Quincy

Yeah, the Blazers were passing it out to him at crunch time, and he played great defense on Ray Allen near the end too. He didn't play like a rookie last night that's for sure. I haven't seen such reason to be optimistic about the Blazers in a long time. There's a good deal of potential to build on with Roy, Jack, and maybe Webster (out with a bad back I believe.) Randolph's legs are back in shape too. And they made free throws! Probably not a playoff team but I do believe they've climbed out of rock bottom. No more Jail Blazers, now it's Jail Pacers.

Guy, how long have you been on this board? You're completely forgetting that no one buys a title just once. The used purchase, which probably got in the bins as a "victim of upgrading" is just the first step in owning this title. The buyer of the used disc will buy again once a higher bitrate remaster comes out, and buy again when a bonus track is added. Whereas the person who made a CDR probably forgets what version he has, and thus it's a dead end.

Sorry I forgot that. I'll give a few. Spincds brief blurb rec.music.gdead Steve Hoffman forum link I already have the show. For a NYE show pretty good (and GRRREAT if you were there I'm sure), but I don't see myself buying this one. Bring on da Winterland '73 box boys! (Gawd I hope that wasn't some intern's web-pretend project.)

So the next Rhino, coming January 15th is... Band Grateful Dead Venue Cow Palace Location Daly City, CA Date 12/31/76 One The Promised Land [4:00] ; [7:18] ; Bertha [6:23] ; Mama Tried [2:50] ; They Love Each Other [6:45] ; Looks Like Rain [7:15] ; [1:11] ; Deal [5:21] % Playing In The Band [22:28] Two Sugar Magnolia [8:30] (1) > Eyes Of The World [12:22] > Wharf Rat [12:30] > Drums [1:21] > Good Lovin' [7:13] > Samson And Delilah [7:01] % Scarlet Begonias [11:34] % Around And Around [7:59] % Help On The Way [4:20] > Slipknot! [12:02] > Drums [0:50] > Not Fade Away [10:38] > Morning Dew [14:38] Encore One More Saturday Night [4:43] ; Uncle John's Band > And We Bid You Good Night

Is this aimed at me or the people bitching that I was the one to start this thread? It's aimed at your behavior of late. I was looking for a photo along the lines of "it's my ball and I'm going home" but struck out. I wish I knew the exact words of wisdom from couw that went along the lines of "chill out, talk a walk, have a beer." Hmm, doggone it, 3 o'clock is just a wee bit early for a beer on a Monday.

HAPPY FRIPPIN' BIRTHDAY!

Anyone ever read the Dugout? They cover the Cardinal "problem" in their usual weird way. If you're not familiar with the blog you might want to use the player index on the right side. (Scroll down past the ads to get to the features.) The ones involving Thome were pretty goofy. Some are better than others. I'm sure the site will annoy many but maybe some of you will like it.

Another thing I enjoyed about this year's playoffs was how each of the final 4 teams had last won a World Series in the '80s. Don't get me wrong, seeing the virginal Astros in it last year again the almost-virginal (huh? - what's an almost-virgin?) White Sox was fun too, but I felt about 20 years younger this October.

I already explained that - it was a list of faults that one can find with past champions. It was for illustrative purposes, not necessarily that I believe all of those were cases of poor champs. Then you should have made it clear in your initial post that you don't believe these championships are all tainted. Your wording was hardly clear in this regard. Hmm, I thought I had included a sentence doing that, but I see I didn't. Also, the line about the White Sox's not counting because they faced the Astros was intended to be sarcastic. But honestly, I've heard complaints about every World Series on that list. Even when the 2 best teams met in the series, namely because the Yankees came out on top.

I already explained that - it was a list of faults that one can find with past champions. It was for illustrative purposes, not necessarily that I believe all of those were cases of poor champs. I also pointed out that with an unbalanced regular season schedule win-loss records don't mean as much. I've also pointed out the obvious - that injuries also explain the poor regular season record of the Cards. If you're going to parse the season records of the Royals & Pirates then why not recognize that the healthy April Cards were on pace to win 110. They played the same percentage ball in October. I find it strange that one can accept wild-card champs but get outraged about low win total champs. Such a system will give you some of both. I wouldn't mind going back to the olden days, but as noted there's too much money to made with the current system.

Never! We'd still find other stats to bitch about. The unfairness of the length of roadtrips, or one team having to face outdoor stadium teams in the spring while another gets to play indoors for instance. Don't worry, I'll stop there.

The list of "tainted" championships is merely to point out that someone can bitch about any championship that doesn't involve the best teams. Do I believe all those championships in my list are "tainted?" No. I consider the '85 Royal one to be tainted, though I accept it for what it is (a World Championship.) In fact the long run in the '80s where AL East teams with better records missed out on the playoffs to AL West teams bugged a great deal back then. But I got over it. For the record despite my avatar I'm not a full-blooded Cardinal fan. I've never been good at rooting for laundry. When they traded away Torre & Jose Cruz they started breaking my heart (I didn't understand that in Torre's case, guys who aged declined in ability.) Trading Reggie Smith for Joe Ferguson was the last straw, and once Brock got old I defected to the Cubs. (Bad mistake as I enjoyed Whiteyball. ) When I moved to west coast by the late '80s I fell for those silly Mariners as my #1 team. While championships won by seemingly lesser teams used to bug me, usually the teams win because they play good ball. Stunningly bad Tiger pitcher fielding aside, the Cards pitched well and got some clutch hits, along with some slick fielding too. Like I said, when you slice leagues into many divisions teams with unimpressive win totals will get in. That's why I included the mention of the Padres record. With 8 divisions the NFL will run into the problem of losing teams reaching the playoffs more often than MLB. Which was kind of my point. There are plenty of cases in the past where the team with the best record doesn't win the world series. This year was another one of those. Maybe it was past your bedtime, but the '73 Mets were worse than STL. Yet they played a hell of a series vs. the A's. The reason for my posting the list was to show that I find the outrage of the Cardinal championship to be a case of selective memory. BTW, that Pirates stat more than makes up for the so-called "bs" of the Royals comparison. Jayson Stark is an idiot. He's shown this to be the case for so many years I don't read him unless I want an unintentional laugh. Despite people's perceptions the Pirates were a winning team after the break (38-35.) Almost every year you can play this game btw. I think last year the Indians were the best club from Income Tax Day to Labor Day. Of course they were a pretty good team. But one can often find teams that stink for the year because of a bad spring but have a winning record after the All-Star break. This year we had at least 2 teams that this happened to. Tossing in another bone - the Cards had to face 2 playoff teams in interleague play (Twins & Tigers) and also had to face the 90 win White Sox squad. Had they faced the AL West this year instead it's likely their regular season record would have been better.

1) A losing record after April eh? Then that means they must have had a pretty good April. The played .680 ball in April (dare I say championship caliber ball) and went 66-70 the rest of the way. When you start hot you can get away with that if you're in the "right" division. Why were they hot? Well, they were playing with a lineup similar to the one you saw in the playoffs. Once May rolled around the injuries started steamrolling. 2) A worse record than the hapless Royals from "mid-June" on. Why mid-June? What is so magical about mid-June? Because mid-June is the end of a 4 game Royal's losing streak, that's why. Start from the beginning of June and the b.s. self-selected stat doesn't work. Also the "hapless" Royals were 1 game under .500 for Sept.-Oct. Or better than (gasp!) the Tigers too. 3) The losing streaks. Again, so what? Is there a losing streak qualification for a WS winner? Is there an explanation for the losing streaks. Maybe. Take a look at the team on paper: 2006 World Champion Cardinals Look at the top 4 starters. Hmm, where was Marquis for the playoffs? Where was Mulder? Probably a darn good thing they weren't around, but obviously the team had to adjust as the season went on. Saves leader Isringhausen went down too. Pujols missed about 3 weeks and probably came back too early. Eckstein played 123. Edmonds 110. Rolen was hurt too but played through it (as the above did some too.) However, once the playoffs rolled around these guys were healthy, and the bench was deep - better than the Big Red Machine or Earl Weaver's teams, to name a couple of past dynasties. I'm serious, take a look at baseball-reference. Now on the one hand the '75 Reds didn't need a super deep bench, but nonetheless, the Cards was better. (Again, I'm just talking about the bench, not the starters.) We know there are cases of teams with inferior regular season records that become world series champions, or get in the playoffs when teams with better records continue. It's been this way since divisions. You want a partial list of champions whose championship is tainted in some way? Wild card era '05 White Sox over wild-card Astros. 82 win Padre team makes playoffs. '04 Wild-card Red Sox beat 105 w Cardinal team. '03 Wild-card Marlins with 91 wins win series. Braves & Giants, each with at least 100 wins falter. '02 An all wild-card world series (though the Angels have 99 W, Giants 95) '01 116 win Mariners lose in ALCS. '00 87 win Yanks (worst of AL playoff teams) beat wild card Mets. '99 Best teams Yanks & Braves face each other again. '98 114 win Yanks win, but 106 win Braves falter in LCS '97 Indians, with just 86 wins (worst of AL playoff teams) go 7 games with wild-card & world champ Marlins. '96 Best teams Yanks & Braves face each other '95- With 20 games knocked off the season, the 90 W Braves beat a 100 win/.694% Indian team. Other years (partial): '90 White Sox (94 W) left out of playoffs to 88 W Red Sox. Mets same record as Reds but left out of playoffs. '87 85 win Twins beat beat up 95 win Cards. 4 AL East teams have more wins that the Twins. '85 Royals win WS with 3rd best win total in AL. '84 Royals make playoffs with 84 wins. 5 teams in the AL East have better records. '81 Reds & Cardinals have best full season record but neither makes the split-season playoffs. '80 Yankees (103 W) lose to Royals (97 W) in ALCS. 100 W O's left out of playoffs. '74 102 win Dodgers lose to a 90 game winner A's '73 82 win Mets push A's to a game 7. By my account the last untainted championship belongs to the Yankees in '99. (Sorry White Sox, but you didn't face "the best" in the 'stros.) With divisions, especially 6, teams with poor regular season records make the playoffs. One of these years we'll have a team with a losing record that will make it out of the 1st round. Maybe even win the whole damn thing. But surprise surprise, what matters is the October record. The Cards went 11-5 in the playoffs. No one else won 11, so they're the champs. Inferior record, inferior division, doesn't matter.

My gift to you is an extra hour of sleep. Happy birthday!

That wouldn't surprise me. The polls show most people don't want him to break Hank Aaron's record, so it seems hard to believe that he'd be a great draw with a new team. SF is the only town that likes (or is it tolerates?) him. I wouldn't be surprised if some sportwriter like Rick Riley would try to organize a boycott if Bonds gets within reach. "What if Bonds broke the record and no one was there?" It practically writes itself. At this point Bonds could save a baby from a burning building and turn around and capture Osama and people would still boo him.

Hmm, I think I'm late, so have a great day after your birthday!

I don't think win records mean as much in this era of unbalanced schedules. And I give a pass to the Cardinals as it has many of the same players as the 100+ win clubs except as mentioned earlier, key guys were out for stretches. And honenstly, peruse rosters of past world series champs and look at the Cardinals bench - it blows so many out of the water. The Twins, the '85 Royals and '88 Dodgers were teams that failed to impress or were inferior to teams that didn't win it but you know what, they won it. That's the way it goes. Secondly while the Tigers may have lost momentum due to the layoff, other teams have overcome that "burden." The '96 Yanks had a full week off while the Braves LCS went 7 games. Yes, the Yanks dropped the 1st 2 but won the series. Also in '95 the Braves had a full week off and 3 more days off than the Indians and they too won the series. Had the Tigers not had a week off Casey may not have been able to play, which means the Tigers may have hit under .100. (Kidding.) Finally, I thought seeing Jeff Weaver succeed was one the most heartwarming things I've seen in World Series competitiion. The guy has taken some lumps and was on a long list of guys who couldn't cut it at Yankee Stadium (and probably wasn't served well by the pitching coach either), but he sure came through bigtime during this playoff run. No matter what happens (well, within reason) he'll be loved in StL for what he did last night! He sure does have some pretty questionable music taste though.

Dan already mentioned it, but it doesn't really hold true about the NBA. Just Googling around it the ratings for the Detroit-San Antonio series was the lowest since the New Jersey-San Antonio series. Spurs fans should be paranoid about referee calls when they face the Lakers! The previous low was in '81 when the finals were shown late at night on tape delay. Those were the days! Ratings for the World Series vs. the NBA Finals from 2005 to 2001 2005 11.1 08.2 2004 15.8 11.5 2003 13.9 06.5 2002 11.9 10.2 2001 15.7 12.1 I don't trust the formatting to include readable tables to include team names in the above. However here are a couple of Nielsen links concerning the World Series & the NBA Finals: Wiki's NBA ratings page FOX WS ratings, not as detailed as the NBA link

Yup, I liked Bob better than any of the anchors of the past 20 years or so. It's not the same broadcast, and big parts of it annoy me. The ET aspect as you mention. I still (half)watch CBS out of habit. PBS comes on after so there's no conflict. Though honestly I've always felt PBS is overrated.

And Paul Stanley has the best selling album on CDUniverse. Popularity isn't everything.

So after all the speculation what do people think? Her "Hi there" can be easy enough to make fun of and asking the public for sign off suggestions in her first week was nauseating, but on the whole I think she's settled in and is good as the alternatives. As far as the format changes, that's not really her doing. Tonight her interview with Michael J. Fox*, and more to the point the camera work that showed what Parkinson's is like, was very powerful stuff. Yet she didn't fawn over him either, nor did she just push the stem cell side. As one who lost a friend to the disease and have family who may have benefited from stem cell research (too late now though) maybe I'm being overoptimistic, but I can't help but hope that it may have shaken (sorry) a few people to favor research. *Caught between innings (luckily) of the World Series.

I can see that, Lon. I loved the TV series - they don't make 'em like that any more. I'd already read the books and there's no comparison. But I thought the way the series came over was better than excellent. I don't think they're incompatible. The books have all the thinking out in the open; on TV, you got the action and, if you'd read the books, you could fill in the underlying thinking. Really, I came to the conclusion that having read the books actually improved my enjoyment of the series. Well said. And honestly, Derek Jacobi as Claudius and John Hurt's Caligula are my favorite performances by those 2 wonderfull actors. And Hurt has had a lot of weird & interesting roles in his lifetime. I always point out to female Trekkies that you get to see Patrick Stewart's legs, as so many swoon over the guy. It's on a very short list where I love the movie (or mini-series) and the book both. At the moment To Kill A Mockingbird is the only other entry on that list, though I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. To those who do give the DVDs or tapes a whirl, please make an effort to at least watch it until the 3rd episode or so, as it may start a little bit slow for some. You'll be rewarded. Not that review votes on IMDB are that meaningful, but when you do the math(s) it is very impressive for anything to average a 9.4. That's an excellent idea as it was so long ago for me. I should move it from the stacks to the "to read" pile, assuming that pile can handle another book without toppling over. Oops, sorry Guy, I forgot what thread I was in. I guess I have to rent Rome first!

I have tickets to see Adrian Belew in a couple of weeks, so Side Three should arrive before that. It'll be my first solo album of his since buying Lone Rhino when it came out (which is my only autograph for what it's worth.)

I've been meaning to rent this. It can be hard to get the 1st episode of such things, hence the delay. It took awhile for me to find someone who had also seen I, Claudius when hitting up folks for opinions. I wish nothing more for I, Claudius other then I wish more of my friends would take the time to see it, rather than saying "oh yeah, I should see that" and not following through. One of the finest things ever put of the small (or even big) screen.