pitchleague

don't know if you'll remember this, but which member of their on-air talent said this?

funny thing is, that was a weekly (almost daily) occurrence on this very message board last year. We all know how THAT turned out.

eh, oh well. Any publicity is good publicity.

I also think some of Branyan's resurrection is that he was probably given a nice big piece of humble pie when no team offered him a contract in Spring Training except for us. And ours was a minor league deal, at that. Thus, he also probably had a little heart-to-heart with himself about how this is probably his last chance in the game and he better buckle down, focus, and play ball for his last chance at the big leagues. It also helps that he obviously made some adjustments with his stance at the plate. But don't discredit the psychology in this, either.

well, thanks to the Royals, they've given me confidence about the wild card. Thanks to the Rays, they've given me "hope" once again for the division. Still, there's a long way to go. I realize that earlier in this thread I kind of threw in a towel, so to speak. I'm still not ready to believe that this team is a true playoff team. But they're getting there, that's for sure. Six over .500 is the best we've been all year. That "translates" to 84-78, which is pretty pathetic for a playoff team, although in this day and age we've seen it a few times (poor record playoff team.) I hope they can do better.

yay! and I'm on vacation so ALL-NIGHTER, BABY! okay, not really.

I don't mind seeing a guy getting hurt--it's part of the sport. And being happy about it because it helps your own team out is fine in my book, too. But laughing at it is so not cool. I'm not going to sink down to that level. That is my choice. Those of you that want to ridicule and giggle about it, comeuppance is a nasty wench. Sure, we already lost Gallardo and that may prompt you to say that the Cubs had it coming, but now the onus it back on us. I hope Mr. Zambrano has a healthy recovery. I hope it's not this year but I hope he does recover. I will not laugh at his being injured. Cubs fans that read this board, I feel for you.

I'd take the IBBs if the #7-9 hitters would do a little more than they do.

I think people are expecting Albert Pujols and A-Rod numbers across the board from Braun--power numbers AND on base skills. Unfortunately, not every player does that. It's why those type of players are the exception and not the norm. Can Braun get to that level? Perhaps but it will take some discipline from him. He chases too many balls out of the strike zone and that kills him OBP-wise, but that's probably not how he's been taught and coached all these years (to take pitches). He's got a good swing and lots of power and he uses it how he sees fit. Get Prince Fielder out of the lineup behind him and he might be more selective and draw more walks. And maybe not, we just don't know for sure. Speculation, however, is fun. I wish both sides of this argument could see AND accept both sides of the discussion.

yeah, to me there are now three "put everything down and watch intently so you don't miss something special" players on our team--Braun, Prince, and Branyan. I guess Sheets could be put into a sub-set of this category of player.

in other words, this could be a very good night to listen to Uecker on the radio or a very bad night, depending on his mood over the whole situation.

Interesting lists, for sure. I defeated my wife in our "movies that we've actually seen" contest when we watch these shows. 40-37. Boy, we're pitiful. Not surprisingly, she swept animation 10-for-10 and doubly not surprising is that I had seen NONE of the romantic comedies. EDIT: Forgot to mention how many of the clips showed the end of the movies! If you haven't seen the movies but really had wanted to and you happened to be watching, you just had the ending ruined for you. Or if you didn't know that was the ending, some blabber mouth watching with you might spoil it! Can't they find better scenes than the ending of the movies? Sorry for the mini-rant.

I ended up downloading it as well. It's pretty much the same thing as v.2 with a few bells and whistles thrown in. I haven't noticed any speed difference, though. The one thing that I do like is that it appears that it "remembers" your zoom settings. What I mean is my monitor has a 1920x1200 native resolution which makes websites pretty small until I use the CTRL-mouse wheel to zoom in on the sites. On version 2, I had to zoom it every time I went to, say, Brewerfan (or pretty much any site). But with version 3, it remembers how far zoomed in I was and it goes back to it! Nice! EDIT: Not so nice, after all. Once you get to a certain point of zooming in, you start to have the need for horizontal scrolling (left-to-right) as things get cut off the edge of the screen. This problem did not exist in version 2 as I could zoom until a site was just humongous and it would still fit on the screen without any horizontal scrolling. So this is kind of a bummer and might give me reason to switch back to version 2. Sigh. EDIT2: Well, I'm pretty sure that I'm switching back. There seems to be a problem with any page on this site (and others) where a picture or video has been inserted and completely bungles the zoom function so the picture/video is too pixelated to see what it is. That and the horizontal scrolling is even worse on those pages. Ugh, I've been very disappointed now that I've had the chance to tinker.

They both have their merits. I'm a Wisconsin native, but I've lived in Arizona for 11+ years now. The heat is not all that bad. Really. It depends on where you live, too. The lower areas (Phoenix, Yuma, Bullhead City, Lake Havasu City) can get scorching hot, I'll give you that. But Flagstaff is beautiful. It's like being in Wisconsin, honestly. I live in Kingman and it's routinely 10 degrees cooler than the lower elevation cities. Of the 365 days we have each year, most of the state gets at least 300 days of sunshine. It's only rainy twice a year--early spring (Febuary/March) and Monsoon season (tends to vary every year. July/August is most common.) Depending on where you live, the monsoons barely do anything. In Phoenix, they get drenched. But up at our place, the surrounding mountains tend to suck most of the rain up and instead of daily late-afternoon monsoon storms, we only get it in town when the humidity gets to (prepare yourselves) 30%!!! I'll also spot you the "run out of things to do fast" part of the state. Unless you live in Phoenix where there's plenty to do, you're pretty much left with doing stuff out of doors (hiking, camping, etc.) or just staying inside and bumming around the house. If you go outside, you learn to stay hydrated and prevent sunburn. It's quite nice knowing that most people never see tarantulas or snakes in town--only in the desert wilderness. Mosquitoes and other biting/stinging insects are next to non-existent. And allergies and breathing ailments are much better to control here. On the other hands, Wisconsin has better defined seasons than Arizona, with greatly varied weather patterns. And to find things to do is a lot easier in Wisconsin because towns and cities are so much closer together but there remains plenty of "wilderness." In summary, it is very difficult for me to decide which I like best. The wife and I would love to move back to Wisconsin but at the same time, we have things so well off here. We have learned to adapt to the desert lifestyle and would probably have a shock to our systems by moving back and dealing with high humidity, and tornadoes, and winter storms, and hay fever, and mosquitos. We would love to move back if we had the opportunity and the means to do it, though. Once Wisconsin is in your blood, you can never truly get rid of it.

I do agree with that sentiment. I guess if I am going to watch the game, I'd want to see my players in it and have a little bit of personal pride in it. Ugh, do Yankee and Red Sox stathead fans (like many here) care about the all-star game and who rightfully deserves to go? Or are they more of a homer for getting half their team into the starting lineup? Do they have this discussion and openly state that Derek Jeter doesn't deserve to go to the game? (I'm just throwing a name out there, folks. Although I do see he is having a crappy year--for him.) Or do they just say, "Geez La-weez! It's Derek (bronx accent) Jeter we're tawkin' about!" (yes, I know it's spelled Louise, not La-weez.)

not to mention the Brewers are winning games which makes it just a little bit better season. In my opinion, stat heads are going to lose out to the general public who want their all-stars to be good in the "big-name" statistics like AVG., HR, RBI, and ERA, K, and W for pitchers. Joe Public really doesn't care about OBP. Steve Everydayfan doesn't care about ERA+. Charlie Football fan doesn't care about RC. Guy SmileycauseIgettowatchaballgameinsteadoflisteningtomynaggingwifeandkids really doesn't care about in-play AVG. That's fine that they don't. I like stats that are meaningful (ERA+, OPS, RC/27, ) and all that they hold true. But the All-Star Game is held for the fans. And sorry to say, 95% of the population of Baseball Fan City are not statheads. It's hard to come to grips that others can't see the light but the "exhibition" is just a popularity contest, and what is popular? Homers and RBI. Seriously, I haven't watched the All-star game and cared about it in probably 10 years. Well, I guess I watched when it was in Milwaukee, but even then I was distracted by visiting family so I really didn't get to watch it until 2 days afterward. Man, it's late.

If Russell Branyan gets any write-in votes worth mentioning in the media, this site darn well better get some recognition for it, since I can pretty much put money down that 95% of those write-in votes came from us and his followers/worshipers/disciples on this board. My guess, is he ends up with a few thousand write-in votes.

He certainly is his father's son. Nothing would make me smile more than a Brewers playoff berth while the Yankees sit at home for the month of October. Heck, I don't even need the Brewers in the playoffs part of that sentence. (okay, yes I do!!!!)

Does this mean that basketball season is over? YEE-HAH!!!!!

the whole "straw man" argumentation that seems to be going on this week on the board.

So I noticed that Firefox v3 came out today. Was anybody here a beta tester and give advice about how much better it is than v2? I know the website tells all about the enhancements but I was looking to see here if anybody has experience with their "improvements" before I download it and get rid of v. 2. I like v. 2 as it is and don't want to get something all full of bugs. Thanks in advance.

that's not how it works, though. If a guy gets elected to start but is injured, the manager (in this case, Clint Hurdle) gets to pick who the starter is from the members of the all-star team that were not elected to start. It does not automatically go to the guy in 4th place. It may have ended up working out that way in the past, but if it did, it was sheer coincidence. My guess would be that if Holliday gets put on the team, Hurdle will go with his own guy as the starter. But who knows?

this worked for me: I downloaded the Firefox portable from portableapps.com and then put the program on a flash drive. Then I take the flash drive to work, plug it into a USB port and away I go. For some reason our Norton Internet security at work blocked most of Brewerfan when I used IE on the hard drive, but the Firefox portable works flawlessly off the flash drive. I still wonder how the Norton doesn't even "see" it.

Disco version of the Beatles?

part of the fun is guessing without getting clues. Well, at least not for a day or so.