simonzelotes

In such a scenario, the higher ups would probably say the runner was technically out for the 27th out before the batter was awarded his basehit...or other some such...'Course then, you'd have a no-hitter and a guy who was one outa four in the box score... I agree with Rocky's assessment of the ruling on Sabbathia...You wouldn't have a three hundred pound shortstop or second baseman...Usually a pitcher only gets an error when he throws the ball away or fumbles it...In this case, he did drop the ball, so I probably would have immediately awarded an error, but it is too close to overrule a scorer's decision...Geez---what a headache for $145 a game...

Thanks for that Youtube on Santo, mstar...At the end of his career, he didn't want to play for anyone else but the Cubs, but when they didn't want him any longer, he went to the crosstown White Sox so he could still be in Chicago...He is one of the most rabid home-town color-men in the radio booth...When the Cubs blow a game, he's been known to say, "Oh, man, am I gonna have a miserable night"...I hate to predict doom and gloom, but he almost looks like he'd drop dead as soon as (if) the Cubs ever won a World Series...If he doesn't get in the Hall while he's alive, he'll probably get in when he passes as sort of a lifetime achievement award, for his play on the field and his work in the radio booth and with diabetes...

Honestly, I think no-hitter from the beginning of every ball game I watch...I'm always hoping for something unique or unusual to happen...If my team hasn't gotten a hit by the first time through the order, I start getting impatient and yelling at somebody to get a hit, for pete's sake... While watching a pitcher mow down an opponant with quick redundancy when all cylinders are firing is a beautiful thing, I often am impressed with some of the more gutsy performances by a pitcher...Saturday, I thought Phillies pitcher Brett Myers pitched a whale of a ball game against the Cubs...Cubs had won the first two in the series against the Phils, who really needed someone to step up from their rotation and bullpen before the entire season slipped away...Myers did just that, even though he gave up eight hits in the first four innings, he got the infield popup when he needed it, or the double play grounder when he needed it...It wasn't as 'tho he didn't have his good stuff---the Cubs were serving up singles like candy---but at the key moments it was a good lesson to see Myers bear down and get the biggest outs against a good-hitting team...It was one of those rare games where you root against the team you usually root for---when you see a real professional doing his job well....

I've always loved that Vogues tune...Mstar, that Bush video was hysterical---that was my son's theme song when he got a new drum set... Don't know how to youtube, but my two faves were not really work songs, unless you happened to shingle a lot of roofs, like I did, for a living...I would start the day, singing "...on the roof it's peaceful as can be..." by the Drifters...At the end of the day, when I was all gloating and proud of my work, I would sing "No-no-no-no-no-no-no- body can do the Shing-a-ling like I do..." by the Human Beanz....

If memory serves, Schilling should have never faced that 28th batter---I think the Red Sox shortstop booted a ball in that game, spoiling the perfect game at least...I'm sure he's been playing "what if" as well...

Schilling actually had a perfect game going and the score was 2 or 3-0 in the seventh or eighth...I didn't agree with Brenly on his assessment...He had positioned the second basemen way out on the outfield grass against the left-handed Padres catcher----in effect, he was defending a perfect game, almost daring the Padres catcher to bunt...If a team is going to rearrange their defense to preserve a perfect game, and in doing so exposes a weakness, I don't see it as chicken sh!t to exploit that weakness... In Sabbathia's case, it was a "swinging but", meaning, Laroche took a full swing, but the ball dribbled off his bat and only went as far as a bunt...I think it was in the fifth inning...

Well, there was a ruling controversy today, and this is now the third time I've seen one man's decision, or play, spoil a no-hitter or a perfect game for a pitcher...The first was way back in about 1970, when with two outs and a 3-2 count on on the 27th batter, the ump called ball 'four' on a borderline pitch, spoiling Milt Pappas' perfect game...He ended up getting the next guy out to complete his no-hitter...Back in the eighties, I was at A WhiteSox game with Lamar Hoyt on the mound against the Yankees on a cold misty May night game at Comiskey Park...Hoyt had been perfect until the seventh--never even reaching ball three on a batter, when a Yankee hit a popup to short left field...In the swirling wind, Ozzie Guillen went out after the ball, then ran in, then left, then right, and the ball finally dropped right where he was standing when the ball was pitched---but he couldn't reach it, and thus, it was ruled a single...The very next pitch, the Yankee batter hit a come-backer to Hoyt, who started a double play to end the inning, and that was the end of the Yankee baserunning for the night... Sunday, the official scorer's ruling on C. C. Sabbathia's drop on Adam LaRoche's swinging bunt was ruled a hit, and the Brewer's are trying to get the call reversed and award Sabbathia a no-hitter...Personally, I think the official scorer made a bad ruling, but he is the official scorer and he did make the ruling and I think it should stand...The rest of the game would have perhaps played out differently, knowing there was a no-hitter on the line...

I don't know how this little story got to be talking about not having choices, but to me it seems to prove just the opposite...Here's a kid raised in the way who's playing college football...It isn't as though the story is about a college football player who gave up his career to go out WOW or onto some other ministry venture...Then you might have a reason to go chastise the reporter...I don't see where the way is propping the guy up---it wasn't a press release near as I can tell... Sports pages are full of human interest stories about athletes...If the story was about him spending his days off fixing up and restoring old Corvairs would you want to e-mail the reporter and tell him those Corvairs were pieces of junk that were unsafe at any speed?...Speaking of cars, Tom, when I went in-residence, I had a red '63 Galaxie 500 fastback, but I didn't bring it with me because the 'what to bring list' said that if you bring a car, it must be in fine-looking shape and in good running condition...I was very disappointed when one of the first cars I saw at Emporia was excie's rusted-out,oil burning, bucket of bolts... Had I had a choice, Lifted, I'd have picked somebody prettier than you to be my fellow taxperson... I don't know the exact dictionary definition of some terms, but it seems like "option" and "choice" get mixed up at times...Just as we all had different experiences, I think we all had different options with which to choose from...We were not all dealt the same hand...I had the option of leaving the way any time I wanted to and go back to whatever it was I came from and face whatever it was I didn't want to face...When I was good and ready, that's exactly what I did...I now have three grown kids who are the ages that I was when I was involved with the way...As a parent, I think it my duty to continually remind them that they have choices, or options, with which to choose from...

I'd hate to see an irate batter aguing a "strike three!" call with one of those U-Haul K-zone boxes...Even worse would pe a pitcher like, say, Roger Clemens, early in a playoff game start cussing out the K-zone box and have the machine say in a monotone robot voice "We're sorry Mr. Clemens, but it is my duty to inform you that you are banished from playing in the remainder of this baseball game and are hereby required to vacate immediately to your respective team's clubhouse"...

I know everybody's experience wasn't the same, but as for me, I did what I wanted to do when I joined the way international, while I was in the way international, and when I left the way international...

Don't know if you all are familiar with the story of Joel Youngblood, but on August 4, 1982, starting in center field for the NY Mets, he hit a two run single off of Fergie Jenkins of the Cubs in the third inning of a day game at Wrigley...He recieved word soon after that he had been traded to the Montreal Expos, and quickly caught a flight to Philly, where the Expos where playing a night game...He arrived at Philly's stadium in the third inning of that game, was inserted into right field in the sixth inning, and later got a single in his only at-bat against Steve Carlton...Not only did Youngblood get a hit for two different teams in two diffent cities on the same day, but the pitchers he got them off of had combined career totals of more than 500 victories and 6000 strikeouts....I suppose Joel has framed, enlarged box scores of both games hanging somewhere in his den... Yeah, I'd like to see some parks tone it down a bit when it comes to all these advertizing and gimmicks to try to put excitement into the crowd..Like this thread title says, baseball is a talking sport, and part of the fun of going to games is being able to talk during breaks in the action instead of being shouted at... Tom, I saw where your boy that got called up from AAA got a homerun and three hits in his first game w/ the stRangers...Now, with the glut of hitting that the stRangers already have, why doesn't management shop around a young fella like that as trade bait for some front-line pitching?...

Well, I've just had a question answered that's been keeping me awake nights for I-don't-know-how-many years...Seems the Orioles and the Chisox had to finish out a game tonight that was called about two months ago because of rain with the score tied 3-3 after ten innings..Because of all the roster changes on both teams since the game was originally called, all the new players on each team were allowed to play in the completion of the game, like Ken Griffey Jr. and so forth...Although Aubrey Huff, who was thrown out of the game before it was rain-delayed, didn't get to play as well as the others who were subbed for...

REALLY look into the matter and do exactly what?....Write a follow-up story and say that in spite of what I previously reported, this young man Johnson, who was born and raised in the Way International and now, being old enough to make his own decisions and of his own free will opts to take a two week class at the Way International, returns to college and tells other teammates, his closest friends, about it, and in spite of this cult's mind-controlling forceful techniques, still is managing to fulfill his natural abilities and play college football, with a good shot at being drafted in the first round by the pros if he stays healthy---um, what exactly are you telling the reporter that the cult is doing to this young man?

I think the playoff roster needs to be trimmed back down to 25 players...So you may end up bringing in a hot player from the minors when their season is over, and keep him on the playoff roster, while one of your veteran guys doesn't make the playoff roster...

I don't know all the nuances of the trade deadline, but the story I read said the Dodgers gave up a couple of minor leaguers in their organization...So, what's to keep a team from picking up a Barry Linsecome, or a Josh Hamilton, for that matter, if there's a week left in the season and the teams those guys play for are out of the playoffs?...

Yeah, and what are you, some spring chicken, Lifted?...Don't try and deny you're not getting inundated with mail containing "special offers" from the AARP...God, Washington must have had less pitching than Texas does now...Leave you're starter in there for 16 innings?...I think managers guaged how long a pitcher stayed in the game with how well they were pitching in the game... One thing I noticed in looking up old stats is that in the days of our youth, the four man rotation was not necessarily the norm for most teams...Bob Gibson never started more than 36 games in one season---usually it was 34-35, meaning he was getting four days rest between starts, as in a five-man rotation...In 68-69 combined, for instance, he started 69 games, 56 were complete games, with a total of 618.2 innings pitched, or 2.1 innings less than averaging a full 9 innings per start...While remembering fondly the old "Spahn and Sain and two days of rain", it seemed like most of the pitchers in those days worked on five days rest, with the exception of the real top guns, like Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal, Fergie, et. al. ...Unless, of course, you where a knuckler like Wilbur Wood or Phil Niekro----then you worked on two days rest and won 20 and lost 20... Without steroids considered in the equation, it seems like more pitchers have joined the 300 club who were products of the five-man rotation, with Steve Carlton the last guy I can think of who pitched some years in the four -man rotation...I think what I miss are the old matchups of top guns--two battling pros dueling in a 0-0 game until only one man was left standing...The other day Greg Maddux and Jamie Moyer squared off in a "matchup for the aged"...forty something year old guys battling in a 1-0 game...It was great, but neither was around after the 7th---it came down to whose relief staff was better... Speaking of Maddux, he just got traded to the Dodgers...Now, can somebody explain to me what the phrase "trading deadline" actually means?...

There was just a story about Sabbathia today, the old"hoss" I think they called him...There was some speculation that since the Brewers most likely won't have him around for next year, they're trying to squeeze every pitch they can out of him and get their money's worth...He might be enjoying facing lineups with 8 hitters and a pitcher...I like complete games---but I like to see them more in a 1-0 or 2-1 game...I think the starting pitcher is the most motivated guy on the team to win the particular game he starts, and if he still has some gas in the tank, I'd like to see more of them finish what they start in closer games instead of just thinking they did their job because they pitched 7 good innings...Geeze, you hardly see complete game shutouts, any more...One manager was bemoaning the fact that his pitcher was throwing a no-hitter and thus, couldn't pull him after seven innings---he had to leave him in there until he gave up a hit or the game was over...

Yeah, that leg strength and kick came in handy when he beat the bejeezice out of Robin Ventura...

I'm always up for a fatted calf, mstar... Don't know exactly what capacity Ryan's working in...He was the type of pitcher who could get away with more bases on balls, since he was so difficult to hit and he struck out so many guys...I know the Cubbies have brought in guys like Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins to work with young players...Billy Williams had the sweetest swing I ever saw...When they began using the centerfield camera during games in the 60's, I loved watching how Billiy's bat seemed to meet the camera dead-on---something you either had or you didn't... One of the reasons I think the Cubs have been so successful this year is their defense...Piniella seems to push the right buttons to get his guys to hit---but he'll show more patience with a struggling hitter whose doing a great job defensively...When the Cubs acquired Jim Edmonds, he was mired in a terrible hitting slump, but he would take a few runs away from the other team by his great center field play...Piniella would just subtly tell the media "we need him to start hitting" and leave it at that...Right now, a lot of Cub fans want to crucify Kosuke Fukudome---he's really hitting terribly---but his defense keeps him in the lineup... Another factor for the Cubs is Mark DeRosa...Six or seven hole hitter---not a lot of fanfare---but plays wherever he's told---Second base, third base, left field, right field---one of the highest batting averages with runners in scoring position...Won't make the all-star team but in my opinion, should win the baseball equivelant of the NBA's "6th man" award...Seems to know if he's up to bat whether to move the runner, drive in the run, get on base, or just go for broke... And of course, it helps to have a little bit of good pitching..Right now, if the Cubs needed to win one more game to make the playoffs, I'd put my money on Ryan Dempster, their converted closer...

You know, Tom and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I wonder about a guy like El Presidente Ryan being a pitching coach(if that's his job title)...As a pitcher, he always struck me as a guy who looked like he was sitting in a lawn chair throwing 95 mph...Pitching looked so natural to him...I looked up his stats and it's unbelievable how few basehits he gave up and how many walks he gave up in relation to his innings pitched...A couple of years he walked more guys than the amount of hits he gave up...Of course, he also struck out a zillion batters...He was a one-of--a-kind----and you wonder how well he can communicate the nuances of pitching to pitchers who have run-of-the mill natural abilities....

I'm not sure about retiring Babe Ruth's number...I could see Jackie Robinson's...'Tho Robinson as a ballplayer certainly had HOF calibre stats, especially considering he didn't make his big league debut until he was 28, his big mark on the game of baseball was breaking the racial color barrier...I've often heard baseball bashed for it's old segregated ways---having Negro leagues and such...But the whole country was segregated in those days---including the U. S. Army...Because Robinson paved the way for baseball in the same vein that Rosa Parks opened the door for equal civil rights in America, he should forever be recognized...Ruth certainly revived tremendous interest in professional baseball during tough times, along with a new lively ball, but I don't see his contributions to the game of baseball as warranting his number 3 retired... You guys have been talking about Texas (poor) pitching and (fabulous) hitting...I don't get to see them that often...I will say that one of the more enjoyable nights of watching baseball for me, was a couple of weeks ago when the Cubs-Astros game on ESPN was rain-delayed, so to fill time, ESPN kept switching to the various games going on around the league, using the local tv affiliates and the local announcers..I saw an inning or two of about five different games---including Texas and NY---and I was thinking that ESPN should do this once a week---have sort of a potpourri night...Anyway, don't know how to solve Texas' pitching woes, but I did note a couple of things in the Cubs-Marlins game yesterday that might be related.. Cubs were being shutout 'til the seventh inning when they got a couple of baserunners on and knocked out the Florida starter who was pitching a gutsy game...Then the wheels fell off for the Marlins and the Cubs scored eight runs in the inning (Florida did the same thing to the Cubs a few Octobers ago, so I don't pity them too much)...Here's what I saw that killed the Marlins....Fredi Gonzalez brings in lefty Renyel Pinto, averaging almost a run an inning, after lefty Jim Edmonds was announced as a pinch-hitter...So Piniella counters with righty Mark DeRosa, who is walked...Now you've got the top of the Cubs order coming up, four straight right-handed hitters, and what does the Florida manager do?...Sits in the dugout like he's waiting for a bus...I mean, it's the seventh inning---2-0 game and you're fighting for your playoff lives...That's usually when the manager keeps doing the righty-lefty matchups...I thought the Florida manager threw his reliever under the bus... The other thing of note with the Florida team was their poor defense...Cubs hit three doubles in the inning with the bases loaded...Luis Gozalez---good man that he is---looked horrible in left field...Out of those three doubles, a decent left fielder would have caught one, held the other one to a single, and a decent web gem by the third basemen would have turned the other one into a double-play groundout...While no errors were charged, I thought that one inning of baseball was a good indicator of some of those intangibles that can make a pitcher look very bad...

You mean Cy " name the award after me" Young wasn't one of the original 5? We must be posting at the same time...I don't think anyone's gonna catch Brandon Webb for the NL Cy Young award...

I'm going to go with Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Rogers Hornsby....

Heavens-to-Betsy, No!...TWI coined that phrase a long time ago...Anybody at greasespot calls it 'mark and avoid' then we might have a lawsuit for plagierism on our hands...But then again, we have a whole legal department staff here that could probably straighten me out on that issue...Let's just call it 'boot' and not have any complications...Besides, Wierwille did enough plagierizing to write a book or five... I'm not sure what this rings of, really---although, 'lynch mob', 'gang-tackling', 'dog pile' and 'screaming pack of vultures' are phrases that have come to mind... I tried to go back and read a few threads and see what this is all about---what constitutes a 'Wierwille apologist' and frankly, or Shirley, I'm somewhat confused...One of the threads, titled 'losing the way', it seemed to start over whether we were all victims of mind control or not...The other, 'part two', was hard to tell because most of White Dove's, (or "WD" , the time-saving version, since he's been talked about so much on this thread,) were deleted...So I'm left with these last few threads we've had recently, like this one, where 'WD's' credentials and involvement with the way are demanded to be exposed, where courtroom-like arguments are made on whether or not we should believe everything we read on the internet---if it's first hand, that is,... where Groucho is pulling his best Chris Geer and exhorting us to get back to the original purpose of greasespot...I wondered aloud, here, on another thread, whether greasespot was an ex-way site or an anti-way site, and Groucho seems to have risen up here and answered on behalf of Pawtucket and the majority... Which is okay,---I like to know where people are coming from...If being a corpse grad (I'm sure somebody here could look that up on an old post somewhere if it helps settle an argument) and not heralding from the mountaintops, or at least from my quiet little cubbie-hole,...on my computer,...under an anonymous name,...the abuse and destruction of VP Wierwille's way international makes me a jagoff---well, I guess it's good to know that...You can't fit in every place..Which, I guess brings me to the question of "what is the purpose of greasespot?"...To expose the sick nature of the way?...Which way?...The current one, the old way or the old, old way? VPW is certainly not a threat to anybody---he's been dead for over twenty years and the way doesn't even use his class any more...Martindale has been long fired...Haven't heard a lot about Rivenbark here and her abusive practices...In fact, I haven't heard much here at all about anything current about the way...There is a thread going on about Martindale in 1999---nine years ago...Is the way still grooming young women to 'service' the top leadership?...Or is this website more about our past?...It's been said here that greasespot is about recovering from being in an abusive cult...So was the guy who was yelled at by his branch leader for not stringing the chairs properly abused in the same manner as the girl who was lured into the motorcoach?...I guess in the about the way threads, when the subject of abuse comes up, which is most of the time, and the thread evolves into sexual abuse, which is nearly all of the time, only those in 'agreeance' with the greasespot concensus should continue on.... People don't need to have a good reason to hang out with eachother if they enjoy eachother's company---whether in the real world or in the cyber-world...If you only want ex-way people here that think of TWI as a mind-controlling, abusive cult, then kick the rest of the jagoffs out...No reason to hang out with people you don't want to...'Tho, I will say, I don't understand what's so healing about looking at the same experiences, no matter how bad, and continually facing them from the exact perspective each time....

Does anybody else have anything they'd like to share before we do Roll Away??...