Frayed Knot

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I grew up loving the Batman series first for its color and adventure; and again later when I understood its humor. Brilliant in every way. Saw the first Burton movie, which bored me to death, and never bothered to see another. That's pretty much where I'm at too. I was never all ga-ga over the idea of a feature-length Batman to begin with. First of all because (a bit ironically) I was never a comic book guy, but also because this whole idea of suckering baby-boomers into the theater by churning out films of their childhood TV faves just seemed like an easy path to big bucks whether the flicks were any good or not. The original Burton film had a good look to it and Jack as the Joker was fun to watch, but other than that ... eh. After that I never bothered with any of the sequels which sounds like it was a good decision. Maybe I'll give 'Begins' a shot on video and, if intrigued, the new movie as well.

See I don't think Willie was baseball dumb. Let's face it, the in-game strategy is virtually indistinguishable since the change and Jerry is getting passes on things that we (and others) would have screamed about before. I think a number of things are better but not so much the Xs & Os. By the same token I don't see him as confident either. Willie's problem IMO was that he always seemed too humg up trying to show others that his moves were sound to the point where he became overly-defensive trying to justify them, eventually falling back on his 'I'm from New York/I'm a winner' silliness. Jerry, on the other hand, will answer the same question with a 'hey if it doesn't work I'll live with it' attitude. The latter method exudes confidence while the former acts as a cover for the lack of it.

To be fair to Willie, he used to give that same 'I don't second guess my decisions' speech too. The difference is that Jerry sounds less defensive while doing so.

I sat about a section over from Nixon (post-presidency) one night. He was w/a couple of grandkids (I assume) and was right next to Mrs. Mookie.

Maybe I'm getting his option confused with someone else's, but I thought this was one where they had to contractually decide well in advance and therefore had already declined the pick it up. If that's not the case ... then talk to me at the end of the year. It would be dumb to re-up him based on 3-4 weeks of revived hitting. Plus let's see what the other options are: FAs; are Carp and/or Evans ready or are they dealt away in a trade?. Lotsa factors at play.

Perez - 5.0 Delgado - 2.0 Cancel - 1.0 Wright - 1.0 Heilman - 0.5 Wagner - 0.5

Santana - 4.4 Castro - 1.6 Delgado - 1.5 Wright - 1.0 Chavez - 1.0

holychicken wrote: It said he doubled. . . but was out at second. . .did he overrun the bag and try to come back? No, the out was at 3rd. Double to LF, Burrell hits cutoff, cutoff throws home (too late), catcher throws back to 3rd for 3rd out.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Was he stretching to a triple, or trying to advance on the throw? Either way, he shouldn't have made the third out at third, but because of his clutch double, I'll forgive him. On the throw. Thing is, on a play like that you sometimes WANT them to cut it off and nail you since that will assure the 2nd run scoring. Not sure how close it would have been without that but that case is a semi-forgivable 3rd out at 3rd

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Wha'ppen? Delgado sliced a nice little double right down the left field line (hence the Sandy Amaros reference)

Phils forgot to sub Sandy Amoros in prior to that AB as Carlos pulls a Yogi.

Centerfield wrote: Fast enough to warrant a sacrifice bunt from the guy who hit the 3 run jack last night? Of course not.

Vince Coleman Firecracker wrote: Woohoo! Pinch runner? Nah. Cancel is faster than his bulk suggests.

Robinson Cancel-s any immediate send-down possibility with a leadoff single.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Who's their best choice to lead off the 8th? There's Anderson, A. Reyes, and Schneider and Cancel. AReyes might be your best OBP guy out of that crew Switch-hits too so CManuel can't mix & match. Suxx for Ollie that he can't get the win. Maybe Heilman "vultures" one up here.

Dang! He had him 0-2, then fell to 3-2, then hit him ... and that'll end his day Heilman in to face the righty Werth

IW to Burrell in order to face Howard. Correct move w/2 outs - last time was only 1. Howard's day so far: K - K - K

Moot point as Castro flies out (or 'Mute' point as some used to say on another forum in a different time and space) Leading off next inning it's a no-brainer to PH.

Bruntlett led off the game, not Rollins -- not sure what the deal is there. Bruntlett - GO Utley - K Burrell - 1B Howard - K

soupcan wrote: Its Bowa. Get past the mustache. That's Bowa's face and the guy is not big enough to be Schmidt. Oh yeah, I'm listening to the guy who can't recognize his own kid in a photo.

Maine - 4.0 Reyes - 2.7 Wagner - 0.3 Easley - 0.9 Schneider - 0.7 Beltran - 0.7 Delgado - 0.7

Between the age and the injuries the Braves are really starting to fall apart. One might say it's enough to sing a really sad song about. In fact, I was recently in Atlanta and ... As I walked down in the streets of Atlanta I found the field where the Braves like to play There sat Bobby Cox all slumped down in his dugout his face was the shade of the red Georgia clay I could see by his uni that he was a lifer He waved out to me as I slowly walked by and said, "come sit beside me and hear my sad story, my team is in shambles and I'm fixin' to cry" "Where once in the East we used to be dom'nant, a dozen straight titles we salted away. Octobers were ours as a matter of birthright But we're soon looking at elimination day" "It took four aging starters to put nails in my coffin six sore-armed relievers to blow every save. Gather that guy with the tom-tom plus chief Nokahoma and tell them to follow my corpse to the grave" And beat that drum slowly, and play the fife lowly Have the fans chop their arms as the hearse moves along Take me down to the outfield and lay a pennant o'er me we once ruled the land but it's now all gone wrong I could see by his scorecard that he still had Chipper He plays next to Yunel and named his kid Shea Was hitting .400 'til his body betrayed him and now each day's paper calls him 'day-to-day' Look over to first base and see Mark Teixeira picked up at the deadline though he'll soon go F-A And then Kelly Johnson who feasts on Met pitching but he's not hitting now and his first name sounds gay Bobby cried "once in the outfield I used to have Andruw, he slammed every pitch and he caught every hit But now it's just Kotsay and Francouer and Diaz and a score of old has-beens who all turned to shit" On the mound we see Hudson and Jurrgens and Carlyle while Smoltz and Tom Glavine rest their old bones and drool plus too many rookies who never caught fire And Hampton who can only drive his kids to school So let's beat the Braves slowly and lay them down lowly Pin their backs to the ground as the ref counts to three Take back the East division and build up our cushion drop them down the standings 'til they look up at Dee-Cee

Sometimes the only worse than having a high-priced mercurial closer is NOT having a high-priced mercurial closer. BW: "I looked better than I felt" ... that's not a very comforting statement but so far so good

Utley looks like a totally different (read: much worse) player compared to two months ago. He maybe has one good swing tonight.

I'll take the 1st inning ... but just think about how much more Myers & the Phils would be shitting if the batter following those walks were Alou & Church rather than Anderson & Easley. Just a thought. Now we just have to keep Maine from playing copy-cat. btw, Angel Hernandez is still a prick.