Dan Gould

Maybe K-Rod is spent ?....62 saves out of what 69 chances ? See thats why the Sox are careful with Papelbon . K-Rod never pitched multiple innings like Papelbon did, but their stats are similar: K-Rod: 68 1/3 IP, 1170 pitches Paps: 69 1/3 IP, 1051 pitches So K-Rod was less efficient than Papelbon over the same number of innings. What's amazing is that he had 69 save attempts and thew less than 69 innings! How does that happen? Was the manager so intent on getting him the save record that he didn't even make him start the ninth inning of a save situation? That's ridiculous, and proves that K-Rod shouldn't get any MVP votes.

Well the Mods are being quick about their work - I missed the first thread, started my own, come back to see if there are any replies and find that my thread is gone and my post has been appended to this thread. Allen, Roger Cossack of ESPN has tended to be a pro-Defense commentator, and he sees no legitimate avenue of appeal. Questions about the witnesses isn't one for the Appellate division unless there is an obvious disconnect between testimony and verdict. Otherwise its up to the jury to determine credibility and a higher court is loathe to mess with that. An all-white jury is a ludicrous avenue of appeal because a vigorous defense was deeply involved in jury selection. As I said, the avenue of appeal is limited to claims about the notoriety of his acquittal and whether the jury acted on that bias. They need to interview the jury members and find someone who will make such a claim, and I seriously doubt it could happen. I have no idea what you claim is about "sloppy evidence" - the rest of the people in that room seemed to know something was going down, and as a result almost everyone had tape recorders running, which makes it kind of comical. But there wasn't any evidence to mishandle, as the defense fraudulently claimed in the murder case.

GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!! I was up watching the Red Sox game so I saw the breaking news that a verdict had been reached, but at 1:45 there was no way I was staying up even later waiting for O.J. to get to the courthouse. But what delicious news to wake up to this morning. And the great thing is that as the ESPN legal dude said, there isn't much they can appeal on. Yeah, maybe the prosecution "bought" testimony by making deals with everyone else, and maybe some of those guys are scummy and maybe some of them offered to slant their testimony ... but if the jury chooses to believe them, that's their job, to judge the credibility of the witnesses, and that's not subject to any legitimate appeal I know. The only chance O.J. has is if it turns out that the jury talked about the murder case (no chance given the Judge's instructions), or if in the future one of the guys who got deals comes out and declares that the prosecution made him tell lies (equally unlikely). The worst thing that happened for O.J. in the trial was when the judge ruled that the prosecution couldn't bring up the murders as they relate to the civil judgment won by the Goldman family and their belief that hiding assets and income is what motivated O.J. If the Judge had allowed that testimony, then they'd have an avenue of appeal that the jury acted on their belief about the murders rather than the evidence in front of them. I'd imagine that this is the best day in 14 years for the Goldman family, knowing that O.J. is going to prison for a long time. He may not be serving time for two brutal murders but at least he won't be a free man anymore, and that makes me damn happy.

They also like to land the planes side-by-side on them. I've seen it many times from the freeway. That really surprises me because there are horizontal as well as vertical separation rules. Unless they stagger the landings.

A very tense game but I had a feeling we could get to K-Rod before they would get to Papelbon, because it seems to me like K-Rod has lost a little (didn't he throw mid-90s, plus having the nasty curve and change? Plus I knew his WHIP was a little high this season). I still don't buy the experience or the "getting in their heads" argument, these are just two positive results in a row; if anything we were due to beat them after playing so poorly during the regular season against them.

What GA said!

When they are using the western approach to Fort Lauderdale, they do the same thing over I-95. I remember the first time I was in the area while a plane was landing - it looked like the plane was literally rolling across the highway. A while back they built up the divider between north and southbound lanes because too many people would follow the plane onto the runway instead of watching the road. Once I got stuck in traffic on the way to the old Lipton International tennis tournament, so I had my camera with me and got some great pictures. But this was before digital cameras so I only have the prints, no digital copies. Maybe if I can find them I'll scan a couple. edit to say: Oops, I misunderstood what you wrote, Bruce. But the last I heard, I think they were planning a similar method to expand the Fort Lauderdale airport in the opposite direction from I-95. The airport is hemmed in by Federal Highway on the east and I think they plan to build that sort of underpass to extend one runway, or build a third, or something ...

It's real!

http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows...cariest-runways I still can't get over this landing approach in St. Maarten in the eastern Caribbean. It seems like it must be a photoshop creation - what normal person could relax on such a beach?

Perhaps you haven't noticed some of my other posts, Marty. My father is 82 and has significant medical issues. My mother is 75 and in August spent three days in the hospital with uncontrolled high blood pressure. They are lifelong Cub fans, and even if I turned to the Sox as my main team thirty years ago, I will always be a Cub fan. My own experience seeing the end of a lifetime of disappointment only makes it more important that they experience it too. It might ease the pain a bit if the Red Sox move on, but there will still be a lot of pain if the Cubs are eliminated.

And its depressing the hell out of me. 5 game series are a bitch. A couple of moderately hopeful things to cling to. The Dodgers have never faced Harden. Not even in interleague play when he was with Oakland. (On the other hand Manny has and is 3 for 11 lifetime. All 3 hits were home runs. And game 3 starter Kuroda has pitched terrifically since August.) The other mildly positive thing for the Cubs is the Dodgers didn't face Ted Lilly this year. (Manny has faced him 46 times and slugs .619 against him.) Both have been pitching well post-All-Star break. So I don't rule out the Cubs winning the next 2. But should they do that, Game 5 will be unbearably tense. Well my feeling going in was that the Cubs had an advantage in depth of the starting rotation, but I didn't expect them to have must-win games in L.A. I do know I won't go for four straight late nights if Saturday's game doesn't start off well.

And its depressing the hell out of me.

Everything from 6.2 on makes sense to me, its the expecting you to have a plan for a pandemic clause that is completely ridiculous. Didn't this sort of thing fall under the old "Act of God" clause?

Looks like Beckett is a "go" for Game 3. From the Globe:

Well I liked my Diagnostic Overview after asking for the Second Opinion:

Plus it probably helps if they are young enough not to form firm opinions about music.

Now that Lester gets stronger the later he goes, and because he's a big strong kid to begin with, they seem comfortable letting him pitch. I can't say for sure but my strong suspicion is that he had the highest average pitch per start on the staff, and that added up to leading the team in innings, I believe. He simply took to heart the advice of getting into a good tempo, don't think, just trust your stuff, and he turned into an elite pitcher in one season. The team had more shutouts when he pitched than any other pitcher in the majors. Obviously that starts with 7-8 innings from him most days. Just imagine if we had given up him, Masterson, Lowrey and Coco for Santana! Twins wouldn't have missed the playoffs, and we probably would have. And beyond that, Lester, Lowrey and Masterson are just getting started reaching their potential. And Zen, all of their medical staff and coaching staff is in L.A. Do you want him rehabbing and throwing alone in Boston with no one "in the know" watching him to really determine if he's ready? Its not a back injury, its his oblique, and it didn't occur on a throw, it occurred on a deep breath, and almost immediately felt better. It has to be a minor strain because there is no way they'd even talk about him pitching so soon otherwise. We'll know more when he throws his bullpen today, in front of the pitching coach and Tito (and to Varitek, who will have his own perception to share). That being said, its possible that if they win Friday night, you could see Wakefield or Byrd pitch Game 3. They could choose to take it slow on Josh if they feel comfortable that the series is in hand, so that he can start Game 1 of the ALCS. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Interesting. Danny (which I shed in High School even if my sister continues to call me that) Daniel, which I only use when signing checks, for academic papers, and when I feel "formal": And Dan, which I use 99% of the time: Faulty air bags looks relatively quick and painless, so I think I am going to go with Daniel from now on. If you think I'm kidding, check my signature.

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

Thanks a lot for the link, Michael. I missed it when it was first published. Very interesting approach to teaching, I have to admit I am surprised it works for second graders.

Jim, do you get a report from invision of registration forms that don't answer the question, or answer it with gibberish because it doesn't fit with the info they expect to see requested? It would be interesting to know how many are "kept out" by this method.

If it was talent, its still going to take a good bit of fortune the rest of the way. Lowell looks terrible and even if Drew stays healthy, he's looking like its March 1st and the first BP of the spring. As for Ellsbury, we're just incredibly lucky that he finally found his way with the stick last month.

The problem is the decision to give the rights to a single cable channel. It used to be in this round there would be games played at the same time, or under slightly staggered schedules, so you had to choose, but everything got started at a semi-reasonable hour. Not sure if that win was more talent or fortune (Lackey making exactly one bad pitch, Vladi's baserunning adventure (has anyone checked his birth certificate? Whatever he says, add ten years unless proven otherwise)) but I'll take it. Thom's prediction may actually come through now, particularly with a rematch in Game 4. Lester has been lights out at Fenway, aside from one or two starts, Lackey has gotten pounded. I like the rematch a lot more at the Fens.

I'm glad you liked the idea and that they were able to help adapt it but I am afraid that your security question is far too easy, and for those who don't know it, the answer can be found pretty quickly. Maybe I'm wrong and spammer registrations will be reduced but I am not especially confident that will happen. OTOH, I don't know what question could be asked that non-fans can't find the answer to, if they want it badly enough. These spammers are not real people. They are scripts or bots that are programmed to find forums like these, fill out the pertinent information, and post the same message over and over again. Even having a simple question like "What animal makes a bow-wow sound?" would stem the tide, because there is no way to program a script to answer these types of questions. It would have to be a real person, and those are rare. But I thought that the registration process was two part: Fill in info Get confirmation email, click on link inside. Or does the script fill in the info, and a real person collects the confirmation emails, then registers and posts the spam? I think I just answered my own question.

I'm glad you liked the idea and that they were able to help adapt it but I am afraid that your security question is far too easy, and for those who don't know it, the answer can be found pretty quickly. Maybe I'm wrong and spammer registrations will be reduced but I am not especially confident that will happen. OTOH, I don't know what question could be asked that non-fans can't find the answer to, if they want it badly enough.