running in place

CHC — 35 W5 (Wood v HOU Oswalt) SFG 1.0 33 W2 (Rueter @ ATL Wright) SDP 2.0 35 W4 (Tankersley @ MON Downs) Busy busy busy. I’d really like someone to break away (as long as that’s the Cubs.) I’m declaring the Marlins dead. Thanks a lot, Marlins. Astros lose today, they’re done. Which … Continue reading “running in place”

CHC --- 35 W5 (Wood v HOU Oswalt)
SFG 1.0 33 W2 (Rueter @ ATL Wright)
SDP 2.0 35 W4 (Tankersley @ MON Downs)

Busy busy busy.

I’d really like someone to break away (as long as that’s the Cubs.)

I’m declaring the Marlins dead. Thanks a lot, Marlins. Astros lose today, they’re done. Which makes about 500 plots lines in this game.

Psychic prediction: Kerry will hit someone and not get thrown out today.

Prior’s win yesterday was his first win at home since last year, which means it’s an occasion for people to bring up Game 6. You know, there was never a Game 7. Kerry never hit a dramatic 3 run home run. The Cubs were eliminating from the playoffs when Alou didn’t catch the ball. It was in all the papers.

The other fun make believe story is “Is Dusty only using THE FARNS in blowout situations”, which would almost be a story if there had been more than 1 inning of close relief work in the last five games. I’m sure Dusty will give Kyle another chance, because that’s what Dusty tends to do, and it’s not like there’s a plethora of options here.

Carlos Beltran had had quite the up and down season

APR .316 .434 .696
MAY .222 .280 .407
JUN .333 .421 .586
JUL .235 .322 .578
AUG .229 .350 .542

It’s not quite the monster level I thought we’d see out of him when they faced the Cubs in June. Those are some nice walk percentages, though.

boomerrang

I know I said in last week’s column that Rolen and Jim Edmonds were viable MVP candidates, but upon reflection those lines look like inexplicable brain farts to me, tales told by an idiot… There is one and only one candidate in the NL MVP race: He plays left field for the San Francisco Giants … Continue reading “boomerrang”

I know I said in last week’s column that Rolen and Jim Edmonds were viable MVP candidates, but upon reflection those lines look like inexplicable brain farts to me, tales told by an idiot…

There is one and only one candidate in the NL MVP race: He plays left field for the San Francisco Giants and his name is Barry Bonds. (Neel/Page2)

The anti-Bonds MVP media talk has started the anti-anti-Bonds MVP media talk. I think that means I was way before my time.

(Trachsel has a no hitter thru 4 and the Mets announcers are on it already. Edit: It’s already over, not making it 5.)

comment catchup

Nathan: If MaddenChallenge has a feedback box, they keep it hidden pretty well. They have message boards, but I don’t expect they actually read them. I haven’t thought about checking the auto-response registration e-mails they sent me to complain till just now, so maybe that’s my only out. All in all, I think I probably … Continue reading “comment catchup”

Nathan: If MaddenChallenge has a feedback box, they keep it hidden pretty well. They have message boards, but I don’t expect they actually read them. I haven’t thought about checking the auto-response registration e-mails they sent me to complain till just now, so maybe that’s my only out.

All in all, I think I probably would’ve been happier using an extra $10 to go the IWA show instead of wasting my day at Navy Pier. (This is the segment of the show where I pretend I’ll drive to Highland for either day of the TPI.)

Donald: Did you really respond to eight different blog entries in like fifteen minutes? How many RJ names are you going to drop? Are you insane?

No women? Does that mean The Anti-Christ is finally sick of boob jobs?

Nah, I think they just want to get someone likely able to go right away instead of being a manager, and it’s to balance only women in the Diva Search.

There’s always room for more boob jobs.

I’m sure The Lizard will write HAVE October 16th OFF on his wristband.

Uh, good for the Lizard.

(People on AIM gave me the “why do you care, the Cubs will be long done by then” taunt, in case non-AIM people were wondering how that slipped by.”)

I think if you look up oopensecrets.org you’d find Linda McMahon is a VERY interested contributor to politics.

For those who didn’t check that out, the search result is here. As a business owner(/homemaker? Huh? I don’t think Stone Cold was CEO at the time), you shouldn’t be surprised she’s a fan of the elephants.

If Kris Benson doesn’t come back, then it was a stupid trade. Until then, I’ll laugh at the Stankees choking.

Benson one may be salvajable, but he seemed more like a media creation this year, based on the void of people to talk about. (The new Jeff Weaver!) The Zambrano/Kazamir one….

I’m 8-1 in the 2004 season of the DAL franchise, with the loss in OT. Running seems to be a bad idea with M05, so unless you have a passel of skilled WRs, you’re gonna last as long as Mrs. Scott Erickson on MNF.

Playing Pro? All-Pro? I finally got around to starting a franchise this week with other people, and had no problems on All-Pro vs the Patriots even before they started pulling guys. I guess it was the ol’ training at 100x normal gravity trick.

The one great thing about having done the Madden Challenge is I learned how to scramble for positive yards with a QB, since I was actually using a non-pocket guy for once. I was able to run traditionally a little bit (but in the second half, against the second line) but I’m thinking most of my ground gains are going to be on McNabb this year.

I was supposed to go broke this hand, but I didn’t like the way he raised the pot-Phil Hellmuth

The worst part of this year’s main event is the sheer numbers cause 90% of the interesting people to disappear. Even the really annoying ones.

Kevin – wait, who’s Kevin?: I was wondering what you thought about Team Midget in TAR5…

Liked them for seeming to actually enjoy the trip, disliked them when it seemed to be a camera catching act, annoyed at their “she’s a midget! we’re going to prove people wrong about being a midget!” single mindlessness, looked as bad as Colin/Christie until Colin lost his mind this week, expected them to get oddity fame (which they did), engaged in a never ending debate whether non-midget was Hot or Not (I took Not), surprised they didn’t rig the show to keep them on at least one week more. I think that covers it.

Nathan: Leaving *all* eliminations up to fan voting for a contract worth up to $1,000,000? I think we might see some people “drop out” that the fans like but the company thinks are worthless clods.

I’d think that, but I’m watching the company hate on Carmella (or it’s quite a work to create a new heel valet) and not finding some way

Maybe they’ll learn lessons from Diva Search in order to control the puppet strings better, but who knows. I’d hope there’d be 8 people out there the WWE would be happy to have win no matter, but it’s up to casting to find them.

I don’t think I hit this hard enough before: It’s very strange they’d completely avoid the New York/Philadelphia region for casting. They haven’t said “no indy wrestlers” and I’d think this kinda position would require indy guys who’d be able to perform in the ring ASAP, but they’re shying away from the locations they’re usually found. There’s no high profile groups based in New Orleans, there’s some in Florida and I suspect a lot of guys will show up in LA.

Regardless of what happens during, whoever wins has to be having matches the week after it’s over, and has to look good doing for this to work. Taping SmackDown! can only help so much. They’ll get a honeymoon with the bookers (I already forsee the winner dropkicking Maven out), but the glow of being the fans choice will wear off awful quick if they suck.

Choosing untrained guys and trying to turn them into wrestlers people don’t turn away from in eight weeks is near impossible. Maybe Al didn’t win. Maybe the need to start the casting now and give some room for training before they get to TV.

not to scale

The state with the largest coastline – and larger than all the rest combined – is Alaska. We’ll be back with “other answers to (Sun Times) Banner Ads” after this.

The state with the largest coastline – and larger than all the rest combined – is Alaska.

We’ll be back with “other answers to (Sun Times) Banner Ads” after this.

blind judgment

Roy Oswalt will be fined, but not suspended, for his actions on Sunday against the Chicago Cubs, Bob Watson, Major League Baseball’s vice president of on-field operations, told a Houston television station on Wednesday. Oswalt contended that the plunking was not intentional. – MLB.com That’s a load of crap. And the Cubs can’t do anything … Continue reading “blind judgment”

Roy Oswalt will be fined, but not suspended, for his actions on Sunday against the Chicago Cubs, Bob Watson, Major League Baseball’s vice president of on-field operations, told a Houston television station on Wednesday.

Oswalt contended that the plunking was not intentional.MLB.com

That’s a load of crap. And the Cubs can’t do anything about (chitrib) because they definitely are going to get suspended if they hit anyone. There surely be retribution by the Cubs at some point, but it’ll likely wait till next season.

It’s cute how Oswalt is still pretending it wasn’t intentional when no one else in his franchise is willing to back him up on it. And that they think they’re still in the playoff race. In face, let me double the gap to show today.

CHC  --- 36 7-3 (Prior v HOU Backe)
SFG  1.0 34 7-3 (Tomko @ FLA Beckett)
SDP  2.0 36 6-4 (Eaton v NYM Trachsel)
FLA  6.0 38 7-3 (Beckett v SFG Tomko)
HOU  6.0 36 8-2 (Backe @ CHC Prior)
PHI  8.0 35 3-7 (OFF)
CIN  9.5 37 5-5 (Harand v STL Carpenter)
PIT 10.0 36 4-6 (OFF)

(Mets? Mets? Anyone seen the Mets?)

That’s closer than I thought. They’ve just had the unfortunate timing of getting hot when everyone ahead of them was nearly as hot, so the 8-2 run didn’t really get them out of their hole.

Remaining Houston Schedule
4 @ CHC
3 @ CIN
3 v PIT
3 v CIN
5 @ PIT
3 @ STL
3 v MIL
3 @ SFG
3 @ MIL
3 v STL
3 v COL

I don’t know if this makes sense to everyone, but if I was a team who needed quite a few games to catch up, I’d rather take a harder schedule where I play games against the teams ahead of me than a weak schedule where I don’t get those head to head matchups. Astros just have this 4 game series vs the Cubs and the 3 game series in SF to gain any ground. They could actually sweep both of those series and still be behind those teams if they play even down the stretch, so the control is out of their hands. If they get some help and take care of their own business, they could get up there, but if you need some help, I don’t think you’re in the race.

Either way, they need to go at least 3-1 in Chicago to get close enough where help is actually help. Lose the series or even split, and they’re going to need a couple teams to collapse.

I think FLA vs SFG is equally big. If the Giants leave town with a six game lead on the Marlins, Florida’s done. They’ve got six games left with the Cubs, which would give them enough room to bootstrap them up leaderboard if they were still close by then, but if you’re losing series against one Wild Card leader, you can’t really expect to be winning future series against other Wild Card leaders.

It’s also Brett Tomko vs Josh Beckett. Gotta win that.

Yesterday’s Cubs game? They got so lucky. No one has any faith in any one in the bullpen at this point. Bako made a great double play that’ll be too overlooked. Corey rules and you wonder if the expectations were just too high for him to immediately to return to form after racing back from a major injury.

For what it’s worth, there’s word the Cubs tried to get Jose Mesa, had a deal worked out, and a third team blocked the waiver claim. Even as bad as it’s been (and it well be), I think I don’t mind. If they’re blocking Jose Mesa, though, no Urbina or any other close is going to get thru, so we’ve got to go with what have. I’ll save my psychotic “Let’s put Glendon in the rotation and move Wood to closer” thoughts for a day we actually lose.

pending elimination: Arizona will be the first team out of any race, if they lose or the LAD win. They’ve got a couple more days of life in the wild card.

I’ll try to do other stuff today. We’ll see if I actually have the time.

tapped out

CHC — 37 (Maddux v MIL Davis) SFG 1.0 35 (Lowry @ FLA Willis) SDP 2.0 37 (Lawrence @ NYM Leiter) FLA 5.0 39 (Willis v SFG Lowry) I’ve seen this somewhere before. The rookie pitching sure didn’t work out for the Giants last night. Rumor has it, the Cubs are actually done with the … Continue reading “tapped out”

CHC --- 37 (Maddux v MIL Davis)
SFG 1.0 35 (Lowry @ FLA Willis)
SDP 2.0 37 (Lawrence @ NYM Leiter)
FLA 5.0 39 (Willis v SFG Lowry)

I’ve seen this somewhere before. The rookie pitching sure didn’t work out for the Giants last night.

Rumor has it, the Cubs are actually done with the Brewers after this game. They’ve played them 14 times after the all star break. This year’s schedule has sucked.

I could not believe they let the rain delay go for an hour and then came back after it last night. It was a 12-4 game in the bottom of the 7th, no realistic chance of the Brewers coming back and a day game the next day. I don’t know understand the point of hanging around that long to finish it.

The upside was Rusch got a save in 13-4 game. Kinda surprised me that he’d be okay to go after a rain delay and that Dusty wouldn’t try to get more people in rather than letting Glendon get the three inning save, but yay for pointless stats.

When they’re behind, the Brewers bullpen hasn’t been very good. I figure they’ll use Kolb and Viscano today regardless of the score, because they may not work again this month if Yost waits for a lead to use them.

In fact, because of Rusch’s work, the Cubs bullpen is pretty rested for no off days.

Rusch: 0 days off
Mercker: 1 day off
Dempster: 1 day off
Leicester: 2 days off
Farnsworth: 2 days off
Hawkins: 3 days off
Remlinger: 3 days off

We were having a discussion about who would’ve been better if both had a full season, A-Ram or Adrian Beltre. Looking at the numbers, it’s not as close as we thought. And third base is packed.

              AVG  OBP  SLG VORP/G
Mora BAL .348 .425 .594 0.633
Beltre LAD .333 .380 .643 0.599
Rolen STL .329 .414 .623 0.598
A-Ram CHC .314 .362 .571 0.426
Chavez OAK .275 .400 .524 0.426
A-Rod NYA .280 .366 .512 0.380

Wasn’t this a dead position a few years ago? That’s pretty funny, A-Rod goes from being the best SS to the sixth best 3B. I guess we know which is the real position of real people. (Sorry Nomar.)

TEnot4

WWE Announces $1,000,000 Tough Enough The prize is actually a four year deal for $250K. What an odd way to celebrate 23 some months left on Mark Henry’s deal. Entrants are limited to men. After selecting the eight finalists for the $1,000,000 Tough Enough, the official competition will be held weekly on WWE SmackDown! on … Continue reading “TEnot4”

WWE Announces $1,000,000 Tough Enough

The prize is actually a four year deal for $250K. What an odd way to celebrate 23 some months left on Mark Henry’s deal. Entrants are limited to men.

After selecting the eight finalists for the $1,000,000 Tough Enough, the official competition will be held weekly on WWE SmackDown! on UPN (Thursdays, 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT) beginning this October. The eight contestants will train with Tough Enough Trainer Al Snow, and then appear on WWE SmackDown! to undertake specific tasks to show why they are worthy to be Tough Enough Champion. Each week, a contestant will be eliminated based on fan voting leading up to the finale on December 16 when the winner is declared.

YES! Al! I totally thought he was going to get screwed here. (And there’s still time.)

12/16 is the final, seven weeks of eliminations – how the heck can you train someone in seven weeks? Get real or get trained people – means it’ll go

11/04 – 8 left (starting)
11/11 – 7 left
11/18 – 6 left
11/25 – 5 left
12/2 – 4 left
12/9 – 3 left
12/16 – final

Given 3 weeks of casting (press release says LA, Miami, and Dallas, what random and anti-NE choices) means it’ll start showing up around 10/14, I’d guess. Diva Search ends 9/13, and I’m surprised they didn’t make the gap shorter.

If I were them, I’d start a week sooner and make Thanksgiving an off week of some sort. They do the same in every other facet for that week.

I’ll be covering Tough Enough in some shape or fashion.

conflict

Good: Mick Foley will appear in Chicago Ridge on 10/16 Problematic: If I’m projecting right, that’s game 3 or game 4 of the NLCS – or possibly an off day. Either game would be a home game for the Cubs if they make it that far. I wanted to go till I did the match. … Continue reading “conflict”

Good: Mick Foley will appear in Chicago Ridge on 10/16
Problematic: If I’m projecting right, that’s game 3 or game 4 of the NLCS – or possibly an off day. Either game would be a home game for the Cubs if they make it that far.

I wanted to go till I did the match. Now, I dunno. I think I can only go if they set up a TV in the gym.

ROH is going to get KILLED if they’re going agianst a Cubs playoff game. Maybe they’ll make it a day show.

word check

Free idea to steal for anyone who wants to make themselves slightly more famous: WWE is going to pound the SmackDown Your Vote campaign hard over the next few months, telling the fans to register* and to go out and vote. Question is – how many of them have actually done just that, and voted … Continue reading “word check”

Free idea to steal for anyone who wants to make themselves slightly more famous:

WWE is going to pound the SmackDown Your Vote campaign hard over the next few months, telling the fans to register* and to go out and vote. Question is – how many of them have actually done just that, and voted in previous elections?

It’s typical for front people in Get Out Of The Vote campaigns to not have been dedicated voting in the past. The WWE lifestyle doesn’t really lend it self to being near a voting booth on Election Day (they were in Dallas in ’00) and getting an absentee ballot isn’t always the easiest thing to do or even a high priority. As a person who has never voted themselves, I wouldn’t fault them for that, but just find it iffy if they’re part of the campaign telling people to vote if they’re not doing it themselves.

I think there’s a story here, it doesn’t require much thinking, and it works either way – it’d just be as interesting to find out wrestlers are that politically savvy, but it’d require quite a bit of legwork: track down real names and real locations and getting in touch with the various state voting boards (they’re allowed to say if someone did get a ballot, though that may depend on the state – smoking gun’s done these sort of pieces before, so they might be a good place to ask) and check to see if the guys telling you about 573 people making a choice made a choice themselves.

Of course, you just might get people annoyed at you and it’s not as easy as reposting things about WWE Dress Policy (omg did Rock have to wear a sensible shirt and slacks? I guess not Austin since he wasn’t working) but you could be a real reporter.

Me? Not a reporter. Not making phone calls.

* note to self: remember to send that in