simonzelotes

Today I am reminded of the first major way ministry function I missed since I became actively involved....It was called Sound Out'84,...from Jan. 3-5...I don't remember where it was,but it was held somewhere in the midwest,a few hours from where I lived....My young'n was due to be born in mid-January,but I didn't want to take any chances of not being there for the blessed event(the birth,not the ministry event,you ninnies)....Today,my darling daughter turns 21,and I still remember cutting the embilical chord....(They had to tie it first so she didn't go thpthpthpthpthpthpin' around the room like a popped balloon)...

Hey,stRanger's back...Now we have enough for manifestations.... Luis nailed it,and I coudn't have said it better even if I spoke broken English...Whatever happened to the Mike Marshall's,who appeared in 106 games as a reliever?...The Spahn's,The Jenkins',The Lolich's?...Guys who gave you 300 innings a year as if it were mandatory to collect a paycheck...He's right....Management is to blame for the wimpiness of the pitchers...What major league manager wants to wear the monkey on his back of overworking a $15,000,000 a year pitcher?....Get him out of there after 100 pitches so we protect our investment....Something about not finishing what you start,or cleaning up the mess you made,plays into a pitcher's psyche,I think....I mean,even if the guy's cruising along,pitching a three hit shutout,they yank him in the 7th or 8th because he's 'done his job'...What the hell is up with that?...All the teams do it,and I think it sucks.... Which is why,stRangeOne,I would still build a team (tho,I remember saying I don't like being a winter-time GM)around a good,solid-hitting and solid defensive line-up...A good management staff can get quite a bit of mileage out of so-so pitching,which to me,is a position on the team in which success lays more between the ears than any of the other eight positions....

Good to 'see' you again,StrangeOne....

Yeah,I'm sober as a judge....It'll take me until March to start writing 2004 on my checks...See,I just did it again,...I mean 2005....

Yeah,here I just kinda type by the spirit,not so concerned how it comes out...On the political,I have to check my posts line by line and word by word,because,after all,I wouldn't want to use an improper English word...And somebody will find something to pick apart....But at least the umps there let them settle their scores on the field....w/o too many warnings...

'roids

Steve,you're right about average Joe taxpayer,but from the city's point of view,they'll end up taking in more than they dish out....But it's also why the taxparers should vote on it,and not the county supervisors....Lots of city (or county) decisions don't always benefit each individual taxpayer...For instance,shortly after I bought my house,the city decided to designate my street a bike path,which only benefitted me by taking away three parking spaces on twig night(All right,I was an innie at the time)...But the overall benefit to the city in having bikepaths outweighed the inconvenience imposed on the folks who didn't want them in front of their house... There will probably be lots of people who simply live in the D.C. area where the proposed stadium will be,and the last thing they want going up in their neighborhood is a baseball stadium,but like they say,you can't fight city hall....

That's more like it....593...and I'm a natural righty....

Good poem,the dead horse is beaten,I think we're on the same page on headhunting...I wish I could say the same for your politics :D-->...Merry New Year...

Mstar,what did we do,bore all the other baseball people away?

That's a good enough question,Steve... Here in Phoenix our stadium is nicknamed "BOB",for Bank One Ballpark....Many locals like to refer to it as "TOM",as in Taxpayer's Of Maricopa county...who really paid for it...When the stadium referendum was brought to vote before the Maricopa County taxpayers,the taxpayers voted 'no' for a county tax increase to fund the new stadium...So the wonderful county supervisors decided to over-ride the taxpayers and did their own supervisor's vote,which voted FOR the tax increase to fund BOB....Regrettably,one of the county supervisors,a rather meaty woman,was shot in her buttocks by one of her homeless,disgruntled constituents for her actions... I think the bottom line is,a major sports team will eventually bring revenue to a city...All major sports,tho' maybe not in theory,do comprise a monopoly on their particular sport...And they can be a gold mine for whatever city they decide to park their team in....Of course with it also comes big city headaches...This concept is foreign to us Chicagoans because,well,Wrigley and Comiskey predate God...or at least Mayor Daley Sr. .... I'm sure part of the ticket,parking,concessions,pro-shops and hotel revenues will end up back in the city coffers...The fact is,in today's market D.C. has to compete with other major cities to lure the Expos, i.e.,the Expos are more of a 'hot commodity' as a team than D.C. is as a city,so the Expos are in a position to ask D.C. "what can you do for us?"...

323.5 You all suck....

And to further beat a dead horse,(isn't baseball great?)I'm not a fan of head-hunting,throwing at a guy's head....I remember when,I think it was Al Downing,hit Ron Santo in the cheek w/ a fastball...Downing even yelled "Lookout!" just before the pitch hit Santo...It just got away from him...Santo had to wear a cheek protector when he returned,about a month later... One of the ugliest incidents I remember was when the Tigers played the A's in the 70 or '71 playoffs...Bert Campanaris was just destroying the Tigers on the bases,he had already had a bunch of steals in the series...Tigers pitcher threw a pitch right at Campy's feet(and I'll bet my last dollar on instructions from manager Billy Martin),and Campanaris reared back and threw his bat at the pitcher...Tigers pitcher ducked and the bat missed him....I think Campaneris was suspended for the remainder of the playoffs...

I don't prepare any teachings,shipper....I just walk out there on the pulpit....That way not even the devil knows what I'm gonna preach on....

That stupid game is boolcheet...I think the wind was blowing in for me and you guys were playing with a juiced up penguin...And your clubs were probably corked...

I'm just a soul who's intentions are good, Oh,Lord,please don't let me be misunderstood

Happy New year to you,also(Bullinger)....2004...a great year for Boston... Yeah,there's a fine line in that 'brushback' pitching....Nobody wants to see another Ray Chapman beaning...On the other hand,that self-preservation thing can be quite a deterrant... A couple of years ago,my kids's team really got pasted by one of the best teams in the league...Their # 3 hitter was also quite the showboat,as well as a good hitter....After the game,my kid's coach told him "when we play that team again,if you're pitching,I want you to hit that #3 hitter as hard as you could,and don't tell anybody I told you to,'cuz I'll deny it for the rest of my life"...Coach felt that that 13-year-old was disrespecting the game too much...As it turned out,we played that team again,on one of the Oakland A's spring training fields,a beautiful ballpark....Coach started another kid named Mark,a tall lanky kid,who was already shaving and had no idea where any of his pitches were going(Kinda like you)...Mark ended up hitting about 5 kids in that game including their #3 hitter in his first AB,we won handily,and that kid never hit the ball out of the infield and had a nice strawberry on his thigh as a reminder... Obviously,on the major level,things won't be so overt,because hitters and pitchers are so much more fine-tuned,but you can't let a batter lock in like he's at the batting cage...Interestingly,one of the reasons I think hockey has gotten so much more violent in terms of cheap shots is because the players wear so much armor...Players get a false sense of protection,when they fight they're just beating eachother's helmets,and to really exact vengeance,they often resort to blind-side sucker punches...It seemed to be more of a 'gentleman's' game years ago,...even the fights were clean... I still like seeing old footage of Norm Cash of the Tigers,standing at home plate without a batting helmet... Yeah,Julio Franco is still playing...older than God,but not quite as old as me...That's boolcheet.... Incidentally,former umpire Ken Burkhart died yesterday at the age of 89....He was the home plate umpire in the '70 series between the Reds and Orioles,that made that infamous 'out' call on Bernie Carbo at home plate,when after being knocked over and with his back to the play,Elrod Hendrix clearly did not have the ball in his glove that he tagged Carbo 'out' with...O's won that game 4-3...

I remember that wind up....Luis coined the word 'boolcheet',or something like that.... I think part of the problem in the majors is the umps don't let them settle their scores enough out on the field...First inside pitch and they're issuing a warning...Or else the pitchers make it so blatantly obvious,you gotta throw him out...The Cubs pitched Barry Bonds better than any body else I had seen...Hit him three times in a series with breaking balls right on his goddamn feet-the only place his Darth Vader body armor couldn't protect him when he crouches over the plate like he does...Plus,it doesn't look so obvious...If they hit the bastard more often instead of wasting four pitches walking him,they might have kept him in the park a little more often... I vote that Tiant and Ron Santo get into the Hall....

Yeah,I thought the same thing...

Gone to old men every one... Was that Pete Seeger or Woodie Guthrie? Hey,I heard on the radio yesterday... Walk right in,step right down Daddy let your mind hang down Everybody's talkin' 'bout a new way of walkin' Do you want to lose your mind? What in the hell were they singing about?

I remember having Luis' card when I was about six years old...I thought his last name rhymed with 'Giant',and was rather harshly reproved by an older friend for pronouncing it as such... Speculation in the Az. Republic is that the D-backs will get Javier Vasquez in the Johnson deal.... I tell my son that every once in a while he needs to let one 'slip' and knock a batter on his fanny to get him to step in the bucket a little bit....He's got very good control for a 15 year old,but he let's the batter control the inside half of the plate a little too much....

Mstar,just to clarify,...Wood's record wasn't 13-3 for the month of May,it was 13-3 by the time mid-May rolled around,after the Sox had only played something like 45 total games starting in early April....He won his 12th and 13th games by pitching the completion of a previous suspended game that was tied after six innings,and won,and then started and won the regularly scheduled game,to give him two wins for the day...I saw a photo of Wilbur a few years ago,where he was running some fish house in New England,carrying a tray of some kind of seafood and a 100mm cigarette hanging out of his mouth.... Where are you finding these goofy stories?...Winter time is a good time to read up on meaningless baseball stats,etc. ...I've always been interested in pitching,'tho I couldn't throw a breaking ball to save my life...1980 seems to be the last year of the 4-man rotation,300 inning pitcher...Billy Martin's Oakland A's threw 91 complete games that year!...For over 20 years Brian Kingman was the last guy to lose 20 games in a season until Mike Maroth of Detroit did it two years ago...Kingman wore that distinction like a crown....his only claim to fame,I guess... I've always admired the rubber-armed workhorses of the 60's and 70's....I remember watching Juan Marichal and Fergie Jenkins lock horns in an 11 inning 9-7 game that the Giants won,and both of them pitched complete games....Sometimes I think pitchers today are a little too coddled....80-90 pitches and they're out of there....But all teams do it so you have to keep up,I guess....

I think he might have been an old school Baptist...He gave a speech to the Wisconsin Legislature a few years ago that contained quite a few stereotypes about minorities....I was mostly impressed that he didn't let his football success impede his faith and dedication to His God...I have to admire a guy who isn't just a "foul weather believer'....

Loshanta...Jump abundantly at my Word.... Blessed are the wombs that never bare,or the paps that never gave suck....

Why are the unable always willing and the unwilling always able?...You know that if I had a truck,or a jack,I would help you fellowman...but then again,I have no friends when it comes to my truck,or jack...and I have no words when it comes to my friends...and God has no trucks,but our trucks,with which to move our friends,...and he has no feet,but hind's feet,which is a mother deer,the most sure-footed animal in the world..We say that we are His and He is ours,...Deeds are the proof of this and not words...and these are the moving hours...