Dave James

Herbie Mann may have been the musical equivalent of Will Farrell, i.e. unable to keep his clothes on but with no discernible reason not to.

Have any of you guys played baseball? Have you ever gotten hit by a pitch? Have you ever been hit by someone who could throw really hard? Well I have. I played against Wayne Twitchell here in Portland, the same Wayne Twitchell who was in the bigs with the Phillies, Mets, Expos, Brewers and Mariners. He hit me once in the shoulder and I thought I'd been shot. Sorry, but you have to cut the hitter a little slack. Like I said to Matthew, if you're not the one who got drilled, it's presumptuous to assume that it didn't hurt.

Unless you're the one who got plunked, I'd reserve judgement about how much it hurt. This isn't soccer or the NBA where guys are diving like they were Greg Louganis.

I thought Deep In A Dream was a pretty good book, but I'm such a sucker for Chet, I'm sure I'd give this one a spin. You gotta give the author credit just for compiling a discography.

You want to see what kind of childish dickheads Dwayne Wade and LeBron James really are? Check out this video where they are mocking Dirk Nowitzki and his sinus infection prior to game five. I've go so little time for these two morons, you couldn't even calculate it in Planck Units. They can go f**k themselves. http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=6649042&categoryid=2378529

I can't believe I"m saying this, but count me among the recent converts to Opeth. I'm not big on their death metal vocals, but there's a lot of other stuff going on that I find pretty interesting. They are certainly good musicians. My two favorites right now are probably Damnation and Watershed. I don't think they're getting less interesting as much as they're mellowing out a bit.

Shawn, Not to beat a dead horse, but I think over the last few days, you may be seeing the value of this board in a way that perhaps you had not seen it before. Look at your first post and compare it with your most recent one and I think you'll see what I mean. When things aren't going well, you need all the support you can get, be it from close friends, family, support services or people with whom you share things in common, like all of us here. Hopefully, you'll reconsider your decision to turn away from the board and realize that it may very well be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Whatever you decide to do, it's cool. I just hope the sun will soon choose to shine in your direction.

Figures. Now the Yankees bullpen, which was supposed to be the strongest piece of the puzzle, is now just as lame as the rest of the team. No Soriano, no Feliciano, no Marte and now no Chamberlain. Add to this the Red Sox ownership of New York so far this year, inconsistent starting pitching and an everyday lineup littered with overpaid, underperforming position players and I think it would be safe to say that things are pointed in the wrong direction. My biggest concern is that the brass will decide to "give away the farm" in exchange for a quick fix. I really believe that New York needs to recalibrate and focus on the long term, like four or five years out. If that entails being uncompetitive for awhile, so be it.

Not sure anyone can hold a candle these days to Bryce Harper, the Washington wunderkind now laboring in the low minors. After stopping to admire his long ball handiwork the other night for an exaggerated length of time, and pissing off the pitcher in the process, he gave him a pucker as he trotted between third and home. I think if I was this kid, I'd either dial it down a notch or reinforce the padding in my batting helmet.

The more these two teams see each other, the less they get along. The fact that a team as offensively challenged as were the Bruins through the first two games of the series suited up their resident cement head, Shawn Thornton, for Game 3 tells you all you need to know about taking care of business. I think the officials are going to have their hands full for the balance of the series. This has all the earmarks of old-time hockey.

There is the finest of lines between playing hockey aggressively and breaking the rules. Unfortunately, It's impossible to get inside anyone's head to know if there was malice of forethought before a particular play is made. I'm not sure about Rome's hit. What worked against Horton was his inability to defend himself. In fact, that resulted from the act of passing the puck. As soon as the puck leaves your stick you watch its progress to determine what your next move should be. He was just starting to do so, still looking to his left, when he was leveled. An ugly scene if ever there as one. I'm sure Rome had been lining him up before Horton let the puck go, so you have to ask yourself to what extent he had he already committed himself to the hit before Horton dumped it off. My tendency, even though I'm rooting for the Bruins, is to believe that what Rome did was not intentional. That makes everyone a victim of circumstance, but since Horton is out for the remainder of the finals, the NHL balanced its books by showing Rome the door for the same four games. I don't have a problem with that.

FWIW, I have one of the mid-80's purple spine/yellow text Savoy CD's by The Hank Jones Trio that credits the session to The Kenny Clark Trio on the spine. Here's a picture of the cover:

Hand malfunction.

Big time hooked on AMC's, The Killing. Engaging story, well acted by a cast of virtual unknowns. Set in Seattle; gritty, rainy, atmospheric. Good stuff.

Tim Thomas has been otherworldly. He's made 8-10 stops tonight that had every right to wind up in the back of the net. I especially enjoyed his linebacker like takedown of Daniel Sedin. You gotta love he way this guy plays the game. Too bad he had to give up the late goal. He really deserved the shut out.

Nails nailed. Finally. They say you have to bottom out before you can start back up. If this isn't bottoming out, I don't know what is. Dykstra is a con man, a grifter, a charlatan and a shyster all rolled into one. If you've kept track of his post-baseball career at all you already know he's a complete creep. Hope he ends up doing some serious hard time for all his trouble.

No. Sam Rivers does not translate well into either Pashto or Persian Dari. It's too invasive. I'm told the State Department is working on it.

I have a Mac Book Pro and I use Quick Time Player. I haven't had any trouble getting Mosaic sound samples to deploy.

Three games with Boston in New York starting on Tuesday. Lester, Wakefield and Beckett vs. Garcia, Burnett and Nova. The pitching advantage looks to rest with the Red Sox. Both teams are winning. Should be interesting...as usual. I'm glad you were wrong with that prediction. I'm sure you're glad too. I'm a big advocate of reverse psychology. You'll note that right after made my prediction, the Yanks started winning. I have that kind of power.

Goals often result from a series of series of mistakes. Without Ference's turnover, Burrows doesn't score. Nonetheless, Chara is still the one who didn't do his job when it really mattered. We're talking about a guy here who is 6'8" with a huge stride and long arms and the best he can do is wave at Burrows as he skates by? I'll tell you one thing, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes when they break down the game film. I'm also hoping for a Boston resurgence. This series needs to go at least six games. I have a few friends who are Vancouver fans and if the Canucks do sweep, I'll never hear the end of it.

Claude Julian should make Zdeno Chara walk back to Boston for games 3 & 4. It would give him some quality time alone to reconsider his commitment to winning. Chara was last night's goat...completely and totally at fault for allowing Vancouver to score at the beginning of OT. That was one of the laziest defensive plays I've seen in a long time. He knew his goaltender was out of position and does nothing. Get Burrows off the puck, trip him. slash him, I don't care, but you don't just let him circle the net and score. What was he thinking? Speaking of Burrows, had he been suspended for the finger biting incident in game one, as many thought he should have been, he would not have been on the ice last night and wouldn't have scored two goals and assisted on another. Just a little food for thought.

See second paragraph. This appears to be it as far as the internet is concerned. Before he was a big league manager, Cantillon was apparently an umpire in both the American and National Leagues, but he was not well thought of. At a game in Boston, he was actually attacked by fans and had to be rescued by some of the ballplayers. http://books.google.com/books?id=D0u6nMN6iwoC&pg=PA49&lpg=PA49&dq=origin+of+Pongo+Joe+Cantillon's+nickname&source=bl&ots=MrnE1clX6y&sig=qCqjFM-RP1uTGhG_j7Dxm7fuGxo&hl=en&ei=DdvqTZySN4f6sAPFpsn3DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Quote from Ty Cobb after Detroit faced Walter Johnson for the first time on August 2, 1907; “On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of the cornfields of the deepest bushes to pitch against us… He was a tall, shambling galoot of about twenty, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance… One of the Tigers imitated a cow mooing, and we hollered at Cantillon: ‘Get the pitchfork ready, Joe– your hayseed’s on his way back to the barn.’ …The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn’t touch him… every one of us knew we’d met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.”

It would be interesting to find out how fast he threw. It's a weird motion, not just because he's a sidearmer, but because he doesn't seem to use his right leg to push off the mound. By the time he delivers the pitch, he's standing almost straight up if not learning backwards. The other interesting thing is the length of his arms. He reminds me of former NBA'er Sam Perkins who was 6'9" but whose wingspan penciled out to 7'8". That would create a fair amount of whip in his delivery not to mention the advantage he would have been afforded by his release point, one that would be considerably closer to home plate.

As much as I hate to send kudos the way of anyone associated with the Boston Red Sox, I must say I am blown away by the season David Ortiz is having. I thought he was completely washed up two years ago, but he bounced back and I think, right now, he's hitting about as well as he ever has. I'll give credit where credit is due, and it's due here.