Frayed Knot

That was an impressive AB from Nieuy. Both strikes 1 & 2 were bastard pitches so he had to hit out of the hole.

Quaid plays the charming rogue well enough as does Barkum as the cold northerner (un-named IIRC, but you get the idea that she's a nordic from Minnesota) who's a crayfish out of water amongst the laid-back (and mostly related) Crescent City gang. Slow down Chere, this is N'Awlins, we all got a different way of doing things around here

Well your problem (which you've explained before) is purely a local one but it's also the most frustrating because it [u:1g1s23d9]IS[/u:1g1s23d9] fixable if only someone would make a logical decision. I think your solution is as simple as a molotov cocktail deposited through the window of your local provider.

Several chances for clutch ABs tonight but none have come through. - Hairston swung at just an awful 2-0 pitch and popped out - Turner hacked at the first pitch he saw PH-ing and also popped it up - and Murph K'd w2-on/2-out although he had the toughest assignment of the three and got the tougher pitches from the lefty specialist.

Maybe Ike is on his way back? That's 2 HRs + a 2B in his last 4 ABs

attgig wrote: Fox can do a better job in making mlb more accessible to the general public. look at what CBS has done for march madness online and on other channels. imagine Fox doing that every saturday for mlb... they would be amazing. instead, they use an antiquated system to tell us what we're allowed to watch. The difference being that CBS owns the rights to the whole product. The on-line stuff and the farming lesser wanted games out to other networks (some of which they own pieces of too) doesn't take away from what they do because it's all, in effect, a zero-sum game. Plus the product is very different; virtually every game in the hoops tourney is a national game and only occasionally does a local team shoot one game over all others (and when it does they've still got the audience coming or going). In the case of baseball, the networks know that interest in local broadcasts trump national ones so putting their game up against other markets - whether on regular channels, on-line, or via the EI package - will *by definition* take away from their audience and therefore the ad rates they can charge.

bmfc1 wrote: I don't blame FOX (for this), I blame MLB which agreed to these terms when it could have dictated terms that are better for its customers. ceetar wrote: The wish is for a better deal on MLB's part ... You both seem to be under the impression that this arrangement is something MLB doesn't want, or had shoved down their throats by the mean network, or overlooked the consequences of. If MLB doesn't want the exclusivity arrangement then they can certainly insist on it whenever the next negotiations come around - but they're going to have to TAKE A LOT LESS MONEY to do so, something they've never shown any intention of doing. Bud could suggest it all he wants assuming he's still around the next time this comes up but if he did I suspect the owners would pounce on him en masse like it was the end to some Wrestlemania extravaganza. The only sporting event I've ever seen to willingly take far less money than they could otherwise get in order to retain the ability to dictate terms to their broadcast partner is 'The Masters'. Oddly, though that accommodation makes for consistently great viewing, much of the outside world seems to resent them for doing so.

CF's offended by the shirt and he wants one as evidence, preferably in a medium.

I saw this like a billion years ago and my recollection is that its somewhat predictable plot, fake N.O. accents, broad native/outsider characterizations, worked better than it had any right to do.

This discussion went on in last week's FOX thread and yet we continue to act as if this is something Selig could just make disappear with a wave of his hand. The arrangement is that FOX gets exclusivity in their Saturday afternoon time slot in exchange for adding zeros onto the end of the check they hand to MLB. This wish that, when the current deal is up, some other network is going to first out-bid FOX for rights to the package and then have no problem with other outlets eating into the network's market share by putting games opposite the ones they just bid lots of millions for is absurd.

I wonder if/how much say Duda had in all of this. You'd like to think the team cleared it with him first. He's certainly not the publicity-seeking sort; have no idea if he's at all religious or that whether his religious beliefs/not would affect him giving his OK to this project.

Vlad signs minor league deal with Blue Jays

First visit to the new fish palace. Going for six straight overall. No chance of a rain delay. 7:05 PM - Santana vs Buehrle Marlins hitters vs Santana: Omar Infante: 42 ABs - .190/.222/.190 Hanley Ramirez: 23 ABs - .130/.231/.130 John Buck: 18 ABs - .223/.300/.333 Emiio Bonifacio: 15 ABs - .133/.133/.133 Austin Kearns: 15 ABs - .133/.133/.200 Gaby Sanchez: 8 ABs - 5-for-8 incl 2 2Bs Jose Reyes - 1 single in 7 ABs All NYM ABs vs Buehrle came in the game earlier this year

Well, when you can limit Hamilton to just six HRs over a four game series you've got a decent chance at winning at least one.

Colby Lewis gets the start for Texas in Baltimore yesterday (make-up game / first game of a DH) and promptly starts the game: HR, HR, HR [Ryan Flaherty, JJ Hardy, Nick Markakis] before the next batter Adam Jones hits a long fly to the wall which is caught. - he then Ks the next two hitters to end the 1st inning - he strikes out the side in the 2nd - and strikes out the first guy in the 3rd (six in a row at this point) before a fly out and another K - he goes on to strike out two more in the 4th, one in the 5th, and one in the 6th ... all of this without allowing a base-runner btw meaning that at this point he's retired 18 straight since the HR barrage including 11 of them by strikeout (O's lead 3-1) - So now it's the 7th and what does he do? HR, BB, 2R-HR of course [Jones, Weiters, Betemit]. He then hits the next guy (hmmmmmm), gets a GiDP, allows a runner via a dropped pop-up but notches a K for the third out in what turns out to be his final batter of the game. - the Texas reliever retires the O's in order in the 8th. The Rangers scratch a couple runs (one via HR) and lose 6-3 The final batting line for the O's: 6 runs on just 5 hits and a total of 8 base-runners [all five hits are HRs plus a walk, HBP, error] with 13 strike-outs and One LOB * The HR-HR-HR start was an American League first although not a baseball first. The 5 hits with all of them being HRs trick is apparently an MLB record.

I saw Turk pull it off twice in one inning!

Lefty Specialist wrote: Now HE was a lefty specialist!

2nd year actually. A handful of players have used it already. The Yanx' Eric Chavez is currently there.

Divisions as a whole to date: [table:3lyyhqba][tr:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]AL EAST[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]+ 16[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]NL EAST[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]+ 14[/td:3lyyhqba][/tr:3lyyhqba][tr:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]AL CENT[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]- 20[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]NL CENT[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]- 4[/td:3lyyhqba][/tr:3lyyhqba][tr:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]AL WEST[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]+ 4[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]NL WEST[/td:3lyyhqba][td:3lyyhqba]- 10[/td:3lyyhqba][/tr:3lyyhqba][/table:3lyyhqba]

It's not a bad list. Its main flaw is the same one most of these lists make (and what our project tried to steer around) in that it bumps up some of the shorter-run "name" players often on the basis of a few big moments. - They have Carter at #9 for essentially 2-1/2 good years compared to our #37 - Olerud at 25 to our 41 - Backman at 31 (57) - Clendenon at 40 (73) - Knight at 44 (146) - and they naturally cede the final spot to Throneberry based totally on legend where he sits at #350 on the CPF list

Two-out HITS we're getting all over the place. My frustration with the 2-out HRs came mainly from that Colorado series - and then the one in Houston just spun this thread into a tally of our recent debt of HRs in general, particularly those coming and going with men on. This series straightened things out a wee bit - mainly by tripling our season's output for HRs with more than one guy on base (from 1 to 3) - although the deficit is still pretty large against us. [table:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8][/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]HRs[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]HRs-A[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]Solo[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]12[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]12[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]2R[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]6[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]11[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]3R[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]3[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]5[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]GS[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]0[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]2[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]Tot HRs[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]21[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]30[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][tr:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]Runs[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]33[/td:1wpp03l8][td:1wpp03l8]57[/td:1wpp03l8][/tr:1wpp03l8][/table:1wpp03l8]

Houston tied Wednesday night's game w/the Marlins in the 9th and had a chance to win it before finally losing it anyway in the 11th, thus wrecking our chance for a rare '+5' day (we win, the rest of the east loses). Still, a couple of +3's in a row, particularly at this time of year, moves you up in a hurry and is currently good enough for 1/2 game behind both Washington & Atlanta. Nats at Pittsburgh is the only NL game to be played today.

PHIOld MoleWASHbmfc1/Edgy DCMIAGWreckATLFrayed Knot=#40BF00]CIN=#40BF00]EdgyDCPITTEdgy DCCHICattgigStLMFS'62HOUMGiM=#0000FF]MILW=#0000FF]TransMonkLADG-FaFiFSFGFrayed KnotSDPSeoCOLLWFSARZLWFSNYYFMan99BALJCLTORJCLTBRLWFS =#BF0000]At Bat =#0000FF]On Deck =#008000]In the Hole

Pettitte starts Sunday against the Mariners.. Getting your first start in over a year against Seattle is what they call in the business, a soft landing. Meanwhile, YLDBs not enjoying the first two days of the David Robertson era: - Tuesday night; comes in in the 9th with a 2-run lead: GO, BB, 1B, K, BB, K -- gets the save but loads the bases in doing so - Tonight; comes in with a one-run lead to begin the 9th: 1B, 1B, BB, K, SF (Blown Save), 3R-HR ... and yanked.

If we could have gotten Schneider & Galvis out all night we'd have a damn shut-out going here.