Frayed Knot

Not since last year.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: DR: 2nd in HR (591) (2001-present) - Seriously. Active player with nearly 600 home runs. How quickly we forget. I feel like I should know this, but I'm so bad with current players that I have no idea. A guy I like to call Albert Pujols oe: D'oh!!

The Jamaican is Chili Davis mon.

Frenchy HRs = Bruce Bochy

seawolf17 wrote: Cuban homers: José Canseco. Nope. Second with 462. Raffy Palmiero is Senor Numero Uno Cubano

seawolf17 wrote: BRAZIL: Most career HR (57) (2012-present) -- NOT Jonny Gomes. Close, though. Yan, Jon, ... same thing. Tough to tell them Gomes's apart.

A little delayed this year, but still time for your 2016 NYM Rankings. You know the drill; top 30 by whatever method you choose, just be prepared to defend your position. This past year's cast of characters: [u:1wuh97j0]Position Players[/u:1wuh97j0] (by most ABs) GRANDERSON — CABRERA — CESPEDES — WALKER — LONEY CONFORTO — FLORES — REYES — d’ARNAUD — DE AZA R. RIVERA — JOHNSON — BRUCE — DUDA — WRIGHT LAGARES — PLAWECKI — TJ RIVERA — REYNOLDS — CAMPBELL NIMMO — KELLY — RUGGIANO — CECCHINI [u:1wuh97j0]Pitchers[/u:1wuh97j0] (by IP) COLON — SYNDERGAARD — deGROM — MATZ — HARVEY VERRETT — FAMILIA — REED — ROBLES — LUGO GSELLMAN — BASTARDO — BLENINS — GOEDDEL — HENDERSON MONTERO — YNOA — GILMARTIN — SALAS — SMOKER NIESE — EDGIN

U.K. HRs = Bobby Thompson

Brazil HRs = Jonny Gomes

Colombia, career HRs -- Edgar Renteria

Drew Storen to the Reds on a one year deal (don't get too upset Met fans). And (temporary) WS hero Rajai Davis goes back to Oakland where he played prior to his star turn in Cleveland.

I don't understand any of that.

SELL THE TEAM NOW!!!! Only kidding ... sort of

Avi blasted onto the old forum like he owned the place and came with an obnoxious signature line that was a list of the 10 best games he attended. It was like chum for the sharks, he spent a good few hours getting hammered on it, first arrogantly defending the list and eventually giving way until within a few hours he was so defeated he'd replaced each and every one of his posts with a single period, because the forum required that something be left in the message field. He never returned. So now if someone should decide to erase a post for whatever reason, the cryptic "Avi wuz here" message could show up as a replacement. Or occasionally someone might write something along the lines of: I had a response all typed out on this topic but I wasn't able to make the point I wanted so I just Avi'd it. What was amazing is that he took the time and trouble to go back and erase every single post he ever made in an attempt to scrub clean any evidence of his brief time there. And yet despite all that effort, that name that existed for maybe a week on a decade and a half ago different version of this forum, still lives on!!

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Prince once dedicated an entire blog post to this particular baseball card. [fimg=360]http://d2vrsup6vl2y4n.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/prince-624-1405344534.jpg[/fimg] [fimg=250]http://thumbs3.picclick.com/d/l400/pict/311681411342_/1969-Topps-Set-Break-131-Chris-Cannizzaro-NR-MINT.jpg[/fimg] Seems like an odd combo.

A Boy Named Seo wrote: ... these quotes on relief pitching reminded me of this book that I think most people on this board would really dig --> https://www.amazon.com/Only-Rule-Has-Work-Experiment/dp/1627795642 That's where I got the Huston Street quote (or paraphrase at least) from.

“As the wheels keep turning — as baseball evolves — teams are going to start using their best relievers to get the biggest outs. They’re not going to keep putting them in a box where they only pitch the ninth. And the teams that are early adopters are going to reap the most benefits.” — Burke Badenhop, itinerant reliever, January 2016 And then there's reliever Huston Street who says he'd retire before he'd allow anyone to take 9th innings and the save stats that go with it away from him - so we're not quite out of the lunkhead era yet.

Very brief NYM Darren O'Day

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Harborfields has officially adopted black as a color. Can you believe that shit? [fimg=200]http://www.harborfieldscsd.net/slideshow/images/IMG_6079.JPG[/fimg] Looks like the coach (Joe Mayer III ?) is one of Under Armour's bitches.

Yeah, I figured I missed a few here and there (and certainly pretty stupid missing the Celtics). But still, what's the ratio of R+B to G in pro sports? Gotta be at least 20-to-1 Maybe the future Portland Pine Trees will adopt a nice forest green for their unis.

I always found the lack of green in MLB uniforms as perplexing. Are they afraid they'll blend in with the grass? All this while the other primary colors dominate like they got an anti-trust exemption. Besides the A's, only Balt, SF, and Pitt don't have some shade of blue or red as their main color, while teams like the Rangers, Indians, and Nationals couldn't decide and instead vacillate between featuring between blue AND red. There doesn't seem to be as many anti-green-ites at lower levels of sports; plenty of colleges use it and, hey, it was good enough for the Harborfields Tornadoes. But the NFL has (I think) just the Jets & Eagles; the NHL had the old North Stars but even their move to Dallas shoved green to their secondary color behind black; I have no idea about the NBA; and I don't seem to be seeing any in the EPL either so apparently it's not strictly an American prejudice.

There's an old adage that the answer to most baseball trivia questions is Vida Blue, so when in doubt ...

Because nothing says Puerto Rico like the name Seth. On the other hand, the most popular name among NYC Hispanics this past year? ... Liam. Go figure.

I don't think there's a movement afoot to physically adjust the strike zone in any way. Yeah there was a time -- back in the umpire arrogance days mentioned earlier -- when the zone started shifting from a vertical rectangle to a more horizontal one as umps, in a reaction to getting heat from batters about too many 'High' strikes, took it upon themselves to make the zone wider as compensation. But that was all back in the pre-Qestec (and its successors) era and back before Sandy took advantage of the ill-advised labor strategy of mass resignation to rein them in and at least got the umps to stop self-defining the zone. Now I think the goal is simply to get a lower error rate on the borderline calls, especially in a day when so many viewers and bloggers can see where the missed calls are - or at least are under the impression that they can. And while I was disappointed to hear Manfred say that they're not all that close to an automated system, I suspect he might need to say that publicly at least until whenever the umps labor contract is up. And, yes, it's going to need player input/approval too, but my impression of players is that they'd approve of anything as long as they think it'll give consistent calls. Some trials would be needed (spring training?) but they'd get on board with it eventually, even if all 30 starting catchers are convinced that they are firmly in the top half of the league when it comes to 'pitch framing' skills.

Hey, compared to the era when umps were openly admitting -- some to the paint of bragging -- to employing their own personal strike zone totally independent of what the rule book said it should be, anything has to be an improvement.