Dave James

If this doesn't put Vick back in the MVP picture, I don't know what would. 3 TD's passing, 1 running and 130 yards rushing. If that isn't an MVP performance, I don't know what is. Theses Eagles are for real.

I frighten pretty easily. This did the trick. My mouthpiece is sealed.

Mr. Brian Cashman c/o Yankee Stadium 1 East 61st Street Bronx, New York 10451 Dear Brian, I must not have gotten the memo about you taking the off-season off. Hope you're enjoying your time away. When you get back, you might want to have a look at what some of your counterparts have been up to. You know, little things like signing Cliff Lee or Carl Crawford or trading for the likes of Adrian Gonzalez or Zack Grienke. I know before you left, you were able to extend our washed up shortstop's career by an additional three years and resign Mo when you found out the Red Sox were interested. Thank you for that. Now what? Do you really believe this team can stay competitive by not altering a line-up so replete with over-paid and underperforming players? While you're doing nothing, you might want to reconsider. I'd hate to think it's too late to do much, so I'm hoping that that Plan B you keep talking about really exists. If not, thanks for 2009. I'm afraid it may be awhile before we see the likes of that again. Your friend, Dave cc: George Steinbrenner Hal Steinbrenner Hank Steinbrenner Randy Levine

Latest crappy news from Yankee land. Red Sox sign Tampa's Dan Wheeler to add depth to their ever expanding bullpen. Kerry Wood signs with the Cubs. Brian Cashman can say all he wants about patience being Plan B, but he'd better get off his keister some time soon or eating someone else's dust is going to be the only item left on his menu. I'm not sure I could have imagined a worse off season.

Bobby Doerr (92), Monte Irvin (91) and Stan Musial (90). Lee McPhail is 93 and in the Hall but he wasn't a player. Ralph Kiner is 88.

С Днём Рождения!

An American original. There will only ever be one Captain Beefheart.

I last posted on this thread in 2004. At that point, I had 68 black boxes. Looks like It's been a fairly fruitful six years, Mosaic-ly speaking. As of today: 86 OOP black boxes 9 OOP Selects 25 In-print black boxes 8 In-print Selects Grand total: 128

Long and interesting video interview with Feller from today's NYT: http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/12/15/obituaries/1247464008751/last-word-bob-feller.html

I think your only alternative is to identify a Christmas song your wife can't stand and threaten her with counter-programming.

See post #193 After mocking King Ubu for missing one of my post in the 'Ella in Hollywood' tread, I find myself in the same position for missing an earlier post here. I'll join Ubu in the Organissimo penitents corner 20 Hail Marys and 15 Our Fathers will get you out of the corner with only some minor scuffing. Just don't let this happen again.

It's funny how you get imprinted by your first experiences with baseball. When I first got hooked on the Yankees, I was six years old. With respect to Feller, he went 13-3 in 1954 and pitched through the end of 1956. In that year, even though he went 0-3, he still threw two complete games. Feller lost four years to World War II right in the heart of his prime. Over his career, he won 266 games, so with those extra four years, he probably logs about 80-90 more wins. In 1946, his first year back, he went 26-15, pitched 371 innings with 348 strike outs, had an ERA of 2.18 and threw 36 complete games. Seasons don't come much better than that.

One of the greats. With all this talk about the group of starters Philadelphia has put together, it's reminded fans of some of the great rotations of the past. One of those was the 1954 Cleveland Indians, a group that included Feller. At one point he teamed with Early Wynn, Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon & Art Houteman. I'd take those five guys any day. RIP Mr. Feller.

Yanks just signed Mark Prior. My pinstriped world is crumbling. There's desperation in the air.

Word is the Yankees may make a play for Carlos Zambrano. Their newly hired pitching coach, Paul Rothschild, is the guy who talked Zambrano off the ledge after he'd slipped his moorings last year in Chicago. Over the course of his last few starts in 2010, he was as good as any pitcher in the National League. I'm also hearing encouraging things about a couple of Yankee pitching prospects, Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances. Some scouting reports I've seen say Banuelos, a 19-year old left hander, is as good as anyone has seen in awhile, good enough to perhaps make it to the show in a couple of years. Betances is a 6'8" behemoth with a 97-98 MPH fastball and a "plus" curve.

Al, These are the listener comments from the YouTube video: pabfy12H 2 weeks ago saw their Christmas special awhile back, excellent. truly one of my fav groups. jarbon5 1 month ago Love this rendition of this song all day long! This is just so cool! SnapCracklyPop 1 month ago @jarbon5 I agree jarbon5 1 month ago Love this song. It's so smooth, a great take on the classic:) I think you need to look deeply inside yourself to see if you can figure out what's wrong. You're clearly out of step.

Hope you had a good one, Jim. Thanks for all the interesting posts.

Ah, the good old days. Warning: Bad language involved.

We have a needle exchange program here in Portland that seems to work fairly well.

Two words for Brian Cashman. Yu Darvish.

Well, KC's starting QB was out, but to get blanked by the Chargers doesn't bode well for them. The Chiefs had 67 yards of total offense. I can hit my gap wedge further than that.

Got mine today. No set number on the inside of the booklet. I'm just going to assume that I was sent Michael Cuscuna's personal copy by mistake.

I saw that. There's always a chance that Lee might have liked the Big Apple re-upped with New York, so you can't say definitively that it wouldn't have worked. Also, even as a rental, he might have made the difference between 27 and 28 World Series titles. Still, it does seem like his heart may have been in Philly all along. Their rotation is as good as I've ever seen and I've been following baseball for over 50 years. For reasons I shared earlier in this thread, I don't see Greinke going to the Yankees. I'm sure Cashman will be under a fair amount of pressure to get back in the game, but I don't see that happening until the 2011 trade deadline. Of course, that's assuming the Yanks are still in the hunt by then.

Five years, $100 million. Yanks offered seven and $150. Disastrous for New York at least in the short run. Over the long haul, maybe not so much.

I'd like to think that the Yankees Plan B begins and ends with Zack Greinke, but that would be a stretch. Not only is he a poor fit for New York from a functional standpoint, but the Yankees farm system isn't very well equipped to provide what Kansas City wants in trade. From what I'm reading, they are after players up the middle and maybe a catcher. The Yanks have plenty of catchers, Eduardo Nunez and Brett Gardner, but there are a lot of other teams with more to give, Toronto and Milwaukee being two of them. If New York loses the Lee sweepstakes, Brian Cashman can say all he wants about it not being a home wrecker. He's just whistling past the grave yard. Given the way the Red Sox have ramped up their offense, even with Lee, I'm not sure they get it done.