TheRealMattKain

True, but JJ was born to be a soap star. Although Suppan has a nice mustache. Great point. I thought it was pretty admirable that he weighed the impact that a trade to the Brewers would have on his family: "It's a giant move, and I have to make a decision if I want to go forward," Torres said. "This is going to change my life, my family's life. If I leave them here, they're going to have to be without me for a full year. If I take them with me, they're going to be affected." Torres made clear he was not close to a decision, adding it might take several days or more. "I just need to talk to my family. I can tell you this: If I go to Milwaukee, I'm going to give my heart and soul to the Brewers," he said. "If I stay, I'll be the same way. I'll be the one playing with my daughters and son and maybe even doing some of the cooking. It's a big decision, and I'm going to base it on my family." And if we're allowed to choose from any Brewer in the organization, I'd put Capuano and Turnbow at 6 and 7. I'd love to see Capuano make a big comeback in '09.

1. Braun (signed the big contract showing devotion to city and franchise) 2. Shouse (underrated bullpen arm that goes out and gets the job done - a rarity on this team the past 2 years) 3 and 4. (tie) Parra and Yo (future of our pitching rotation) 5. JJ (was on a soap opera) 6. Counsell (has silly batting stance)

Those are Slavic names - probably Polish, in fact. There's a whole big world outside of America. Believe it or not, in some parts of that big world (and even some parts of America!) people don't name their kids "john", "dick", and "suzy". Shocking, eh? And, no matter how you spin it, "Boguslaw" is an awesome name.

Beach cruisers are absurdly popular out here in Santa Cruz. They came into vogue about 3 years ago and are still all the rage (along with fixed gear bikes for tight pants hipsters). They seem to mostly appeal to High Schoolers, surfers (I've seen several models with surf board side-mount attachments), families (similar to your sitation), people with tattoos (not sure why), and tourists looking for something to roll around the neighborhood and down to the beach on (there are several places that rent them near where I live). They're not as heavy as they look and really offer a smooth ride (sort of like a laid back mountain bike). If you pedal hard, you can actually get them going pretty fast over a short distance - don't think of them as big, lumbering beasts. I've seen people on beach cruisers keeping up with road bikes. Since most of them are single gear with coaster brakes you can expect minimal maintenance. Keep air in the tires and maybe toss some grease on the chain every couple weeks and you should be good. Everyone I know that owns one seems to be pleased with the investment (although $700 - $1000 seems absurd! Just get a single gear Bianchi or Trek for that price). On the other hand, they're probably not great for long commutes. I'm not sure that the seating position would be good for the back if you're going over 5 miles, and they don't really handle hills well. Still, if you're looking for something nice and easy to enjoy with the kids, this might be a safe bet. Plus, they seem to handle well in flip-flops (it's the only bike out here that it seems to be the norm to ride barefoot or in flip-flops). Of the brands you listed, Trek has a really great overall reputation (although I'm no expert on beach cruisers specifically). Plus, if you bought Trek, you'd be supporting a Wisconsin company. Good luck!

- During 4 of his 6 seasons at age 40+ Rose had an OBP above league average - In 1981 at age 40 Rose had a .391 OBP and a 119 OPS+ - In 1982 at age 41 Rose had a .345 OBP - In 1984 at age 43 Rose had a .359 OBP - In 1985 at age 44 Rose had a .395 OBP - Rose had a .375 OBP during his 2.5 years as a manager of the Reds (that would be good for first on the 2008 Brewers) Rose was no MVP during his 40s. He was bad at stealing bases (he stole 32 bases and got caught 22 times) and had almost no power (5 homeruns in his 40s). However, he was still pretty good at getting on base. He had rough seasons in '83 and '86 (his final season), but 4 of his 6 seasons at 40+ were far from "bad".

Many revealing comments and stories in this thread. A couple things: Making fun of someone with a cognitive disability is pretty low. If you're able to condone this type of behavior based on what type of hat or shirt the person is wearing, then you may have some serious ethical or maturity issues to deal with. I have experience working with both children and adults with autism - seeing firsthand what someone with a cognitive disability goes through each day can be an eye-opening experience (it certainly was for me). For anyone who is interested, I highly recommend reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time", a short novel told from the perspective of a teenager with Asperger Syndrome. It's a terrific read and can easily be completed in a night. Worth a look: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-time As part of the Brewer diaspora, I've been limited to Brewer road games for several years (same is true of Packers and Bucks games). I've yet to have a single incident. I've noticed that if you go to games and act respectful, people tend to respect you back (big shocker, eh?). Don't get me wrong, if a Brewer gets a big hit or a homer, I stand up and cheer (in fact, I'm a relatively vociferous fan). However, I never boo the other team's players (OK, I've booed Barry in SF) and never harass fellow fans. In fact, I've noticed that if you're polite, most fans of the opposing team are more than happy to have a baseball conversation or tell you more about their team and players.

Wow, McCann is really putting together an amazing season. How is he flying under the radar? He's the only VORP leader that wouldn't have crossed my mind if I were to have put together a list of the top NL performers off the top of my head. Edit: Took out unnecessary part of the quote. Please watch what you're quoting.

Chipper has missed quite a few games due to injury already (he's played 89 of 105 games) and just hit the DL for 2 weeks. Keeping that in mind and with the Braves falling out of contention (Hudson is now out for the season), I don't think there is any possible way that he'll win the MVP. At the end of the year, he'll be lucky to have played 130 games. Utley's put up great numbers at second, but has really fallen into a deep slump (my fantasy team can attest to that). 2 HRs and 6 RBIs in the month of July will not help his cause. Uggla is in the same boat - terrible July slump (and as silly as it sounds his brutal All-Star game will sway some voters). Of course, either one of these guys could have a huge August or September, but at present both are playing their way out of the MVP race. Berkman has a shot, but will lose votes if the 'stros finish below .500. Same can be said of Holliday and the Rockies. I think Pujols (although the DL stint will hurt) and H-Ram have to be front runners with Braun not far behind. Voters tend to favor players on winning teams with big "baseball card stat" numbers (Runs, RBIs, HRs, BA). Braun's poor OBP might hurt him when it comes to "objectively" determining which player has contributed the most wins to his team, but it will certainly not hurt him in the MVP voting. Like it or not, I imagine few MVP voters take advanced, modern metrics such as VORP, WARP3, EQA (or even something as obviously important as OBP) into consideration when determining who to vote for. If the Brewers win the division or grab the wildcard, Braun is a lock for top 3 in MVP voting.

That's a good point. If the movie gets more people to read the graphic novel, then at least it's doing some good. That said, the trailer does little to excite me, and, to echo an earlier poster, if I wasn't a fan of the graphic novel, I would think that the movie looked like Hollywood throw-away junk. I have very mixed feelings about Zack Snyder's handling of the movie adaptation. I thought his DAWN OF THE DEAD remake was surprisingly fun, but felt that he was too over the top with 300 (which I guess the graphic novel is pretty OTT as well so maybe that's not a valid complaint). Oh well, as long as Michael Bay doesn't try to do a movie adaptation of Top 10, I'll be able to sleep at night.

From Saturday at AT&T: Torres and Mota: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Torres1Mota2.jpg Torres going through the motions: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Torres1.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Torres2.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Torres3.jpg Soup signing for the kids: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Suppan2.jpg http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Suppan1.jpg Sabathia and the boys having a chat: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Sabathia1.jpg Prince taking some cuts: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Prince2.jpg Billy in game: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Game.jpg Corey Hart waving to the kids calling his name. The funny part was when one of the kids excitedly proclaimed, "Corey Hart waved at me!!" It sort of seemed like something you might have heard a teenage girl say in the mid '80s: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/CoryHartwavedatme2.jpg Brewers pitchers warming up: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Brewerpitchers.jpg More Brewers pitchers warming up. One of the kids hunting for autographs kept calling David Riske "Turnbow" and "Derrick" - "Derrick, sign my ball!", "Turnbow, how about an autograph!" Oops. No wonder he didn't sign. I'm sure Riske loves being confused with Turnbow. Strangely, another kid was calling Mitch Stetter "James Shields". Not sure where he got that. I advised one of the kids who was calling out to get Gagne's signature to give it up and go for Torres's autograph instead. He had a ball signed by Prince and Hart and wanted to get Gagne to sign the ball as well(!!). Gagne's sig probably won't help the ball's value too much: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/Brewerpitchers2.jpg Gratuitous shot from roller derby that I had to skip to see the Brewer game: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/P1060233.jpg

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=Av.veM9ouAozQNwVsUCqJ0ERvLYF?slug=ap-twins-liriano&prov=ap&type=lgns Has anyone else been following this? Liriano has been tearing up Triple-A, but the Twins refuse to promote him. He'd arguably be an upgrade over anyone in the current Twins rotation ("arguably"). Are they afraid to swallow Livan's salary (the big underperformer in the rotation)? Is it a clever ruse to avoid arbitration? I'm not sure that the league can do anything since teams do this sort of stuff all the time (like we did with Braun), but it sets a weird precedent to see a player complaining about it. Then again, I'd love to pry a disgruntled Liriano away from Minnesota.

Maybe this?: http://standardpress.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=2&ArticleID=1309&TM=27280.08 Google is your friend.

If a player has spent 45 days on the active roster then they lose their rookie eligibility. Manny was called up on July 16th, 2007 and went on the DL on August 31st, 2007. Therefore, I think he just barely passed the 45 day threshold and is hence no longer a rookie. Can anyone double-check me on this?

http://www.sportsnetwork.com/merge/tsnform.aspx?c=sportsnetwork&page=mlb/news/news.aspx?id=4161969 Plus he had another great outing today.

Pods might have Ruth beat if you use a rate stat, but I'm pretty sure that if you use a counting stat, Ruth wins: http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y55/Kleburger/babekt5.jpg

Jeff Cirillo has a higher career batting average than Joe Morgan, Juan Pierre has a higher career batting average than Mickey Mantle, Rob Deer has more career homeruns than Ty Cobb, Greg Vaughn has a higher career slugging percentage than Honus Wanger, Scott Podsednik has more career steals than Babe Ruth. Taking a single rate OR counting stat and stripping away a player's position and the era he played in doesn't say much or prove anything.

Lord knows how to paste these darn Flash viddies...

There's no question about his jumping/dunking ability.? How well this and other skills translate to NBA performance or where exactly he's going to fit in on the team now that Jefferson?will be a starter are pretty big question marks.

Yahoo sports is now reporting that Pujols may be back as early as tomorrow. He is apparently feeling great and is ahead of schedule in his rehab. So much for the big advantage with Pujols out.

I prefer to think of myself as the David Ortiz jersey. All joking aside, even with the loss today, the Crew is still playing great ball. Sadly, the Cubs and Cards seem to be doing the same.

Yup, the loss was obviously a result of cosmic forces, ancient baseball hexes, and a general Milwaukee malediction all caused by this thread. It had nothing to do with mediocre pitching from Suppan and the Offense's inability to get anything done against a tough righty in Campillo. It's going to be so embarassing when Yost blames me in the post-game press conference.

Oh well, this discussion is now moot.

If we win today and sweep Atlanta, the Brewers will be 24-10 since the series in Boston... the same record that we started the '07 season with. Should Brewer fans be more excited about this? Are people hesitant to get too worked up after witnessing last year's collapse? Or is it just that a 24-10 run in the middle of the season tends to go unnoticed since it's not as apparent when the casual fan glances at the standings? I'm not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty jazzed.

Fixed. Ironically, Rluz's insightful posts and cogent arguments are what actually drew me to Brewerfan (I don't post much, but I've been lurking for years). I found it refreshing to find a baseball message board filled with thoughtful discussion, civil debate, and buckets of information. I can't thank this site (and its owners) enough for the massive amount that I've learned about baseball over the past few years. Matt Kain

You're right, I was being a little unfair with that comment. There are close-minded and open-minded people everywhere - the coasts and the great lake states are no exception. However, from my personal experience (small sample alert), I can honestly say that it's much easier and much less shocking/controversial/eyebrow raising/anger inducing to be a vegetarian in northern California than in Southeast Wisconsin. Well you did admit (or imply) that you didn't even know what tempeh or seitan are, yet you dismissed them as being "probably something gross". I would call that close-minded.