metirish

I'm surprised FOX has not yet tried putting a camera on the umps helmet...at least they don't use a glow trail on the ball like they did when they covered hockey.

I'm sick of this crap,the Mets will win tonight behind a brilliant Maine ,I feel better now...

Carpenter was nothing great at Shea last time out...Mets win tonight.

Well fuck that ....

The good news is that Weaver is done....

] Who are you - Jesus Jones? Great song...saw them in Tipperary years ago....

It is right here,right now....

Bases loaded again....fuck

This is it forum....

Solo home runs I can take.....

Valentin comes through....Mets up two to zip...

Cool to see Reyes nad the guys having fun in the dugout before the game...Green looked silly, as do most white people trying to bring the funk....on a serious not FOX just showed Floyd jogging before the game...he didn't look good,was limping when walking.

] Crappy ball-strike call on that stolen base. Point for McCarver. Nice job by Glavine to get the broken bat out....

Val that was cool,thanks. I always thought Jenna was hot..

Nice start..two on for Delgado..one out.

You know just because Pujols is supposed to be injured he should not be taken for granted...LaRussa playing tricks?

Gary reports that after this article came out today pujols could be seen having harsh words with the writer on the field during BP....a little sensitive heh.

]Why does the pregame show have Ron and Gary shown with a darkened Busch Stadium in the background? They had to have turned on the lights there ages ago. You know I was thinking the same thing...cheap bastids

And Wilson isn't?, Spezio has been one of the best hitters for them....glad he sat him.

Looks like a great day in NY http://www.weather.com/weather/local/USNY0996?from=search_city

Just caught this on the News, 61 tonight in St.Louis, 68 for NY tomorrow night....

] By TYLER KEPNER Published: October 17, 2006 Six years ago, as the major league playoffs dominated the attention of American baseball fans, Bobby Valentine was asked about the potential impact of a player from Japan. Valentine, then managing the Mets, said he believed the player was already one of the five best in the world. That player was Ichiro Suzuki, who quickly proved Valentine right by winning the American League Most Valuable Player award for Seattle the next season. Now, as the manager of the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan, Valentine has a more intimate knowledge of Japanese talent. If his instincts are the same, then Daisuke Matsuzaka will be the next big star in the majors. �This guy is the real deal,� Valentine said last week in an e-mail message. �He has the ability to be one of the top starters in M.L.B.� Matsuzaka, a 26-year-old right-hander, was the most valuable player of the World Baseball Classic in March. His team, the Seibu Lions, gave him permission last week to pursue a career in the majors, and the Yankees are among the teams expected to show strong interest. Japanese players need nine seasons before becoming eligible for free agency, but Matsuzaka will be using the loophole Suzuki and others have used. The Lions will post him for blind bids by major league teams. The team that bids the highest will get exclusive negotiating rights with Matsuzaka for 30 days. If there is no deal within that window, the team�s buy-in is returned and Matsuzaka continues to play in Japan. Teams can begin bidding around Nov. 1. �You�re trying to assess how much interest there really is in the player,� said San Diego Padres General Manager Kevin Towers, speaking of the bidding process. �It depends on how much you want the player. If you want him, you don�t want to make a lowball bid. But also, if there�s not a lot of interest, you don�t want to overpay.� After the 2003 season, Towers made a successful bid of $300,000 for the rights to reliever Akinori Otsuka. The Matsuzaka bid should dwarf that figure. Valentine predicted it would cost a team more than $20 million for the right to negotiate with Matsuzaka. (The Mariners� winning bid for Suzuki was $13.125 million.) Then the team must negotiate a contract with Matsuzaka, who has leverage because he can return to Japan and put off free agency until next season, when all teams can talk with him. Matsuzaka, who will surely command a high salary, is expected to name Scott Boras as his agent soon. Boras visited Japan this summer to see Matsuzaka. Not surprisingly, he called him an ace who can dominate with his fastball. �He can pitch upstairs in the strike zone at 95-96 miles an hour,� Boras said. �He�s in his mid-20�s, and he�s a strong, disciplined athlete. He certainly has No. 1 potential, no question.� One scout who has seen Matsuzaka extensively said his skills went beyond talent. The scout, who asked not to be identified, said Matsuzaka had the competitive drive to battle out of jams. �It�s not only his stuff � his ability to pitch is even more impressive,� the scout said. �He�s a bulldog.� The scout said that while Matsuzaka could throw 95 miles an hour, his fastball was usually around 92-93; Valentine described the fastball as �a little above average.� But Matsuzaka�s command is excellent, his slider � called a �Gyroball� in Japan � is sharp, and Valentine called his changeup devastating. Matsuzaka will be on display again in the first week of November, when a contingent of major leaguers, including Carlos Beltr�n, Jos� Reyes and David Wright of the Mets and Mike Myers of the Yankees, will play an exhibition series in Japan. It will be still more work for a pitcher who was used heavily this season, perhaps because the Lions expected to let him go. Matsuzaka went 17-5 with a 2.13 earned run average and exceeded 120 pitches in 12 of his 25 regular-season starts. In his final start, a shutout in the playoffs, he threw 137 pitches and had 13 strikeouts. As polished as Matsuzaka is, Valentine said, �he lost a little this year.� �It was probably because of the W.B.C.,� he said. �He did have a few small injuries for the first time in his life.� Fans in Japan are used to improbable feats from Matsuzaka. He rose to fame in 1998, when he led his high school team to a national championship with a remarkable three days of work. On the first day, he threw 250 pitches over 17 innings. The next day, he played the outfield and recorded a save. The third day, he clinched the title with a nine-inning no-hitter. By the next season, Matsuzaka had joined the Lions. According to Time Asia, the Lions allowed him to attend that year�s Braves-Yankees World Series at Yankee Stadium while the other players were in training camp. The magazine called him the biggest draw in Japan�s Pacific League. �I�ve never seen anything like it,� Reggie Jefferson, an American then playing in Japan, told the magazine. �He�s like a rock star.� Matsuzaka went on to compete in two Olympics for Japan, and he is 108-60 in eight years with the Lions. Few seem to doubt that his skills will translate to the majors. While Hideki Irabu and Kaz Matsui have been disappointments, most Japanese stars tend to play as well or better than expected. That group includes Tadahito Iguchi, Hideki Matsui, Hideo Nomo and Takashi Saito, among others. �For every one of them that�s struggled, you have stories like Saito and Otsuka, guys that probably weren�t expected to do as well as they have, but have performed even better than what their clubs hoped,� Towers said. �I don�t know how risky it really is anymore. Most of those guys have come over and improved our game.� The secret is out, and the price is going up. Next Article in Sports (2 of 22) � Bobby V thinks the bidding will start at $20 mil.....Damn...

] Do they have one of those stadium cam thingies at Shea? Yes Cooby but it's not to watch the weather,it's for the hoodlums that go to the games.

From the same paper that Dickshot posted the article..... ] Surly Pujols mirrors Bonds at his worst By Bryan Burwell ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH 10/17/2006 Sports Columnist Bryan Burwell [More columns] As he made another hasty and all-too-predictable retreat out of the Cardinals' clubhouse early Monday night, Albert Pujols snatched a crisp white game jersey off a locker stall hook, tossed it over his broad shoulders then slipped out the back door barely uttering a word. As he shuffled down one of Busch Stadium's well-lit back corridors, past the World Series banners and National League pennants that decorated the walls, Pujols already had tugged his dark knit cap down snugly over his head, zipped up the front of his dark sweat suit jacket and gruffly looked back over his shoulder as he prepared to walk out into the miserable, rainy St. Louis night. The National League Championship Series' biggest star had just been presented a gift from Mother Nature when the all-day rains soaked this baseball-crazed city, forced Game 5 to be postponed for 24 hours and gave Pujols and his tender right hamstring muscle an extra day's rest. Only Pujols didn't quite see it that way. "Nah, I wanted to play today," he grumbled before disappearing behind a pair of swinging double doors. It was another day and another night of watching the best player in baseball behave like the bright glare of baseball's postseason was burning a hole in the back of his neck as if he was in an interrogation room. It was another day and another night of trying to understand why he wasn't basking in the warm glow of his own celebrity, why he couldn't quite comprehend why this should be the best of times of his baseball life, not the most unpleasant. For some odd reason, Pujols has once again turned the NLCS into a joyless pursuit of excellence rather than an extraordinary opportunity to display his singular greatness, and I just don't get it. He comes to the ballpark every day and treats people with a needless surly demeanor. Instead of seizing on the chance to step onto baseball's big postseason stage and impress the nation's baseball press with his athletic brilliance, he instead has made quite the impression in the worst kind of way. "Get out of my freakin' locker � you people are a pain in the (butt), you know that?" he snarled last week inside the crowded Shea Stadium visitors' clubhouse after Game 1 was rained out. The greatest hitter in baseball is turning into a mirror image of the man who so gruffly held that title before him. Pujols is turning into Barry Bonds, and believe me, this is not a compliment. This cranky postseason routine is nothing new. It's actually quite reminiscent of his surly behavior at the start of last year's NLCS in Houston, when his foul mood and uncooperative attitude seemed to affect the entire team as the Cards trudged through the early part of that series as if the games were a joyless burden rather than a carefree pleasure. And just as things were starting to look as bad as they could get when the Astros took a three-games-to-one advantage, Pujols lightened up and showed the side of his personality that many of us in St. Louis know but rarely see anymore. Exactly one year ago to the day, Pujols stood in the middle of the visitors' clubhouse in Houston sporting a broad smile and telling everyone that something magical was in the air. "Can we pull off a miracle?'' Pujols asked then. "Of course we can. We just need to win one game. If we can do that, if we can just get past tomorrow, it puts all the pressure on them." He was smiling. He was lighthearted. He was a picture of calm in the midst of a potential storm. And guess what happened the next night? Pujols crashed the most memorable home run of his career, off Brad Lidge, and the Cardinals won Game 5. So now here we are on the first anniversary of that incredible blast, and it seems fitting that Pujols and the Cardinals should be reminded of how good it can be when he doesn't treat the hectic playoff environment with such disdain. Just to be clear, this is not a belated diatribe against his remarks about Mets ace Tom Glavine. He's not the first nor the last great athlete I've met with a competitive fire who refuses to submit to any idea that an opponent got the better of him. Every great athlete I've known or observed closely, from Michael Jordan to Martina Navratilova, from Tiger Woods to Chris Evert, accepted defeat in the same manner. It was never something you did to them, it was always something they did to themselves. "You didn't win. I lost." But here's something else all the great ones have in common: The intense heat of a championship stage always feels comfortable to them. This is not a time to be angry. This is not a time to be miserable. This is a time to crash the walls, Albert, not a time to act like the walls are crashing in on you. http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/bryanburwell/story/F7934A0ACA0197ED8625720A0015E4AE?OpenDocument