Drew

I'm all about the sausages and beer. At the Cell, Polish with grilled onions and mustard or Best's Kosher, same treatment. I love how the upper deck has PBR tallboys. The only place that can beat it is Miller Park, thanks to High Life on tap and the best sausages in the Midwest.

I played Little League up through 7th Grade. I always wanted to play first base but never had the offense, and in those days I was small and not a good throwing target. Where I ended usually ended up was right field, because you have to have nine guys on the field but nobody ever really hit it there. However, I do remember getting a grounder on a hitter I was in position for (the infield wasn't) and throwing out a guy at first on what he thought was going to be a base hit. Later on in my career, which lasted until seventh grade, I was a solid left fielder and could hit for contact, although where I still really wanted to play was first base. I don't think I saw a game in the infield until the last game of the season when coach asked each of us where we wanted to play. As a tradeoff, I batted ninth, which was down from my usual 7 or 8 slot. Of course the coach's kid always batted third and played either shortstop or pitcher, but this time he was probably one of the better athletes on the team and deserved it. Occasionally I would get in at second base, which was my favorite position to play, and I felt I could field pretty well. I remember chasing down Jimmy Goodwin's blooper and catching it on the fly in shallow right to end the game and getting mobbed by my teammates. Of course the next game I was back in right.

Burnt bridges aside, what he'd amount to on this team is a really expensive pinch-hitter when we've got three very good ones as it is in Mackowiak, Ozuna, and Cintron. Pass.

QUOTE(Pauly8509CWS @ Jun 11, 2006 -> 11:19 AM) Haven't had any hockey people yet so... You've got Probert in the early 90's, Stu Grimson of the same era, Bryan Marchment is a BAMF, and then the greats like Howe and Hull. King Clancy. Played a Stanley Cup final on a broken ankle, IIRC. Glenn Hall got a skate across the face that opened his cheek up so that he could put his tongue through it and finished a game, back before Jacques Plante pioneered the goalie mask. The Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken combined of hockey, with 502 consecutive games played. I'd put Chris Chelios, Jeremy Roenick, and Steve Larmer up there as well. I remember JR's rookie season when he took a skate in the nose and was talking to the press afterwards, sitting in his locker with a big, gnarly gash across his face. A lot of the enforcers like Tie Domi and Joey Kocur are up there but do not have the longevity of guys like Glenn Hall and the aforementioned because usually they get beaten up or are just not good enough to stick around the league for long (ie, Grimson), save Bob Probert whose own career was cut short by drinking and drugs. I personally think that toughness over the long haul carries some weight. As far as Football players go, Mike Singletary played through a severed fingertip, and Dan Hampton played a couple of seasons with no cartilage left in his knees, but I have to second whomever suggested Jack Youngblood.

MLB.com was selling jerseys with that particular patch on them at one time. A bunch of people were wearing them at the Anaheim series. I don't understand why you'd rather have that versus the WS05 patch they wore during the series--basically without the word "Champions" on it, but to each their own.

Ozzie is a good manager, yes. The fact that he isn't classy is one of the things that makes him endearing to fans and players. When I think of 'great' managers, I think of Tommy Lasorda, Sparky Anderson, Whitey Herzog, maybe I'd put Tony LaRussa and Lou Piniella in that group. What Ozzie does not have that all of these do is a long career of sustained success. If Ozzie puts together another decade and a half of seasons like last one, he'll be in this group as well.

QUOTE(The Critic @ May 22, 2006 -> 07:53 AM) I feel bad for Kerry Wood, because he seems like a genuinely good guy, but I don't feel bad for the Cubs. They have continuously banked on Wood being healthy despite his injury history, and haven't done much (if anything) to acquire additional pitching help. Then he gets hurt again and they're stuck with rookies or middle relievers thrown into the rotation. There were a LOT of available free-agent pitchers last offseason, and only guy they picked up was another injury case, Wade Miller. That's just inexcusable - I can see where the Prior thing may have blindsided them, but they KNEW Wood would spend some time on the DL after shoulder surgery. I hope for Wood's sake that he can someday stay healthy, but it would be fitting for him to do that for another franchise. Totally agree. For how many years have the Cubs heard the warnings about Kerry Wood's mechanics and not done a damn thing? Seriously, everyone was in awe of Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game in 1998, but the other side to everyone's praise was "...if he doesn't work on his mechanics..." He missed all of '99, parts of pretty much every season thereafter and has never been the same since, with 2003 an exception. What kind of a kamikaze coaching staff must they have up there that they take two talented pitchers and run them into the ground the way they have?

I think Dye is the most deserving, but I think Tadahito Iguchi has the best shot at getting the votes to start judging from past support of online balloteers from overseas coming out to support Asian players. Well, that and the only real competition he has is Robinson Cano who I don't think is as good a player nor is putting up as good a stat line, he is only in front because he is a f***ing Yankee.

QUOTE(ZoomSlowik @ May 23, 2006 -> 08:54 AM) One year (or I guess one and a half in his case) does not a career make. He's still more of a thrower than a pitcher, and there's a decent chance people might have finally figured out his delivery. It's conceivable that he's on the Hideo Nomo-Fernando Valenzueza-Mark Fydrich career path. All of those guys were pretty dominant early in their career but couldn't sustain it. Fernando Valenzuela does not belong in this comparison.

I made my own mix because I don't like most of the stuff they play for the guys. I know that Pods has "Elevation" by U2 and Kong's got "Harvester of Sorrow" by Metallica.

Well, no errors for Uribe. Yet.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ May 27, 2006 -> 04:10 AM) No Stoneman made the right move there as far as I'm concerned. Figgins and Shields for the money they make, are more valuable than Manny IMHO, even though he's putting up good numbers again for the Red Sox. Well, the argument made was you make two holes to fill one. Figgins and Shields are the two names mentioned when Stoneman's phone rings, and Chone Figgins' value to that team is pretty high. Be that as it may, they're not getting it done right now. Tough call. And then they digressed to say that the White Sox won the World Series on Pitching when they had no offense and were weak up the middle, calling "Taguchi" an average second baseman. They must be getting their information from Mariotti. If Jeter makes those plays Uribe did for the last two outs in Game 4, we'd still be watching them on ESPN.

Neither here nor there, but the big buzz this afternoon on ESPN Radio here was that Stoneman vetoed an off-season trade for Manny Ramirez that would have sent Scot Shields and Chone Figgins to Boston with two prospects. I don't know if I would have done it then, but I'd probably do it now if I were GM.

Tongue-in-cheek acting which I think works for low-brow humor, writing could have been better (s***--full count. VO: Come up big in the clutch!...) And what kind of an art director would allow that shirt?

He's not even a good writer. He sucks at that. He's a Phillistine.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ May 24, 2006 -> 10:44 AM) I believe that would be the Neal Cotts. He's the whiskey drinker. Point taken.

Anyone from the '05 team. My road gray AJ jersey is arriving this week, or so Grandstand tells me. I'm thinking of getting the sleeveless Paulie jersey next.

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ May 24, 2006 -> 11:13 AM) Why pitch to Pujols? Because I want to see him break Bonds' record in Barry's last year in baseball. ^^^^^ I've said it before and will say it again. I think the best thing that could happen for baseball is if a class act like Pujols hit 74 home runs this year. Of course it'd be better if Jim Thome hits 74, though.

Because I was a documented A.D.D. case, I qualified to take my ACT tests untimed. I viewed it as a normal day, I tested pretty well on the timed PACT, but was kind of off my game on the ACT day, but ended up with a 23. I could have done a retake, but it was good enough to get into any visual art program I'd ever want to apply for, so I called it good. I think there are some things you can do to get ready for the ACT and SAT, but as they are cumulative knowledge and a test of how you learn and solve problems as much as the content, I don't think there is much you can do to cram for them.

A similarly disturbing trend in what kids are reading at school these days, excerpts from a blog post I made about six months ago: At my sister's high school, [st. Charles East] Literature course syllabi list not a single Classic or recent Pulitzer Prize finalist as required reading for 10th graders. Instead, they point our Nation's future to what is quickly becoming the new standard of literary excellence: Oprah's Book Club. Yes, Oprah, the Chicago talk show hostess turned media magnate with the Midas touch. Her official webpage proclaims in its header "Oprah.com is your leading sorce for information about love, life, self, relationships, food, home, spirit, and health." Let's think about this. The soup-to-nuts for all your boggle is a rags-to-riches diva who fawns over celebrities, her monologues so riddled with name-dropping they may as well be razored directly from People Weekly, the woman who gives away more cars at a single taping than Elvis did during all the fat years combined, and uses humanitarian aid as self-promotion. No one person should be that empowered in advice.

QUOTE(DBAH0 @ May 24, 2006 -> 04:44 AM) I don't want a guy who makes $8,750,000 and has a .629 OPS patrolling center field for us, and I think most people here feel the same way. So he's like Gross Load only a hell of a lot more expensive. PASS!

The Bobby Jenks: one fifth of Jack Daniel's garnish with straw.

QUOTE(sayitaintso @ May 23, 2006 -> 01:48 PM) I have been trying to find that version of the song forever. By chance do you still have it or know anyone that does. And the new sox fight song is horrible by the way. I don't but I can ask around.

Damn, up after this season? I'd really like for Rock to stay in the silver and black.

Last October, some guys my dad works with at a Chicago ad agency cut a punk rock version of it under the band name "Tadahito and the Iguchis." I remember getting a forwarded news clip of it. I still have to go with Captain Stubby and the Buccanneers.