Fatter than Joey

Joey, probably before you joined, we had a long "Are you a pee talker?" thread right here in Off Topic I am not -- To his credit Frank Howard was trying to be friendly to an up and coming Brewer fan -- but -- he is/was freakishly large, and it was a bathroom. The real icing on the cake, was that I told my Dad and he thought I was lying. He asked me how I knew it was Frank Howard, and I told him, because he had his uniform on. -- So then my Dad proceeded to embark on this endless game, where he would spot big fat dudes in Brewers shirts and go "Look there is George Scott, oh my God it's Don Money, etc. etc." I thought of another Brewer meeting I had -- I met Sal Bando at a GOP fund-raiser for Bob Kasten, in about 1986.

When I was a kid I peed in urinal next to Frank Howard at County Stadium. Very nice man, still, I am not big on urinal discussions.

Uh oh, it's getting pretty political around here No, no -- nothing like that -- my Dad wanted to know if I wanted to go to a gun show and meet him when he was selling Selleck some guns, and I opted for a nap instead -- It would have been a big commitment timewise.

I sat next to Rosie Greer in a plane once -- He is a huge man, with huge fingers -- I giggled a lot watching him literally mash his laptop typing. I met the big guy who played Jaws in Moonraker My mom's best friend is married to the lead-singer of the Kingsmen. My dad sells guns to Tom Selleck -- I have declined the opportunity to meet him though. My best obscure celebrity meeting -- is when my wife got relentlessly hit on by Tracy and Lamond Murray at a Lyons (sort of like an Ihop/Dennys) restaurant in Oregon. (Lamond was still at Cal at the time). Those are some obscure ones.

If you'll notice, you hardly ever see a fastball in the strike zone anymore for JJ. Until he stops chasing high heat and breaking balls in the dirt, he won't see many either. Exactly -- When Hardy came back in 2007, he got a healthy diet of fastballs meant to challenge him. To his credit he started hitting everything out of the park. MLB pitchers adjusted, and now have a pretty good strategy for getting him out. It will be up to Hardy now to adjust to the pitchers' approach. I also think there is a lot of merit to the idea that he is hitting some sort of wall, as he doesn't have a lot of 162 game seasons under his belt.

Anyone thinking Bill Hall has perhaps not played his last game in the infield? At this point I am hoping for simply Hall has not played his last game in 2007. We had Graffy starting in LF last night. That is not cool. We have problems in the OF with Hall's absence.

The Brewers will get respect when WS rings are being slipped on to their fingers. Not before. Agreed 100% -- We have had a great season so far, but probably a little early to be worried about respect from fans from other teams. If only they had worked out the extension with Davis... could you imagine how much better the rotation would be with Davis instead of Vargas? If we would have worked out an extension with Davis -- we probably wouldn't have gotten Suppan, and certainly wouldn't have gotten Estrada. I'd rather have Vargas than Davis, especially if you factor in contractual obligations. Davis makes over 2x what Vargas has, and IMO has had a worse year (1.71 WHIP? geez) The fact that the Brewers have still held on to 1st place during a prolonged stretch that the Cubs are playing .750 ball has got to be a plus. It's just a matter of time before the Cubs come back down to earth. There's no way they can keep this up much longer. Well we have held on to first place -- but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact we have lost a lot of ground to the Cubs. While they can't win 3/4ths of their games the rest of the way -- they were clearly a team that was losing way more than they should have been early on in the year -- I think that this recent tear they have been on is probably "evening out" their early struggles. The Brewers are in for a dogfight

Now how long would MLB wait to hear Prince and Carpenter's appeals?... And do you think they would be lenient on Prince if he were to swing those weapons at the wimpy SP Chris Carpenter Given how the league is so obviously pro Derrek Lee/Chris Carpenter, and anti-Prince Fielder -- I would suspect the Fielder would see immediate imprisonment and deportation. I am thoroughly surprised all the folks here are so passive. Me too. Just once I wish someone on BFnet would have a knee-jerk reaction to something. Seems when I addressed this BS over a week ago all of you SO CALLED BREWER FANS ---- ignored it! Clearly you are correct. My guess is that some paper-pusher at the BFnet headquarters has the Derrek Lee suspension papers sitting underneath a juicebox on his desk. Without Derek Lee for >5< games the Crew would gain at least 3 games in the standings. This is of course indisputable fact. Bud Selig wants to see the Brewers suffer. What many people don't realize is that in 1970 Bud Selig brought the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee with the sole intention of bringing Milwaukee to its knees. It was only a matter of time before the other Selig shoe dropped on us. Casey?? Do your damn job He's just saying what we all are thinking... Oh ok, Yaz is a moron for wondering why MLB is letting D. Lee play like nothing ever happened No clearly, you have called out the so-called Brewer fans that are not doing all they can to make sure Bud Selig and MLB continue to keep Milwaukee out of the World Series since 1982.

As for Yost, I've also noticed a different Ned since the All-Star break. I agree 100% -- Luck aside, Ned has been handling his pitchers much different, and I think AJAY's post is right on -- Ned has made some very noticeable and tangible adjustments. I think there are a couple of factors. 1.) The Cubs have waken up and will be on our tails until the end of the year -- I think that the Brewers will lose their lead to the Cubs at some point this year, and Ned realizes that this team will need to be ready for something it hasn't had to deal with yet, a dogfight divisional race. 2.) What was once a perceived strength, the rotation, could all of a sudden be a weakness -- Suppan, Bush, Vargas and Cappy have collectively looked shaky and struggled at some point this season, and if we are going to deal with the Cubs, our rotation needs to trend more positive. While we currently have some studs in our BP, at some point Yo will no longer be an option -- so the Brewers can't rely on 5IP performances much longer in the year. The good news is that the Brewers are entering uncharted waters this August and September, and it would be foolish for Ned to think he would be able to do the same things that he did in the past and make it through the year. I think you are going to see more decisions based on results rather than secondary stats, here on out. That is to say if you have a 5.00+ ERA, and a bunch of L's, you are probably going to get yanked regardless of what your K/BB numbers are.

I guess I have a different perspective than those who want to blame video games for the supposed decrease in sports interest by the kids. I grew up playing video games... and baseball... and football. I loved them all. I agree. I am 36 and played a ton of video games as a kid, I also played a ton of BKB/FB/Baseball, and would have probably played soccer as well, had it been as popular as it is today. I don't think that kids necessarily play more videos games today, better ones for sure. I think the biggest difference as far as kids are concerned, is the internet/TV -- when I was a kid, most kids had only the 3 network channels, and probably 2 of them did not come in very well, and of course there was nothing like the internet back in 1982. Baseball was also way more popular than other sports at that time. Over the last couple of decades baseball has lost a lot of its gloss and TV slots. What I see locally, is a real half-assed approach to youth sports overall, where practices and games are poorly run and managed. Which leads me to conclude that the real difference in my opinion is that parents today are playing WAY more video games than parents 25 years ago. My dad, for example, would have rather embraced free love and joined a hippie commune than play Intellivision. Today I think a lot of the 20-40 year old parents probably play as many video games as their kids, and that is probably where video games have their largest impact. As a side note -- My son and I have a lot of fun playing MLB and Madden on the PS2, and he has learned a lot about the rules of the game and strategies by playing these games. When I had MLB on the Intellevision, you really could not learn anything about the real game, but today's games are like simulators where you can create scenarios and show your kid why it is important to start running on contact with 2 outs, etc... I can honestly say my son has a better understanding of pitching and blocking schemes at 8 years old than I ever did.

Knowing is half the battle, right? Wars can be won, fighting half the battle -- General George Custer.

the actor that plays him is either playing the part completely dead, or the actor is just plain horrible I think they are trying to make him seem like a lot of 13 year old kids with dysfunctional upbringings, very quiet and shelled from his surroundings.

From what I understand, the first tiebreaker for a division championship is head to head winning % correct? Unless the rules have changed this is not correct -- generally there is a playoff game -- Game 163 -- The famous Red Sox/Yankees, Bucky Dent HR game for example, and I remember the Angels and M's having quite a game back in the early 90s.

Ojeda recovered enough to pitch in MLB but at a much diminished level.

There were more in the next few years too, the suicide of Danny Thomas, the murder of Lyman Bostock, and of course Thurman Munson's plane crash Danny Thomas was out of baseball went he died -- Thurman Munson caught his last game in Milw. -- I was at that game. The other I remember was the year before Frisella died Don Wilson committed suicide in the off-season. Miley was a hot draft-pick out of LSU -- I think he barely played in the minors.

I do -- Frisella was part of the Miracle Mets. There were a lot of deaths in baseball in that period of time, Mike Miley died in the same off-season -- Danny Thompson died from cancer, Bob Moose died in a car accident and the Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh all passed away in that off-season.

The alternative is to edit or delete posts. Leaving a post sitting there 'as is' without commenting, editing, or deleting is an invitation for more of the same. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of other alternatives. Believe me, the mods use PMs a lot. Had this been a 'strike' situation, it would have been "required" to send one. Fair enough, it hardly seemed a situation at all. I am done. It has been fun, sincere thanks to all.

Good pizza and I really liked how they used whole green pepper slices This is my pet peeve with pizzas in general -- diced veggies. I always like to see huge veggies on Pizza.

But it's nice to see that he's really turned it around nicely. Yeah -- The thing I noticed last night -- Is that he can't hit the corners consistently with his fastball -- If he could catch less of the the plate with his strikes, he could be a devastating pitcher.

It's inappropriate in almost any instance, family or business, to take someone to task in front of others. It looks like grandstanding, causes embarrassment and almost never delivers the appropriate impact because of all the other unnecessary issues that must be first overcome. I don't understand why it is common practice here. Agreed 100%, it seems counterproductive.

Four Brewers players and a chance for home field advantage if the Brewers happen to play in the World Series Amen. Probably there will be a Brewer on the field most of the game. It is interesting -- we have had 7 AS's in the the last 2 years -- none repeating.

The same guys who love to point to Gwynn's successes as being "small sample size" are all over him for his AAA performance in 66 measly AB's. This is an interesting point -- but I think I can address it Speaking to the 66 ABs in Nashville this year -- especially the ones after his demotion -- I think we all were hoping that TGJ could hit well in Nashville benefiting from everyday ABs, and show what he can do -- the sobering thing is that 66 ABs, fall pretty much in line with his career minor league stats -- which seem to indicate that Gwynn is not a good contact hitter -- does not walk at a high rate, and will not be an efficient base stealer, and has 0 power -- and cannot even get a lot of gap-doubles. His major league "successes" are truly the small sample. These 66 ABs, really fall in line with the rest of his minor league career. To his credit, he has performed better at the MLB level, and we probably saw his ceiling this year -- a solid 4-5 OF on a good team. I wouldn't say that Gwynn is useless -- or won;t have a MLB career -- but I wouldn't imagine him starting for a good team in CF, and certainly not at the corners.

Yep -- I meant that to say -- "mounds were higher"

The bottom line is that the Cubs will come back to earth because there is no way their first five hitters continue to mash the ball the way they did in June. Russ beat me to it -- I don't think the Cubs are going to regress at all offensively -- as Russ astutely points out the Brewers production in June is way more unsustainable than the Cubs. If anything -- I think it is more likely that the Cubs will have a month of .800+ OPS than they will to have one less than .776. As the season winds down, it is important to look at the other side of the "small sample" coin. While we all know that you can't use small samples to project historical-sized (large) groups of data, you cannot use historical (large) data to project what is going to happen in small samples. As we get closer and closer to the end of the year, expecting regressions in 1-2 months worth of data, based on historical data, just will not hold a lot of water. Lee, Soriano, Ramirez, etc. are great MLB talents offensively. I certainly would not bet against these types in a pennant race. Plus I see a lot of Pinella bashing on this site -- outside of his debacle in TB, he has been a very successful manager and has been in plenty of pennant races. I think Pinella could very well keep this Cubs team in the race until the end of the year.

Bash Gwynn's power all you want but if we need anything right now, it's somebody who does the little things. Gross has been pretty much horrible most of the time he plays and doesn't play good defense. Gwynn -- has been putrid in Nashville since his demotion. He has 0 extra base hits since he was demoted -- and only has one extra base hit in Nashville all year. Gwynn's OPS is barely over .600. Plus he has only 3 BBs and is 1-4 in SBs. I don't know what Gwynn has done to indicate that he can help us out significantly. I don't want to turn this into a Gwynn v. Gross post -- but Gross is not going anywhere. If Hall is in fact out for 6-8 weeks, I don't think there is any evidence to indicate that Gwynn is a solution in the long term at all. As much as it pains me, I think Nix may be our best in house solution. I guess I would rather see what Gross/Mench can do for a week, and get a better read on Hall's injury. Perhaps Gross will start to produce with regular ABs.