pitchleague

just for giggles, I put $5.00 down on the Brewers to win the pennant while I was in Laughlin this morning placing some football bets. 500/1 odds. Yeah, it's a huge long shot but it was five bucks.

sleepy time. Happy dreams, too!

oooh, just missed.

None bigger? I beg to differ.

okay, Ax. Get. It. Done.

yup, I'm ready for bed. Put some runs up on the board, Crew.

Nice job by Loe. Corey Hart with some nice defense as well.

I'm optimistic as the next person, but I'll be pretty realistic that I'm worried I'll be receiving order forms for playoff tickets in the next couple of weeks. If I did, I don't know if I would even bother ordering them right now. But, I'm enjoying the winning. Yeah a better draft pick would be nice, too, but this is not the NFL and/or NBA when a top 10 pick is going to be a pretty darn good player. The baseball draft is a total crapshoot.

outcome not withstanding, but I liked this comment from MLB Network: LuCroy is the first catcher in MLB history to have 2 games with a grand slam and 7 RBI in the same season.

is it just me or did I the following phrase about 3 times in the last week? "Ryan Braun is now only a _________ shy of hitting for the cycle."

my first thought was the Orioles so I knew what he was referring to. So, there's one . . . . .

dang, just came to post the same thing. That was so awesome to see.

I'd say just make sure you are willing to pay for each player you get. I have never come out of an auction saying, "geez, I can't believe that I had to pay XXX dollars for this guy." I would stay semi-close to your prices but since an auction is a fluid event, you have to be flexible and adjust since you never know when each player will be coming out.

advice #1. Don't drink alcohol (or severely limit it.) You are virtually guaranteed to have a good time if you do it but will also have a crappy team. And if this is real money you're spending in the auction, that makes it even worse. advice #2. Your first year is your bid and observe year. You need to get some general ideas of how each owner is bidding. Are they just throwing guys out there with the intention of soaking up everybody else's money? Are they the quiet ones that try to ninja guys at the last second? Are they a Packers-homer and you can stiff them by bidding up a Packer? In year 2 and each subsequent year, it gets easier because you then have a feel for the room and what each owner is trying to accomplish. Advice #3. If you bid on guys make sure you don't push too hard and get stuck with someone that you didn't want. I always make sure that if I am bidding on a guy, no matter what my rationale may be, I had better be okay with getting the guy if things change on me. There are other things but this post would be immensely long if I kept going. Bottom line is have fun. And believe me I will NEVER go back to a regular snake draft again. Auctions are the BEST way to draft hands down. Sure, they take longer but it is much more rewarding and just an outright blast.

sorry, I knew exactly where you were going with it. Guess I shouldn't have just flown off the handle.

is player A Jose Bautista?

yeah, it was tough to tell until the RF slapped his glove in disgust for not making the catch. Hooray for a lead! Hope we don't blow it. Man, I haven't posted in an IGT in FOREVER.

that's alright. Our local K-Mart started putting up some artificial Christmas trees the other day. I expect the full monty of holiday stuff by the weekend.

One of the most memorable and famous games in Brewers history. This video will sum it up for you. It's one of those games where all Brewer fans remember where they were when it happened. To back PEM up, I know where I was when this happened: on the back porch at my mother's house (home from college because it was Easter weekend), jumping up and down like a goofball. As I've said elsewhere on this forum, I then thought to pop a cassette tape in my brother's Radio Shack stereo, in order to record the highlights from Pat Hughes' 10th inning show. I've got that memorized. yep, I did the exact same thing. Still have the cassette tape, too. I digitized the recording a couple of years ago.

I still remember the first time they did the 'ol Tarzan, Tonto, and Frankenstein bit. Phil Hartman ended up cracking up everybody else that they could barely finish the skit. Then, at the end of the episode, they did a "Tarzan, Tonto, and Frankenstein Wish You Happy Holidays" and they tried singing a song together and he did it again. Probably the hardest I ever laughed at an SNL skit.

let's see . . . --My first game was Helmet Day in 1980 or 1981. Gorman Thomas homered and I think it was against the Tigers. --the game AFTER Rickey Henderson broke Lou Brock's record. They did something on the field for him prior to the game. --the game AFTER Jose Canseco became the first 40/40 man. Again, they did something on the field for him prior to the game. --first home game at County Stadium after the crane collapse --1982 World Series game 3. Sat in front row of LF bleachers. Caught a ball during BP. Willie "stupid head" McGee became my most hated ballplayer until he retired. --1998 Opening Night in AZ Diamondbacks history. Got a comp ticket from my cousin who worked for the team in the front office. --1999 Jose Jimenez threw a no-hitter for St. Louis against the D-Backs. It was my then-fiance's 2nd game ever at Bank One Ballpark. --2001 World Series games 1, 6, and 7. Those were tremendous times to be a Diamondback fan. Of course, the following season we finally splurged for the Extra Innings package on Directv and really haven't paid all that much attention to the DBacks since. Still care for them, but not nearly as much as we used to. (what a year to switch to being able to watch Brewers baseball--got rid of Matty V in the booth after the '01 season and then they lose 106 games. ouch) --can't really prove it, but there is a high probability that I ran into my future wife at County Stadium when we were kids but didn't know it. We both remember several games that we both know we went to and sat in very similar sections of the ballpark. It'd be neat if we could go back in time just to find out.

the ironic thing is this bullpen is more or less the same guys who went some unbelievable record of 88 games in a row (or something like that) that they won when leading after 7 (or was it 8?) innings. That was just last year and into this season! And then it allllllllll fell apart. Funny how baseball works sometimes. Just when you think you've got it all figured out . . . .

yep, the iron fist of moderator tyranny is smack dab in this site! And I love it.

My wife and I have been doing a superhero motif this summer. A few I had seen previously but most were first-timers. In order of watching: Superman Returns Hard to believe that it took me this long to see it for the first time. It was enjoyable but had some truly uninspiring parts to it. Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was pretty well done but the secret plan for his own continent was pretty dumb. Still a good entertaining 2 hours plus. X-Men Still the best of the series in my opinion. This was probably the 2nd or even 3rd time seeing it and it always entertains me for some reason. X-Men United I think this one is the most contrived of the X-Men series of films. But with making Jane a major cog in the film, it kept me interested in the story. Sure seemed like there was hardly any of Rogue in this one. X-Men: The Final Stand To me, it's slightly behind the first but pretty darn close. Very entertaining from start to finish and I love how they left it open for another movie in the series. X-Men Origins: Wolverine For an origin movie, I thought it was really good. I'm not sure that I like the idea of Wolverine being 200 years old or whatever but it worked. Liev Schreiber was phenominal as the brother, even though the ending, I thought, was pretty weak. X-Men First Class Another pretty good film for the series. Absolutely loved Hugh Jackman's 10-second cameo. And the way they showed how they came to be was pretty neat. Fantastic Four This was the 2nd time I had seen this one and it was probably better the 1st time. It wasn't bad and it explained things but I found The Thing's wife just dropping him as a deformed husband and walking away to be ludicrous. Whose wife would really do that? An entertaining 2 hours but not the best of the lot. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Ugh, this was the first time I saw this and it was just putrid. Twenty minutes in and Mr. Fantastic is doing some dance contest stretchy thing? S! T! U! P! I! D! It really turned me off to the rest of the movie and I found the story just to be really dumb. Laurence Fishburne sounded like he mailed it in. Green Lantern I know that it didn't do very well but I enjoyed it. No, it wasn't cinematic history but it was an enjoyable 2 hours watching a guy coping with becoming a Green Lantern. I guess that if there was any quibble, the entire ending 20 minutes (final boss battle, heroic cheer on Lantern planet, the whole deal with the girlfriend) was kind of contrived. But it didn't make me roll my eyes and cuss out the screen like I've heard other people have done. Batman Begins This was the 2nd time I've seen it and it was as good if not better than the first time I saw it. Except for Christian Bale talking like he has a potato chip stuck in his throat whenever he's Batman, I thought it was great. Scarecrow was really done well. And I loved how they developed the character of Gordon. The Dark Knight First time I saw it and, I guess, maybe I need to see it again to see the brilliance of it. Yes, it was very good and I enjoyed the heck out of it. But I was not just sitting there during the closing credits and babbling how it was the greatest film of the 21st century like I hear so many people say. Iron Man Second screening for me and I think it's really good, especially the first 30 minutes. I also love the subtle bits of humor every now and then. The ending still surprises me, even when I knew it was coming. The Incredible Hulk Also the second screening. I had forgotten almost everything from the story so I was pleasantly entertained. The special effects of the Hulk character were pretty good, I thought, but I had a hard time believing Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. Also loved the small cameos by Lou Ferigno and Bill Bixby (in the television shot, of course.) Iron Man 2 Okay, this was the first time I saw this one and felt the whole story, heck the whole movie, was forced. It didn't flow like the first one. Perhaps it was because they cast Don Cheadle instead of the guy from the first movie (whom I enjoyed more.) And the whole killer robot army thing was just, "huh?" I mean, one scene Iron Man is being closely chased by a half-dozen of these things as they fly around the expo area and then suddenly Iron Man is able to land to protect a small boy and kill a robot--where'd the chasing robots go???? And then Iron Man takes off and there they are again. Nice continuity, editors. Thor My wife is big on mythology so I know that she enjoyed this one. It was okay to me but I felt like my intelligence was insulted toward the end when the director thought I needed to be reminded that "Whosoever holds of this hammer, if you be worthy, you possess the power of Thor" at the climax of the Earth battle. Gee, thanks guy, I must be a moron. Otherwise, it was pretty good and set up well to have another sequel. Oh, and did Natalie Portman have a face lift/eye job/nose job or something? She just doesn't have the same facial features that she did as Queen Amidala/Padme. Or was she younger than I thought she was for those Star Wars movies and she's just grown up now? Captain America: The First Avenger I'm big into WWII stuff so I really enjoyed this movie. The fight scenes and stuff were pretty good (although I don't get how his shield returns to him after he throws it.) I can only speculate about the ending and why he doesn't wake up until present day. The Dark Knight Rises Saw this one today. I don't get why some people are putting it down on other sites. I thought it was tremendous. Maybe not Oscar Winning caliber but definitely up for a nomination or three. I saw a few people post on another site some questions that they "didn't get such-and-such" and "this part was not explained!" Well, if they had actually paid attention to the film in the non-fight-scene parts of the movie, it would have been explained! Oh, and for an almost 3-hour movie, I thought it flew by--thoroughly entertained. Heck, all three Batman films by Christopher Nolan were long but hardly felt it at all (unlike some of these other films **COUGH** Silver Surfer **COUGH**) and when a long film can do that, THAT'S good film making. I probably won't get to The Avengers this summer so I'll have to wait on that one until my brother buys the blu-ray, which he inevitably will do.

do they still have that huge blue slide? I loved that thing as a kid.