Certainly my most egregious pick was the Cardinals to win the NL Central, but I suppose I kind of had to (the heart at least, if not the head). But Sousepaw, I don't think it can be blamed solely (or even primarily) on injuries. When your starting rotation going into the season is Carpenter, Wainwright, Kip Wells, and spare parts, I think there are some serious problems. And that's without getting into the fact that the Cardinals had Preston "K-Machine" Wilson as a starting corner outfielder. At this point, I'd love for the Cardinals to have a firesale, but I think the only tradeable commodities are Isringhausen and a few other bullpen arms. Pujols is (obviously) untouchable, and the other big name players (Rolen, Edmonds) should be steered clear of by other teams for financial and performance reasons. Anyone out there in the market for scrappy middle infielders? The Cardinals have them in droves.
Their rotation last year started out with Sidney Ponson, Jeff Suppan and Jason Marquis. Worked out alright then. I went to a Cardinals game at Shea a couple weeks ago. The lineup was a who's who in "Who?" Wellemeyer, Stinnett, Speizio, Miles, Brendan Ryan, Pujols, Ludwick, Taguchi, Encarnacion. No Molina, no Rolen, no Edmonds, no Eckstein, no Kennedy. I feel okay using injuries as a headline excuse, especially when one way or the other a mediocre rotation is going to win the Central. Certainly, other things have gone wrong -- I thought Reyes would break out this year, for one. One marginally funny thing about that game at Shea: they have a board hanging from the bleachers that indicates the speed of every pitch. The sign also identifies what kind of pitch it was -- fastball, curveball, etc. When Isringhausen came in (for what would be a blown save), every time he threw an off-speed pitch the sign indicated that it was a "knucklecurve." I was sitting next to a Cardinals fan and I asked him if Izzy throws a knucklecurve, and this guy was losing his mind over the sign. "No. There's no way. He does not throw a knucklecurve. That doesn't even look like a knucklecurve." Yet every pitch there it was, and they didn't indicate that pitch for any other pitcher that day. That Shea Stadium is one messed up operation.
Touch about last year's rotation, although Suppan and Marquis (even last year's version) are probably upgrades at 3 and 4 over whoever's there now (and let's leave the fat Aruban out of this). I guess my point is that if you keep putting inferior product on the field in the hopes that 85 wins is going to get it done, you're courting disaster. But I'm not too bitter. The Cardinals have been in the playoffs or in the hunt seemingly every other year (if not more frequently) since Tony took over in 1996, so I'm not complaining. I do think it's probably time for Tony to go, but mostly that's a matter of player development issues and organizational philosophy than in-game management. That's funny about Shea. Isringhausen throws a fastball, cutter, curve and change-up. I never had heard of his curve referred to as a knuckle curve, but at least one resource out there suggests otherwise. This recap of the game you (presumably) attended also suggests that Isringhausen was throwing a knuckle curve, but we can possibly chalk that up to the author trusting the Shea pitch board.
I'd give myself a solid B based on my predictions. I, like a lot of people, missed the boat on the Cards, but I am proud that the Braves are hanging around in the wild card race and my pick of Peavy for Cy Young.
Carpenter for NL Cy Young was a lovely pick on my part. Although for the record I did get the Clemens question right.
When Izzy was part of that amazing rotation* at Norfolk, all Gammons could talk about was his knuckle curve. I'm not sure if injuries stopped Izzy from throwing it. If not, some Mets fan who doesn't know about the guy's knucklecurve. Probably can't tell Bobby J. Jones from Bobby M. Jones either. *Amazing in terms of talent or in terms of none of them ever making it, however you want to look at it. Isringhausen, Pulsipher and the guy who wound up throwing slop for Tampa.
at least one resource out there suggests otherwise Thanks, dude. Yes, that was the game in question. My friend will be much amused by those links. the guy who wound up throwing slop for Tampa Paul Wilson did eventually become the ace of the Reds. 11-6, 4.36. Solid.
Oh and another thing, Crafty are we just grading on the predictions in one's own post, or are we also counting other items of note?
Ah. Uh. Yeah. I give that a B+. They're pretty close. And I think Hafner's playing hurt. Yep. Thanks for not putting that one in your profile...
I only remember the Gammons' piece on Norfolk's rotation because of Izzy's knuckle curve. It was the most vicious thing I had ever seen and I penciled him in for 300 major league wins right then and there. Thanks for remembering Paul Wilson. That was going to bother me.
You know, I think it was a knuckle curve. Imagine my embarrassment.
I think yerfatma used up his allocation of uncut irony jinx karma back in '04 when he pooh-poohed the acquisition of Dave Roberts: "No one needs a pinch runner." That whole thread is kind of eerie in retrospect innit?
That whole thread is kind of eerie in retrospect innit? Hahahaha I cried over Nomar. God, what a lame-o. All the threads from like 3-4-5 years ago are like looking back in a yearbook and thinking, "Yeah... maybe crimping my hair wasn't such a fashion-forward move afterall, huh?"
You're weirding me out. I'm glad I went to went out of state for college.
I'll have you know, in junior high crimping was awesome. Also awesome, New Kids on the Block.
My wife has made similar claims on both issues. Taking that kind of thing out to a logical conclusion excuses German behavior in the 1930s and '40s. At least the Nazis never wore jelly shoes.
I just laughed so hard my Swatch watch fell off. Dave Telgheder was another one of those Norfolk pithcers around the same time as Izzy, Pulsipher and Wilson. I had some good times watching those guys pitch at the old Met Park in Norfolk, before they changed the name from the Tidewater Tides to the Norfolk Tides, moved the team from out by the Norfolk Airport to the Riverwalk area, and raised ticket prices.
I just laughed so hard my Swatch watch fell off. You might have an easier time picking it up if you weren't wearing those fingerless gloves. Or if you could keep your sweatshirt on both shoulders. Young pitching is such a crapshoot. For every Santana, Peavy and Haren there's a Prior, Wood, and Liriano. And oddly it's actually getting harder to pry young pitching prospects away from teams. Even with established stars like Texeira as bait. You can't even get them from the Yankees.
I found your Swatch, but it's all scratched up. Should have sprung for the Swatch guard. BTW, it's stuck a 3 o'clock, which leads me to the question: broken or just a big Bel Biv Devoe fan?
Oh god, I had that BBD tape. They were so wise. "Never trust a big butt and a smile" indeed, Michael Bivens.
It took me a good minute to figure out you meant "audio cassette". Hard to scrape ice of your windshield with an mp3. Thanks for nothing, nerd gods.
Hard to scrape ice of your windshield with an mp3. I give Apple a year before that feature appears on the iPhone. I see an agreement with Leatherman in the near future. What good is the thing if I can't open a beer with it?
But can it cut french fries in 3 different ways?
But can it cut french fries in 3 different ways? Only if you count waffle cut twice. BBD, representin' the Hub, yo! MC Fatty, kick me them old school New Edition beats! jerseygirl is poison...poison! Poison!
Given the rate of attrition, you might be eligible for President of the Johnny Gill fan club. Weird that Bobby Brown might have wound up the worst off of all of 'em.
Weird that Bobby Brown might have wound up the worst off of all of 'em. Worse than Ralph Tresvant?
Please tell me you had to google that, nemo.
RT is still dropping solo joints and getting married at the Ritz (along with Ricky Bell). None of them had to get up in Whitney's shit, to coin a phrase. In short: keep it in your Bugle Boys.
I liked Sensitivity when I was like 13. This was about the same time I was crimping my hair, and apparently crimping my brain also.
Please tell me you had to google that, nemo. I did. ...for the spelling.
Crimped Brain Syndrome. Tragic, really. The scourge of our generation.
The rumors floating around that Crimped Brain Syndrome can be counteracted by keeping your hair further from the brain by use of a banana clip are unfounded, as countless longitudinal studies of crimpers have shown.
Might as well throw all my 80s confessions out there. I had a spiral perm too. Oh the chemically induced bouncy curls I had. Not at the same time was crimping. The perm came after the crimping. I also had a pink jean jacket when I was 12. I wore it on our 6th grade class trip to NYC where we saw (wait for it...) Cats and ate at (wait for it...) NY Deli and saw Jack Klugman eating there. Thanks to growing up with my dad as Commander of the Remote, Gestapo of the television, I was the only pre-teen girl there who knew that Quincy, MD aka Oscar Madison was eating at the very same restaurant we were.
In sixth grade, my school trip to NYC was to see the Hayden Planetarium. I feel pretty confident in saying that if my school, at any level, had forced me to see "Cats" I would never have graduated. What kind of school takes class trips to Broadway shows? Did you go to Fame Schooll?
It pisses me off A&E ("Television for the Soon To Croak") will air Murder, She Wrote, but dropped Quincy, M.D. And more skin on Loveboat!
What kind of school takes class trips to Broadway shows? Not ours. In sixth grade we went to the zoo.
you guys were still taking class trips in sixth grade?
Yeah, I had parachute pants and checkered Vanns sneakers. I was (am) a dork. Our sixth grade class trip was to the Planetarium in Hutchinson, Kansas.
I'm just glad somebody else made the parachute pants admission first. I lived fifteen minutes away from Eglin Air Force Base, so our class trips were always lame excursions to the base, where we got to hear how freakin' cool life in the Air Force was, or stare at badass jets that refused to fly or do anything else awe-inspiring while we were there.
Aside from the zoo we also went to a wetland where we saw no wild animals what so ever and Oakland University.
This thread represents everything that is right with SportsFilter. Our class trip in sixth grade was to Mackinac Island, up where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. It was neither educational nor particularly fun. But I did get some salt water taffy. Even though it's not remotely close to an body of salt water. I probably listened to some awful music in the walkman on the bus ride there and back. So awful I can't even remember it.
Aside from the zoo we also went to a wetland where we saw no wild animals what so ever and Oakland University. Come on YYM, are you telling me you never took the obligatory Michigan school kid trip to Greenfield Village?
Fifth grade. Not sixth grade. That was a fun one.
I must have been sick that day because I never went to Greenfield Village.
My sixth grade did the Henry Ford Museum. Seventh grade was Greenfield Village. The only memory of the Village I have is Matt Pillon spending hours and hours leaving American pennies on the railway tracks to get crushed by the vintage train.
In 3rd grade we went to the (then) Northeast Airlines (it's now Delta) maintenance hangar at Boston's Logan Airport. That's where I fell in love with airplanes and my future path was determined. We also did a trip to the Boston Museum of Science. The big attraction then was a great horned owl and the always neat Van der Graff generator. Wow! man-made lightning. We didn't do any organized high school trips that I remember, but a bunch of us did a "skip" day and went to Revere Beach, MA. Think of it as a small-scale Coney Island. Hey, we're talking high school class of '58 here, OK?
Uhm, I've never been to Coney Island but understood it to be kind of a crappy boardwalk & amusements sort of place that I had no interest in going to. Yet you actually managed to make me think less of it. We got an 8th grade trip and then one for my senior year of high school; previous to those, we saw The Breakers in Newport and the Boston Museum of Science/ Children's Museum too many times to count. Revere Beach? Couldn't sneak into the dog track?
I probably listened to some awful music in the walkman on the bus ride there and back. So awful I can't even remember it. Was it Corey Hart's "I Wear my Sunglasses at Night?" Or maybe "Never Surrender?"
Our schools trips were usually to the Seminole Indian reservation where Seminoles would huddle around teepees and quilts and wrestle alligators. It took me until about the 7th grade to realize that they lived in the condos and not the teepees. In high school we went to Busch Gardens to learn about physics by riding rollercoasters.
We do the same at Cedar Point.
I have no idea what sixth grade is, but I presume it involves people who are around about 11/12 years old. So my sixth-grade trip was a week in Holland. Memorable moment : On a day trip into Germany, 18 boys on the verge of puberty round the corner of the subway stairs and are met by an 80-foot high poster of a young lady whose skirt had blown up in the wind and who wasn't wearing underwear. It was like the opening moments of the 2001 movie.
Revere Beach? Couldn't sneak into the dog track? Wonderland came a few years later when my dad continued my education in he minor vices.
Yep. Sixth Grade trip to NYC. I guess we were tired of the multitude of trips to Rocky Point, Whalom Park, Canobie Lake and the Aquarium.
OK, stakes are raised. My 6th Grade trip went to Canberra and the Snowy Mountains. That is all.
Well, my high school econ class took us to the trading floor of Bear Sterns, Salmon Brothers exec meeting room and the floor of the stock exchange so we could see future captain of industry alums at work and hope we could fill their empty suits some day.
Our class trip in sixth grade was to Mackinac Island, up where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. It was neither educational nor particularly fun. But I did get some salt water taffy. Even though it's not remotely close to an body of salt water. I probably listened to some awful music in the walkman on the bus ride there and back. So awful I can't even remember it. posted by holden at 11:14 AM CDT on July 26 Ditto here holden and it was Greenfield Villiage in 5th grade. I cannot forget the all famous trip to Tulip Festival in Holland and all the rich kids (not me of course) getting wooden shoes!
I've never been to Coney Island but understood it to be kind of a crappy boardwalk & amusements sort of place that I had no interest in going to. Dude, you gotta go to the aquarium. They have a tank lit up by Bioluminescent jellyfish. And penguins, real live penguins. 6th grade field trip? Somewhere on the Eastern (or crappier) end of Long Island to go whale watching. Voyage of the Mimi told us whales are cool. I hate Ben Affleck more than most of you because I was forced to watch this drek.
Voyage of the Mimi told us whales are cool. I hate Ben Affleck more than most of you because I was forced to watch this drek. ahhhhh. i still have nightmares about the hypothermia episode.
If I could get this Spider Pig song out of my head, I think we'd all be better off
Bad Prediction - 2007 MLB Comeback Player of the Year - Pete Incaviglia
Spiderpig, spiderpig, does whatever a spiderpig does.
Spider pig, spider pig. Does whatever a spider pig does. Can he swing from a web? No, he can't - he's a pig. Lookout! He is a spider pig.
You see, officer, I think it all started going wrong for her in the sixth grade. Something happened on that class trip, something horrible, something involving...Jack Klugman! /woman screams, house lights go dark
Wow. I was about as close you could be with one of my extra predictions: Tom Glavine's 300th win: August 3 Only two days off.
