JoeHova

Yeah, but actors (like models) are often sold to the opposite sex. Sports usually seem to be sold to people of the same sex. I doubt any team is picking someone over a better player because he's better looking, except in baseball (the good face). I mean, look at Oden, Howard, Yao, Rose & Beasley, LeBron, etc. The 1st picks in the draft definitely have nothing to do with looks. I mean, if we start watching sports based on who looks better, wouldn't that lead to a reductio ad absurdum where Tom Cruise (or whoever) is the best player in the NBA because he's the best looking?

So, I was on foxsports.com looking for Charley Rosen's latest column (which is a perverse pleasure to read, imo) and I came across an article by Jason Whitlock (he's the fat guy who used to guest host PTI once in awhile) that argues that the reason ratings for the NBA playoffs are up is not because big markets with popular players are involved, but because not that many guys on the teams still left have tattoos. Could anyone actually believe such a thing? For one, Kobe has arguably the ugliest/worst tattoo in pro sports, and for two- most of the guys he mentions as offensive to his sensibilities (Iverson, Anthony, Hughes, West) are not fixtures in the late playoffs. He then goes on to say that watching any tattooed person play is extremely unpleasant and should not be watched by children. He then says "athletes are no different than models". Yeah, he's right, except for the small matter of models being judged solely by their physical appearance and athletes being judged by their talents, they're exactly the same. Then, he criticizes athletes for (supposedly) missing out on opportunities to sell their image because they are so repugnantly covered in "paint" (as he calls it). I agree with him on that point, it's too bad that Iverson, LeBron, Carmelo and so on aren't in any commercials. If only their skin was as clear as a baby's butt, maybe they'd all have numerous national and international endorsements worth hundreds of millions of dollars and their jerseys would be among the top 10 sellers. And why would someone not worrying about grabbing every possible buck be such a bad thing anyway? To cap it off, he says that all people who are tattooed do it to "mask their insecurities" and says that people with tattoos are "repulsive" and look like "prison parolees". Then he pats himself on the back for having the guts to talk about an issue no one else will talk about. Well, maybe because its not an issue? I find it hard to believe that a (presumably) paid author could write something like this. It's such an archetypal "hey you kids, get off my lawn" piece that I almost have to wonder if it is a parody, especially considering Whitlock is only like 40 years old. Unfortunately, I don't think it is one. What do other people think? Am I overreacting? Here's the article.

The funny thing about Brocail and Wigginton is that Russ was a teammate of each of them in 2006, but on 2 different teams (SD & TB, respectively).

McClung probably is garbage (you're talking about a guy who walked 48 guys in 77 AAA innings last season), but he has a much better chance of not being that then Weaver does. I'd rather they stick with him for now and move Villanueva back if/when McClung starts getting beat up regularly.

It would be hard to believe he never heard of the three true outcomes. I would have thought some announcer or somebody would have mentioned it to him, not to even mention what he would find if he googled himself. In fact, the Braves announcers talked about it (though not by name) yesterday, when they said he had the classic Russ Branyan day: a K, a BB, and an HR. edit: anyway, cool story. Did you say anything to Wigginton or Brocail?

ok, here's a proper Russ one: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/chief119/russ.jpg

Mine is pretty much the same as sgtcluels, but I also tweaked the contrast and tried to fix a little artifacting. I also did a 2nd one, see if you can spot the difference. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/chief119/34ysayd.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v143/chief119/branyan.jpg

I never heard of the site, but I guess its not surprising Nate Silver would have other interests.

1. Matt LaPorta- I'll still give some credence to the scouting reports that say he has plus-plus power. I like a guy with at least one very good tool. 2. Mat Gamel- Is the power here to stay? 3. Angel Salome- I really like this little guy. Extremely high BABIP may portend some regression, but I still like his bat. 4. Alcides Escobar- glad to see his bat coming around a bit. Already has twice as many homers than he's ever had before. 5. Jeremy Jeffress- going solely on arm here, not results. Those are really the only 5 that I feel strongly about. It's pretty hard to separate some of the other guys. Lucroy looks good, but he's old for his league (then again, so is LaPorta, to some extent). Brantley has the great OBP, but no power (which even separates him from Luis Castillo, who had occasional pop. Then again, he didn't display that in the minors either) and those guys are few and far between in baseball history. Suffice to say that nobody has (consistently) put up a .400 OBP with a .350 SLG. Eddie Yost once had a .412 OBP with a .336 SLG, but for his career, his SLG was only .023 behind his OBP. Taylor Green looks pretty good, but I'd like him a bit better if he was still a middle infielder. Hernan has the same problem, plus he's having a bad year. Braddock looks good, as does Aguilar. You've got to love their home run rates, especially Aguilar. Gillespie is hitting, but he's pretty old and he's not hitting like some of the other guys in Huntsville. It's hard to see where he fits in in the future. Same thing with Errecart. Then you've got a bunch of guys who are intriguing, like Gindl, Cain, and Brewer, but they are still notable mostly just for interesting tools, not results (not counting rookie ball).

Ortiz explicitly says that Tom Kelly got mad at him if he swung hard. That would seem to pretty clear evidence that they don't value power much over there. and now the Giants are a model organization? They had, arguably, the greatest player of all-time on their team. That can cover a lot of flaws. Sabean made a few nice moves (signing Ellis Burks, trading for Kent and Schmidt) but overall his tenure (especially the last 5 or so years) has been marked by terrible moves. I was (and still am) a huge Bonds fan, so I followed that team closely. There is no excuse for signing Michael Tucker with the express purpose of losing a 1st round draft pick. Their is no excuse for having Bengie Molina be the best non-Bonds hitter on the team. There is no excuse for signing Neifi Perez to a multi-year contract. What about trading Joe Nathan & Boof Bonser for AJ Pierzynski, throwing in Francisco Liriano, then non-tendering AJ after a year?

My wife and I got a couple of these on Sunday. They're pretty cool, but a little smaller than you'd think. I've actually got one for trade in the Trading Post forum. The line for the game was crazy. The Saints only open their gates an hour before the game (unlike the 2 hours that's pretty standard in MLB), so I got there an hour and a half before game time, thinking I would be among the first people there. They were giving out 2500 and the Saints stadium holds about 5500, iirc. So, I figured approximately half the crowd would get bobbles, which would lessen the sense of urgency. I was wrong though. When we got there, the parking lot was pretty close to full and there was a line of, in retrospect (I'm not that good at estimating crowds) 1000-1200 people. About 20 minutes before the gates opened, a very bizarre weather system passed through. The stadium is right next to some train tracks, so there is a lot of dust and gravel around the area. Anyway, a wind/rain storm hit and blew gravel and rain practically horizontally into the crowd. It was pretty uncomfortable and I'd say a hundred or two hundred people got out of line at that point, presumably to take shelter in their cars. That made me much more comfortable about my chances of getting a bobble. The storm lasted about 5 minutes, and over the next 10 minutes, the line more than doubled in size. When we made it through the gates around 45 minutes before game time, they were marking left hands with permanent marker to make sure that someone couldn't get more than bobble, even if they bought more than one ticket. Needless to say, that upset the guy near us in line who had a stack of about 20 tickets. all in all, a worthwhile outing. The Saints have the dumpiest stadium I've ever been to, including high school and little league stadiums, but its still usually a good time (unless its windy. the stadium is so dirty (I doubt its ever been cleaned) that dirt is constantly blowing in your face, which is unpleasant, imo). A couple years ago, my brothers and I got like 15 balls because of a combination of batting practice and a firefighter training course that is beyond the right field fence. Jumping in there can yield a lot of balls, though the last time I checked, they were cleaned out. I guess other people must have figured it out too.

Telling someone to lose is not the same thing as telling someone to go the other way instead of trying to pull the ball. as for some proof (if numbers aren't proof), here you go: "When I first came to Minnesota, that's when I was told, 'Stay inside the ball ... hit the ball the other way.' I always was a power hitter in the minor leagues. Everything changed when I went to Minnesota. I would take a hard swing and my first manager would be in the dugout, saying, 'Hey, HEY, what are you doing?'" --David Ortiz, 2004 link: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-curse-of-big-papi/

***If it lands outside the park, it's more of a guess than anything else.*** I would think the opposite. If it actually lands somewhere, you can easily measure the distance from home plate. If it hits way up on a wall, that is where you have problems.

OK, you said that, but later and after you had said several other things that strongly suggested you considered being influenced by something disqualifying in terms of great art. I mean, you just said that the .01% of music that isn't derivative is the only reason to listen to music (or pay attention to art in general). Can you really not see why I would take that as you saying that the rest is junk or, at the very least, disqualified from being great? I'm not trying to insult you or anything, I just disagreed with that sentiment for many reasons, some of which I mentioned in later posts. You then proceeded to somewhat modify what you said and say "tiny inventions" are what make things great. However, depending on what you mean by invention, what you are saying may still not be all that different from what you first said.

as an aside, sorry for using asterisks to quote posts, but Yuku doesn't work very well with Safari. I even have to manually enter the carriage returns.

I know there have been new instruments, but were the inventors of those also great artists? Maybe Les Paul, I guess, but an electric guitar is derivative of an acoustic one. and as for the meaning of derivative, we're discussing art, aren't we? I don't see why you would imply I'm selectively using a definition to suit my needs when using derivative in conjunction with (a specific piece of) art would almost always be seen as insulting. ******That's not to say that the 10 albums you picked out weren't really good and enjoyable to listen to. Good musicianship and songwriting skill always have their own merits. But there are almost always extremely derivative. ****** yes, you said that, but it appeared to be quite different than what you would consider great art. you also said this: "Virtually everything is derivative. That's why great art is so rare. " Once again, you seem to imply that great art can not be derivative or influenced by other artists.

That longest home run was not the one he just hit, it's one he hit a few years ago. I can't recall exactly which one it was though.

But you just said 99.9% of music (the same percentage you said was derivative) is chaff (in other words, garbage). How is it not thus reasonable to assume that you were arguing: derivative equals not good.

***I never dismissed anything, or insulted anything. *** I said you *appear* to dismiss everything, because derivative is considered an insulting word in artistic circles. I even looked it up to make sure my sense of the definition was correct, and it is. From the Oxford American Dictionary: "imitative of the work of another person, and usually disapproved of for that reason"

****There are only as many instruments, chords and notes as we limit ourselves to having.**** True enough, at least in a linear sense. However, I defy you to name one person in the past 100 years who created a (wholly) new instrument and also then created great music for it. ****And of course my argument isn't specifically about music. Virtually everything is derivative. That's why great art is so rare. **** Yes, everything is derviative, where we differ is whether something being influenced by something else disqualifies it from being great art. No director has ever been a great artist since Luis Le Prince? No Poet has ever been great? No novelist since Apuleius?

On further reflection, I don't know if I've gone far enough. I mean, the basic structure of pop songs has been around since at least the 13th century and probably predates that. I'm sure if you look hard enough, the epic of gilgamesh or some other BCE poem has a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse structure. Are there any guitar riffs that don't have their beginnings in Blind Willie Johnson or Son House or Charley Patton or Robert Johnson or Tommy Johnson or Skip James? And didn't those guys get those from traveling musicians, who probably got them from even earlier musicians and so on? Any basic drum beat has probably been around for thousands of years. Didn't Beethoven get many of his basic ideas from his heroes Mozart and Haydn? Hell, didn't Shakespeare rip off the plots of numerous older plays and books for his plays? Didn't the Impressionists consciously echo the old masters in many of their works? I guess my point is that saying something has been influenced by something else is hardly an insult, in my opinion. By using the epithet "derivative", however, you are appearing to dismiss the vast majority of human culture.

****In some form or another, yes. Go to Best Buy, go to the Rock section and buy 10 random CDs. When you listen to each of those albums, you will find similar song structures and similar instrumentation. In some form or another, the following will exist: guitar, bass, drums. Maybe keyboards and/or horns. Even if someone gets really wild and does a song comprised of only verses with a chord progression of B flat-F-D sharp minor in 7/4 time, it's been done by someone, somewhere before. **** Ok, but isn't part of the problem that there are only so many instruments/chords/notes/etc.? I mean what you just typed has surely been typed almost exactly by someone else at some point, any sort of originality is merely a progression at some point, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. I mean, look at almost anything interesting in terms of art (music, paintings, sculpture, books, comics, whatever), even things that seem groundbreaking usually have pretty clear precedents if you do enough digging. And if they don't, you are almost talking about originality for originality's sake, which I don't believe has any sort of inherent or intrinsic merit. I mean, look at, for example, "Metal Machine Music" by Lou Reed. It was an album that was almost wholly original in sound (at least in terms of something being sold as pop music, though there had been some limited experiments with that sort of thing), but is also considered the worst album of all time by most people who have heard it.

Thanks marquettefan13, I appreciate it.

This might be a stupid question, but who or what is the "BEACH" patch the Braves are wearing commemorating? I may have known at some point, but I can't for the life of me figure it out now.

I saw a Celtics fan at one of the recent games wearing a shirt that said "I Hate Peyton Manning". I thought that was pretty funny in its simplicity.