Vic Sage

it would've made more sense for Boston to draft him when Stony Brook players were still "Patriots".

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Well if Collins doesn't get it, then he deserves the Mets woeful run differential. And if that run differential is not flukish, then the Mets will eventually drop from this pennant race like a sinking stone. this is my thesis, in a nutshell.

yes, cuz Collins seems to be the kind of manager likely to embrace a radical reimagining of bullpen usage.

any man whose name is comprised of the slang terms for a venereal disease and urine, and then writes like it, should shun public exposure at all costs.

if only. sigh.

last night, i saw Dillon Gee start to weaken in the 6th, getting out of a jam with a 6-4-3. So when he gave up Schneider's well hit 2-out double to deep center in the 7th, i didn't quibble with Collins' decision to bring in Parnell. Gee looked done to me, after 110 pitches, and if we can get that much out of Gee in a game, i say take it and move on. I think asking more of starters who aren't up to it is as likely to end in disaster as asking relief pitchers to get 7 outs to close out a 3-1 game. Now i agree that the ritualistic removal of a starter who is going strong just because its "time" for the setup guy or the closer is almost always a bad idea, and a worse idea when your pen sucks. But expecting mediocre starters to go deeper to avoid going to your stinky pen is not really a solution either.

Fman99 wrote: I don't think Francisco Franco should get his own day at Citi Field. This guy was a menace. from what i hear, he's still dead.

just to clarify: i hated Shea. But when given a clean slate to create a whole new park, they did more wrong than right, as far as I'm concerned. So Citi doesn't excite me, even in comparison to the crap palace it replaced.

Me and Vic Jr had a perfectly nice evening in the park, right up until Parnell showed up. It was shiite, as MetIrish would say, from that point on. When Mayberry parked Martinez's fatty into the Pepsi Porch in the 9th, we departed. got new hats, though. Jr got the classic blue, with the orange button. He's a traditionalist. I got a 50th anniversary edition. oh, and the rebuilt bullpen of ours? the one aspect of the team that Sandy spent money and trades to create? it sucks big hairy moose cock.

he's also pitching to a BABIP about 100 points lower, which supports my notion that he (1) pitched better than his overall numbers showed last year, and was subject to bad luck and limited defensive support, and (2) he'll likely revert to form at some point, because his current BABIP is likely unsustainable. But his "form" isn't at all bad, if healthy, and if he's backed by good defense, he can help a team win.

335, row 3, seats 7 & 8 is that under any kind of overhang?

yeah, Citi is pitcher-friendly, and he didn't do too badly there either, considering it was his first full season after numerous injuries and surgeries that cost him part of 2007, all of 2008 & 2009, and part of 2010.

i just checked my tix: section 335. That's on the Leftfield side... not the "Pepsi Porch", right?

going tonight with Vic Jr and his school group. We'll probably be up in the Pepsi Porch, exposed to the impending thunderstorms. I'll be sure to wave around the steel rod that Second Spitter FedExed to me for just that purpose.

I like Capuano. When he's healthy (which has been rarely), he helps a staff. Not THIS much, usually, and he'll come back to the pack a bit, i'm sure (fun with sample sizes!), but its not a total shock either, especially in the pitching-friendly expanse of Chavez Ravine.

I might understand Stark if Wright was playing out his option, but there are all kinds of reasons for him to sign now rather than later. If he gets no extension, he's locked in here for 1 more year at $16m, so he can't play out his current deal for a while, during which he is getting paid less than his current market value for this and next year; and in the meantime: - he could revert to CitiField Dave; - he could suffer significant injury; - he could get traded or otherwise purged in more Wilponian cost-cutting; - he could get caught with a dead school girl in his trunk; - or "other" Frankly, the BEST time to lock in on a long-term deal is when your hitting .375 I would think that Sandy's best strategy is to wait till the off-season, pick up the option, and THEN start negotiating a "blend and extend" deal in the 6yr/$110m range (assuming Wright finishes the season as strongly as he's begun it). There's no advantage to the Mets for him to "buy high" on David.

I'm taking Vic Jr tonight, but only because its part of a school outing. I haven't bought any other Tix this year, nor last year, and its for a few reasons: - I don't like CitiField. Yes, its pretty and the food is better, but the view from the cheaper seats suck worse than Shea and the good seats are too expensive (not to mention overpriced parking/merch/food). - I don't like the Wilpons and their management; their shady dealings cast a shadow over the franchise and their Dodgerphilia taints their perception of team history; - I don't like the trend of the team's performance since Beltran watched strike 3. - I have better things to do with my money, - And, as i've gotten older, the live experience of dealing with remote parking, traffic, crowds, long lines, price gauging, and drunken assholes has grown considerably less charming, and so I'm content to watch them on my big screen TV. the only reason i buy tix at all anymore is that my kids like to go once in a while, so i take them when the opportunity arises. That being said, they'd be devastated if Wright left (my daughter wears "5" on her HS team jersey), and i wouldn't be surprised if, after losing Reyes, that wasn't the last straw for them.

First of all, I had already edited my post before you responded, because i too felt that the Nietzche discussion was unneccessary and that, while still feeling it was necessary to note your plagiarism (in a post busy casting aspersions about moral accountability), i didn't want to make so much of it. If you can't explain to me why the Gallipoli identity should be viewed as more inherently Australian than French or British, without blugeoning me to death with Nietzsche then this conversation is uninteresting to me. I wasn't asserting that it was more inherently Australian; neither was Weir, as far as i can see from all the way over here. That debate is, as i said, an internal one going on within your own culture. What i was responding to were the characters and themes of the work presented, which was laudatory about the soldiers. What you are asserting is that, by being laudatory about the white males fighting the fight, it was necessarily being derogatory about everybody else not shown in the film. Which may play well in the hipster bars of Sydney but i think is entirely spurious. Like all those pesky Jews in Germany in the 40's. yeah, when you go there, you lose all credibility. see Godwin's Law, from your favorite source, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law also, Reductio ad Hitlerum -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

I have no particular knowledge or insight into Australasian culture in general, or "Anzac spirit" in particular, nor its internal debates about race, gender, national identity, etc., but i don't think they are unique in having such tensions, nor in having myths about who they are as a people. Never having heard of this "anzac spirit" thing, i looked it up (though I found much in your post to have been lifted directly from Wikipedia, without attribution in some instances, i don't wish to get us sidetracked by that issue). It seems to me that the "anzac myth" is like many of the myths of western civilization with which I am familiar; it's a cultural myth of martial values. As such, it seems to this outsider as one that is more positive and benign than the Spartan myths, for example, and those of Imperial Rome that followed. That being said, i can understand if some within the culture find the myth exclusionary or otherwise politically unacceptable to them at this point in history. But if Weir must be "made accountable" for reviving such a myth, so then must Homer, John Ford, Geoffrey of Monmouth, and all the rest of the canon. And maybe they should be, too. But for every myth there evolves a counter-myth; a critique that evolves to either dubunk, limit, undermine or contextualize the prevailing myth. The disenfranchised in a culture always have an incentive to undermine the dominant mythology that they believe is oppressing them, but that doesn't make them necessarily "right", nor the myth-makers necessarily wrong, or held "accountable" (or any more accountable than any of their critics, at least). But that is the discussion that culture has with itself, and history is then rewritten by the victor. In any event, to assert a myth of martial virtue is not the same thing as "jingoism". To assert that your soldiers presented certain positive character traits when confronting combat is not the same thing as advocating that they go to war. But i look forward to seeing work by any filmmakers taking on the Anzac myth with a counter-myth of their own, if they can present it in as beautifully moving a way as Weir did. And the only thing for which i'll hold them accountable is the same standard by which i judge Weir... the craft and conviction evident in their film.

The running sequences were great, scored to Jarre's electronic OXYGENE. It's sort of interesting to note that earlier that same year (1981), CHARIOTS OF FIRE was released, featuring great running sequences with Vangelis' Oscar-winning electronic score. It was a great year for electronic running music.

Edgy DC wrote: Dave Dahl. Gotta be. Great baseball name and Alabama outfielders are all through the DNA of this team: Mays, Agee, Jones, Otis, George Foster, Johnny Lewis, Terrence Long. He's got the alliteration of a superhero's secret identity. The MMMS says "yea, verily, yea!"

Emaus is at AAA? i thought we dumped him.

The Second Spitter wrote: Gallipoli is reviled by British military people for certain historical "liberties". Not Pearl Harbour bad, but even the tour guide at the Australian War Memorial called it "rubbish". Admittedly Weir does go a bit overboard with jingoism. Mosquito Coast was a great missed opportunity of text I love. I'm sure it's not as historically factual as pro-military folk can reasonably assert; I'm also sure it's truthful nonetheless. But I'm not sure how Weir is going "overboard with jingoism"; my feeling was that the film is actually anti-jingoistic, challenging the military zeal of the Australian high command in their willingness to put their troops in harm's way as scapegoats and cannon fodder for the British. It's an anti-war film; how is that "jingoistic"? It was certainly nationalistic, in the depictions of the willing martyrdom of the soldiers, and the generally burnished and nostalgic vision of Australian life at that time, but you can support the troops, and the national character, without supporting the war or being a proponent of it, as "jingoism" would require.

i saw it on cable, and so had little investment. it did not offend me. i was moderately engaged by the story. I would give it 2 1/2 * to 3 *. Sorry, but it engendered no great insights, no rage, no love.

Lurhmann can't help himself, can he? At least it looks energetic and flashy, which ain't a bad atmosphere for the roaring 20s. I still can't buy DiCaprio as a grownup, but Toby Macguire is always a good idea.