5-0 lifetime in the playoffs...and 3-0 against the Yanks...Originally Posted by Bob_R
but you can't argue with the regular season...
5-0 lifetime in the playoffs...and 3-0 against the Yanks...
but you can't argue with the regular season...
"Van Halen was one of the most hallelujah, tailgate, backyard, BBQ, arrive four hours early to the gig just for the parking lot bands. And still to this day is. It's an attitude. I think it's a spirit more than anything else is."
So we'll call him the best lefty...
Deal.So we'll call him the best lefty...
Talk Classic Rock - The Official Message Board For Classic Rock -- Now on XenForo!
Hopefully we will be calling Lee a Tiger!
Not sure who to root for in the WS. I think it is pretty funny the Giants make it back with no Bonds and the Rangers make it over Gay-rods latest team. With it being the Rangers first time in the WS I'll probably pull for them but unless it is the Tigers I really don't care much, I just watch as a fan of the game.
Jesus, Lincecum barely got out of the first inning alive.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”― Stephen Hawking
He may not get out of the second...
Honestly...if Lee wins out in the Series...7-0 in the playoffs?
...and never losing to the Yanks in the big dances?
He ups his money by $20 mil...if he hasn't already...He may give big CC a run for his money...
no pun intended...
This must be a mistake! From the box score...
"V Guerrero reached on infield single to first"
ROTH ARMY MILITIA
Originally posted by EAT MY ASSHOLE
Sharky sometimes needs things spelled out for him in explicit, specific detail. I used to think it was a lawyer thing, but over time it became more and more evident that he's merely someone's idiot twin.
VLAD HAS REGAINED HIS NEAR 40-40 FORM!!!!!
I wonder what ever happened to Pedro Guerrero?
I love that Cliff Lee had an extra base hit (double) too.
Do you guys know that Bengie Molina, Texas Rangers catcher who was acquired from the San Francisco Giants on July 1st, gets a ring no matter who wins the series.
I wonder if that's ever happened before?
I have to believe that it has...although maybe not.
It's not like there was any player movement prior to say...1975 or so....
Hmmm...and just like that...we have a fucking game...
Fuck Cliff Lee!
His Championship will have to wait until next year, when he's a YANKEE!
Yawn...
Go to bed Poji.
Why the fuck does the text in my posts show up at the top of the window if I just reply, but at the bottom of my window if it is a reply with a quote? That stupid fucking Jizzro really fucked this place up.I hope he's dead.
Ah VonPa...I'm still a young whippersnapper...I got hours left in the tank...
Found the answer to this.
Lonnie Smith is the only other player. Traded by St. Louis to Kansas City on May 17, 1985.
The way SF has handled Texas and the fact that SF has handed Halladay, Oswalt, and Lee their first career postseason losses, I can't see the Giants not winning the series.
I dunno...people keep yacking about Lee getting roughed up in the first game, but seem to overlook that Lincecum pretty much got shelled and committed some fairly dubious fielding errors. The Rangers pitching was horrible in the late innings last evening, but to me that comes down to managerial error in the placement of personnel on the mound more than human error or fatigue on the pitcher's behalf. And remember, this post season has seen the unprecedented anomaly of the road team doing better than the home team, so you'd think the Rangers would have done much better. Perhaps a return to home turf will even things up, yet at this point, it's sort of hard to imagine Texas winning 4 of the next 5 games, let alone 3 straight at home.
Fuck the rump Rangers. Texas has bitched up. It's over. Lee will be a champion next year, in a YANKEE uniform!
The 2010 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers continues to deliver solid, if unspectacular, TV ratings for Fox Sports.
Through 2 games, Fox's World Series coverage is averaging an 8.7 rating, down 26% from the first 2 games of the New York Yankees-Philadelphia Phillies last year, but up 1% from Phillies-Tampa Bay Rays in 2008, says Fox spokesman Dan Bell.
The Giants' 9-0 victory in Thursday's Game 2 to take a 2-0 Series lead averaged an 8.5 TV rating and 14.1 million viewers. That's down 27% from last year's Game 2. But up 5% from Game 2 of Phillies-Rays, the lowest-rated Fall Classic.
The San Francisco market again led all major U.S. TV markets for Game 2, pulling a 36.4 rating, while the telecast drew a 30.9 rating in Dallas. Fox starts its coverage of Saturday night's Game 3 at 6:30 PM, the earliest starting time for a World Series telecast since 1987.
MLB commissioner Bud Selig told Sirius XM Radio's Chris "Mad Dog" Russo Thursday that Giants-Rangers will draw "great ratings" if it can build to a competitive 5-game, 6-game, or ideally, 7-game series.
"I have to tell you, the Giants and the Rangers are a great story," Selig said.
But Fox's World Series TV numbers are not out of the woods yet. Sunday's Game 4 and, if necessary, Monday's Game 5, will have to compete for viewers with NBC's Sunday Night Football and ESPN's Monday Night Football.
The NFL has been crushing its TV competition all season. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell made clear this year his league would not step aside this Sunday night.
"We had obligations to NBC from a programming standpoint, and we felt it was best to continue on with that great franchise every night of the season and allow the consumer to be able to choose whether they want to watch Sunday Night Football or the World Series," Goodell said.
--Michael McCarthy
http://content.usatoday.com/communit...atings-down-/1
Sorry Rump Rangers. Cliff Lee should have been a Yankee THIS year! Ha ha! His ring will have to wait until next year, when he IS a Yankee!
Here's the best the Pirate fans get every year:
Congrats to Freddy Sanchez and Javier Lopez for winning the World Series....
Eat Us And Smile - The Originals
"I have a very belligerent enthusiasm or an enthusiastic belligerence. I’m an intellectual slut." - David Lee Roth
"We are part of the, not just the culture, but the geography. Van Halen music goes along with like fries with the burger." - David Lee Roth
Congrats to the S. F. Giants and major kudos to Edgar Renteria ! Renteria's a wonderful baseball player and a bit of a good luck charm
as he has been involved with at least 3 ( ! ) recent World Series teams . I can attest to this because he was all too briefly a most wonderful
Cardinal . Thanx to the Giants for bringing it back to the N.L. !
Congrats to the SF Giants for winning the World Series.
4 more days until Cliff Lee becomes a free agent.
World Series Ratings Top Monday Night Football, Not 'Dancing With the Stars'
There's good news and not-so-good news for FOX out of the ratings for Game 5 of the World Series.
On one hand, the fifth and deciding game of the Fall Classic grabbed a 10.6 rating and 16 share of the Nielsen audience and beat out "Monday Night Football," which got an 8.6 rating on ESPN. It was a decidedly different outcome than from Sunday, when Game 4 lagged behind "Sunday Night Football" on NBC.
However, the World Series failed to beat ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," television's No.1 rated show this season. "Dancing With the Stars" pulled in a 10.8/17, beating the San Francisco-Texas game by two percent.
It's thought that ratings for the 2010 World Series will beat out those of the 2008 Series between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay, which is the lowest rated Fall Classic in television history.
http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2010/11/02/w...t-dancing-wit/
Great news Yankees fans. Here's an excerpt from an article in one of today's local newspapers:
One person familiar with the Yankees' impending strategy with Lee said, "They're going to make it a no-brainer for Cliff and his family, so saying no would be crazy."
Thanks Bob! Great news!
This should've surprised no one. Roy Hallady won the NL Cy Young award.
King Felix won the AL Cy Young. I'm sure Sharks happy about that.
What a shocker....
It's a joke that the media is even saying other teams are involved...
There are NO other teams involved...
Kinda like the discussion about the Yanks not signing Jeter...
All hail King Felix!King Felix won the AL Cy Young. I'm sure Sharks happy about that.
We Mariners fans don't often get something to cheer about, so this is pretty special. It's also nice to see the BWAA recognize that "Wins" aren't truly relevant to pitcher performance. This year, the Mariners offense was HISTORICALLY awful, and yet Felix still won the Cy Young. That's progress.
Pojo you'd be interested to know (I think) that they are a few rumors flying around here on sportsradio today.
Rumor #1 The Yanks have offered Jeter a $63 million three year deal.
The consensus: Jeter should sign this deal immediately. No one else is going to give him $21 million a year and the deal would technically give him a raise.
Rumor #2 Jeter wants a 5 year deal for ARod money.
The consensus: No way. The Yankees will draw a line in the sand and if that's what he wants they will let him walk.
ARod was younger and was coming off a MVP season. Jeter is coming off his worse season.
Now remember this is what I heard on the sportsradio program that I enjoy listening to. As of an hour ago the info I just gave you is nowhere to be found on the Internet.
Now my own opinion. Though sometimes the apple doesn't fall from the tree, remember Hal Steinbrenner told ARod to talk a walk when he opted out a few years back. The Yankees will not give Jeter anything he wants. This may be alitttle more complicated than most think.
No opposition to expanded playoff plan
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Commissioner Bud Selig's plan to expand baseball's playoffs to 10 teams gained a sense of inevitability after little to no opposition emerged during meetings this week with owners and general managers.
Selig said his special 14-man committee will discuss adding two wild-card teams when it meets Dec. 7 during the winter meetings in nearby Lake Buena Vista.
"We will move ahead, and move ahead pretty quickly," Selig said Thursday after three days of meetings concluded.
A change would have to be approved by owners, who next meet Jan. 12-13 in Paradise Valley, Ariz., and by the players' association, which has said it is open to the extra round. The additional games would also have to be sold to baseball's national television partners and slotted into a crowded schedule that has already pushed the World Series into November in the past two years.
Because baseball's labor contract runs to December 2011, the extra round of playoffs is not likely to start until 2012.
"I'm not going to rule out anything," Selig said. "We'll just proceed and whatever we decide, then we'll just see how fast we can get it done. Once we pass something, I'm always anxious to get it done."
Selig's committee includes managers Tony La Russa, Jim Leyland and Mike Scioscia and former manager Joe Torre.
There would be two wild-card teams in each league, and the wild-card teams would meet to determine which advances to division series with the three first-place teams in each league.
"I think it's definitely worth looking at. I have no problem with that," New York Yankees co-owner Hank Steinbrenner said.
Some would have the new round be best-of-three, and others would have it as a one-game winner-take-all game. The mechanics appear to be at issue more than the concept.
"I pretty much know where all the constituencies are now," Selig said. "Eight is very fair number but so is 10."
Before leaving the meeting, Texas Rangers president Nolan Ryan agreed with the premise that the extra round of playoffs was more a matter of how than if.
"I think that's right," he said.
Baseball doubled its postseason teams to four in 1969 and again to eight in 1995, a year later than intended because of a players' strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series. The vote to add wild cards first took place in September 1993.
"I got ripped and torn apart, and it was pretty bad," Selig said. "If I had defiled motherhood I don't think I could have gotten ripped any more than I did. But now it's fascinating to me. Now they not only like it so much, they want more of it."
The regular-season schedule will almost certainly not be reduced from 162 games.
"There's not much interest in that," he said.
Selig's committee will also discuss whether to expand video review of umpires' calls, which began in August 2008. Its use has been limited to whether potential home runs went over fences and were fair or foul. Selig has said he's against an expansion but willing to consider it.
"There are opinions everywhere on that," he said. "Managers have opinions. General managers have opinions. Owners have opinions. I want to hear them all and look at them."
A consensus also appeared to have developed to propose a slotting system for amateur draft picks and possibly a worldwide draft when collective bargaining begins next year.
While there is a sense that the NFL, NBA and NHL could be headed for labor strife, baseball players and owners anticipate stoppage-free bargaining. Baseball hasn't had a strike or lockout since the 7½-month walkout in 1994-95, and Selig termed current dealings with the union "a constructive relationship."
"Nobody ever could have dreamed we'd have 16 years of labor peace," Selig said. "In American labor history as I someday will say if I ever get around to writing my book, it probably was as a bad a relationship as ever existed."
Selig also said that baseball's revenue will total nearly $7 billion this year, a record. He also said he was declining comment on Anheuser-Busch's lawsuit against the sport, which accuses MLB of improperly trying to back out of an April agreement to extend the company's exclusive sponsorship deal.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5821797
I don't like the idea of having 10 teams in the playoffs. After 162 games during the regular season why add another round of playoffs? Doesn't make sense to me but we all know it's all about money.
Will Arizona trade Justin Upton? Plus some other MLB thoughts from the Keith Law Blog
The Diamondbacks turned the hot stove upside down this week with word that they'd consider trading Justin Upton for the right deal, and I have since spoken with several senior executives from other clubs who indicated that the price is probably high but he is indeed available.
Upton will start 2011 as a 23-year-old and is signed to a deal that owes him $49.5 million for the next five years, with a limited no-trade clause that includes four teams. He was a deserving All-Star in 2009, before tiring badly in September, but lost some power in 2010 and seemed to catch the swing-and-miss malaise that infected the entire Arizona roster (although he improved his walk rate over 2009). He's an above-average defender in right field with a strong arm, and I think it's possible he could return to center field if he's traded, since he was moved to right to accommodate Chris Young and not through any failing of his own.
So why would Arizona GM Kevin Towers want to deal a franchise player who's locked up to a reasonable deal? Let's consider some factors:
1. He doubts Upton's on-field potential. This seems unlikely, as Towers is a former scout who values tools and Upton is a hardware store who was a No. 1 overall pick. He also posted a .388 on-base average in his age-21 season (2009). In the last 50 years, the only other players who've posted a .350/.500 OBP/SLG line at 21 or younger, as Upton did that year, are Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera, Ken Griffey Jr. and Cesar Cedeno. Rodriguez even followed up that year with a more severe dropoff than Upton saw in 2010. There are no guarantees, even with players of Upton's talent, but you don't walk away from that kind of skill set and performance cavalierly.
2. He doubts Upton's makeup. Most of the bad makeup reports about the younger Upton appear to stem from his brother's reputation, although I know there were some concerns about Justin's responsiveness to coaching in the spring of 2009, when he showed up with an altered swing that he didn't correct until a week into the season. He's not Milton Bradley, though, and if he's Gary Sheffield, well, that one worked out OK.
3. He questions Upton's ability to stay healthy. Upton has had problems with his left shoulder in each of the last two years, nothing major but perhaps enough to convince Towers and his staff that there's an underlying issue. I imagine any potential trade partner would want to do extra due diligence on Upton for that reason.
4. He wants to win in 2011 and can't do it without trading Upton. In other words, Towers, who is on a two-year contract, figures he can trade the long-term potential of Upton for players with shorter-time horizons (fewer years to free agency for more guaranteed immediate performance). Given how available Upton appears to be, this seems like it must be at least part of the motivation, as there is no good long-term rationale (that we know of as outsiders) for trading Upton when he has yet to reach his peak and is signed to a reasonable deal that will be cheap if he hits his ceiling.
I imagine it's a lot of No. 4, given Towers' short window and public statements about making the team competitive in 2011, and some of Nos. 1 or 3, too. But even if he is skeptical about Upton, other GMs won't be. Players of Upton's talent rarely come on the market before free agency, at which point many clubs are priced out, and a trade now represents a rare opportunity for a team to acquire a potential star early in his ascent.
Based on those conversations with rival executives, I think Towers will ask for at least two players with major league experience, who can help the Diamondbacks in 2011, plus two others from the other team's farm system. It's a high price, but if you believe, as I do, that Upton will be one of the best players in the game by the time he's 26 or 27, it's justified.
Around the league
• MLB appears headed for a further devaluation of the regular season and its own history by expanding the playoffs to include two more teams, which will be as blatant a money-grab as you'll see short of franchise expansion. I look forward to the Tigers and Rangers hosting American League Division Series games on Thanksgiving in a few years.
• The Astros picked up Clint Barmes, who can play some defense but is an atrocious hitter, in exchange for erratic but hard-throwing Felipe Paulino. I could see Paulino having some success in a relief role, although that lefties torch him -- he's faced 399 left-handed batters in his major league career and 161 (over 40 percent) have reached base -- limits his value ... but I'd take him over Barmes eight days a week.
• I've seen this mentioned on Twitter, on Fangraphs and in the next item, but it bears repeating: Felix Hernandez' victory in the Cy Young voting isn't a victory for new statistics but for a better philosophy. Hernandez led the AL in such decidedly pedestrian statistics as ERA and innings pitched and was second in strikeouts, traditionally a recipe not just for votes but for a lot of wins, if you're not relying on the 1899 Cleveland Spiders' offense for support. King Felix' coronation is more a recognition that the old way of identifying pitcher quality through won-lost records first and maybe ERA second is dumb and that we need to think about what a pitcher can control and what he can't. There's no single stat that put Hernandez over the top, nor is there a single stat that beats all others for accurately measuring pitcher performance. But voters thought about this year's AL Cy candidates differently than they did five years ago, and that is good news for serious fans of the game.
• Joe Posnanski chimes in that the win isn't really dead. I picture the win slung over ERA's shoulder, groaning, "I'm not dead." I'd be glad to give ERA a little help.
• By the way, one last thought on yesterday's AL Cy Young announcement: Did you know that "oldfangled" is a word? I had no idea until I wrote this article, but I'm definitely going to start referring to useless accounting statistics like pitcher wins, saves and RBI as "oldfangled."
• The Asian Games are going on right now, with South Korea facing Taiwan in the baseball final on Friday. If the Koreans win, Shin-Soo Choo, the lone major league player on the team, will earn an exemption from military service that might otherwise have interrupted his major league career. (Ed's Note: South Korea has won.)
• Michael Schmidt of the New York Times reported on a disturbing (to me, at least) trend of investors in "Latin American baseball futures" -- in effect, funding trainers and academies in the Dominican Republic who identify players and take as much as half of their signing bonuses if and when they turn pro. It's disturbing because it's totally unregulated and has significant potential to defraud investors and to transfer money to those wealthy investors that would normally have gone to the players' families.
• The Yankees signed the latest Dominican mystery man, Jose Rafael DePaula, according to SI's Melissa Segura.He's touched 96 mph in the past and has an upper-70s curveball with good arm speed on his changeup, according to scouts who've seen him. He failed an age investigation, eventually admitting he's 19 and had used a false name previously, but other than that he's a wonderful guy.
• Great stuff on a great blog, as Beyond the Box Score looks at pitchers getting wide zones from umpires.
• Sabernomics blogger -- and econ professor -- J.C. Bradbury argues for Albert Pujols as baseball's first $40 million man. I don't see it, myself. Pujols will play at 31 years old in 2011 and will likely decline at least somewhat over the course of a six- or seven-year contract, and getting him to $40 million of value would require aggressive salary inflation. The Cardinals are not the Yankees, and their front office is too business-savvy to take on that kind of expensive risk.
• In other sports-related news: I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the series of articles I wrote this week for mental_floss on board games, including yesterday's piece on the history of the growing cult favorite Settlers of Catan, which remains among our favorites even as our collection of "German-style" board games has grown.
Brilliant. So instead of the post-season merely extending into November, now it will stretch beyond Thanksgiving. When are professional sports organizations going to realize that less is indeed more? Expanding play dates accomplishes two things: A.) It puts more money in the owner's pockets and B.) It dilutes the talent pool.
Wanna give the fans more quality? Then don't add more games, reduce the fuckin' ticket prices for the ones already in existence. Yeah, like that is gonna happen.
Drayton McLane ready to sell Astros
Houston Astros owner Drayton McLane is putting his franchise up for sale.
The 74-year-old McLane said he's retained the New York investment firm Allen and Company to help him unload the team he purchased in November 1992 for about $117 million.
KRIV-TV first reported McLane's agreement with the investment firm. Steve Greenberg, son of Hall of Fame slugger Hank Greenberg, is the firm's managing director.
McLane met with team employees on Friday before making a formal announcement at a news conference at Minute Maid Park. His wife, Elizabeth, and two adult sons, Drayton III and Denton, sat in the front row.
"It's time to change and move forward," McLane said. "It's been a wonderful experience and a great ride."
Greenberg said McLane has not settled on an asking price, nor does he have a specific buyer in mind. But Greenberg said he's already fielded inquiries.
"The Astros are a great sports franchise in a great city," Greenberg said. "It's a lot of work, it takes time, but I think we'll have a good result."
In August, an investment group led by former Astros pitcher Nolan Ryan purchased the Texas Rangers through an unusual bankruptcy auction for $593 million -- about $100 million more than its starting bid. Ryan's group beat out a group of investors led by Houston businessman Jim Crane and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.
"No interest in buying the Astros," Cuban said in an e-mail to ESPNDallas.com.
Greenberg said the Rangers sale will have little bearing on the price tag for the Astros.
"The market will really determine what it is," Greenberg said. "Baseball is in great shape, and the Astros are a great franchise. So, we'll let the market determine the price. We're not going to set any price. We'll let people come to us and tell us what they think."
While McLane and Greenberg answered questions, work crews installed a new scoreboard at Minute Maid Park, the Astros' home since the 2000 season. McLane is pouring $12 million into stadium renovations, one enticement for a potential buyer.
Another big selling point is the team's new deal with the NBA's Houston Rockets to create a regional sports network that will begin airing Rockets games in 2012 and Astros games in the 2013 season.
Greenberg said the establishment of the regional TV network boosts the Astros' value immensely.
"The television deal puts it in the class with the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and a handful of others who have their own cable television outlet," Greenberg said. "It enhances the overall asset. It creates growth and stability on the television side, that otherwise would be dependent on some third-party to deliver for you."
McLane, who made his fortune running the family's wholesale grocery business, has been considering selling the team for at least two years.
He turned down an offer from Crane in October 2008 and was approached by an investment group a year later. McLane gave the group an exclusive 30-day negotiating window to make him an offer, but no deal ever materialized.
McLane said his decision to finally fully commit to selling the team was based mostly on family considerations.
"We're just firing the pistol today," he said. "We had gone along for 18 years, and how our family needs to look at it, we just need to do stronger strategic financial planning for the future."
McLane emphasized Friday that he's in no rush to sell the team. He said the process could take "three months or three or four years." Greenberg said the normal timeline for such a deal runs about six to 12 months.
McLane is a fixture at Astros home games, sitting in the front row behind home plate. The franchise, which will play its 50th season in 2011, has reached unprecedented success with McLane as the owner, making the playoffs six times in the last 14 years.
The Astros won the NL Central in 1997, '98, '99 and 2001 and earned wild-card berths in 2004 and '05. But Houston has finished with a losing record in three of the past four seasons, and attendance has dwindled as the team has moved forward after the departure of its most recognizable stars.
Team icons Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio were both gone by the 2008 season, and Houston traded pitching ace Roy Oswalt and five-time All-Star Lance Berkman in 2010.
Houston ranked 16th in home attendance in 2010, averaging 28,783 fans. The Astros drew an average home crowd of 37,318 in 2006.
McLane painted a positive outlook for the future, though, starting with the team's young nucleus of talent. He also mentioned the team's charitable contributions to the Houston community and the franchise's expanded presence in the Dominican Republic.
McLane said the sale won't affect the team's operations, particularly on the major league side.
"It's going to be business as usual," McLane said. "This has certainly been in the back of my mind and Elizabeth's mind. So we're continuing to run the team. It will be full-speed ahead."
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5826885
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