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Results: Roberto Alomar 523 (90.0%) Bert Blyleven 463 (79.7%) Barry Larkin 361 (62.1%) Jack Morris 311 (53.5%) Lee Smith 263 (45.3%) Jeff Bagwell 242 (41.7%) Tim Raines 218 (37.5%) Edgar Martinez 191 (32.9%) Alan Trammell 141 (24.3%) Larry Walker 118 (20.3%) Mark McGwire 115 (19.8%) Fred McGriff 104 (17.9%) Dave Parker 89 (15.3%) Don Mattingly 79 (13.6%) Dale Murphy 73 (12.6%) Rafael Palmeiro 64 (11.0%) Juan Gonzalez 30 (5.2%),

I'm a big fan of gmaps pedometer. I keep track of my miles in an excel spreadsheet. Drick23--that really sounds like ITBS. That's another really common running injury. It sounds like you are doing the right thing and taking it easy. A personal trainer also recommended using a foam roller to help loosen out my IT band. It hasn't recurred since I started using the foam roller and I still foam roll 2 years later due to fear of it coming back. It took me about 6 weeks to recover from ITBS--start really slow when you pick up running again and stop immediately if you feel any pain or discomfort at all.

Patrick, I hate shin splints and they bothered me for a long time. I quit running track in high school because I ran through the pain and ultimately got a stress fracture. I had them on and off for the last 2-3 years. They always seemed to get especially bad when I started adding miles--which was usually after recovering from the previous shin splint episode. I am fairly sure that they are caused by landing on your heels when you run. It creates too strong of an impact which eventually causes inflammation. I did learn to mitigate shin splints by doing stretches and long warm ups before I ran. Any type of lower leg/calf exercise seems to help. However, they still never went completely away, even though I was using a $130 pair of super-padded running shoes. As you have noticed, they do not hurt as much when you are warm, so you can do like 15 minutes of a different cardio activity before running and then ice them for 15 minutes after you are done to reduce the swelling. If you stay under 15 miles/week, that will probably be enough to keep them under control. Since I have switched to a mid-food/front-foot running stride 4+ months ago, I have had no problems with shin splints. I think it is worth the effort to mess around with your stride to see if you have better results. It does not have to involve barefoot running at all, although the idea is to develop a stride that is closer to a natural barefoot stride. It feels very awkward at first, just like making changes to a golf swing or any other physical habit. It can also be harsh on your calf muscles. The best way to start is simply to shorten your stride. Make sure you are landing underneath your hips and not in front of your body. Your arms should swing naturally and the form should be loose, not forced. Your steps should be quiet and soft. If you are doing it right, your upper body should remain relatively calm and you should be able to focus on a target in the distance without bouncing around. I hope that helps. I can not say for sure that mine are gone for good, but I am back to doing 90% of my running in shoes and am still not having any problems.

Congrats on running a 5K! Running is truly an awesome sport because it is great for your fitness and almost anyone can participate. I ran on and off in high school but I have been running seriously for about 5 years now. I'm still working toward that elusive marathon but I am planning on doing one in 2 months if all goes well. I've done Crazylegs the last 3 years and the Madison half-marathon the past 2 years. I agree that Crazylegs is by far the best race ever. I currently am running 20-30 miles per week in preparation for the Miami half-marathon in 4 weeks. From my experience, injuries are most likely to derail your running experience and you have a >50% chance of getting one in any given year. If you feel that something is not right, stop immediately. Do not try to run through it. You will seriously regret it. Secondly, you will find all kinds of different advice on injury prevention, but I have found that if you get injured, you are probably doing something wrong. I tried a number of things, including getting more expensive shoes, doing extensive core and strength training, and additional stretching. However, it was not until I attempted minimalist/barefoot running that my injury problems went away (see other thread and this link). As for equipment, I have 2 different shoes that I use, a pair of Vibram 5-fingers and a pair of Nike Free 5.0. I use the Vibrams for short runs and to practice a natural running form. I do not use them all the time because it is difficult to run faster than a 9:00/mile pace and my feet are not strong enough to handle them yet. The Nike Frees are good shoes but I do not think I would buy another pair because there are now a number of better lightweight running shoes available. My other piece of advice is to not follow those running schedules too closely for training for a marathon or 10K or whatever. I like to run whatever my body feels like running that day. Sometimes it is less than planned and sometimes it is more. Running is supposed to be fun and if you are tired or sore or sick or just don't feel like it, then take the day off and make it up on a good day.

My wife loves her Kindle (1.0). I think the Kindle is far superior to the Nook or other e-readers, unless you are planning on reading magazines, in which case a color Nook might be better. The iPad is a poor e-reader because of the glare from the screen, the short battery life, and most importantly, the heavy weight. The Kindle is about as heavy as 50 sheets of paper. I will definitely be getting one as well as soon as I can afford it. The best features are the dictionary that lets you immediately look up any word and the ability to highlight and save any interesting passage. It almost never needs recharging because the battery life is so long. It's also just more fun to read on it because of what a cool piece of technology it is. No more waiting 2 days for books to arrive in the mail and then accumulating on a shelf. I think the great advantage to the Kindle is that it does not have Internet capabilities. The last thing I need is another distraction when I am reading. The Wi-Fi quickly downloads new books and allows you to browse the catalog and read reviews, and there isn't really any need to do anything else on the Internet. It doesn't pretend to be a computer or a smart phone. One thing to keep in mind is that you will not really be saving any money on books by getting a Kindle (assuming you follow copyright laws). Classic books are free and anything more than 10-20 years old is $5 or less, but new stuff costs at least as much on a Kindle as buying the paperback on Amazon. In some cases, I have seen the Kindle version cost more than the paperback. Also, you are probably going to want to invest in a nice leather case for the Kindle which is going to be another $40+. I can't comment on its ability to read PDFs or show images.

I've been to GABP. It's a nice place to see a ballgame. Nothing that special but not terrible either. The open concourses are nice on a warm summer night, but they explain why the ball carries so well there. I imagine the fan support will be better this year. Cincy itself seems like a nice town and you have the option of living in northern Kentucky as well. I like that it is Milwaukee-sized and doesn't seem to have serious traffic issues.

I love Branyan, but he should probably be avoided due to his injury history.

I loved the coaching matchup last night--neither team had the advantage for more than a few minutes before the other made great adjustments. UW's rebounding was suprisingly bad, although Minnesota is huge. Minnesota is supposed to be quick, but they were stuck playing half court ball and were ultimately doomed by a few too many turnovers and quick shots. Jared Berggren was great off the bench--he had a few great post moves and 3 blocks--very Brian Butch-like.

Here's my rough guess...last year they won 77 games. The improved pitching rotation is worth about 15-20 games when you consider the impact on the bullpen as well. That puts them around 95. Then, I'm taking away 2 wins for the downgrades at CF and SS--but really we are talking about downgrades over expected 2011 performance as opposed to 2010 performance. Then, I'm taking away another 5 wins due to the ridiculously difficult 2011 schedule. 88 wins is my prediction with the current team--and a few minor tweaks or a deadline deal by Melvin should put them in the playoffs. I think the biggest concern is that there will be very few minor leaguers to help out late in the season or when injuries occur.

Yeah no lunar eclipse viewing for about 3/4 of the US.

Yeah there is a nice little storm going on today, mostly across western WI and Minnesota. They are expecting 3-5" of snow in Minneapolis today and another 1-2" during the football game. Amazingly, Milwaukee is going to lose out again on this system, as only 1-2" are expected in far SE Wisconsin before the precip changes to light drizzle/freezing drizzle. There is also going to be a fairly significant Christmas eve/Christmas day storm that is likely going to completely miss Wisconsin to the south.

From MLB Trade Rumors

I do regret that Hall already signed, since it would have been fun to hear people calling to bring him back. Of course Melvin is going to say nice things about Betancourt and he is obviously the starting SS based on the current roster. The Royals wanted to get rid of Betancourt and the Brewers had to take him. I have no doubt that Melvin will be looking around for another shortstop.

That was a bit of hyperbole, but I really think that starting Betancourt is unacceptable. The defense really needs to improve or the Brewers will not maximize the potential of their rotation. Teams with bad defense rarely make the playoffs. Maybe RR will stress the fundamentals in spring training and try to coach Betancourt, but the option needs to be available to dump him if he doesn't show any improvement.

Now that our pitching problems are solved, it is clear beyond doubt that fielding is the Brewers' biggest area of concern. Therefore, Betancourt needs to go. Does he have any minor league options left? We could start him in Nashville and bring him up if and only if someone gets hurt. I would also be fine with releasing him tomorrow, giving him back to the Royals for a bag of baseballs, or any scenario that prevents him from ever wearing a Brewers uniform.

It is worth noting that this now guarantees that Prince Fielder will be back in 2011. I think the bad market for Prince resulted in the change in direction. After they couldn't get a return for Prince and realized there was starting pitching available, they changed direction. This is a huge trade with low risk, high reward that could change the course of the franchise. I was expecting attendance to decline by as much as 300-500,000 this year. This trade wipes at least half of that decline away before the Brewers even play a game. The excitement going into the season has the potential to be higher than any year since I became a Brewers fan. Of course it could all go wrong, but the Brewers can sell in July and restock the minor leagues if that is the case.

Only if the 3-way solves our pitching woahs...

I didn't know there was a rewards system now. That is a step in the right direction, but do they scan IDs? I was a hoops-savvy UW fan but I went to less than 10 basketball games in 5 years at UW. Why? 1) Games were generally boring due to bad student section 2) Too expensive for a season ticket package 3) Friends were not interested, generally because of 1) and 2). 4) I had hockey tickets instead, because it was cheaper, my friends had them also, and it was still a good time and conveniently on weekend nights. If the Badgers made the final four, of course student attendance would increase, but until they do, the best way to get the students interested again is to make the games more fun and encourage them to show up. I agree that UW Athletics really shouldn't have to resort to incentives, but at this point, it's their best option to get students to show up.

The finals/exams/weeknights argument sometimes applies, but I don't think it makes that much of a difference. Most students have plenty of time to go to a 2-hour basketball game. Many of them live less than 2 blocks from the Kohl Center. If there was incentive to go, they would show up. UW-Athletics could provide a free shuttle from the lakeshore dorms to make it easier to get there. They are making no effort whatsoever to encourage students to go to games. That might have worked back in 2000, but they clearly need to change their marketing strategy.

I think this has been going on for a long time. Going back to my Freshman year at UW, 2005-2006, a friend had tickets in the 300-level and I frequently bought them off of him. Back then you had the same seats for every game. The upper level was rarely more than 1/3 full for those games. Even the #7 WI vs. #2 Pittsburgh game had tons of empty seats. When they changed to the "first come, first serve" policy, the empty seats became more obvious, but they had been there for a long time already. Last year, the whole 300-level was empty for many important conference games such as Michigan and Illinois. I think they could easily fill the student section for every game if they wanted to. The problem is bad policy. UW-Athletics has been very reluctant to institute "rewards" systems like Michigan State has done. Students who show up on time and go to the boring non-conference games should get rewarded with seats for the big games. There were probably 20,000 students that wanted to go to the Duke game last year, so make the students earn the rights to buy the Duke tickets by giving them to the ones who show up to the other games. Make them scan their IDs in the second half as well to make sure they stick around for the whole game. I think this will also discourage scalping since people will be reluctant to sell their tickets if that had to sit though other games to earn them. The bad non-conference games should be available to any student, first come, first serve. The top games would be sold preferentially based on attendance at the games in November and December. They also need to implement other ways to make the student section fun/interesting. Football has "Jump Around" which makes the games fun and interesting for those who are not hardcore football fans. There should be contests and promotions, t-shirt tosses, and a public relations campaign to re-energize the student section. They can hire cheap student employees to do the promoting. Contests could be held for those that come up with the best cheers and for the craziest students. Yeah, you could blame the students, but it isn't 100% their fault that UW athletics does nothing to make the student section fun or interesting. All the focus is on the game, which just doesn't work when you play so many bad opponents.

I can't see how this is bad for the Brewers when it knocks down 1/3 of our Wild Card competition. It maybe changes the odds of the Brewers beating the Phillies in the postseason from 10% to 5%.

This is a big victory for MLB. The Yankees have come to expect that they can have all of the top free agents, so it's nice to finally have a free agent go elsewhere. For all the terrible luck that the Phillies' franchise has experienced, they are now set to become the Yankees of the NL. With years of sellouts and high revenue in their future, there is no reason why the Phillies will not continue to win the NL East and acquire high priced talent. They will continue to win the AL East the majority of the time unless there is a change in baseball's economic system. The Rangers are unfortunately in the same situation as the 2008 Brewers, with all the momentum from their playoff run slipping away and a season of underachieving in their future.

That dry slot is farther north than expected. Totals are definitely going to be on the lower end of the forecast.

Driving back is going to be dangerous tomorrow with the blowing snow. I'm glad this is hitting now and not in 10 days when I have to fly back to WI.

Timing has been pushed back, but this monster is going to strike with a vengeance tonight. Milwaukee has been upgraded to a winter storm warning, so the entire state of Wisconsin is now in a winter storm warning!