bani1717

Agreed jericho. Is a lot of social media stuff that gets people up in arms completely stupid, irresponsible, and/or ignorant on the part of whoever posted it? Absolutely. And it's a good reason to stay away from social media. But I wonder if the people who really care about this kind of stuff or get upset over it have ever taken a look in the mirror. People make mistakes and do stupid things. So do I. I feel like life would be a lot easier if everyone just accepted that as a fact and moved on.

I reffed one of his games when he was in 5th grade or so. The only reason I know that is because he earned himself a T and I was told a little bit more about him after the game. Weird to think.

Years ago I used to get autographs at Bucks games fairly regularly. I was considering trying again sometime soon but was wondering if anyone with more recent experience had any info they could share to help me... It used to be that anyone could go to Section 101 during the early individual warmups to get autographs along the main players tunnel (but the other sections along the tunnel were limited to people with tickets in those sections). Does anyone know whether or not that is still the case? Any idea what time the BMOHBC opens before Bucks games these days? I've read both 60 minutes and 90 minutes before the game... Does Giannis sign during warmups? In my experience he is a pretty good signer but I wasn't sure if he usually signs during warmups, or if he is even out on the court during individual warmups... Thanks for any advice anyone has!

That's why the system is still broken - SOS, eye test, perceived conference strength, etc. all are still a product of poorly constructed preseason top 25 rankings by the AP and Coaches Poll. If they want to keep the 4-team CFP system, I think the AP and Coaches polls shouldn't issue rankings until early November as well. To me, the CFP rankings start with the current top 25 as an initial benchmark, and evaluate everything else from there. The flaw in that line of thinking is that where teams start the season ranked sets the precedent for everything else. The SEC has no incentive adding a 9th conference game or scheduling quality OOC opponents from other power 5 conferences at true road game settings when the preseason AP poll had 6 of their teams ranked in the top 25, including Tennessee and Florida. All they need to do is have most of their teams hold serve against OOC cupcakes and they'll always have 2-3 teams within striking distance of the top 4 come conference championship saturday. Teams lose so many players due to graduation and the NFL, and gain so much talent via true and redshirt freshmen coming in, that a preseason ranking is shortsighted - it basically amounts to which programs have had the best perceived recruiting classes and tends to reward previous year's success without considering who's still on the team. I'd be really interested in how different the AP, Coaches, and CFP rankings would look if they were all initially issued the first tuesday in November. By then everyone would have understood that FSU and the SEC east were largely garbage this year, the SEC overall is down aside from the top 2-3 programs (lessening SOS's for those teams), Wisconsin's OOC slate this year actually wasn't that cupcake-y, and the Big 12 essentially can't play defense. I think the committee actually does a pretty good job of disregarding the AP and coaches polls (including preseason rankings). In fact, their guiding principles specifically state that preseason polls need to be disregarded. Also, the CFP rankings have shown over time that they are not afraid to depart from the AP and coaches polls to stick to their stated guidelines. For example, if you look at the first CFP rankings this year vs the AP and coaches polls, you will see that the CFP rankings differed because they removed the bias associated with the early season AP and coaches polls. The AP and coaches polls in successive weeks actually changed to more closely mirror the CFP rankings. The eye test is another issue but overall I think the committee actually does a pretty decent job at what they do despite the difficulty of the job, the high visibility nature of it, and the fact that many people will be upset by it. As a general point of reference, I have found this info from the selection committee to be pretty informative, for anyone who hasn’t seen it before: http://www.collegefootballplayoff.com/documents/2017/10/20//CFP_Selection_Committee_Protocol.pdf?id=23

Could have fooled me when Notre Dame lost by a point to Georgia and the committee seemed to treat it like a win and ranked Notre Dame as an elite for awhile despite not even being ranked pre-season. First, the committee doesn’t care about the AP or coaches poll preseason rankings and quite frankly neither should most people. There are always big swings in rankings over the first couple weeks of the season. Those preseason and early season rankings are primarily a hype machine. Second, I think the media held the Notre Dame one point loss in high regard, but that doesn’t mean the CFP selection committee did. Looking at Notre Dame’s resume at that point they had good wins over Michigan State, USC, and NC State. They deserved their high ranking in the first couple CFP rankings based on the quality of their wins to that point, even considering they had also lost a game at that point.

Based on everything I've read and observed, I think the main thing the committee looks at is who a team has beaten (i.e. strength if victory) and W-L record. In a hypothetical example, if you play four top 25 teams and beat all of them, but lose to two unranked teams, that looks a lot better in the committee's eyes than going 8-0 against unranked teams and 2-2 against top 25 teams. Obviously both of those are very good resumes, but an "average" top 25 team could go 8-0 against unranked teams and 2-2 against the top 25. Whereas a team that goes 4-0 against the top 25 but 6-2 against unranked teams would be viewed as more of a great team that had an off day or two. Also, a team that is 4-0 against the top 25 and 6-2 against everyone else could be ranked ahead of a team that is 2-0 against the top 25 and 10-0 against everyone else. Those are just hypotheticals, the committee doesn't necessarily use top 25 as the lone cutoff of a "good" vs "bad" win, but that is my general understanding and belief of what the committee looks at first. Also, along with that, Barry Alvarez as a former committee member came right out and said that a loss is a loss and there is no such thing as a good loss. So I think every team's number of losses are weighed against their strength of victory. After this "strength of victory" and W-L record criteria, I think the committee then uses their other published criteria (head to head, common opponents, winning a conference championship) to finalize the rankings. In my mind there is no way Alabama is above Wisconsin this week. They do not have any overly impressive wins and they have a loss. Wisconsin has a similar resume for wins but zero losses. Also, Herbstreit last night argued for some pretty BS rankings. He said Auburn 1, Clemson 2 (not sure that's possible when one loss Clemson beat two loss Auburn this year), Oklahoma 3, Georgia 4, Wisconsin 5 (not sure how Georgia jumps Wisconsin when both played weak opponents), Alabama 6. He seemed to be really reaching just to keep an SEC team #1 and keep a second SEC team in the top four.

In some cases your first sentence might be true, but it is certainly not true in all cases. Maybe in your opinion that's not the point of going to college, but for a lot of people, it is (whether you think that's bad for education or not).

The MLB playoffs are moreso about being hot at the right time than being the better team. That is true to some extent in other sports but moreso in MLB. Also, with the differences in scheduling and managerial strategy for the playoffs compared to the regular season, it really changes the dynamic, and a team built for a great regular season record is not necessarily built for a great playoff run. Therefore, I have to go with the two wild cards and hope that one of those playoff appearances turns into something special.

When I was in high school and college, I thought people who bought beer or much more than a hot dog or baked potato at a game were crazy. Now that I have a permanent job with decent pay, I value convenience, enjoyment, and eating/drinking when I want to more than I value an extra $20. It all depends on your perspective. I'm terms of beers, I can't speak to the craft beer bars, but buying from vendors it is a no brainer in my mind to go with a Blue Moon or Leinie’s. It's either close to $8 for a 16-ounce Miller Lite, or about a dollar more for a higher quality beer.

I agree. I was yelling at the tv "he pulled it back!?". Its a good thing those calls didnt cost us the game but they could have easily. I agree that on a play like that, the runner should not be given the benefit of the better spot when he pulls the ball back voluntarily, but I assumed that the rule was enforced correctly given that he had already been contacted and was therefore given his farthest spot after contact. Also, I don't think Pereira chimed in about it. With that said, even if the rule was enforced correctly, it's still an issue in my mind, just a rules issue as opposed to an officiating error. The other potential issue on a play like that is knowing when exactly the whistle blew and whether it was due to forward progress being stopped or being down by contact. I can't remember if a body part touched the ground before the whistle on that play or not. If the ruling on the field was that his forward progress was stopped, then it seems like that play shouldn't be reviewable unless you also can hear the whistle in the replay, because without that whistle then you're asking the official to judge when forward progress was stopped all over again.

The Brewers website says Guerra is going tomorrow, but the Rockies announcers just said that Wilkerson is starting. Any idea which it is?

After the Cardinals lose on Thursday, they will have nothing left to play for. After the Brewers win on Thursday they will therefore be in perfect position to sweep the Cardinals this weekend. Meanwhile, Colorado will be in position to lose at least two of three to LA to (at minimum) set up a tiebreaker game.

All the tickets have been sold.

I think that comparison is a bit extreme compared to the point I was trying to make. While the net is not a visual obstruction in terms of viewing the game, it is an obstruction with regard to things like getting autographs and foul balls, some types of interactions with players, etc. Those types of things mean more to some people than others so they would probably be more bothered by the net. They may say that the small risk of injury is ok if it makes their gameday experience better. Others may say that even a small risk of injury is too great and that the netting needs to be up. Ultimately I don't have a strong opinion either way but I do think there are arguments to be made on both sides. It all depends on an individual's view of risk/reward.

In a playoff situation there is very little extra the Brewers could do to pack the place with Brewers fans instead of Cubs fans. As it is most playoff tickets are sold to full or partial season ticket holders. The remainder are sold through a lottery (I suppose the lottery could be limited to Wisconsin residents or at least exclude Illinois). But plenty of people would still sell tickets on the secondary market just like they did in Cleveland last year for the World Series.

I think the biggest thing that a net prevents is interaction with the players. Putting netting up from pole to pole prevents the possibility of getting autographs or balls from players. With that said maybe they could put up retractable netting that isn't up during BP when there is a protective cage around home plate (though even then there are still plenty of foul balls going into the stands). In terms of the game itself I could go either way in terms of netting. I don't have a problem with it. On the other hand there are millions of people each year who sit in "dangerous" seats (none of whom watch every single pitch closely, as someone already mentioned) and there are only a handful of serious injuries as a result each year. There are probably plenty of other things you could do that have a much higher chance of danger than watching a baseball game from a specific location. No, I wouldn't want that to happen to myself or anyone I know, but the chances are pretty small, and it's not really a big concern of mine when deciding where to sit. But I understand that netting is an easy way to prevent an unlikely but potentially life threatening injury with relatively no downside, so from that perspective I can get behind it.

Resiliency and getting hot at the right time are two important factors in winning a championship. Today was a key step forward in both of those regards. This may be just what the Brewes needed to start a winning streak and to start an epic losing streak for the Cubs

Resiliency and getting hot at the right time are two important factors in winning a championship. This was an important step in both of those regards.

The June 29, 2007 Cubs game is probably number one for me. That may have been back when FS Wisconsin (or FSNORTH or whatever they called it then) still didn't show Brewer day games (or at least not regularly) because I seem to remember seeing the end of the game on WGN. Also the four-game series at the end of July 2008 when the Cubs came to Miller Park and beat us down. We went into that series tied for the division lead and laid a complete egg.

My least favorite stadium is "Wrigley North". I much prefer Miller Park. I had the opportunity to visit each one a few times tonight and I cannot stand the Wrigley North fans one bit.

3 runs on 12 hits...

Screw recent history

Tonight we see the start of the biggest series at Miller Park since October 2011. Bring it on!

Right now the Cubs are nearing the end of their winning streak and are asking themselves how the Brewers can possibly still be alive. The Brewers, on the other hand, are playing with house money and are ready to go make some hay with it.

We control our own fate with two weeks to play. We host a big series at Miller Park next weekend. I'll take it.