HebrewHammer

I'm not convinced threating messages and screaming at anyone is going to benefit you in your pursuit of work. In general, that is frowned upon and reinforces the hiring companies decision not to pursue you as an employee. However, results may vary. I probably wouldn't ask them "what gives" but calling them to inquire about your application status shows enthusiasm and the desire for employment. Stay persistent but polite.

I want to pre-order mine but if they apply the money I spent on them to tickets next year, I can't. I won't even live in the central time zone by next season so season tickets are a little out of the question. What kind of racket is that, applying the money to future tickets? Who ever said I wanted to buy tickets for the future.

I have to agree. I mean, I played organized football in a 7-10 league and a 11-14 league. You didn't play much when you were at the bottom levels of the age, but you learned. But that league was unique and fun. We kept score, had a championship for the older league, etc and it was fun. But I also played tons of football with my friends in the street and fields. The 7-10 league was really noncompetitive though and was meant to teach kids fundamentals and things so they knew how to play and knew if they wanted to play when they were older. Score was kept but it wasn't like records were used much. Every kid got the same trophy at the end for playing. The older league was a little more competitive as it should be. Same with a T-Ball league I played in when I was really little. Score wasn't kept, every kid batted and everyone got a trophy at the end of the league. Now days you really do see competitive leagues for little kids. Parents have gotten a little out of control with these things. It seems like a lot of them are living through their kids. And what's worse is kids aren't doing other things like learning to play instruments (every kid should know how to play something), arts programs are getting cut because of parents obsessions with youth sports and the stakes have gotten higher in terms of scholarship money and such.When we kids playing baseball or football we would just play. I remember countless games where no one really knew the score and when it was time to determine a "winner" we would almost always "next point wins". It was more about playing than winning. Parents seem to be the ones obsessed with winning. We never cared much. We just liked running around, hitting and acting like kids. Man, I miss those summers. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif I remember my Little League coach happily telling me my stats. I never asked and I don't even remember what he said. I remember I didn't care much. He was a lot more excited than I was. I just liked playing the game with my team and winning games at that level. I liked cheering for my teammates and doing my best on both sides. My coach was the one who was busy calculating everyones stats and letting them know what they were, etc. Most kids didn't care at all.

Never played after HS. I had other interests such as music and didn't want to go to college right away. Other interests sort of took over. Also, I played city league and it wasn't like the competition was very good. If I would have went to most suburban schools I wouldn't have been varsity my freshmen year. It was really a lot of the fact that city league schools don't have many good baseball players. Basketball.....a different story! We never got scouted at all. And it wasn't like I was so good that scouts would hear about me through the grapevine. Oh, as for the benefit, it was actually challenging. Playing against the freshmen would have been pretty lame. The way it was set up the kids that were good at all got moved up to JV and Varsity. The freshmen team was really, really bad. The JV team was pretty bad too. They tried and put anyone that was good on Varsity. I agree at a young age playing with your friends is the most important thing. I'm not sure why score is even being kept in such a young league. 5,6 7 and 8 year olds don't need to be keeping score much. The kids care about it a whole lot less than the nutty parents.

It sounds like this kid is just a lot better than everyone else. He's obviously dominating other 8 year olds too. It happens in youth sports. Kids grow and very different rates. I played in a youth football league and you had to present proof of age to enter. We would have kids that were just bigger, faster, stronger and more athletic than other kids and they would dominate. The running back on our team was a man child but he was in the legal age. We would have games where we would run him through the 4-hole and he would basically go untouched for like 4 or 5 TD's in a row. In short, this kid dominated his peers. That's sports. You get kids that are much better than everyone else. When I played little league we had a team where there were about 4 of us that were so much better than just about everyone else in the league. Obviously we simply dominated. We had a pitcher who was really big for his age and no one could hit him. Strike out after strike out. But he was legal and simply better than the other kids. That's the point of competition, to find out who is better than the others. One thing we don't teach kids today is most of them are going to lose. Half of people are below average. But if he was my kid I'd want him being challenged by bigger kids to build his game up. Simply destroying kids his age doesn't benefit him. He has the ability to go against bigger kids and it's a choice that his parents should make. For instance, my Freshman year of HS I played on the varsity baseball team because I was good enough. Playing against the weak freshman competition wouldn't have benefited me at all. Playing against varsity players was really hard because the pitchers were 4 years older than me. But it paid off because I had so much experience by the time I was older and was able to beat most of them.

I can only hope the Cubs have peaked. They haven't looked good at all lately, but then they do have injuries. I feel like they gave us their best and they weren't able to get over the hump. The Brewers line somehow held up. Barely, but it stood none the less. Anyways, we can't worry about them. If we win then we'll be in good shape. I'm really, really, really hoping Sheets comes back on time in a few weeks and this propels us into an explosion the last month of the season and into the playoffs. It feels like we hvae the ability to peak again at the right time. You have to feel like we have at least one more hot streak in us. That series against the Padres could essentially be the first round of the playoffs for us and them. The winner of that series might be a wild card winner. Or even more interesting, both teams make the playoffs and have to play each other right away.

Think about joining a union perhaps. Lots of manufacturing around there and a lot of it is union work. Union workers often make a good living. Also, since you have a HS diploma and 3.5 years of college, you'll rate highly on their lists. If not a union, search around at various manufacturing facilities and see what's available. It might not be up your alley but you'll make decent money while you either finish college or get things sorted out. Don't discount that style of work. There's a lot of guys that aren't fish brains that make a living in those fields. You'll make very good money, especially over time (50k+ in more advanced positions) and enjoy an honest days work. I don't do it (I work in software development) but I have friends that do it. Something you might want to consider is working in manufacturing or a union and going back to school for something in health care. Within a year or so of study you'll easily land an assistances job that should pay decently. And when you complete the degree (usually over 2 years or so, especially since you seem to have most general education things covered already) and you'll get a well paying job in a hospital where there is always a shortage for help. Think along the lines of X-Ray tech, Ultra Sound tech, Registered Nurse, etc. There's a lot of jobs and since you mainly have a college diploma a lot of those credits would be applied towards getting certified in one of those studies at a 4 year college. Or you could go to tech school and learn some of those skills. The hospitals provide education too. Go to a hospital and ask for employment information in different areas and see whats achievable. Lots of the jobs you don't even need a real college diploma but rather an associates degree of some sort. My point is don't think along the lines of a quick fix. You want to make a career out of something. That's how you advance in something, become an expert and make a real living at something. Temp agencies are a quick fix. You want to figure out something that's achievable, realistic and rewarding. Making a career out of manufacturing or health care are generally very promising in Wisconsin. You need to learn a skill and market yourself so to speak. A general college degree is nice but you want to be able to actually do something also. That's why engineers and similar degrees, business grads, teachers and health care students find work very rapidly out of school and liberal arts, etc graduates often struggle a little more. The former graduate with skills companies find valuable and employable. The latter might churn out educated people just as well, but they don't always define and train a needed skill. If not a college degree then look to unions and manufacturing. Often that takes some education too to become highly skilled at it. The point is get a plan, learn how to do something and make a career out of it. Forget about getting temp jobs and random non-career oriented jobs. Stop getting jobs and look to make a career out of something. Is it that you don't have a license or that you're not allowed to legally drive? Look into an occupational license. Talk to a lawyer. These guys are magicians and can do anything.

Every sport has different issues. It's not fair to call the NFL Union a joke at all. They have many different issues than other sports. The NFL pays out 60% of revenues to players. They generate about 6 billion in income and the players do in fact get most of it. But in the NFL it's a tricky thing. You have 52 guys on a roster and 32 teams. That's a whole lot of players sharing the money! So you don't get the mega deals like in other sports very often. Also, turnover is VERY high in football compared to other sports. Players become ineffective rather rapidly so the union and the owners know they can't have guaranteed deals. It would simply kill the league and no one would win. Thus the signing bonus is where guy gets paid. Football is an interesting game in that it isn't single player dominated. One guy usually isn't going to make or break you. So in effect there's much more player competition for each job and that lowers salaries. Football will never have guaranteed deals like baseball or basketball. The nature of the spot make this impossible. Singing bonuses will rule the sport. You can't compare the types of deals they get. Also factor in the insanely high medical costs associated with the sport. Players are covered for life after playing in the NFL. The NFL also employs many ex-players as does the union and has programs set up to create a life after the game is over. The fact is the players get a large piece of the pie and this is why they aren't up in arms over things. The league works. The players have very little leverage because single players don't dominate and it isn't hard to replace most guys. Basketball has a soft cap but it's fair because it allows teams to keep their stars and not be burdened by the high pay player. But basketball teams employ far fewer players so each player gets a bigger piece of the pie. Injuries aren't as huge a problem. Baseball is unregulated mainly. The owners have been made to police themselves without tampering with the players money. In baseball single players do have great effect. I have no idea if what seems like decent parity will fade now that large market teams are getting smarter about holding onto draft picks and building inside the farm more. If anything it would seem like FA's would become more affordable, but that isn't the case either. I'd imagine there is a good chance our economy becomes so damaged that sports become irrelevant to the common man and these associations either go under or cater exclusively to a larger upper class.

The book "The Wages of Wins" basically came to the same conclusion. What baseball has done is interesting. They wanted more competitive balance as it's better for the league in general. But there was no way they could achieve this through a salary cap because enough owners opposed it and of course players would never go for it. So baseball found it had to regulate itself and created a system that allows teams to replenish their farm when their FA's are picked off the vine by larger market teams that can afford to pay them too much. So the league has a lot more competitive balance due to this and revenue sharing, all without getting the PA up in arms. Much of this is because of Bud Selig's leadership. He gets a lot of heat and some of it is warranted. But he in a sense saved baseball since the strike by implementing these features. He's created a system of more competitive balance while allowing the so called free market to sustain life. Large market teams still have the advantage of course. But smaller market teams can compete for bits at a time if they draft well and use their compensatory picks well as well as signing the right FA's to fair contracts.

It looks like he's going into Tiger Woods super sane mode. Did you see him last week? My God, he was unnatural on Sunday. When he's on, he's unlike anyone to ever play the game. Just extraordinary and immortal. He sends his drive off into the woods to the right, hits an iron out to the other rough on the left side into someones lap, over hits a high iron over the green and then chips it in from 30' away for par. Wow. Then makes birdy with another 30' chip in while his partner hits the green in regulation and 2 puts for a par. Devastating. If I had 3 wishes one of them would be to play a round of golf as invincible Tiger Woods.

Walking distance? Well, it's a little hike but won't be bad at all. Miller Park isn't really an urban stadium. It's sort of in the middle of a lot of things, but not really around anything. It's easy access for people from all over, by car. But there isn't anything to do right around it. Nothing noteworthy anyways. Brewery tours are actually not off limit at all. I used to go when I was a kid. They serve beer to adults and soda to kids afterwards and is actually a good idea. It's fun. I don't have any good ideas off the top of my head for a family. What did you have in mind?

I have a feeling this team is going to struggle or play .500 at best until Sheets comes back. He's that staple. I'm not sure this team can streak without him. He just gives us that edge. We need him back. Hopefully we can hold serve with the Cubs until he comes back and then surge in September and into the post season and make some noise.

On the opposite end when everyone in a set goes cold, in our case the pitching, you have almost no chance to win.

Seriously, I was surprised some of them made it through the chat. Yeah things haven't been going well for a few weeks now, but we're right in the middle of it! Enjoy it for what it is! I went all in a few months ago with this team so I'm riding it out for better or worse. We will get hot again eventually this year.

Good. Now step it on up and carry us, Rickie!

Seriously the Brewers have to start winning some games. The Astro's are licking their chops right now. They just swept the Cubs and gained 3 games and are thinking it's time to do the same to the Brewers and pull to within 4 or 5. This team needs to dig real deep and figure it out. They need to forget everything that has happened and go out and play a game at a time every day and do everything they can to win. It's time to go on a small rally. And by rally I mean .500 ball.

Wow, if he's out for the year that's really good news for the Brewers.

Well, we could always not make up ground while the Cubs are down and out. And then when they do regroup and make a final month push, we're out. The fact is we have to take advantage of this now.

You mean the division is being handed to the Cardinals.

Season's not over yet. Plenty of time to pick it back up and storm into the playoffs. Enjoy it, man. Yeah we stink sometimes. We've also had stretches of invincibility. We have to pick it back up eventually.

Yeah, our pitching has been surprisingly bad. No team in MLB pitches this bad. You have to figure it's a small trend that will regress towards the mean favorably for us. That is they've all been mostly bad lately so theoretically they should all come around and be pretty good sooner than later.

God I'd love to be in that locker room right now. I hope Yost throws crap around while screaming and then makes everyone stand right by him. He proceeds to get on a table and just starts peeing on everyone. Well, I wouldn't want to be peed on. OK, the silver lining in todays amazing game is: We don't have to play here anymore this year?!

I've seen my username and avatar mentioned a few times and everyone agreed it shouldn't be a problem. I didn't think it would either. The name "Hebrew Hammer" is obviously a term many Brewers fans use for Ryan Braun. It's a little tasteless but only offensive by the highest of PC standards. And even then I'm not sure people would be too offended. The avatar is actually from a movie called "The Hebrew Hammer". It was made by quite a few famous Jewish people and at first the Anit-Defamation league had some issue but eventually declared that there is nothing wrong with the movie's name, content or imagery, such as my avatar. Google for it. I also think it has a Wikipedia entry. So, to make it clear to everyone, the Anti-Defamation league has stated that the name "Hebrew Hammer" and the avatar I use here are not in violation of PC super standards or something any reasonable person would be offended by. And lastly, Ryan Braun has stated himself it's not offending to him.

The cop should go to jail for man slaughter.

Everyone said before the year this team goes with Sheets. Your Ace carries your team. The Cubs got a whole lot better when Zambrano started pitching well. the whole team improved because you have that confidence constant.