almagest

I'm going to keep ripping on Crede and Uribe, because it seems to be working. That being said, GOD Crede is AWFUL.

Speaking of selective stat-quoting... QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 10:25 AM) Uribe bats ninth. For a guy who is so bad, he drove in 10 less runs than the almighty run machine, Nick Swisher last year, while batting ninth on a team with perhaps the worst offense in the league. Yeah, I guess it doesn't matter that Oakland ALSO had a terrible offense, and Swisher lead off a lot, which wouldn't give him too many RBI situations. He also walked 100 times and slugged .455.

QUOTE(ChiSox35 @ Apr 3, 2008 -> 09:05 AM) Which is why I brought up the '06 Cards. Eckstein at short? An oft-injured Rolen at third? An outfield that I would be hard pressed to name? Don't worry, you can still win with Uribe at second and Crede coming back from an injury. I'll agree with you that the key lies in starting pitching/bullpen, but defensively those two guys give us the best shot, and what team wouldnt take a 20 HR/70 RBI 9 hitter regardless of what his OBPS/SNIUF/DUFEDF/POOP/whatever other ridiculous asanine stat you can come up with says? The notion that the Cardinals won with/because of a bunch of crappy players is... well, wrong. The Cardinals had Chris Carpenter, a year removed from a Cy Young award, and Jeff Suppan in the rotation. They also had Jeff Weaver pitching way above his head for the last 1/3 of the season. And Albert Pujols/Scott Rolen/Juan Encarnacion/Jim Edmonds/Chris Duncan and a pretty good bullpen doesn't sound too bad to me. This is a team that won 100 games the year before, and probably would've won 90+ in 2006 if not for injuries. They got healthy and hot at the right time. I also wonder how you can selectively quote Uribe's only decent stats to say he's good, then say that you can't use stats to prove he's not very good. He doesn't hit for average, he's never on base, he doesn't walk or take pitches well, and he strikes out a ton. His main defensive strengths are worth less at second base, as well. It's obvious, he's just not very good.

Super Mario Galaxy is sweet. I know I'm a little behind on this, but wow.

We recently switched to DHL because the sales rep was hot. Seriously, that's the reason. FedEx was working fine for us. Not a bad switch, though. The pickup and delivery guys are nice, the rates aren't bad, and they handle stuff pretty well, as long as it's packed decently. Plus the rep pops in every so often to see how we're doing. Which is nice. I know it's just an excuse to see me, though.

QUOTE(Y2HH @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 09:00 AM) Excellent point. Add to that the fact that the majority of *nix, especially the childlike Linux community wouldn't want to hack their beloved operating system of awesomeness. I attribute this to their general hatred, (in some ways extreme hatred to an alarming degree), toward Mac and Windows based machines/users. Of course you have your Mac idiots and PC idiots, too...but I think the majority of the casual users can really care less, they just want their PC or Mac to work without having to play with drivers or configuration files for hours on end to get it "mostly working". Not quite... Ubuntu 7.10 is actually quite a bit easier to get hardware working with than Windows. Most everything besides really obscure or brand-new hardware is plug-and-play. Fedora is a pretty easy-to-use distro, and SUSE as well. I hope you also realize that OSX is built on Unix, which is architecturally very similar to Linux, and with a small amount of work you can compile source code meant for Linux on OSX. I also wonder if you're basing your opinion of Linux users on things you've read on messageboards, which is a bad idea. People on messageboards are usually the bottom of the barrel. Hey, wait a minute...

Maybe it wouldn't have made any difference, but I sure would've liked to see Quentin or Anderson in the lineup today.

QUOTE(fathom @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:33 PM) Monday was a positive loss, as the team showed some energy. Even I can appreciate that. Yep. Which makes this game all the more disappointing.

Cleveland's pitching keeps trying to give us runs, but apparently we don't want them.

QUOTE(G&T @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) It's brutal. Twins fans cheered Hunter. They're just smart enough to realize that he got 18 mil per year and would be insane to not take it and leave MN.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:03 PM) People from Cleveland just wish they could get the hell out of Cleveland, and are jealous Thome did. That's really the only reasoning I have. I don't know how you could boo such a great person and player. I was reading earlier today that Cleveland has one of the worst housing and job markets in the country.

Cleveland fans chanting "You're a traitor" to Thome. Classy bunch.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 08:52 PM) People can hate Uribe all they want and he did fan 3 times in the opener, but he's been seeing as many pitches per at bat as anyone else. I think he will have a good year. Yeah, a single on a pitch at shoulder level in the 8th inning of a 6-1 ball game after looking terrible in his first two at-bats changes everything.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 07:47 PM) Sure. But, Uribe is no different than that Ozzie Guillen guy who played for us. He swung at everything too. It's early in the season and Uribe can sure enough provide some punch at times. I don't see how you can make that statement. Uribe has been one of the worst starting players offensively in MLB for the past couple years. Guillen was pretty bad, too, but he was able to put up an OPS close to what Uribe's has been, while never hitting more than 4 home runs in a year.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 07:42 PM) Settle down on Uribe. he will get his butt kicked in the dugout I hope. Ramirez the so called Cuban missle keeps swinging away and Thome grounded into 2 DP's. Let's trade them all. Yeah, see, the difference is, Uribe does this ALL the time. Thome is a HOF-caliber player, and Ramirez is a rookie who is pretty obviously overmatched at this point.

Uribe is just bad. I know we know this already, but sweet jesus. BAD.

Hooray for Crede. Single up the middle, AJ scores after the wild pitch brought him to second. 2-1 Cleveland.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 12:35 PM) Havy is the manz!!1!!!1!1!!! Anderson better start or I'm going to donkeypunch someone. Now that's dedication... you'd even go boink some dude, then punch him in the back of the head, just to express your anger over Ozzie's poor decision-making. I applaud you, good sir.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 10:39 AM) This isn't the NFL. If interference is called, it has nothing to do with whether Thome would have been safe or not. Its not like the ball had to be catchable deal in football. If you smash him with your leg, there is still a little doubt whether it was intentional or not, even though umpires and everyone know its the runner's job to take the guy out. Grabbing him or flailing your arms give no doubt. If he didn't call it, Wedge would have been out arguing, just like if it was the other way around, Ozzie would have been out there arguing it should have been interference, Hawk too. Maybe that's the way the umpires interpret the rule, but that just doesn't make sense to me. The word "interfere" has a pretty non-ambiguous meaning, and I don't see how Cabrera was interfering with any possible play. I still feel it was a poor judgment call, especially in the context of this game.

QUOTE(Disco72 @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 09:23 AM) XM-related question for those with the satellite radio... Can you listen to MLB games online? My wife uses the XM radio in the car (she travels alot for work), and at the end of last season, I couldn't seem to find MLB games on the list of channels you can listen to on XM's website. It appears that I'll have to buy a second radio to use at home. You can buy a full-season radio pass on mlb.com for like $15. It covers all games for all teams, and there are no blackouts. I do it every year so I can listen to games while downtown at work, because radio reception here is awful. I don't think you can get games on XM for this reason.

QUOTE(Dick Allen @ Apr 2, 2008 -> 10:00 AM) It was also "accepted in MLB for many years that if the ball beat the runner, the runner was out, pretty much no matter where the tag was. That has changed. The only problem I have with the 3 calls that went against the White Sox on Monday was the play at the plate, because the umpire made up his mind that Crede was out before the play occurred. It is not acceptable to grab an infielder when they are turning a DP. That's going to get called every time. Even Ozzie said it was the correct call. The play at first was tough for the umpire to see. It was hard to see with a better angle in slow motion. The argument that is used that Cabrera had the base, therefore no interference should be called is a weak one. If there was a pop up right over second and a runner was standing on second, he wouldn't be allowed to shove the fielder out of the way or grab him so he couldn't make the play. Hate to keep getting dragged into this, but why is it ok to smash into a player with your legs or body, but not okay to grab his leg? The point was made earlier in this thread that if Cabrera had been turned around, and ran into Peralta with his legs, nothing would've been called. And I'm still not sure how grabbing someone's leg(s) is going to hinder a throw. I also don't think anyone is arguing about Cabrera. I think the argument is that Thome had first base no matter what happened at second, and you can't hinder a non-existent play.

QUOTE(Athomeboy_2000 @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 03:19 PM) I was thinking the same thing. MOST people slide hands first and flare out the feet. He did the opposite. Different look, same result. I'd probably rather have someone try to grab my legs anyway, than try to sweep my legs out from under me with theirs. Much less risk of injury, and it seems like all you'd have to do with a hand or two on your legs is, oh I don't know, step forward and throw anyways? It's not like someone's arm is going to be able to hold your legs back very well.

Going to see Explosions in the Sky today. Pretty excited.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 12:20 PM) The umpire doesn't have to judge that the play (throwing to first for a dp) would have been successful. The act of starting to throw is part of the play, even though the play probably wouldn't have worked out, and Cabrera interfered with that. Done, apply the penalty. (It was Peralta, btw -- I think I made that mistake earlier.) I'm done. Even Ozzie has said that it was a good call. It was, it's done, and it's time to worry about the next game and bogus AF trade reports. K. Agree to disagree.

QUOTE(jackie hayes @ Apr 1, 2008 -> 10:01 AM) Except it's not hyperbole. If we say that any runner who's touching the base should not be called out for interference, that's carte blanche. If you can't grab the guy, then we have to throw that argument out and draw a finer distinction. Barfield was pivoting to throw and was cocking his arm when Cabrera reached out. The facts that he didn't make a throw and might not have made a throw are irrelevant. Even Guillen has said that the ump made the correct call. As for personal attacks, I haven't attacked you once. You're just livid that I can't see the clear shining light of your rightness. (SO NOW YOU'RE USING LOTS OF CAPS -- VERY CONVINCING!) Deal with it. So if Barfield didn't make a throw, what play was Cabrera interfering with? Look, I'm not disagreeing that Cabrera was grabbing for Barfield. That's obvious, and under most any other circumstance, I'd be in total agreement with you. But the rule states that interference occurs when "a runner is adjudged to have hindered a fielder who is attempting to make a play on a batted ball." There was no play to be made, as Thome was safe no matter what, Barfield did not throw the ball, and Cabrera's grab did not prevent Barfield from throwing it. I also didn't say that any runner touching a base has the ability to do whatever he pleases to a fielder. Not sure where you're getting that. I just don't see how you can hinder a non-existent play. The caps were to emphasize certain parts of my claim, not as a response to your inability to see my "clear shining light of rightness."