Patrick425

Was LaRussa drunk again when he gave this interview?: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4804082

Which is better? Vince Condella - mustache or VinceCondella - sans mustache?

Yeah, I was a little surprised too when I logged on last night and saw that this thread had not been bumped up. I think a lot of the members are from the Madison area and I don't think they are expecting as much snow, if any, out there. 6-10 inches in Milwaukee, much of Waukesha and south.

2KT

Thanks for reminding me how ancient I am... http://images.yuku.com/image/pjpeg/88c25b6928706ff89b41589c88707906c27aac0.pjpg

I'd be really surprised if you don't have access to the minor or major league fields during February. We often go to ST games about 2 or 3 hours before game time and have full access to the minor league fields. You literally walk among the players as them move from field to field. There is a gate near the parking lot that sometimes is open and sometimes is closed. If it's closed you walk up towards the main diamond and then go left. You can access the practice fields from there. The only field that is usually not accessible is the small infield practice diamond that is located just to the east of the main diamond. There may also be a diamond behind that one that is closed to the fans. There was a poster on brewerfan a couple of years ago that posted some really great pictures of the Brewers practicing in February. I believe this poster lived or went to school in AZ. He was obviously able to get very close access to the Brewer players in early ST.

I purchased an Ipod Touch for my 11 year old son for a Christmas gift. I have been spending the last few nights setting it up (downloading music and videos that he likes and some applications). As I'm going through the free apps section on itunes I was shocked at some of the racey adult themed free apps that you can download. Can't they at least put these in a seperate section of the web site that at the very least requires the user to "verify" that they are at least 18 years old? Instead these apps are mixed in with games that deal with cartoon hippos and stuff like that. They just don't belong there.

Read a book recently called "The Art of Making Money". No, it's not a self help book on how to get rich. It's a true story of a master counterfeiter from Chicago. Pretty interesting read.

Congrats OWBC. I'm a little jealous. I've always had a very strong interest in weather. My freshman year at UWM (1984), I took a class call "Forecasting the Weather". It was taught by Bart Adrian (Fox News Chanel 6 in Milwaukee meteorologist). However, I was better with numbers than I was with science, so I went into accounting instead.

My son belongs to a youth baseball organization on Waukesha that rents it's own warehouse space and has set up some batting cages. Other than that, there is Hegan's Field of Dreams on Lincoln avenue (although, I heard a rumor that they closed or may just be shut down for the season...perhaps will reopen closer to spring?). Other places are Frozen Ropes in Menomonee Falls, World Class sports in Hartland, Nx level . I'm not certain that all these places have open cage times, but you can call and find out. There is also Dinger's in Muskego, but the site states it is currently closed. My guess is that it will reopen in February or March. Dingers is nice when it's open because it uses real baseballs.

Pitching machines can't throw regular balls. The balls they used are these dimpled ones. They also last longer I guess. Actually not all machines use the dimpled balls. There was an indoor place in Muskego, "Dingers", that had machines that threw regular baseballs. You could program the machines to throw curves, changeups, inside, outside, etc. They charge by time instead of using tokens. I think they are closed now, but they usually reopen before the spring. You can also purchase machines online that can be set up to throw real baseballs.

The bat I'm looking at for my son is not a composite bat, but it is a bigger barrell senior level bat (2 5/8). It's a Dimarini, Voodoo Black with a -9 drop. It's fairly expensive ($250). I would assume that even though it's not a composit bat, I should still be concerned about using it with the dimpled balls because of the size of the barrell and the trampoline effect. edit: Actually, this may be a composite bat. If you go tot he Dimarini site, and filter on composits, it does not show up, but if you look at the description of this bat a component of the bat as something called "Pitch black plus - Tightest and strongest composite combined with Silver Trace bonding agent, adds strength to maximize power transfer to the barrel for added performance" So, I'm not sure. Is it a composite? http://www.demarini.com/demarini/product.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198674747208&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302760029

I hear all sorts of conflicting stories regarding the use of aluminum bats in batting cages, especially the batting cages that use the dimpled balls. Are the dimpled balls bad for aluminum bats? Do aluminum bats have only so many hits in them before they begin to weaken and therefore should not be used in the batting cage at all (whether it's a regular ball or dimpled ball?). I coach a baseball team and we have access to batting cages once a week. The machines use the dimpled balls. Some parents are concerned about this and will not let their son's use their normal bats. I'm getting my son a new bat for Christmas and I know he is going to want to use it right away. Should I have any worries? Couldn't find a whole lot on the internet about it, but I found this message board. The opinions seem to be all over the place: http://www.stevepinto.com/Baseball_Equipment/Baseball_Bat/4585.html

If you run a keeper league, but don't do an auction , yes, you will probably end up with the same teams on top each year. The only way to run a keeper league is to have an auction (that determines the market value of the players) and have some sort of LT contract rules that escalate contracts each year. In our league, we also limit the number of years an owner can keep a player.

I've noted this before, but I'll mention it again out of unabashed pride. I have been involved in a keeper fantasy baseball league since 1984 (not a typo). When we began, we manually calculated the stats and standing using USA today (which would publish all player stats once a week). Then we graduated to various software programs. For the last 10 years or so we have been using CBS sportsline. CBS seems to add new features to it's service every year. Unless you do the auction online (we don't), you will still have to enter all the teams and values manually (not really hard to do, since you can select several players at a time). Also, it will not automatically update contracts each year, but it does allow you to enter "wildcard" values after each contract to help you keep track. We use a lettering system to designate where each player is in terms of his contract (and you can manually update each contract as well). I really like CBS. It's live scoring option is really cool. It also archives all your previous years and keeps track of historic league records. In addition, they send out a trophy or bobble head each year to give to the winner. Our league is a classic rotiseree style league. Not sure if your league is the same, but they do a good job with these types of leagues, I can't speak for how they handle head to head leagues. We really have very little complaints with CBS. On rare occasions the standing update will be a delayed or they miss a stat, but they always correct it soon after. Which I assume is the same with many other services. Perhaps there message board could be a little more robust, but that's about it. The cost is $179, but if you sign up before Feb 5, there is a $30 discount. If you have 10 owners in your league, that comes to about $15 an owner. Really not that bad. I would definitely give it a look.

Looks like the Northwoods team that was planned for Waukesha (Frame Park) has been put off at least another year due to lack of funding.

I purchased a digital frame for my parents last year. I thought it was a great idea, but I notice that they don't use it. They have basically taken a physical picture and placed it over the screen. Not sure if they are distracted by the constantly changing picture or what. Or, maybe it stopped working and they don't want to tell me. My parents are now both in their late 70's, but my mom is pretty tech savy for her age. So, I'm not getting their behavior when it comes to this gift. I never have any idea what to get my mom or dad. Both retired and older. I always end up getting them the same thing....gift certificates. Just once, I would like to come up with something a bit more creative, I just don't know what.

I think there are only two HD channels on Time Warner that you have to pay extra for (MGM and Smithsonian). Also, I'm not completely sure about this, but I don't think the charge for and HD box vs a standard digital box is that much different.

I was doing some quick numbers on Suppan the other day. I don't know what I did with the paper I was scribbling on, but if you take away his worst 5 starts (ERA wise) his ERA for the year drops to something like 3.80. If you take away his 3 worst starts it drops to 4.6ish. Now, I know you could do this with a lot of pitchers but I still thought the 3.80 number was a pretty dramatic change. What I did notice is that his whip remians very similar no matter how many starts you take away. I think his whip went to 1.59 when you removed his 5 worst starts. He also had an ERA of about 3.75 in his starts from April 19 to July 17. (98 total innings) If you take away his one worse start of the year (July 27), his ERA drops to 4.89. Not trying to make any excuses for the guy, just throwing the numbers out there. What's odd about his game log last year is the distribution of the 5 worst starts that I used. It was his first 2 starts, his last two starts (not including the last game where he pitched 2 innings), and one start in July.

It sounds like Charter cable is far worse than Time Warner. We don't "move TVs". Each room that we have cable in, also has a TV (these are not high end plasma TV's - most of the TVs are 10 years old or more. We have one flat screen HD TV). I would never buy into a system where I have to "move boxes" to see TV's in different rooms, no matter how easy you claim it is (It really depends on how you have it hooked up and how accesable the back of the box is). It would pretty much defeat the purpose of having multiple hook ups. If I'm moving around the house doing different things (i.e. cleaning, laundry, etc), I don't want to be moving boxes all over the place. I will say that the one time DVR fee sounds good though. What about HD, do you have to pay for that, like cable claims you do? On our TVs that are directly hooked up to cable, we get all channels up to 99 (as far as the TV tuner goes). My other issue is that I have all services through Time Warner (phone, internet, and cable). I'm pretty sure satellite does not offer phone service. I'm not sure about internet. If I break up the package, I lose some incentive discounts. If I opt for new interenet service, I have to go through the whole new email address hassle. Again, I'm not in love with cable or Time Warner. There are just not enough good reasons for me to switch. The cons outweigh the pros right now.

I live and Waukesha and have Time Warner. I wouldn't exactly say I love it, although I'll say their wait times on service calls and their ability to get someone out to work on the issue has improved greatly over the last 3 or 4 years. My biggest issue with Time Warner is the boxes. I go through 2 or 3 boxes a year. While I don't like the stories about coverage going out with bad weather or the snow thing you bring up, these are not my biggest issues when it comes to satellite. My biggest issue is lack of flexibility when it comes to adding additional TVs. We have cable in our living room, family room, kitchen, basement, bedrooms. Why so many? A)We all don't always want to watch the same programs B) When doing work around the house or maybe exercising in the basement, we like to have different options to watch tv - keep up to date on sporting events, news, etc. and C) Why not? - it does not cost us any extra to hook up other TVs without a cable box (we only have two TVs with boxes). My understanding is that it's not as easy or cheap to add extra TVs using satellite.

I have been coaching youth baseball as a head coach or assistant coach since my son was 5 (he's 11 now). The only story I'll tell about coaching is how I got into it (not necessarily a funny story): I got a call from the baseball organization asking if I would coach. I really had no interest in doing so. They then said that if they could not find enough parents to coach, they will not be able to field as many teams as they would like and my son may not be able to play. So, I reluctantly agreed. I had fun, but I was frustrated by some of the parents. The following year I stated that I would help coach, but that I did not want to be a head coach. Well, the first day of practice the father that was supposed to be the head coach just kind of stood there with all the kids staring at him. He had no practice plan. So, I ended up taking over. Also, as the year went on, it was clear he had no idea how to effectively communicate with parents in regards to games/practices/fees/fundraising/etc. This drove me nuts. By the end of the year, I was basically the head coach. Since then, I have always been very involved in coaching my son's baseball teams. I still have issues with coaches of teams in other sports that my son is involved in. Why do most of these people not know how to send out simple emails updating parents on team issues? It's very frustrating to me. I have dozens of other stories I could tell (mostly not "funny") in regards to my experiences. Most of the stories center around parents and not players and involve one or more of the following issues: 1) Playing time and or position that their son is playing or not playing 2) Parents that think we are practicing too much and asking too much from the players 3) Parents that think we are not practicing enough or asking enough from the players 4) Parents who ask about the schedule, where a game is, fees that are due, etc. despite several very detailed emails that fully outline these items (this is really a pet peeve of mine). 5) Parents who don't get their kids to games and/or practices on time. If this happens occasionally, not a big deal....but it's always the same parents. Makes it very difficult to warm up or stretch out as a team and I find it difficult to penalize an 11 year old who has no other means to get to games or practices. 6) Coaches on the team who's kids are disruptive during games and practices, but they (the parent) don't seem to notice or care. If it's a non-coaches kid, this issue is easier to deal with. 7) This was mainly at the t-ball, pee wee age, but parents who basically treated practices as a day care and then did not show up on time when it was time to pick their kid up. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy coaching. The kids are great and make it all worth while.

I was looking at the current salaries page and I noticed that Wolf's contract is in there. However, I also notice that Hoffman's contract was not entered. Neither was Hawkins, but I'm assuming that this is because his contract is not official yet.

Well, even though cable is far from perfect, this cements my decision not to switch to satellite. Weather the dish is easy or hard to get to, the fact that I would have to go brush it off every time we got snow would be very annoying. My sister-in-law had satellite for a while and switched back to cable because it would go out frequently during storms.

hotter than Pam by a mile. though i'd go with "cute" over "hot", and cute is fairly subjective."hotter", "cuter", "prettier", etc than Pam? No way.