buy a lake house. My wife says the same thing every day regarding law school. If she hears someone considering law school, she'll do anything she can do basically talk them out of it. As it is, we'll be paying back that loan for the next 15 years. She's also not a "hot shot" attorney making bank, so it's not like the payments are small compared to overall compensation. Meanwhile, she gets very frustrated when she goes on depositions and sees these HS-educated workers that are making like $25+ an hour and they don't have a college degree, let alone loans from a secondary degree to pay back. We've all seen the articles and the math - if you jumped into the work force as an "unskilled" worker immediately after high school, you really aren't that bad off compared to the person that went to 7-8+ years of college and has possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay back. Takes a long time to catch up to the HS worker that didn't take out loans and started earning immediately for an extra X amount of years.

Alright, I have the first 5 episodes of The Blacklist sitting on the DVR. Is this worth starting?

QUOTE (zenryan @ Oct 21, 2013 -> 01:49 AM) Romo bends me over for the second week in a row. Lost last week by 6. This week I'm up 6 but my opponent has the Minnesota kicker left. That hail mary INT at the end of the first half is going to come back to haunt me. TY Hilton hasnt done me any favors the past two weeks either. 11 points combined for his last two games. Things could be looking up for Hilton with wayne likely out for the season.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 11:39 PM) Looong season. NW getting mentally destroyed in Evanston wasnt great. This is why the playoff will be great when they expand it. We only worry about the top 8 teams or so eventually. 8 seems like too many, could have 2 loss teams in with undefeated teams. Maybe ill think differently later but 4 seems right.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Oct 19, 2013 -> 11:35 PM) OSU may end up being the team who is most hurt by the way the Wisconsin -ASU game ended. Until 2 of Alabama, Oregon and fsu lose, osu won't be able to go anywhere.

Fsu is going to join the Alabama and Oregon tier, what a showing

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Oct 17, 2013 -> 01:21 PM) I have no idea what to do with Fitz this week. I own him and played him last week and it obviously worked out, but this week he's still not 100%, he plays Thursday night and probably has to deal with Richard Sherman. I'm leaning towards sitting him at the moment. Hilton should be one of your two starters though. Jones is now doubtful so seems it's Fitz or randle. I guess I roll Fitz. I sat him last week as morning reports were hinting towards him not playing at all and it was a 3pm game.

Damn Thursday games. Need 2 of Larry Fitzgerald (2 bad hamstrings vs Sea) James Jones (no idea if he's going to play) TY Hilton (healthy) Reuben Randle (healthy) If I knew Jones wasn't going to play, I'd probably roll Hilton and Fitzgerald. If I don't play Fitzgerald tonight and Jones is out, only option is Randle.

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 07:40 PM) For example, and it's the first one I see. In comparing two starters on Colorado with similar stats, Chacin (31 starts) goes 14-10 with a 3.47 and 1.26 WHiP DeLaRose (30 starts) goes 16-6 with a 3.49 and 1.38 WHiP Why? Luck? Who would you pitch in a must win game? Better stats or better W-L? Again, as I said earlier, W-L may be the least valuable stat on the back of a baseball card, but I don't think it should be totally dismissed. Yeah, absolutely, luck and chance of when runs were scored. Are you implying that the Rockies hitters tried harder when DeLaRose was on the mound? The bullpen held leads harder for him?

QUOTE (Tex @ Oct 16, 2013 -> 07:32 PM) So you don't buy that there can be any outside distractions when I guy is hitting? He totally locks in on that and doesn't bring any other factors up to the plate with him? Sick kid? Fight with the wife? The cute girl in the fourth row? A possible batting title? A 0-23 slump? He just gets up there like every other time at bat? he doesn't think man, Chris deserves some run support? I've read quotes from guys who at least claim otherwise. That they were pushing, trying to win one for X, Y, or Z. I think it would be an extraordinary athlete that totally blocks out everything. I mentioned it before, but let me repeat. I think they played harder for Sale, not less. His record could have been even worse. They tried harder, and therefore played worse than when other pitchers were on the mound? The numbers actually disprove your point, unless playing harder and focusing more makes you worse at baseball. It doesn't add up. See ball, hit ball. Who your pitcher is doesn't make a difference, he's sitting in the dugout. The other things you are bringing up, aren't nearly the same as "who's my starting pitcher today." No batter makes a conscious decision to "try hard" based on a pitcher. I guess everyone hates Sale.