Dan Gould

Oh, they've already written short pieces about his return and mentioning the difference in batting stats between the two. Clearly Drew is lucky that the team has kept winning without him, but what I've seen, I don't get the complaints about his style of play. He runs everything out; has played very well in RF; and only missed a couple of games when he crashed into the top of the wall. What I've seen, he's a gamer just like Trot only he doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve the way Trot does. Frankly, Sox fans are smart enough to recognize and applaud people who play hard. You don't have to yell and cuss and throw your bat to convince people. Its possible though that the fans won't get a chance to compare Trot to Drew in the first game (and maybe the second) because the Tribe has two lefties starting and that is when Tito likes to give Wily Mo some ABs (and also to rest Drew - they think that it can help to avoid nagging injuries if they give him regular rest every 10-12 games.)

Well it should be a good early season test for both teams - can Cleveland show the same spark on the road? Will Beckett pick up where he left off or be rusty and get into trouble against that lineup? What continues to amaze me that is the Sox keep scoring runs with Drew hitting terribly and Manny just recently showing signs of getting going. A great example of how well they are doing is Julio Lugo, who is hitting something like .240 or less but has almost 30 RBIs, as many as Jeter who is hitting .350. The difference is that Lugo is hitting .310 with runners on and even better with runners in scoring position and two outs.

Aric can tell you a lot about "free" jazz.

But I thought testicles shrink during heavy steroid use. ****************************** Well, I guess this weekend is a good example of "when things are going bad" vs "when things are going good". The Sox can't do anything wrong, the Yanks can't do anything right. Now the Yanks go to Toronto for three and with two rookies lined up to pitch, then Boston for three and the White Sox for four. And they are 9-14 on the road. The Sox do get Cleveland at home before hosting the Yanks but they do manage to miss Carmona, have Schilling, Beckett and Dice-K lined up, and of course the Indians aren't nearly as impressive on the road as they have been at home. After the Yanks they go to Oakland for four, so they do have a pretty tough stretch coming up. But an 11 1/2 game lead in the division makes it pretty easy not to worry too much. The question now is, what do the Yankees do? It sounds like Cashman could be fired by the time Clemens makes his first start - but what does that do about this year's team? That only impacts who might be traded for and what happens next offseason. And I can't see any big trade to shake up the roster, simply because so many of the players having bad years are unmoveable (Giambi) not worth anything to another a team (Abreu) or too young to give away (Cano and Melky). Packaging the prospects doesn't make sense because there aren't a lot of teams that are in sell mode yet (unless the Rangers would part with Teixera). That leaves the traditional, and frankly obvious move to shake up a roster and hope it works as a kick in the rear: Fire the manager. But Clemens made it clear that he came back because of his respect for Mr. T. You gonna fire him before Clemens even comes back?

He's also a nice guy. Unlike another Westport resident I had regular dealings with, Martha Stewart, he and his wife were always very nice to the help whenever I delivered party supplies there. Even tipped us once when we had to unload ten 60" tables, and that was an easy delivery from the truck right to the garage.

$380,000 bucks a year playing in the MLB and he still relates everything from da 'Hood, yo. Five children from four different women. The dude never got out of the ghetto, apparently. What a moron. WTF? You think that $380,000 goes to diction lessons instead of bling? Well, duh. You would think he could conduct himself better then that, fer crissakes....that is a shit-load of money, big guy. Geez, Dan...don't you care at all about the quality of character? The leading and only defender of Barry Bonds is now concerned with character? That is rich. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? That news report didn't offer any evidence that it was Dukes' voice on the recording. It just said "a voice" - doesn't that make it "hearsay"? To answer your question, yes I care about "character". However, I do not believe or expect the minimum major league salary to be used to buy it. You either have it or you don't. Dukes is a 22 year old without it; Bonds is 44 year old without it. Dan you are so full of crap it is clouding your vision. Hearsay my rosy red ass. You are all about hearsay and you are willing to convict a man on the basis of shoddy evidence illegally obtained from Grand Jury testimony and what his ex-girlfriend said. Buddy, you are a walking-talking hypocrisy. We are done here. See you in the Funny Papers. Wow. You are truly, sadly, pathetically hysterical.

Check out the discussion of the lame-brained NY writer who asked the question, "How has Tim Wakefield drawn a Major League salary for 15 years?" Complete and total uninformed idiot. The best part of the site remains the way they pick apart Joe Morgan chat transcripts and broadcasts. Here's an absolute classic:

The FireJoeMorgan.com website had a blog entry about this headline: Yankees' Wang Hit Hard By Rangers

Kent is a label owned by the Bihari brothers of Modern and Crown fame among others. They used Kent in the sixties to repackage most of their B.B. King recordings. They were more of a general label, putting out anything that would sell in cheap pressings and jackets. I can't say where they'd have had Eddie Harris material to put out.

Cool. Please report back.

I can't believe no one's cited this guy: You think Newton could have kept that radio working all those years?

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news Marty but T-Clip didn't exactly have it tonite; DeSalvo brought a gas can to a fire, and Hughes "rolled his ankle" doing agility drills and will get an MRI tomorrow. I can't remember who (either Dayn Perry of Foxsports.com or Rob Neyer of ESPN) but someone deserves a Nostradamus award. There was a live chat during spring training in which he said "this is the year that bad things happen to the Yankee pitching staff." Do you think he had any inkling of just how true that prediction would be?

Despite the fact that Simon keeps saying that, its not purely a singing competition. If that were truly the case, Melinda would have won, and Sanjaya and Antonella would have left a lot sooner than they did.

That's a well lit ear. Trust me when I say his ear was more photogenic than his dental work.

$380,000 bucks a year playing in the MLB and he still relates everything from da 'Hood, yo. Five children from four different women. The dude never got out of the ghetto, apperently. What a moron. WTF? You think that $380,000 goes to diction lessons instead of bling? Well, duh. You would think he could conduct himself better then that, fer crissakes....that is a shit-load of money, big guy. Geez, Dan...don't you care at all about the quality of character? The leading and only defender of Barry Bonds is now concerned with character? That is rich. Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? That news report didn't offer any evidence that it was Dukes' voice on the recording. It just said "a voice" - doesn't that make it "hearsay"? To answer your question, yes I care about "character". However, I do not believe or expect the minimum major league salary to be used to buy it. You either have it or you don't. Dukes is a 22 year old without it; Bonds is 44 year old without it.

no fair counting aric twice. no fair counting deep. frankly jim you know that we do not have 1600 members posting, let alone voting. and all members have had the opportunity to vote! the poll fairly represents the will of the majority. i prefer your honesty that you don't have the time to mess with this to your false derision of a fair poll. -_- No poll is fair when it has two "joke" answers. A fair poll is "yes" "No" and "I don't care". And furthermore a poll on such a question is inherently biased toward those in favor. They want the new subforum and will happily vote for it. Who's to say how many of those who vote "I don't care" actually would be in opposition if they took a moment to think it through?

Political Scientist VO Key. Hey - its what my MA is in, and it is so a science.

Heck, the way things are going for them it's more like who won't get injured. I'll pick Pettitte to go next, followed by Clemens, then Moose. And I think they're due for another Saturday afternoon injury too. Check the Fox schedule. Actually, I'd reverse that prediction. Moose is next with either a legit injury or a "he's crap and we need to put Clippard in there" pretend injury, then Clemens (either a pulled leg muscle or a neck cramp from watching the best hitters in the world hammer him) then Pettitte will be the final nail in the coffin.

What? The Yankee Clippard too close to a certain legend's nickname? Fact is that the anticipated rotation is Wang, Pettitte, Mussina, Clemens and Hughes. Clippard won't have the opportunity unless someone is injured or Mussina goes on the DL with "forearm tendinitis, AKA General Crappitude"). I wonder what the chances are that the magic number will be under 100 by the time the Yanks leave Boston? Its 108 now - and the Angels are in town riding a hot streak, followed by Toronto and they've played much better since we sweeped them.

I don't know what Yankee fans think but its obvious to me that Clemens is not ready for the AL East, and based on these starts (which considering his accelarated timetable, isn't like making a judgement based on a two inning spring training appearance) he is a five inning-four or five run pitcher against the DH league. Good luck with all that!

$380,000 bucks a year playing in the MLB and he still relates everything from da 'Hood, yo. Five children from four different women. The dude never got out of the ghetto, apperently. What a moron. WTF? You think that $380,000 goes to diction lessons instead of bling?

I'm just relieved that we won't be assaulted with more "beat boxing" in the near future. He bites the big one but unfortunately his run of success will surely lead to more of that crap in the next group of auditions. Jordin, on the other hand, has a terrific voice and a bright bubbly personality. We'll see if she is "the greatest female recording artist of all time" as Barry Gibb predicted (I kinda doubt it myself).

Well, now I know why MG expected me to have some answers - we've set a new mark for "songs I own but fail to recognize" in a single BFT. 2, 4, 9, 12, 13 and 14 are all in my collection (as well as ten, which I did identify in general if not specifics).

What I like best about the Red Sox chances is that barring injury, Beckett, Schilling, and Dice-K are unlikely to allow any sort of long losing streak. As long as the starters are effective, it will be nearly impossible to have the type of collapse that can get the Yankees back into position. I do think that people like Abreu and some of the other blanks will get it together to make a run at the wild card, but at the same time this looks very much like the best chance in a long time that the Yanks will go home at the end of the season. As for Torre, I tend to agree with the idea that Old George does not want to fire him and put Mattingly into such a tough spot right off the bat. Better to let Joe deal with it, and even if he gets the team to the playoffs, it will still be time for George to tell him, its been a great run but its time. And of course if the team misses the playoffs, his contract expires, he retires to Maui with four rings and only one major blemish, and Mattingly gets to take over what will be a very different team, possibly without Abreu or A-Rod, maybe not even Giambi. But maybe there's Ichiro or Torii Hunter or Andruw Jones, Damon as 1B/DH and Zambrano in the rotation with Wang and Hughes.