GAME05

looks like my friend History finally put his Appalachian Trail movie up on the YouTubes (or at least most of it). this would be my Youtube debut. This is the one i'm featured in and is Part 4 of the movie. I'm Sal Paradise, btw. (the sound comes on about a minute in.) Thanks, GAME05--Georgia to Maine 2005

if i was dating a girl and she said that, i'd immediately ask her to marry me.

even without knowing the author, i agree there must be something amuck with the article. obviously K-Rod would far prefer closing, but he also knows full well that he'll be making a ton of money on the FA market next season, and a lot of that comes with not making waves about it, showing that he can be a good teammate and just doing his set-up thing. obviously he and Boras had a long talk about it when he came to Milwaukee, and K-Rod isn't so foolish to start making comments like that right before the regular season ends--it doesn't make sense unless it was something contrived by the author. it's fun being a writer. i've taken the most boring, one-word-answer people and turned them into delightful conversationalists in print.

hold me closer Tony Danza.

recently read an interesting article on CBS about Lawrie that i'll have to dig up later. it noted the small handful of players who had put up similar numbers as amazing as Lawrie's in their first month of pro ball. of the five or six players, the majority were either really good players or superstars, but one of those players was also Jeff Francoeur. and who knows how the attitude will play out in time, too. maybe it'll get better or maybe he'll turn into Milton Bradley. Bradley was a heck of an offensive player, too, but nobody was clamoring to have him on our team, either.

what's also been getting to me is the subtle defeatest attitude of Brewers fans and fans of the have-not teams in general. more specifically, it bugs me that they're probably right. at the beginning of each year, Red Sox fans talk about whether or not they've bought themselves a Pennant-winning club. it's almost laughable to imagine a Yankees fan thinking "I wonder if we'll make the Playoffs this year." and unless you already know you're going to have a terrible season, that's the way it should be. maybe a lot of the attitude of the have-not fans comes from rare playoff appearances, but it really feels sometimes like fans treat the pinnacle of Milwaukee Brewers success as winning a playoff series, like a World Series Championship is so out of reach that it's not even conceivable. i don't say this to mean that fans just aren't positive enough, just that it's sad that the state of baseball has turned so many millions of fans into cheering for an also-ran finish as if it's the only realistic goal. it's as if the World Series just isn't for us anymore, but reserved for the elite few. that isn't good enough for me. as it is now, many of us talk about how the appropriate GM strategy for a small-market team is to accept six (or so) years of 90+ losses to collect top draft picks to then have maybe a two-year window for a playoff appearance. it's tough when i think that's probably right. i haven't quite reached the point where i've fully accepted that the Brewers can't win a World Series. teams like the Giants give me some hope. but once i completely accept that the Brewers will never win a World Series in my lifetime, then i'll be gone.

i just don't understand why people want to be so connected in the first place, whether it's a bluetooth headset or walking down the street with a phone in their face. last time i went out with four other college-age kids we sat at a table at the bar not speaking while they all sat there and texted. it's sad that we're now immediately connected to all our friends, but that's also made people a lot less sociable. no wonder the average age when people marry is up--nobody knows how to communicate in person anymore. another thing that bugs me: people who come to the campground and pitch some tents, and then from the back of their car, pull out their 200-lb, 40" television set. you can't go a single weekend without television and you'd go to all that trouble just to have it? is the latest SpongeBob so vitally important to see?

i went to a bar for a little while last night because i had nothing better to do. (i live in TX, btw). the Cowboys/Jets game was on. this isn't a particularly large bar, and an uber-fan woman at the entrance was clapping and loudly screeching at every single play. ball is being handed off? screech. no gain on the play? screech. negative gain? clap loudly for the effort, apparently.

a small part of any ire toward Bud is merely not knowing where else to direct it. however i still think it's broken enough that it could make me leave, and i see a lot of what Bud still does is put frosting on a cardboard box and call it a cake. but i know nothing is going to significantly change because it's still a battle between the Players Union, the big-market clubs and tv ratings, all vs. small market clubs, and that's not a winnable fight.

there was some discussion of this in the DH thread, but i wanted to open this up further to ask if there is anything that could be done to make you stop watching Major League Baseball. and maybe even further, to stop watching Brewers baseball. not necessarily the minor leagues, but Brewers baseball at the Major League level. i wouldn't like it, but i could probably deal with the DH in the National League. however, i believe the financial differences between teams is the biggest problem in baseball, and i'm upset that Selig is essentially ignoring it as if it doesn't exist. he'll cite the one playoff team who makes it, but ignore the fact that it took six years of 90+ loss seasons and a lot of good drafting to get there. for me, this is shown no more than in Selig's push to add more playoff teams. when not one, but two or three small-market teams make the playoffs, i suppose we won't be allowed to complain that the big-market clubs have all the advantages. not to mention, grinding out a long regular season is made pointless when anybody decent will make the playoffs. for me, then, adding playoff teams will make me quit my fandom. maybe i'd watch the Playoffs, but that would be about it.

as Brewers fans, we're naturally going to look at any solution in terms of making baseball as a whole more competitive for the smaller market teams and a solution that is financially sustainable. but i don't see Selig looking at things that way. i think any change that could happen coming from the perspective of "What would ensure the Yankees get the most TV time?" that's what gets the biggest ratings, after all. who cares about the Brewers, after all, besides Brewers fans? MLB would cringe if it was the Brewers vs. the Indians in the WS.

i'm too hesitant to be jumping off the ledge after so many months of great baseball and just this week of looking bad against St. Louis and Philadelphia. it's not like we'll have three more weeks against playoff teams that our division lead will evaporate. we're a little more comfortable and St. Louis is in the position of needing to win every single game they play, so i'll just tip my hat to them for stepping up when they've needed to. there's still something to lineup protection when you look at intentional walks to get to a lesser hitter. statistics show it doesn't make a difference, but that doesn't account for late-game situations when you can walk a great hitter in Fielder to get to someone like McGehee. Weeks coming back is going to help that a lot. my concern isn't winning the division, but what kind of team is going to be entering the playoffs. we backed into the playoffs in 2008 with basically only CC getting us there, so it wasn't a shock that we got rocked by Philadelphia in the first round. our pitching has been steady, but we've seen how it has made up for a cold offense, and that won't get us past Atlanta. i'm really hoping right now is the stretch where we're hitting bottom and that we'll start to hit it on all gears in the next couple of weeks. Green and Hairston getting a lot more starts would make me feel a lot better, but obviously that's not going to happen, especially come playoff time.

but adding more playoff teams will eliminate the economic disparities in baseball. besides, who cares what three million Brewers fans think when it's 20 million Yankees fans that matter.

maybe it's time we broached the subject of Designated Fielders. i mean, a pitcher is supposed to take up a bat and hit like everyone else because they field a position like everyone else. yet they're so special that the whole extra DH position was added because pitchers are so terrible at hitting. well, pretty much every team has a player who is really good at hitting but is a terrible fielder. so why not a Designated Fielder? you have the DH for an offensive substitution, so having a DF isn't really that far beyond what already exists. DH for offense, DF for defense. edit: come to think of it, i guess if you were using a DH but still allowed the pitcher to bat, then you could very well have a Designated Fielder (technically i guess the pitcher already is a Designated Fielder in the AL).

i don't hold it against Bando for any draft picks that didn't sign. maybe they were late-round picks or they just chose college, but that happens to every team. we let Hunter Pence slip away in 2002, but so do most 40th round picks. the strategy of trying to "compete" each year mainly with band-aids instead being willing to just bottom out and put those resources into the draft. did that strategy even exist yet? that actually seems to me like something that was only first tried with Tampa Bay, and not really by choice, either. so maybe Bando was bad, but i'd be all for bringing back Ulyce Payne.

clearly it was all Morgan's fault. he was supposed to say "Thank you, sir. May I have another?" Carpenter mistakenly thinks there's a "t" at the end of his first name.

the only thing i don't like about the DH rule is that pitchers have to hit in the minor leagues. i'd prefer it to be a minor league club option so that they could give prospects added development time by letting them DH. i don't think it would necessarily mean NL clubs would eventually add the DH. a good hitter/bad fielder isn't exactly unknown to NL benches. also not a one-sided advantage to the AL, as they don't as often have those bench players who exist mostly for good defense for when an AL club plays in an NL park. where good hitters extend their career as DHs on AL clubs, good utility defensive players can extend their careers with NL clubs. would it really be that hard to disband the DH rule? you could expand rosters to 28 and make another concession to compensate for the lost DHs of the world. but i agree that in general the DH further exaggerates the discrepancy between rich and poor clubs. i don't think Selig really cares about that, though.

i question how much DM and RR even want a new SS for next year. the Rule 5 idea of Brewmann's i think is the most accurate, for someone who can come in and be the next Counsel to back up 3b, SS and 1B. assuming it's going to be Green and Gamel manning the corners next year, that's a lot to ask of DM and RR to be giving 3/4 of our infield slots to young (experience-wise) players.

"Well, Taylor, looks like you failed the drug test." "What?!! They told me it couldn't be detected!" "Wait, what? We were just joking around." "Oh. Uh, yeah, um, so was I. Joking."

i live in Southern Texas. the first few seconds i saw this picture i was thinking "What's so different about this?"

my brother doesn't have SAD, but he gets pointed at and approached all the time because he's freakishly tall. when i'm with him, i imagine that's what it's like to be a celebrity/athlete. if people approach and are polite and friendly about it then they'll get a gruff answer, but otherwise it's downright rude. and it happens all the time, everywhere. compound that with SAD and it must be pretty awful. hopefully ZG stays here a long time, and with that comes more fan education about the disorder that more people will start giving him his space.

it appears i didn't factor in the cost of human error. individual results may vary.

for the low-low cost of $5 worth of whole milk, $3 of buttermilk and $1 of rennet and citric acid, anyone can make $4 worth of homemade mozzarella cheese in less than two hours! and cleanup is a snap, provided it takes you a half-hour to snap.

what's worse is when you see him on stage with people like Clapton and he's playing blues/rock music. not only does he verge from the light rock, but his guitar playing is on par with Claptons, the bastard. if i didn't know better, i'd bet he's the guy married to Front-Row Mary.

that'd be an interesting gamble offering him arby. K-Rod obviously doesn't want to set up, Boras almost always elects free agency, and Boras is only going to get paid if his client declines arby. hmmmm here's a list of 2012 FA closers, including option guys. didn't realize Bell and Nathan were that old, which probably makes KRod the cream of the crop. i could see Soriano electing FA, though. Heath Bell (34) Jonathan Broxton (28) Matt Capps (28) Francisco Cordero (37) - $12MM club option with a $1MM buyout Frank Francisco (32) Brad Lidge (35) - $12.5MM club option with a $1.5MM buyout Joe Nathan (37) - $12.5MM club option with a $2MM buyout Jonathan Papelbon (31) Jon Rauch (33) - $3.75MM club option with a $250K buyout Francisco Rodriguez (30) Rafael Soriano (32) - $11MM player option or a $1.5MM buyout Jose Valverde (34) - $9MM club option, no buyout