mstar1

I dont know if they are viable arguments when choosing some one who is most valuable to his team... there are those that are biased againt a DH, or a pitcher (Like Pedro in 00- who was entirely left off of one ballot and came in second) and wont cast their votes for them, but the numbers and contributions still hold up. Last year some sabermetricians ( maybe I can dig it up )took all the offensive statistics of Ortiz and also figured in statistically as if he had been the worst fielding 1B in the league ( he is actually a pretty good fielder) and did the same for the other MVP candidates to figure out numerically actual measurable value in win shares to their team. Pluses and minuses.. Ortiz still came out on top, even if he had been the leagues worst fielder. I realize that awards voting isnt an objective exercise but its too bad that his value is underplayed because his 'position' still isn't respected and is being adjusted to by fans and writers after 30+ years. Unfortunately like it or hate it, it IS part of the game(at least for now) DH does change the game, but the argument whether or not the DH should be or not be belongs somewhere else, not imo in the MVP voting nor should it cast a cloud over players performances. but it will... no matter-he is still the greatest clutch hitter I have ever seen---

I think that was about the peak time for The Way numbers wise. 1982 was a big push for the 4oth Anniversary year and there were huge regional get togethers as well as a big push to get "4000 for the 40th" (WOWS) that year They actually fell short but there were well over 3000 that year, In the summer of 82 there was a class at TWI headquarters called Living Victoriously which was promoted and hyped as a huge deal that had (i dunno) about 7000 students. The 13th Corps went in residence shortly after this. Wierwille retired and 'installed' Martindale as president in October of that year( another huge hype job ceremony) The beginnings of the 13th corps were imo about the time when TWI was at its peak hype. I was in during that period , but not in the corps....are you looking for anything in particular?

Liriano looks amazing.... Weve been having some great gamesagainst the White Sox--they are a very strong team all the way around, its been good to see two very very good teams competing--(of course it helps that my guys are on the upside..) You have no idea--you should see him everyday----He has 8 HR's in the last 9 games, 23 go ahead RBI's this year -He redefines what it is to 'be in the zone"... There is an aura-a special something about him that doesnt come along but once in a very great while-Ive seen alot of great ballplayers -He is the greatest clutch hitter I have ever seen.... Id like to know what the career record is for walkoff hits because in just three years I bet if he doesnt own it he is getting mighty close

I was surrounded sometime in the early 90's with people who said that I absolutely must take it. Looking back It was always a little strange, they had their own lingo --sort of like PFAL grads do--- and a bunch of other strange quirks that were very odd. I paid for the training( more out of a skewed sense of obligation than real desire) then received a very long disclaimer for me to sign, that stated that they were not responsible for a whole slew of things, they were uninsured and you had to promise not to sue them if you ended up a basketcase in the psych ward. Just the fact that they even had a disclaimer made me sqeamish, When I actually read it I decided --that it was no thanks for me, and of course like any good scam they never gave me my money back but told me (promised me actually)that whenever I decide to take it i can. So its paid for if anyone wants to take it, call Bo and Stanley, who still have my money, and tell them I gave it to you

they seem to find a 'new more convincing Noahs Ark' about every ten or fifteen years , they make the front page for a few days then you never hear about them again--- they even made a movie about the last one they found in Turkey---. Its been going on for a long time...centuries....

that doesnt sound all bad , home of Maury Wills and Sandy Koufax--you could be here in he middle of podunk.with me... Actauly I got to spend yesterday watching the Babe Ruth 14 yo's (who were pretty good) in a regional tournament game......an exciting 9-8 come from behind..... but it seems to be apparent that ,,you cant take the boy away from the Yankees, but you cant take the yankees away from he boy... i relearned a similar lesson in my forties that I had forgotten and was glad to recapture-that some things are in your blood --like DNA, -----that for better or for worse are part of your identity because (once upon a time...) they reached so far into you that they will never let go FWIW MLB TEAM PAYROLL (US$) 1. NY Yankees 198,662,180 2. Boston 120,100,524 3. LA Angels 103,625,333 4. Chicago Sox 102,875,667 5. NY Mets 100,901,085 6. LA Dodgers 99,176,950 7. Chicago Cubs 94,841,166 8. Atlanta 92,461,852 9. Houston 92,101,503 10. San Francisco 90,862,064 11. Seattle 87,924,500 12. Philadelphia 87,148,333 13. St. Louis 86,912,217 14. Detroit 82,302,069 15. Baltimore 72,585,712 16. Toronto 71,915,000 17. San Diego 68,897,179 18. Texas 65,129,570 19. Minnesota 63,810,048 20. Washington 63,267,500 21. Oakland 62,322,054 22. Cincinnati 59,162,015 23. Arizona 58,884,226 24. Cleveland 56,795,867 25. Milwaukee 50,540,000 26. Kansas City 47,294,000 27. Pittsburgh 46,867,750 28. Colorado 40,791,000 29. Tampa Bay 35,417,967 30. Florida 14,344,500 120M is alot, but standing next to 198m, (78 Mil differenbce ) it doesnt look as large. its a necessity at this point to compete, that I think the owner, John Henry, ( even though he has more money than God, but not quite as much as Geo.Steinb.) is genuinely trying to bring the salaries down and be not only fiscally reponsible but work for good baseball all around the league horn. another FWIW==even though Boston is lopped in with LA, NY, Chicago, Atlanta, and Houston in those first few teams in payroll, Boston as a city is about the size of Seattle or Milwaukee who are apparently considered as being more to the 'small market' side of thing. It wasnt this way about four or five years ago...ive never ever been one to tout owners but this group that is in now, knows what they are doing and plays the other side of the game, outside the lines, well. Gees............ I could go for a dodger dog (or whatever they are called)

As I would be, there are different ways aroung baseball than the Steinbrenner way-- After being about 16-1 against the NL, the Sox are 0-3 against the AL D-Rays---They are underated because they are in a tough division--Kazmir is tough--( 2hit shutout)-- and that stupid dome where they play things off of the catwalks is ridiculous, Anyway Im going back on the road for a few days...

Ididnt mean that to be a JD bashing moment ---It was more like applauding good business sense... Baseball business decisions arent always good, but once in a while they can be fairly brilliant For what JD is making, the Red Sox have Beckett, a front line starter who is 10-4, Loretta (All Star At Second), Alex Gonzalez (defensive leader at short) Youkilis with the high OBP and Papelbon (26 saves), that seems like a fair usage of the funds from abusiness standpoint of course they have a few dead weight baggage guys that are chewing up payroll too, (Matt Clement and David Wells mostly) so its not all peaches and cream, but once in awhile a stat jumps out that makes your guys look good

Yea happy birthday George! While we are at it I just ran across some interesting stats-- ---------- OBP SLG OPS RUNS Player A .418 .497 .914 56 Player B .370 .468 .838 60 Salary : Player A $354,600 Player B $13 Million Who's the bargain at leadoff? Player A Kevin Youkilis-Red Sox Player B Johnny Damon-Yankees

ummm.. thats probably not the best course of action Seth. I dont know --- I could go either way on this one, on the one hand you have people who presumably been in some sort of traumatic situation in order for them to have landed there in the first place, so there is bound to be some backlash from time to time from all the BS that they have been through that my manifest itself in weird ways. To a certain extent whenever you live with people you have to overlook their eccentricities. If you all want to continue to recover (or whatever you are doing) together. On the other hand the rules sound fairly simple, nothing too complex. The rules are simple and it sounds like they could give all you guys room to grow if they were adhered to. My experience from working in the local homeless shelter tells me that when the residents of the house all get along and play by the rules that they indiviudually all do alot better but one bad apple can seriously set back the whole bunch. I have no idea what kind of rental agreement that you all have together (long term, weekly, monthly, something else?) but in my mind there are millions of other places for someone to live if they dont want to do the simplest rules... I usually give em a few breaks then if it affects people too strongly negatively and /or looks chronic I vote to let them go

I still think your idea of a dome last year was a good one, no matter how many ducks are in a row, they have a tendency to melt in August when it is about 130 on the field everyday down there. Dont they? I know that I sure would I know when and if the Sox have to do a July or August series down in your place it usually takes them a week to get back on track. But good luck--maybe they'll be some global cooling for Texas this year.....

Im a little more familiar with the Episcopalians than the Presby's, but from my limited vantage point, since they have decided to become 'trendy', (ordaining gay bishops etc.) they (the Episcopalians) in some spots are fracturing as fast as Humpty Dumpty. What they may be gaining in any new membership they are more than losing, in not only long term members leaving , but in some instances entire churches leaving the denomination.

Varitek's not having his greatest year and Boston fans although they are homers know it, and even though I love 'tek I voted for Joe Mauer. If anything Im more miffed that Schilling or Beckett didnt make the squad, especially Schilling with the year he is having yet Mark Redmond of KC with an ERA near 6 is going... :blink: FWIW Dye, Glaus, Howard, Lee, Ortiz, and Wright. 2 more to be named later are in the HR derby. I hope that nobody pulls an Abreu who after last years exhibition has hit a total of 14 since -i dont think its a good thing to mess with their swings like that

Starters were by fan vote----I think the managers got to choose the pitching staff and the subs but Im not exactly positive on that--they had to do the at least one guy from each team thing...somehow the players also voted Fans still get to fill the last roster spot on each team HERE I voted for Nomar and Travis Hafner even though its an impossible dhoice not to includeFrancisco Liriano who is 9-1 with an ERA under 2.00

Hey Tom ---Speaking of GMJ-here are the AllStar rosters just out , Im sorta ticked Nomar wont be there--thats the first obvious travesty, Mike Lowell is having a helluva year as well---- American League Starters All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games 1B David Ortiz, BOS L/L 30 3 2B Mark Loretta, BOS R/R 34 2 3B Alex Rodriguez, NYY R/R 30 9 SS Derek Jeter, NYY R/R 32 7 C Ivan Rodriguez, DET L/R 23 1 OF Vladimir Guerrero, LAA R/R 30 7 OF Manny Ramirez, BOS R/R 34 8 OF Ichiro Suzuki, SEA L/R 32 6 American League Pitchers All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games SP Mark Buerhle, CWS L/L 27 3 SP Jose Contreras, CWS R/R 34 1 SP Roy Halladay, TOR R/R 29 2 SP Scott Kazmir, TB L/L 22 1 SP Mark Redman, KC L/L 32 1 SP Kenny Rogers, DET L/L 41 3 SP Johan Santana, MIN L/L 27 2 SP Barry Zito, OAK L/L 28 2 All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games RP Bobby Jenks, CWS R/R 25 1 RP Jon Papelbon, BOS R/R 25 1 RP Mariano Rivera, NYY R/R 36 6 RP B.J. Ryan, TOR L/L 30 2 American League Reserves All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games 1B Paul Konerko, CWS R/R 30 3 1B Jim Thome, CWS L/R 35 5 2B Robinson Cano, NYY º L/R 23 1 2B Jose Lopez, SEA ª R/R 22 1 3B Troy Glaus, TOR R/R 29 4 SS Miguel Tejada, BAL R/R 30 4 SS Michael Young, TEX R/R 29 3 C Joe Mauer, MIN L/R 23 1 OF Jermaine Dye, CWS R/R 32 2 OF Alex Rios, TOR º R/R 25 1 OF Gary Matthews, Jr., TEX ª S/R 31 1 OF Grady Sizemore, CLE L/L 23 1 OF Vernon Wells, TOR R/R 27 2 National League Starters All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games 1B Albert Pujols, STL R/R 26 5 2B Chase Utley, PHI L/R 27 1 3B David Wright, NYM R/R 23 1 SS Jose Reyes, NYM S/R 23 1 C Paul Lo Duca, NYM R/R 34 4 OF Jason Bay, PIT R/R 27 1 OF Carlos Beltran, NYM S/R 29 3 OF Alfonso Soriano, WSH R/R 30 5 National League Pitchers All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games SP Carlos Zambrano, CHC S/R 25 2 SP Bronson Arroyo, CIN R/R 29 1 SP Brad Penny, LAD R/R 28 1 SP Tom Glavine, NYM L/L 40 7 SP Pedro Martinez, NYM R/R 34 4 SP Chris Carpenter, STL R/R 31 2 SP Jason Schmidt, SF R/R 33 2 All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games RP Brian Fuentes, COL L/L 30 1 RP Derrick Turnbow, MIL R/R 28 1 RP Tom Gordon, PHI R/R 38 3 RP Trevor Hoffman, SD R/R 38 5 National League Reserves All-Star Pos Player B/T Age Games 1B Lance Berkman, HOU S/L 30 4 1B Ryan Howard, PHI L/L 26 1 2B Dan Uggla, FLA R/R 26 1 3B Miguel Cabrera, FLA R/R 23 3 3B Freddy Sanchez, PIT R/R 28 1 3B Scott Rolen, STL R/R 31 4 SS Edgar Renteria, ATL R/R 30 5 C Brian McCann, ATL L/R 22 1 OF Andruw Jones, ATL R/R 29 5 OF Matt Holliday, COL R/R 26 1 OF Carlos Lee, MIL R/R 29 2

You are probably right --Im thinking that owners think offense will put asses in the seats at least. It may be part of the "SportsCentering' of the game---where the exaltation of homeruns and spectacular plays seems to outweigh in importance whether or not teams actually play the entire game well ....or win or lose.

Yea we are. another beauty of a game today. Gabe's looking great.... Tie game 3-3 in 8th Infield hit by Alex Cora (4th Infielder), beautiful hit and run by Gabe Kapler (5th Outfielder), Sac Fly. Lights out relief (25th save for the kid Papelbon) Ballgame. It takes everyone. not without its mistakes---but I love watching a well played game

Im cussin like a sailor a lot of the time myself so that doesnt bother me-- I find it much more offensive that pedophileboy was wasoffended by cussing but didnt mind having his way with children......Now that is &^%&^sick Dishonesty, and double standard behaviour is vulgar and rude to me no matter how sweetly spoken someone may be. Its strange--- most of the heavy cussin people I know I would pretty much trust my life to in a pinch if I had to--for the most part they are very trustable---, the sweet talkers, I am much more wary of

Some of them bother me and some dont--jardinero's dont because i am pretty used to them, and they are not that obtuse of a change.-they are readable and consistant Some of them do want to make me skip the whole thread--and have There was a poster last winter (jkBoehme I think) , I couldn't read a one of his posts without getting a headache-so even though he was making some interesting points I skipped most all of them

I can be not too fond of humans myself at times Cowgirl--- Cool pic bow -- that could be an almost twin cousin of the ones I saw today I dunno I read up on them a few years ago,There has only been two maulings in my area in the last 120 years and both of those could be credited to human stupidity ( a tourist tried to pick up a cub about 50 years ago-and someone tried to pet one), so apparently they arent all that dangerous unless they are riled up about something. apparently anyway. I see them once in awhile but Im usually driving, they are at a distance, or there is something between us,--this was the first time in about 30 years that I had a close encounter The reports werent what I was thinking about at the time, but in statistically it is probably safer than walking in some inner city neighborhoods that I have been to

I live in alittle tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and have run across three people just recently that I have known for several years that have recently told me for one reason or another (I didnt prompt it) that they were involved with TWI way back when....( mostly in the early 70's...) I dont know if they all know each other or not, but the common theme with all of them is how screwed up of a group it was..

..todays the day the teddy bears have their picnic... ---i was just out walking near my house and came across a pretty good size mama black bear and her cubs -- Turned the corner and they were right there just sort of ambling through----They didnt bother me (or I them (duh)) but my hearts pumpin a little faster than normal and I cant get that kids song out of my head. Sorta cool but i definitely wasnt expecting it, wish i had had my camera with me....beautiful animals although a little unsettling if your not expecting them.... Have y'all had any unexpected enocounters lately?

Im sort of partial to Wang Dang Doodle Is Plotinus still around? I'd like to hear his take.

I guess you like him huh hiway? I was looking for a picture of Wayne and Garth in their 'we're not worthy pose' but I couldnt find one He is a great player, Its exasperating at times to see how many great plays he has made over the years against the Sox to snuff out rallies and/or win games, that a normal player wouldnt but still it doesnt stop me from appreciating the remarkable player he is, his amazing skills and what he brings to the game. I may curse him out of frustration at times, but it doesnt stop me from knowing that he is one of the special players that we are only once in a while privileged to watch. He is agreat one no doubt- What I was attempting to get at and understand , is that i dont know why organizations stand for dumb baseball at all, It seems like something that should be taken care of and taught at lower levels, or at the the very least in spring training- but seems to be more and more prevalent, I gave the Soriano example, but two days later I saw Carlos Beltran do basically the same thing when he airmailed the cutoff man in acrucial situation that aided in a 3 run inning. Mistakes happen, but sloppy play that doesnt show up on scorecards anywhere and effects outcomes, seems to be all over the place. Im not sure why, other than players may have become too specialized....dunno, but I think at times that I would rather have aguy who hit 18HRs and had 75 RBI in the field if he knew what he was doing out there, than a 35/100 guy who made the highlight reels every night, but cost you 6 or 8 games a year with bonehead plays. that guy can fly like spiderman if that catch is any indication-- he got way the hell up there, looked like he was walking up the outfield wall, Coco made a spectacular one the other night as well, going hard to his right at full speed, full extension crossbody dive to take away a sure gapper in a 3-2 game in the 8th-spectacular thing of beauty-more than a few folks in these parts are putting it up on the all time list. Coco's catch you might have to right click and 'save target as'

I thought a little "fine art" might be in order in these parts. Go to http://jacksonpollock.org/ and drag and click your cursor across the blank canvas --You'll get the hang of it quickly Enjoy