FOX pregame

Watching FOX world series pregame. I wrote this down after seeing it.

Ford Keys to the Game:

Phillies--
Where is Ryan Howard?

Rays--
Don't want to go to Philadelphia 0-2... no kidding



Ok. You might be able to pull a game key from the first one, albeit a shitty one since they won game 1 with Ryan Howard completely absent. Ryan Howard probably has to play well. But what is that second one? The key to the game is that they don't want to lose? What really got me is that whoever wrote it then seems to recognize that it isn't really an appropriate "Key to the Game" at all and put the "... no kidding" thing in. What the fuck has sports analysis come to?

Night of the Living ESPN Comments Section

Related to a piece by Buster "Yankee" Olney on why the Yankees missed the playoffs this year:

Maybe the steinbrenners will finally learn that the yankees need to develop their farm system because they cant buy themselves into winning a championship anymore. the thing that made the yankees so intimidating in the late 90s was that they did not have an all star lineup but had a menacing pitching staff and players that played for the love of the game like broscius, tino martinez, bernie williams, paul oneill just to name some. they would not outslug you most of the nights but they would systematically shut you down with pitching and would always have the clutch hitting that the yankees of this year did not have

At least three of those guys -- Broscius, Tino and Bernie -- made the All-Star game at least once during the 96 - 2001 run, by the way.

Schadenfreude

I don't know if I'm spelling that correctly, but it's worth noting that Corey Patterson, who's had 254 major league AB this year, is batting one-sixty-seven (.197). His OBP is .231! AB for AB, doesn't this have to be one of the worst offensive performances in the history of the game?

It really makes me pine for those halcyon days of 2002, when you couldn't swing a cat without hitting some racially-charged bewilderment that the Giants decided not to retain Dusty Baker's services.

fantasy bb trade advice

So here's the trade somebody just proposed to me for fantasy bb:

Edinson Vólquez (theirs)

for

Lance Berkman (mine)

Lance is the #1 ranked player, Volquez is #8. And I'm currently fair to middlin' in terms of wins and K's (but doing very well in every other category). Do you think Volquez will continue to pitch well? Berkman had a TORRID start, but I don't see him keeping up the pace for the rest of the season...

>shock<

But...I also have Pujols on the sidelines (currently DL) who could take up Berkman's slack. And Adam Wainwright (and Shawn Marcum) are on the DL for me right now. But Volquez is such a beast...I'm just wondering if his arm will hold up. Still it's a kinda cool blockbuster trade...

I know some of y'all are quite knowledgeable about sports so please suggest away...the trade was just proposed today. I'm kind of inclined to just accept it and let the chips fall where they may. And here's my league if you want to check out what's going on:

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/49027

(I'm From a Motel 6)

From My TiVo to God's Ears

This might be the greatest entry on the ESPN ticker of all time:

MLB] Astros 2B Kaz Matsui (surgery to repair anal fissure) expected to miss at least first 2 weeks of season

Early Predictions

As has already leaked, Roger Clemens is included in the Mitchell Report on steroid abuse in baseball. I predict a number of people will be shocked -- shocked! -- that a 45 year old man who regularly pitches in playoff games after 6 weeks of preparation would have had any chemical enhancement.

I further predict that one of the few (only?) big-name, big-production player who isn't named is Alex Rodriguez. I think he's just a genetic freak who has freakish purple lips and is just a little weird.

Fucking Yankees

I cannot express how happy I will be if/when the Yankees do not keep A-rod for his lack of competitive fire. Despite the fact Derek Jeter sucked so much major ass in this series it isn't even funny. See firejoemorgan.com for more analysis, but I will giggle.

Comcast, Part II

While I have nothing but solidarity with Steve's ongoing struggle with Comcast -- indeed, our sum total of struggle against cable companies that rely on their municipal franchises to take us for the proverbial "ride" -- I finally got Comcast to agree to sell me HD programming.

If anyone wants to stop by for the Cubs' playoff games, you should totally grab a sixer and come on over.

Horse Racing

It's finally happened -- Rick Ankiel has passed J.D. Drew in HR:

Player G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB BA OBP SLG
Ankiel 23 81 22 29 6 0 9 29 0 .358 .409 .765
Drew 122 405 70 102 24 3 7 49 2 .252 .353 .378

Of course, it also turns out he's probably on steroids.

Somewhere, David Eckstein is Smiling

PHOENIX -- Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron benched cleanup hitter Edwin Encarnacion after he failed to run out a pop fly in the first inning of the Reds' 3-2 victory over Arizona on Wednesday night.

"I don't care if we lose every game, we're not going to play guys that don't hustle," Narron said. "Simple as that."