BERIGAN

Dan, you've got pull with your team, right? Josh Anderson, rotting away on the Braves AAA team, would make a perfect 4th, 5th outfielder. No power but he has stolen 248 bases in the minors, and is supposed to be great defensively. We got him from the Astros in the offseason, and was thought to be a possible replacement for Andruw Jones. Then we traded for Mark Kotsay. He had a great spring, was considered the 2nd fastest guy in camp, just a tick slower than Jordan Schaffer (What's with all these fast white guys in baseball right now??? ) He cooled off the last week, and Gregor Blanco won the 4th outfielder job. Talk to Theo about it.... http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/A/Josh-Anderson.shtml

Papsrus, glad you went to the game! You are clearly a real fan, now I hope more folks will show up. Honestly, I couldn't figure out how a team with so many good young players was not making strides in the standings year after year, but perhaps they are going to be like the Braves of 1991, a worst to first team!!! Whatever happens this year, they have turned a corner, and thats the most important thing!

What you wrote was beautiful Jim....

Jason Michaels is playing for the Pirates

Toronto is going to rue the day they Didn't want to pay Frank Thomas next year, but hey...10 million saved is better than competing, right??? Toronto's GM Ricciardi says offense will stay as is

Just realized you were talking about June!!! Screw it...I'm sick again, that's my excuse. What I said still stands...

Dan, not sure which is the shitty team, and which is the less shitty team between Houston and Pittsburgh, but we are in a brave new world this year....Houston can hit, if nothing else..and are 21-17. And Pittsburgh (17-19)seems to be playing much better fundamental baseball these days, and I think they have already beaten the braves 4 out of 5 times this year. But, considering the Braves have the worst road record in baseball(Naturally the best home record as well) they will probably sweep the double header today. Adam LaRoche has been useless as usual to start the season, when he starts to hit, they will at least have a chance to be a .500 team this year. I imagine the Sox will make mincemeat of the Cards and Cincy(If they had any offense, they would be in the race) and probably Houston as well, since their pitching hasn't been too good...Oswalt has been their worst starter so far. The Yankees do seem to have the easiest schedule, but didn't Pittsburgh give them fits last year??? At least they beat up on the Rocket, but then again, who didn't last year??? Sounds like you don't like interleague play much. I love it! I get really tired of seeing the same teams again and again....I really don't care about the Nationals lineup...it's just boring. And because of playing a one game series to open their new park, we have already played them 4 separate times! Enough! We only play Oakland for one series this month...no other interleague play til June!

Oh God, not another Florida baseball fan here!

A very interesting column on the RBI leader in the AL, the and the joy some take in bashing him.... http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...mp;sportCat=mlb

Jim, I'm so sorry to here this! My condolences and my prayers for you and your family. Like Stereojack said, thank God he didn't suffer a long illness. There is never enough time with loved ones.

That you are gettin' old!

Screw them rich folks, make 'em pay even more!

One thing to keep an eye on, I read "somewhere" that some models use mad amounts of energy!

Oh man, did y'all see Rick Ankiel's two amazing throws from deep center last night???? Got Willie Tavarez trying to go from 2nd on a fly ball, and another guy trying to get a triple....both runners look quite stunned. Check them out on Sportscenter if you get a chance this morning, just wow......and better accuracy than he had as a pitcher to boot! http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=stl

Anyone noticing the year Chipper Jones is having so far??? .426 BA, 10 HR's 29 RBI's!!! Not bad for a 36 year old, eh??? It's to the point now that he'd getting pitched around and Mark Teixeira is the guy teams want to face(Sucks to be a Boras client in his last year with the team if the team is the braves) Last year he hit .337, but that was mainly because he hit .378 Left handed, only .274 Right handed. I was really wishing he'd just bat left handed. This year, he has turned it around so far, batting .438 Left and .400 right. I think he is using a lighter bat right handed. Something looks better. I heard on a broadcast a few weeks ago that Chipper uses a very heavy bat, and it all goes back to Willie Stargell! He was a roving hitting instructor for the braves in the early 90's, saw Chipper hit in the minors and handed him a heavy bat, and said to him, you hit with this bat, the rest is history.....

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years...81weather1.html

Giants in 3rd place, with the Padres and Rockies below them!

I thank you as well for posting it!

Gee, imagine how good Smoltz would be this year, if he was healthy??? By CARROLL ROGERS The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 04/29/08 The Braves have put John Smoltz on the 15-day disabled list with a severely inflamed biceps tendon and an inflamed rotator cuff in his throwing shoulder. Smoltz, who started the season on the disabled list with shoulder soreness, pitched only four innings in a loss to the Mets on Sunday in New York. He was examined Tuesday by Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham and will be re-evaluated again after giving his arm some rest. Smoltz (3-2, 2.00 ERA) had back-to-back 10-strikeout games in his two starts before the New York series. On April 22 against the Nationals, Smoltz became only the 16th pitcher to reach 3,000 strikeouts. But he's been saying throughout April that he was having to battle shoulder soreness to do it. Smoltz turns 41 on May 15.

So it's agreed, everyone hates Carter...good!

Brazil Oil Trapped by 500-Degree Heat, Salt Barrier (Update2) By Joe Carroll April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's plan to become one of the world's biggest oil exporters hinges on exploiting crude 6 miles below the ocean surface in deposits so hot they can melt the metal used to carry uranium to nuclear plants. Tapping what may be the biggest oil finds in the Western Hemisphere in three decades will require equipment that can withstand 18,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, enough to crush a pickup truck, pipes that can carry oil at temperatures above 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 Celsius) and drill bits that can penetrate layers of salt more than one mile thick. Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-controlled oil company, is betting on the Tupi and Carioca fields to become one of the world's seven biggest crude exporters. Until the tools needed to exploit the reservoirs are invented, the crude will remain locked under the sea, said Matt Cline, a U.S. Energy Department economist. ``This is a very, very technically challenging environment where no one's ever done this,'' Cline, who tracks the Latin American oil industry, said in a telephone interview from Washington. ``These discoveries are in very deep water, and once you get to the seabed they are very deep under the floor, with a layer of salt that is definitely a difficult barrier.'' Brazil's oil will be harder to develop than the Gulf of Mexico, where the deepest wells are now in production, Cline said. Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. oil companies, saw diamond-crusted drill bits disintegrate and steel pipes crumple when they attempted to tap deposits beneath the Gulf's seafloor two years ago. Uncharted Depth Pumping oil from the Brazilian finds, parts of which are 32,000 feet (10,000 meters) below the ocean's surface, will require boring almost twice as far down as the world's deepest producing offshore well. The obstacles will discourage development unless crude prices stay high, said Tina Vital, an analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York. U.S. oil futures, which reached a record at $119.93 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading yesterday, have jumped 81 percent in the past year. Engineers will have to overcome temperatures that range from near freezing above the ocean floor to temperatures that can melt bismuth, used for transporting uranium rods and for shotgun shells. Layers of salt will also increase the challenge because the crystals absorb seismic waves used to pinpoint oil deposits. Seismic Issue ``The seismic issue is important because if you don't identify the location of the oil properly, you're going to waste a lot of money when you drill the hole in the wrong spot,'' said Vital, a former Exxon engineer. Brazil pumped 2.13 million barrels of oil a day in the last three months of 2007, more than OPEC members Angola, Libya and Algeria. Tupi, 155 miles (250 kilometers) off Brazil's coast, may begin production by 2012, according to consulting firm Strategic Forecasting in Austin, Texas. The field may have 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil. No start date has been set for Carioca, which Petroleo Brasileiro said will take at least three months to evaluate. A Brazilian regulator said this month the reservoir may have 33 billion barrels. If confirmed by further drilling, the reserves will be triple the size of Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, the largest U.S. field. Record Depth The ocean-depth record for production was set last year by Anadarko Petroleum Corp. The company is extracting natural gas from beneath 8,960 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico, where pressure measures 3,069 pounds per square inch, squeezing joints and tearing at seals. ``What we do at that water depth in the ocean is similar to NASA's space program, but they get to do it without any pressure trying to attack them,'' Kevin Renfro, production engineering manager at Woodlands, Texas-based Anadarko, said in a November interview. Petrobras hasn't said how much it spent to sink wells at Tupi and Carioca. Similar drilling by Exxon and Chevron Corp. in the Gulf of Mexico cost $180 million to $200 million for each well. ``A big find might not be a good find if it costs so much to develop that it's not commercially viable,'' S&P's Vital said. ``We don't have any idea at all yet of all the costs that are going to be involved. Those costs are going to set the floor for oil prices.'' $50,000 Drill Bits Chevron, which has the deepest Gulf of Mexico exploration well, including distance below the seafloor, destroyed as many as a dozen $50,000 drill bits at each of the 14 wells in its $4.7 billion Tahiti project. Exxon Mobil abandoned a Gulf project that would have been the deepest well after pressure and heat shut down the venture in August 2006. The Irving, Texas-based company developed pipes tough enough to withstand temperatures that would shatter regular steel at its Sakhalin-1 project in Russia. The metal may help make Brazil's offshore fields accessible, Vital said. ``These challenges in the Brazilian offshore area are too great for any one company or even country to be able to digest themselves,'' Vital said. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

A quick update....Chris A was nice enough to look into some organizations that might be able to help, but nothing came of it...I have had my own(Minor) health issues to contend with of late, plus Dale still talks/visits that worthless POS from time to time....Which makes it hard to talk to him at those times... Anyway, Dale called and talked to my Dad yesterday...things are not going well.....his "Mom" is just one in name only. Instead of doing everything in her power to help her weakening son, she wants him out of "her"house(The house Dale and his brother own 50/50) Dale is now afraid of leaving the house, since she has changed the locks he said...Hell, he hasn't been able to bathe for 2 weeks!!!!(Don't know exactly why, I don't know if she helps him in some way, he does have a chair to sit in, in the shower) Nothing is new on the SSI situation either. He talked to a former congressman, who I believe is now the mayor of his small town, that acted like not to worry, he'd straighten it all out.....That was over a month ago... How much can one person take???? Bad enough to be dying of a disease, but to have you own Mother reject you this way...to not even feel safe to shower....I just don't see how this can go on much longer like this....and what makes it even more sad, is that all things considered, he is getting around a bit better than 6 months ago! With a cane and walking a bit like a duck, he hasn't been falling nearly as much....shit...any thoughts, suggestions at this point???

Well, that last post is fighting me editing it anymore, so let me say here thanks to everyone who took the time to listen to 46 tracks! Sorry about it being so long! Of course, I have since thought of several songs I should have put on before some of my choices, but theres always 2009 or 2010!!! Thanks for telling me some stuff I didn't know even after listening to tracks dozens of times!!!

Will Bradley and His Orchestra and Ray McKinley vol 1. Hallelujah. From Hep(Out of print, but you can get it used for $7.49 now) 22. Strange Cargo. (Freddie Slack Arranger) Will Bradley, Trombone. Steve Lipkins, Joe Weidman, Herbie Dell, Trumpets. Bill Corti, Jim Emert, Trombones. Artie Mendelson, Joe Huffman, Altos. Berne Billings, Sam Sachelle, Tenor. Freddie Slack, Piano. Bill Barford Guitar. Delmar Kaplan, Bass. Ray McKinley. Jan 17th, 1940 Funny to look back on this band and see Will Bradley getting top billing, since I think more people today know McKinley’s name more than his. Mainly a Boogie Woogie band, they cut some very interesting non B-W tracks like this Freddie Slack arranged tune. John Kirby Sextet. 2 Cd set from French Sony. That cd seems to be long out of print, so here is another cd with the track on it…. 23.Dawn of the Desert. Charlie Shavers trumpet(And writer of this song) Buster Bailey, Clarinet, Russell Procope, Alto. Billy Kyle, Piano. John Kirby, Bass. O’Neil Spencer, drums. Jan 9th, 1939. Another kinda-sorta classical tune. Mysterious sounding to my ears. Not all that typical of the John Kirby band. Love the tight , but not too tight playing of this band band though. Boswell Sisters. Ok America. Alternate Takes and Rarites. Jass Records. OOP. 24. Sleep Come on and Take Me(rejected take, “B” ) Glenn Miller Arranger. Dorsey Brothers Orch. Manny Klein, Trumpet. Tommy Dorsey, Trombone. Jimmy Dorsey, Alto. Larry Binyon, Tenor. Fulton McGrath, Piano. Dick McDonough, Guitar. Artie Bernstein, Bass. Stan King, Drums. August 6th, 1932. I am deeply in love with all the Boswell sisters. Not in a creepy way…well, yes pretty creepy when you get right down to it…. This cd was a revelation to me, since it showed how much they often compromised to get a more comercial sound.(Where’s the Melody, Jack Knapp would often say when they recorded). They did a scat version of a song called Sing a little Jingle, the released take is just about their worst, the scat cversion is great! They stick to it a bit closer to the melody on this track, but I wanted to put a track with other jazz fellows as well. The way they messed with the beat, totally reworked songs…. the way they could really slow down a song as slow as you could possibly go, then speed the pace up to lightning fast….love that shit!!!! Annette Hanshaw, The Girl Next Door. Take Two cd. 25.I Have to Have You. Muggsy Spanier Cornet. December 16th, 1929. Again, chose a more jazzy track, with a great Muggsy solo. Her voice could sound so different on just about any recording of hers….since she couldn’t stay on the main Columbia label that Ruth Etting’s mob hubby, she would literally record on just about every dime store label out there, sometimes taking on a Betty Boop persona The cheaper studios perhaps played a role in her “sound” (Hearing her recordings 50-60 years later she hated the sound, said that wasn’t how she really sounded) Her torch songs could tug at the heart in a way Etting never could….I might not convince you today, but hopefully someday a cheap cd will come along that you will take a chance on….. Adrian Rollini. Bouncin’ in Rhythm. 26. Shake. California Ramblers. (Edison Lateral) Roy Johnson, Trumpet. Abe Lincoln, Trombone. Bobby Davis, Clarinet, Soprano, Alto. Bunny Drown, Tenor. Adrian Rollini, Bass Sax. Jack Russin, Piano. Tommy Felline, Banjo. Herb Weil, Drums. April 4th, 1926. Hey, I had room for one more track I found!!! Edison Laterals could record for a bit longer time, so you could hear a bit more of a stretched out solo now and then. Another track off the Topaz cd mentioned above…just quickly looking around, I find it was on another cd, I have, with much better sound quality! D’Oh! Well, I hope you can still hear that even as early as 1926, some jazzmen were having some interesting ideas come out of their instruments, especially Adrian Rollini, and he chose the strangest , hardest to play instruments, the Bass Sax! An Instrument that Coleman Hawkins couldn’t master! He switched to the Vibes in the mid 30's for some reason.....