Thurston Fluff

Point is if you know doesn't the other team know? I think what he meant was Kendall knows the hitters and the game plan and is so good about following those plans Macha knows it will be done the way he wants. Kind of the opposite of Estrada was. As far as the opposition knowing sure they do. I have no doubt every hitter knows his weaknesses and most likely assumes the opposition knows as well. Problem is there is a reason why it's a weakness. It's because the dude can't hit it. You can tell me a 90 mph fastball is coming right down the pipe and it will make me about 1% more likely to hit it. Which means I have a 2% chance of doing so.

I got my dog's genetic profile back today. It says she's pure border collie. I don't know why but I'm disappointed. She looks and acts just like a border, though she is intense even for that breed, but I guess I was hoping to find some sort of combination of breeds in her with the thought that I could get more like her. If she's just border alone then it's her not the breed that makes her so cool. Not that it's bad but it means I have no way to get another like her just by mixing the right breeds together. Oh well borders are cool in general so I can still get other cool dogs but having the best of them will make it hard to accept another when it's an average one. JJhardy7 if you are interested I can send you the profile so you can see what you would get for your money if you decide to do it.

I think you can put guys on the DL now. At the very least you can back date it to the last time a player played in a game in spring. SO if they can't offially put him on the DL they can do so at the start of the season and back date it to whenever. I shtere a reason the Brewers can't DFA an injured player? I'm sure they would have to pay for any medical treatment needed and may be on the hook for the salary but I don't think there is anything preventing them from cutting a player who is injured. If there was every player who saw the writing on the wall would have some sort of mysterious back or hammy ailment.

i wish I shared your brewecrew. Obliques seem to be an injury that takes forever to heal. The thing about that type of injury is if it isn't fully healed before the player comes back it can hamper the player all year. Read the JS this morning and they seem to be taking a properly cautious approach. Good to see. i don't care if he misses a start of two early if it means he can put this completely behind him after that.

If I knew I'd tell you my friend. It was a gift so I didn't ask. This is the site if you are interested. I'd look it up but I'm not sure I want to know what she spent. http://www.wisdompanel.com/

I have a real cool dog I got from the pound. Smart, never tires of playing and amazingly athletic. The type of dog you'd like to make copies of which was the problem. As a pound puppy she had to be spayed so I can never have pups from her and I don't know exactly what breeds she has in her. She's a Border Collie mix but nobody knew what she was mixed with. After 5 1/2 years of wondering my wife sent a blood sample in to get her DNA profile for my birthday. Yesterday was my birthday but the profile isn't in yet. It is the best present she could have got me but the waiting is killing me.

To be perfectly honest I don't remember if it was or not. It's been a few years since our mortgage was paid off. IIRC we had the card deposit money automatically in our account then had it auto paid out to the mortgage company so it might not have been a direct payment from card to company. If it was direct then it was from a statement that allowed you to give them the number for future autopays from that source.

I agree -- I like cabfan1126 as well -- he knows a lot about public transportation -- that cubfan1126 guy though really grinds my gears. Showed all the respect I could to a Cub fan. even one who is intelligent enough to post on a Brewer fan site. No offense intended but getting his name right would have been too much. Nice Family guy reference BTW. Can we expect a new name soon, fatter than Peter. Backupcatchers, as long as your giving handouts... you don't need a handout. The "I kill more threads than I start," made you my new favorite. In that regard we are kindred spirits.

I'm pretty sure you can't use credit cards to pay a mortgage. We used to use a credit card every month for our mortgage payment. We put everything on a card and pay it off at the end of the month. It gave us interest free money to the end of the month and the perk miles build up enough to fly free every year or so.

In some ways it was refreshing to hear another person's perspective on the players throughout the broadcast. Not that he was more/less accurate or more/less critical or anything but everyone looks at the same thing and sees different things. His voice was a little higher but he was very good at play by play IMHO and did a nice job of repeating the relevant stats like the score. I think radio broadcasts have to have the basic information repeated a lot more than TV does since most of us are doing something while listening to the radio so our attention is never focused on the radio for entire innings at a time. If Uecker has one fault it is he does not repeat the score or other relevant info enough and sometimes has too long of silent gaps in his broadcasts for my taste.

my two favorites are menotti80 and cabfan1126.

Now signing Abreu and Edmonds and platooning Hart could have worked out, but are you absolutely sure Abreu and Edmonds would have wanted to play here and that we would have won the bidding on them? I'm not even sure Edmonds or Abreu will be better than Hart. Granted Abreu is likely to be better but Hart did have a higher OPS in 07 and Abreu is what he will ever be and Edmonds likely a lot worse than he was even last season. Hart on the other hand is very likely to improve on last season. I would think between the three of them Hart can be expected to improve the most from last year to this. If he learned how to hanlde the extra workload he got last year better there is no reason to think he can't put up his near 900 OPS of 07 again. Add in his much better base stealing abilities and I think it very likely Hart could be better this year than both Abreu and certainly Edmonds. Someone asked this earlier but I didn't see an answer, does someone know what the buy out was? If it was in the millions and all we would save is a million or so for a lessor or equal player why not keep what we have?

She's cooked in that picture from chasing the Kong. Is there anything more satisfying to see than a dog worn out from playing? They have such a happy/content look about them. Your dog certainly does. when mine catch something they snap it then drop it and forget about it. My last dog caught a rabbit then came in the house all happy prancing around with a bloody rabbit in it's mouth. I took quite a bit of convincing to get him to let go. So gross. Ultimately I think the squirrels pissed him off more than the peanuts did. or he was afraid of choking on the peanut shells. squirrel bones are harder to choke on.

Two things you should never do is show up late for an interview or reschedule You could call and explain your circumstance and if they would rather you reschedule it would be acceptable but I think they might leave the final decision up to you. If that is the case I would go. If anything showing up after obviously suffering an accident may even show how reliable you are and how seriously you take your job.

funny stuff Jamie. We have a squirrel in our neighbor's yard that makes this god awful screeching noise all day long. It sounds like an animal in agonizing pain but it's just a seriously POed squirrel so I can sympathize with your annoyance.

Fatter than Joey and TooLiveBrew are two guys I always enjoy disagreeing with. Though I am an unrepentant Ned fan they still tolerate me. For that I have to give them the nod as my favorites. Oh and they have good takes on a variety of Brewer subjects not Ned related so that helps.

Now what am I supposed to do with my cricket tickets?

They usually had a band at intermission and it took place at a smaller venue where audience participation was required. Oh the irony. My first experience as a paid comic was for a local band in the 80's. I would do my stand up routine at 8 the bad would start at 9 and I would do improv during the band's breaks. It kept the crowd going and was a lot of fun. Oh the memories.

I'd be down with giving Rivera the 5th starter and then resting Kendall more than last year. If they do go with Rivera catching one guy I hope it's Soup. He's got enough experience and knows the league well enough that he probably doesn't need the catcher to set up the hitters or know what pitch to call when as much as some of the younger guys do.

Swindle and DiFelice miss tons of bats and don't walk anybody, and they will do that whether they pitch in AAA or MLB this year. when it comes to relievers I think there is something to be said for guys who can strike out the hitters who are not good enough to make the majors but cannot do the same with AAA players who are talented enough to play in the majors. If a pitcher is smart enough to avoid pitching to the good players they can look pretty good in a relief role in the minors yet suck in the bigs when everyone they face is major league caliber.

good to know. Next time I'm in Milwaukee I'll check it out. Out of curiosity where did you learn the art of Improv from? It's a fun form of comedy to do but can be demanding. Kind of funny to me how most people think it's just winging it yet in many ways it's very structured and rigid. Lot more going on than just quick thinking.

Also, Kendall certainly had a subpar year offensively in 2008, but he's still a .292 career hitter. I'd have to guess that he'll hit close to that this year. At least I hope he does. So do I but I don't think you can look at this career and say he declines with use since he has consistently put up good batting averages while playing over 140 games each year. In fact the two best years BA wise was also two seasons were he caught almost as much as last season. He hit .325 in 150 games in 03 and followed that up with a .319 BA in 147 games the following year. To be fair his highest workload season was in 01 when he played 157 games and hit .266. I think his history shows his BA has little to do with the workload since he always catches in the upper 140's low 150's his entire career yet had different results hitting wise. I know as he ages it will be harder to do which is why I am not against a reduced workload but to blame his offense on his workload discounts his bad offense the year before when he caught the least amount of games in his career.

I can't help but think of the Monty Python twit Olympics routine when I see twitter talk. Hard to take it seriously when all I can think of is that sketch.

I don't get why Yost using Kendall for 151 games is so much worse than Macha using him for 150 in 05. That extra game must have really wore him down. He has caught no less than 143 games since 2000 except for the season he was traded after being benched for poor play. Even then it was in the upper 130's range. At age 34 he wasn't so ancient that he was bound to break down after a few more games than he had caught his entire career. Go ahead and bash Ned but when Rivera stinks like so many other backup catchers who can't even break into the bigs until he's in his 30's and his battery mate starts to gripe because he always gets stuck with the poorer of the two game callers you may wish Macha was more willing to let his best players play the most. That said I don't mind if they do reduce Kendall's games but to think it is going to somehow make the team all that much better is wishful thinking. I do not like them paring him with one pitcher though. I would much rather they give him day games after night ones or a certain day of the week so every one gets a fair chance to have the top game caller on the team. As far as Mach's comments I don't see any real benefit to saying I don't care what Kendall thinks. Especially if they already had a rocky relationship in Oakland. There is a way of conveying the same message without being confrontational. That is a lesson I hoped he would have learned form his past experience as manager. I will wait and see with Macha and hope he is the right guy for the job but those comments do not make me feel nearly as confident in him as it seemingly does many others here.

He's a professional sports broadcaster, i'd be willing to say that probably about 80% of them don't mean it when they start cheering. It's a job I think you're right initially. I'd have to think with baseball it changes over time. I would think announcers are so involved everyday with the team they end up more interested in their fortunes as they go along. I don't think it would be possible to not root for guys you are with everyday for half the year. He may never hate the Cubs like we want everyone involved with the Brewers to but that doesn't mean he won't root for the guys he's around every day more.