batmagadanleadoff

.... or Bud Harrelson. I think that in the future, these steroid/PED shunnings will come to be seen as overreactions, witch-hunts. When we're able to manipulate our own DNA, and regenerate limbs and nerves and tissues with the same ease with which a dentist today can fill a cavity, this steroid issue is gonna seem real silly. I mean, Deion Sanders gets blessed with world class Olympian speed and a Greek God's physical frame and excels at the highest levels of two major sports. Another guy gets an accountant's body and before he can finish the third grade, already secretly knows that he'll never even start for his little league team. What's so fair about that? Nothing. It's all luck. Life is all luck. Mostly. Shaquille O' Neal is going into the Basketball Hall Of Fame, but if he didn't get the genes to grow like a giant .. if he was of average height .. his pure basketball skills wouldn't have gotten him onto the warm part of the bench on his High School team. You think that you'd be able to jump over a Volkswagen if only you'd eaten the same meals Bo Jackson did as a kid? OE: If Shaq was merely a six-footer, his pure basketball skills wouldn't have gotten him onto the warm part of the bench on his High School team.

.... or Bud Harrelson. I think that in the future, these steroid/PED shunnings will come to be seen as overreactions, witch-hunts. When we're able to manipulate our own DNA, and regenerate limbs and nerves and tissues with the same ease with which a dentist today can fill a cavity, this steroid issue is gonna seem real silly. I mean, Deion Sanders gets blessed with world class Olympian speed and a Greek God's physical frame and excels at the highest levels of two major sports. Another guy gets an accountant's body and before he can finish the third grade, already secretly knows that he'll never even start for his little league team. What's so fair about that? Nothing. It's all luck. Life is all luck. Mostly. Shaquille O' Neal is going into the Basketball Hall Of Fame, but if he didn't get the genes to grow like a giant .. if he was of average height .. his pure basketball skills wouldn't have gotten him onto the warm part of the bench on his High School team. You think that you'd be able to jump over a Volkswagen if only you'd eaten the same meals Bo Jackson did as a kid?

http://www.examiner.com/article/how-did-the-mets-let-paul-blair-slip-away

Principled bastard, you are. I also had a shitty experience at the Kings Plaza Movie theatre. Two bad experiences, but they weren't as a young 'un ... more like a teen-ager. As a teen-ager (barely) I begged my father to take me to see Across 110th Street at the KP after the studios brainwashed me by bombarding the television with trailers for the flick. I vomited during the screening. I also saw one of the Rocky movies at the KP (I think it was the one with Mr. T) with a bunch of friends. Not my choice. I just went for the company. You know ... because everybody else wanted to go. The theater was packed by the time we got there and the only seats available were scattered. There was no way our group of six or seven was gonna be able to sit together so we sat spread out all over the movie theater. Except me. I couldn't find a single seat. So I hadda watch this movie that I didn't even really wanna see in the first place all alone, without the friends I wanted to hang with - them being the only reason I even went, standing up, at the back, near the entrance to the theater. First movie I saw in a theater was Mary Poppins. Uneventful. As a little kid, my crazy insane aunt once promised me for about a week how she was gonna take me to the movies the coming weekend. She took me to see Doctor Zhivago in a re-release*. I couldn't have been older than seven. I fell asleep about a half an hour in, and pretended to remain asleep even when I woke up and discovered, to my dismay, that that interminable movie was still playing. Or maybe she stayed to see it twice, the stupid ****. She also smelled like mothballs. Mothballs mixed with vomit. Her whole body. Even her breath smelled like mothballs and vomit. Powerful extra mothnbally mothballs. And her furniture also smelled like mothballs and vomit. Once I hadda sleep over there because my parents went away for a weekend and left me in her care, and even the bed I slept in smelled like mothballs and vomit. Let's open up this thread to bad adult movie theater experiences. ____________ * Re-release -- For the under 30 crowd here, before the internet, before Netflix, before DVDs and VCR's, before cable TV, before you could own your own copy of a movie, the only way you could watch a movie that wasn't in its initial premiere movie theater run was if it was re-released in the theaters (odds: slim) or if it was rerun on television. You'd get your TV Guide (largest circulation of any magazine in the USA during its pre-cable golden age) and skim the movie section to see what movies, with commercials and all cut up would be shown that week. When The Godfather first aired on network TV, it was a national event. I remember all us neighborhood kids talking about that one, the ones who saw it in the movies acting like big shots, bragging cause they knew which movie parts were cut out for the TV version. I saw it in the movies with my parents, so I bragged, too.

1. What's the first movie you ever saw in a movie theater? 2. What's the worst movie theater experience you ever had as a youngster/toddler/elementary school aged kid?

Edgy MD wrote: If the second one starts with a shot of a beach, then Jim Beauchamp has already been guessed. You don't need the first image of that "Dave" movie, featuring Eddie Murphy. Just marshall your focus on that Marshally stack of Marshall Amps that Marshall manufactured.

How about now? [fimg=633]http://www.superiorpics.com/wallpaper/file/Eddie_Murphy_in_Meet_Dave_Wallpaper_1_800.jpg[/fimg]

G-Fafif wrote: Football Giants represented here with one of the best and one of the worst games ever, depending on your perspective. Memorable games at The Stick involving the football Giants? I'm not even gonna bother to click that link. I know what's coming. The Joe Montana coma. No three-peat. And the kick returner that couldn't catch the ball. Twice.

[fimg=433]http://www.superiorpics.com/wallpaper/file/Eddie_Murphy_in_Meet_Dave_Wallpaper_1_800.jpg[/fimg]

G-Fafif wrote: Doll Headband Bucket...of course! Whaddya wasting your time --my time-- on this thread for? My Candlestick Park thread was a sneaky way to get you to write up the most memorable Mets memories at that joint.

Did the 'Stick have anything so challenging to baseball as the recent seagull swarms at the current place? How about the wind? Ask this guy:

Tonight, the SF 49ers play what will likely be their last game ever at Candlestick Park (unless the Niners win out and the Rams beat the Seahawks next Sunday in Seattle). The Stick was the baseball stadium Keith Hernandez was raised on. Ed Halicki no-hit the Mets there in 1975. The Beatles played their last concert there. And the Stick hosted my second most awesome all-time Sports moment: [fimg=633]http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4039/4439637126_1b307d9ed3_o.jpg[/fimg]

Here's Phil Mushnick's two cents: Mets tap 50 Cent for postgame concert By Phil Mushnick December 21, 2013 | 7:05pm Does Nike make straitjackets in men�s XL? Either I�ve gone nuts or these voices in my head are starting to mess with me. Being financially partnered with Ponzi legend Bernie Madoff, 1-800 flower-power ad-scam king Jim McCann, the fined folks at Amway, and manipulative hedge-hog Steve Cohen isn�t sleazy enough for the Mets. Now they�ve proudly announced they�re bringing in Denizen of the Dumpster thug 50 Cent to entertain a family crowd � the Manson Family? � after a late Saturday afternoon game in June. Buyer beware. At least when the Nets ran a �Guns For Tickets� promotion they requested the owners first empty the clips � that slug in the chamber, too. 50 Cent � that�s �Mr. Cent� to the New York Times � puts the rap sheet in rap. And what he raps for a living is beyond both the pale and the pail. As the Mets� first manager, Casey Stengel, urged, �You can look it up.� It doesn�t matter that Cent was arrested, again � then copped a plea to avoid another felony � just this year, this time for assaulting the mother of one of his children. Nope, the Mets are pitching this warm, cuddly angle: The Mets and Fiddy are homeboys, both from Queens! Hey, so is the Queensboro Correctional Facility! Why don�t the Mets send over a few buses, fill them with inmates and take them out to the ball game � perhaps Banner Day. Maybe that�s why the cons on the top floors have been secretly collecting bed sheets. Perhaps, too, the Mets can conduct a rap-along � follow the bouncing stray bullet! � posting Fiddy�s lyrics on the big scoreboard. Do the Mets know � or even care � that a 2009 50 Cent performance in Queens was cancelled as per directives from the offices of Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Paterson because of safety (er, ah, life and death) concerns? Seems Fiddy�s preoccupation with guns and violence tend to attract those similarly preoccupied. But the Mets will host a 50 Cent concert after a late afternoon game this June. Brilliant. Hey, it was that or the Girls Gone Wild Twerk-a-Thon from the Pepsi Porch. Where is the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, on this? Oh, never mind. �The King was in his counting house, counting out the money �� http://nypost.com/2013/12/21/mets-tap-50-cent-for-postgame-concert/

[fimg=377:3vvkemx1]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR0IrtDOsjzSZRL2MFLyrca-NlywgmJaP70OcXOKkWT_ebN8t-J[/fimg:3vvkemx1]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Something compels me to guess John Milner. Milner was the first name I thought of when I read this quiz. Then I remembered that Milner led the Mets in career grand slams for many years and assumed that I simply conflated grand slams with pinch homers. Not saying that Milner ain't on the list, though .... He might be.

Mark Carreon's gotta be somewhere on one of those lists.

Kong76 wrote: In case you haven't noticed, there are only 6 shopping days left til Christmas, which apparently isn't a religious holiday anymore. I have a calendar, and it's a religious holiday to hundreds of millions of people. Now you're talkin'! You can't stop the snark: you can only hope to contain it. Might as well go with the flow and embrace it. Embrace the snark.

Did anyone know that Ike Davis led the NL in post All-Star Game OBP last season (.449)? Rumor Roundup Who Likes Ike? by Daniel Rathman excerpt: Mets hunting for power arms in exchange for Ike Davis.... Since taking over the reins of the Mets in October 2010, general manager Sandy Alderson has done much of his best work on the trade market, exporting aging assets like Carlos Beltran and R.A. Dickey for high-end pitching prospects like Zack Wheeler and Noah Syndergaard. This offseason, Alderson is working with a much younger and less-accomplished trade chip, but when it comes to the return, he has mid-90s heat on his mind again. According to USA Today�s John Perrotto, Alderson asked his Pirates counterpart, Neal Huntington, for right-hander Nick Kingham during their discussions about Ike Davis. The market for the 26-year-old Davis grew clearer last week, when the Rays brought back James Loney on a three-year deal, leaving the Buccos and Brewers to vie for the Mets� first baseman. Davis buoyed his value by posting a league-high .449 on-base percentage in 204 plate appearances after the All-Star break, and while that gaudy mark was fueled in part by a .351 BABIP, the Arizona State product also sliced his strikeout rate and padded his walk rate considerably. Both are promising signs for Davis, who slugged 32 home runs in 2012 but has been exploited by pitchers able to find holes in his swing. Kingham ranked ninth on the Pirates� top 10 prospects list entering last season, earning a mid-rotation projection from Jason Parks, and proceeded to pitch well for both High-A Bradenton, where he fanned more than a batter per inning, and Double-A Altoona, where he logged a 2.70 ERA. Assuming his pre-2013 projection holds, the 2010 fourth-rounder could see time in a major-league rotation by 2015. A potential no. 3 starter about a year removed from the Show is a lofty asking price for Davis, and if Alderson has floated similar demands to other suitors, it might explain why no deal has materialized yet. Even though Loney and Justin Morneau have found new homes, there are still alternatives to Davis for clubs in need of first-base help.... http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=22442

Did anyone know that Ike Davis led the NL in post All-Star Game OBP last season (.449)?

Early Returns: Piazza On Pace. On January 8th, the players who will be inducted into to the National Baseball Hall of Fame next July will be revealed. No one was elected last year, and this year�s ballot is crowded � with new additions such as Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Frank Thomas, and Jeff Kent. For Mike Piazza, widely viewed as the best hitting catcher of all time, this will be his second time on the ballot. Piazza was passed over last year, receiving less than 60 percent of the vote. Even though there is zero evidence linking Piazza to performance enhancing drugs, there were writers who kept him off their ballot last year simply due to the fact that he played in the steroid era, while noting that they would include him the next time around. There were also plenty of writers who recklessly lumped Piazza in with known steroid users such as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, and Sammy Sosa. Other writers cited Piazza�s lack of defending himself against steroid allegations as a primary reason for leaving him off the ballot. Now that Piazza has denied the steroid allegations in his book Long Shot, there seems to be no excuse left for the writers to hide behind. So, how�s Piazza faring so far? The ballot was announced about three weeks ago, and they have been trickling in from writers since then. Darren Viola (@RRepoz on Twitter) has been tracking the ballots and compiling the results. As of December 17th, with 4 % of the ballots counted, Piazza�s name appeared on 78.3 % of the time � a shade above the 75 % required for induction. If the current trend holds, Piazza will be inducted along with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Craig Biggio, and Frank Thomas. There�s still a long way to go, but perhaps the momentum is (rightly) on Piazza�s side this time around. http://risingapple.com/2013/12/19/mike-piazza-faring-well-early-hall-fame-returns/

G-Fafif wrote: But that's another story. You also went to that card show at Shea in '78? So did I. And this is the first time in all these years that I've heard or read anybody ever recount that show. I don't remember what I bought at that show, but I remember seeing someone wearing a real Houston Astros shooting star uni top. I think that was the first time I ever saw a civilian wearing a real game used jersey.

Kong76 wrote: Do you really find stuff like this entertaining? Getting through that gave me a headache. I guess mileage varies. But it is entertaining. I never said that the piece is terrific, or even good. But entertaining? Absolutely? What do you like to read? 26 posts speculating about which team that ain't the Mets is going to land a flawed and declining free agent like Shin Soo Choo? Or threads about how the Mets can win 85 games next year if this player does that and this other player does that other that? And then the next guy jumps in and writes that this player doesn't' have to do that for the Mets to win 85 games if instead, that player does this? Please. Hit me over the head with a large ball peen hammer before I jump in and write that any team can win 85 games if this player does that and that player does this. You want a forum? That's what you got. Otherwise, go and write a blog.