Vic Sage

he also has his balls washed nightly with Perrier, by 71 virgins from Curacao. That's what i hear, anyway.

I think the value of late innings, as compared to earlier innings, is proporational to the potency of a team's offense. If you jump on the opposing team early and stay ahead, you'll get into the weakest part of their bullpen (middle relievers who pitch when their team is losing), while you are going with either a strong starter at least thru the 6th or 7th, and then to your best relievers. The quality of your bullpen in that scenario becomes less and less a factor if your offense can continue to beat up on their crappiest pitchers. If, on the other hand, your offense is of the pop gun variety, then you are constantly in "pitcher's duels", and 1 late inning run can win or lose a game. Such an offense puts enormous strain on a pitching staff (a bullpen, especially) while making the last few outs more critical. That being said, I'd rather have my best pitchers pitch the majority of innings, and then bolster the offense to make the late innings less signficant.

Santana = 2.25 Beltran = 2.25 Wright = 1.25 Delgado = 1.25 Feliciano = 1.00 Smith = 0.75 Evans = 0.50 Easley = 0.50 JReyes = 0.25

I'm already on line... behind CF.

i'm not complaining.

It must be another commie conspiracy, Namor! You just can't trust those reds!

]just too many K's Too many for what? Do they start subtracting runs if you K too much? No, i didn't think so. Dunn has a career OBP that approaches .400... he's not just a slugger, he's a patient and selective hitter. Does he strike out alot? Yup. But he walks alot too. In addition, he is usually amongst league leaders in HRs. Ultimately, an out is an out. Some outs are more productive than others, but putting a ball in play can also create mutliple outs, or force the lead runner, and the sacrifice of power to put the ball in play is rarely worth it, in my view, as it, like bunting, may increase the chances of scoring 1 run, but decreases the chances of scoring mutliple runs. And unless you're in Dodger Stadium in the mid-1960s, 1 run strategies are rarely good ideas. Now, you probably don't want an entire lineup of guys like this, because balance is important to avoid a "boom or bust" offense, but having a 28-year old LHed OF/1bman who can give you a line of 100r /100rbi /40hr /.900 OPS to hit behing Reyes, Wright and Beltran seems like a pretty good idea to me.

well, then. after they blow CF, they can blow me, too. i don't mind sloppy seconds.

It's been 3-2 on Beltran for a while now. what's the deal?

it's also just a 40-game rental. I'd still like to try and sign Dunn in the off-season.

it's slowing down again, but the weather has been practically apocalyptic today.

The most basic requirement of a backup catcher is to be reliably healthy enough so that you don't have to carry TWO backup catchers ... especially in the era of 7-8 man bullpens, resulting in shortened benches. And, at this point, where it appears we are platooning at 4 out of 8 positions, tying up a bench slot with a 3rd catcher makes us even less adaptable. I like Ramon well enough, and he's hit better over the last few years than I thought he could, but he's just one more aging, creaky player with whom we've got to cut ties after the season.

Santana - 3.5 Wright - 2.5 Murphy - 1.0 Beltran - 1.0 Evans - 1.0 Heilman - 0.50 Smith - 0.40 Chavez - 0.10

my last name is an Ellis island invention, and the only ones who share it are related to me. And we are a notoriously unathletic branch of the evolutionary tree Therefore, there have been no major leaguers (nor minor leaguers for that matter) much less former Mets with whom I've shared my moniker. And, unless my son has athletic talents of which i am currently unaware, there is unlikely to ever be one.

Tatis - 3.50 Pelfrey - 3.25 Beltran - 1.00 Feliciano - 1.00 Murphy - 0.75 Smith - 0.20 Schoeneweis - 0.20 Evans - 0.10

Ruddy Lugo, c'mon down! or up, rather.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: chickens don't clap! They do, if they're properly entertained. Maybe you don't have good comic.... timing.

PRAA = Posterior-Rectal-Anal Analysis... It ranks how big an asshole a particular player is. When a player is into negative numbers, your into Bonds territory, so be careful

Camden Yards is the only new park I've seen. I've got to get out more.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08052008/sports/mets/amazins_in_running_for_garcia_123014.htm NY Post Bart Hubbuch August 5, 2008 Beset by pitching injuries, the MetsNew York Mets are expected to be in the running for veteran right-hander Freddy Garcia if the two-time All-Star holds up well this afternoon in an open workout in Miami. Several teams are scheduled to scout the workout at the University of Miami, including the Mets, as Garcia tries to work his way back to the majors after shoulder surgery. Garcia, who is 6-2 in nine postseason starts, made 11 regular-season starts with the Phillies last year before being shut down. "Freddy is doing great on his rehab," agent Ed Greenberg said yesterday. "[He's] not 100 percent at this point, but we expect that after a few minor league appearances he should be able to help somebody in September and in October."

major league ballparks i've watched a game in: Wrigley Field, Chicago - everything they say it is Camden Yards, Baltimore - easy access, great food, good sightlines, charming design Fenway Park, Boston - decrepit, but still has charm Oakland (what's the stadium's name?) - charmless, but comfortable, with good food Shea Stadium, New York - a shithole, but it's my shithole Yankee Stadium, New York - THEIR shithole; creepy Candlestick Park, SF - freezing winds & fog in August? Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia - charmless bowl; dangerously steep rake to upper deck seating Memorial Stadium, Baltimore - brick bunker designed to bake its patrons Olympic Stadium, Montreal - Le Big Blue Suck Jack Murphy Stadium, San Diego - wow, was this place lame in every way

oh, absolutely!

I just saw it. I liked it, but didn't love it. Jason Bateman's "big heart" logo storyline is both heavy-handed and underdeveloped to the point of pointlessness. The 3rd act revelation comes out of nowhere and really doesn't make a heckuva lot of sense. The shift in tone was less problematic than the totally underdeveloped setup for the superhero mythology the story tries to establish with a "too little, too late" speech by Theron. And Smith and Theron lack the chemistry necessary to make the ending pay off in any emotional way. that being said, Smith and Bateman are both terrific and there is enough here to make the movie entertaining, if not entirely successful. But it feels more like a missed opportunity than a movie begging for a sequel.

Nymr83 wrote: well bruce wayne is in it and it is a continuation of the batman story, i'm sure he puts on the costume in a couple of episoded if that makes you happy. It doesn't. BATMAN BEYOND is a lame attempt to try and Manga-nize the Batman, and it is neither visually, thematically or narratively in the BATMAN mythos. It is a futuristic spinoff with a diffferent character (a kid) wearing a different costume, with different powers, fighting different villains for different reasons. That they prop up poor old Bruce as sort of a grumpy old Yoda for the Manga Bat-kid just adds insult to injury. It has no place in the Batman filmography.

For some reason, the movie put me in my mind of a Peckinpah "comedy" called THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE with Jason Robards. I think it had something to do a strong man carving an "empire" (such as it was) out of the wilderness, and being destroyed by the process. Of course, Hogue is a tragic hero and Plainview is a monster. Also, LIFE & TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN comes to mind as well. I prefer both of those pix to this one, but BLOOD definitely has its ... um... charms. It didn't remind you of Citizen Kane at all? I mean, Anderson isn't the technical innovator that Welles was, but I feel the stories and scopes are similar. No, not really. And it's not a matter of "technical innovation". Frankly, KANE gets overpraised for innovations it didn't innovate. The cinematographer's (JW Howe) use of deep focus, and all the wonderful little cinematic touches (shooting up out of the floor, the use of mirrors, the camera coming thru the skylight, etc) had all been done before. But Welles most interesting accomplishment (aside from the enormous chutspah of taking on a media mogul who was still all-powerful and who initially succeeded in crushing the film) was Welles notion of "truth".* KANE tells the life story of a man thru the prism of different peoples' recollections. They are often faulty or conflicting recollections... this is a literary device known as the "untrustworthy narrator"... and they add up to a fascinating portrait of a fictional character, who is supposed to represent WR Hearst. But Kane, like Hearst, is unknowable, because the "truth" is not really knowable. KANE preceded RASHOMON by a decade, and while I'm sure there are other films to have taken this narrative device, few have taken them to such virtually operatic heights as KANE, nor have any suffered the consequences that Welles did for having done so. None of this is present in BLOOD, other than the superficial telling of a life of a great and terrible man who built an empire at great personal cost. Those similarities are present in the 2 films i mentioned, CABLE HOGUE and JUDGE ROY BEAN, which also share a simllar "19th century old west overcome by the 20th century" time and place with BLOOD (as opposed to the 20th century urbanity of KANE). And, like HOGUE AND BEAN but unlike KANE, BLOOD picks up the character's life well into his adulthood, so those stories are narrower in scope and don't attempt the sweep of KANE, which traces its protagonist from birth to death. Of course, you could say that any film that depicts such a character is reminisicent of KANE, and KANE'S influence and greatness is such that you'd probably be right to do so. But i was looking at much more specific similarities. * Welles was always fascinated about the nature of "truth". As a kid, he was a skilled magician, and he later became famous for his WAR OF THE WORLDS radio hoax. At the end of his life, he made a fascinating documentary called F FOR FAKE, about the nature of forgery and fakery. Many of his movies dealt with the theme, in one way or another. LADY FROM SHANGHAI has the famous "hall of mirrors" scene, in THE STRANGER, Welles is not what he seems, also MR. ARKADIN. At the end of TOUCH OF EVIL, after Welles' corrupt sheriff is killed, and its noted that he was a great detective but a lousy cop, Marlena Deitrich says: "He was some kind of a man... What does it matter what you say about people?" Which was very much the point, i think, of KANE... a biography that debunks the very notion of biography.