I present the 2001-02 Montgomery County (PA) USAD Regional Champions: http://tinyurl.com/q49zb

So no, no we are not. At all. It's kinda funny, the same way the pix from the Adam Dunn trip last year were funny :)

Before a crowd of 41,000 in Miami.

Kendall went 3 for 4.

Against Kevin Brown.

"You know, maybe we should just keep Martin out for opening week, with all the hustle and bustle... You know, Sandy's hitting .300 right now, let's just ride it out..." Next thing we know, it's July 14th and Alomar has 300 at bats.

Is there any athlete who can't handle the pressure of an opening day? I imagine if you couldn't, you wouldn't be a professional athlete.

Maybe Sandy Alomar will pull a Kevin Elster on opening day.

Kind of a random aside there, Jon... any reason for that question?

That's even more funny, if Jon can get paid to go cover the event.

Who wants to get in on this - I'll work on securing the rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Academic

Glad J.D. Drew likes Pasadena. If the area is good enough for ace commenters Bob Timmermann, and Marty, it darn well should be good enough for him.

As for the Academic Decathlon, I think only the "superquiz" section is remotely telegenic and I think KLCS has shown it a few times.

But the clips on the news don't look telegenic.

As for JD Drew's comments, I'm happy to read them and hope that a monster season forces him to have to reassess at years' end.

http://tinyurl.com/me9lm

Check the pronunciations for the Chinese Taipei squad.

I copied from the wrong line.

http://www.deadspin.com/sports/baseball/do-not-taunt-milton-bradley-162430.php

(Not to derail the conversation)

http://flashwarner.com/2006/03/best_mound_charges.html

Highlights: MoVaughn saving Sele's life, Weaver getting absolutely pummeled and of course Pedro making an appearance. Izzy Alcantara is a crazy crazy man.

Does this mean that 25 years from now, Martin will gain 50 lbs and manage the Angels?

Today's starting lineup, per Inside the Dodgers:

Furcal, SS; Cruz, CF; Drew, RF; Kent, 2B; Guzman, LF; Choi, 1B; Aybar, 3B; Martin, C; Seo P

Aybar's getting back on that defensive horse. Seems like he's getting a last long look, though he remains such a longshot to start the season in Los Angeles.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncw/ncaatourney06/news/story?id=2380731

7
You must be one serious teacher to take on that task. My hat is off to you and all the students who spend hours upon hours on this event.

Can one order the MLB Audio without bothering with the Sports Illustrated part of it (no offense, Jon, since they are now your corporate masters, but having to cancel a magazine subscription annoys me)

39 - I'm starting to think our tree is being targeted. Am I to believe that no other mascot has ever danced in a no-mascot zone?

DWT - Dancing While Tree

He homered in this one:
http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/B04180LAN1980.htm

Good times.

Dodgers scored via a leadoff double by Furcal. A sharp single by Cruz advances Furcal to 3rd. A deep SF by Drew scores Furcal. Kent GIDP. Jason Marquis pitching for the Cards.

Choi grounds it back to the mound. Easy double play. I don't know. That Choi kid just doesn't seem to have what it takes.

Bottom 5 2006 NL Starting Third Basemen, by PECOTA Projected VORP

Player, Team, Projected VORP

Vinny Castilla, SDN, 10.7
Pedro Feliz, SFN, 11.0
Corey Koskie, MIL, 13.9
Garrett Atkins, COL, 15.2
Bill Mueller, LAN, 21.5

Aybar handles Suppans grounder. 1 away.

Eckstein gounds out to Furcal. Seo has settled down.

I'd like to know about lofton.

Man our division is weak.

California dominates the national level as we have won first or second place in the U.S. competition every year except one since the national contest began in 1982 with Woodland Hills getting several of those national titles.

I'm surprised Koskie is so low. Is the Brewers park really hard to hit in, or is Koskie on a substantial decline?

Baseball HQ has Mueller as the 9th best 3b in the NL behind the above and also Atkins and Randa. But both BP and HQ are not taking into account defense and when you factor that in Mueller will rise above Atkins.

How many innings did Seo end up going, btw? 3? 4?

Mueller is probably average in terms of NL 3rd basemen.

Rolen
Ramirez
Wright
Ensberg
Chipper Jones

Those 5 are substantially better.

Next 5:
Helms
Mueller
Feliz
Randa
Koskie

They dont have Miguel Cabrera listed as a 3rd basemen.

Does Yahoo at least have Cabrera listed as a 3rd basemen for fantasy purposes?

But I suppose there might be similar charts reflecting on the NL West's weakness at other positions.

http://tinyurl.com/ksjyw

Nomar has 19HR in his last 600ABs in Hitters parks so get used to it Bear!!

I'm already calling him Nerstad.

Wright, MCabrera, Ramirez, CJones, Ensberg, RZimmerman, EEncarnacion, Rolen, Mueller, Tracy, Atkins, Koskie, Castilla, Randa, Feliz, Bell.

Where players rank depends on the AB cutoff used.

This was the reason for my reference to Dodger Math's Choi FAQ.

Thats what sets Erstad apart.

Not a rare occurrence.

The last spot is a competition between choi and robles.

I dont think Bradley will be an MVP, just that he'll be alot better than Lofton.

"I woke up (irritated) and it showed," Bradley said. "I came out too nice earlier in the spring, and it didn't work."

"I came in here trying to be too nice, I was smiling and happy and I wasn't very good on the field," Bradley said. "I have to be a little rowdy, a little nasty, and take it out on the baseball field."

Repko may be used as strictly a pinch runner.

Guzman hits it hard but its a DP. 6-4-3

Choi, the out machine, does what he does best, he makes an out, this time he strikes out swinging. THANK GOD WE HAVE NOMAR!

You act as if Nomar is recovering from a chronic injury. Not the case.

He hasnt hit for power the last two years (when healthy), and he's going into a park that takes away most of his power (doubles).

"Jupiter aligned with Mars here on Wednesday afternoon. Harmony and understanding, sympathy and trust abounded. No more falsehoods or derisions. Dude, it was weirder than an 'Age of Aquarius' acid flashback. Why, the park was so blissed out that Alfonso Soriano, a nonviolent conscientious objector as recently as Monday, made peace, not war, and played left field."

Tom will be on for his regularl online chat tomorrow at 8 am Pacific at washingtonpost.com. Dude.

124
No one is arguing that Milton isn't better right now at his stage of his career then Lofton, but what is your point? Milton had to go, deal with it and move on, to keep bringing it up is as tiresome an arguement as the Choi debate.

And just for the record, the "out machine" has a career OBP of .349 and Nomar has a an OBP of .367. They are pretty much equal opportunity out machines.

I didnt bring up Milton. I was just responding to the poster that brought up Milton.

Exactly. Most of Nomar's SLG'ing has come from doubles. He wont hit many doubles playing in DS.

And in another appeal for even-handedness, it's not real fair to say Aybar is a butcher at 3rd base by pointing out his errors in ST, and not admit that Nomar has more errors in ST than Choi had all of last year (or close, anyway). Personally, I think that neither stat means anything. But if we're going to believe that Nomar will be fine defensively once the season starts, we have to give Aybar the same, possibly delusional, benefit of the doubt.

Shipley was none too friendly even though I was able to remember him as a former Dodger.

Ozzie actually hunted me down and was a complete psycho who kept stabbing me and threatening to shoot me and my friends. He then proceeded to follow us back to my house when a bunch of midgets came over to play basketball. Unfortunately I then woke up.

My impression (and that's all it is, but I'm sure the numbers exist somewhere) is that because Nomar is a free-swinging contact hitter, and because he's right-handed, he did in fact benefit from the Green Monster. If that's true, we can expect lower SLG, lower BA, and lower OBP than he's used to.

On a related note, I had a dream a few months ago that I was Kobe Bryant playing basketball with a giant blackberry (the fruit, not the geek gadget). The dream ended with my wife waking me up, as I was screaming in my sleep while being chased by a deer that was trying to gore me.

Dodger Stadium:
AVG-93
HR-95
All batters
Doubles-99

But that IS a surprising doubles number for DS. My (again, impressionistic) explanation is that it's the new seats. I saw a lot of singles become doubles last year when they hit that section that's jutting out and caromed from the line toward CF. Corner OFers would run toward the ball, then have to make a sharp turn to chase it down.

But what about Fenway?

Does the bald Korean that Sun was set up with and later learned English from resemble the Dharma filmstrip guy, if you took away his hair? It's been so long since I saw the filmstrip, so I might be imagining the resemblance.

Sure you can, but not just by looking at numbers, it's true. As I said, some of those doubles become HRs, while others become outs. How to know how many there are of each category would require actual observation of the batted balls in question. I said it was impressionistic, so take it for what it's worth, but I'm betting that the wall was a net boon for Nomar. Part of my impression comes from watching way too many Red Sox games. But part also comes from Nomar's approach. Because he makes a lot of contact (on pitchers others would miss, or lay off, he probably hits more than his fair share of weak popups and groundouts. He also strikes out and walks less often than you'd expect.

I admit that I'm guessing here. But my guess does jibe with the conventional wisdom about RH hitters and Fenway.

Again, I hope I'm wrong. We'll see.

The bald guy (more appropriately shaved head) showed up in the earlier Sun-Jin flashback at the beginning of the year.

The guy in the film (not a filmstrip, there was no "beep") is Dr. Marvin Candle(sp?). I think that actor is Vietnamese or Cambodian.

Boston:
1.10 R
1.06 H
1.32 2B
0.94 HR
1.04 BB
0.94 SO

DS:
0.90 R
0.94 H
0.86 2B
1.12 HR
0.90 BB
1.06 SO

Is baldness defined as only occuring naturally?

Houlton had a session with Koufax yesterday and today he came out and pitched two scoreless, hitless innings with two strikeouts. Maybe we have the wrong pitching coach.

Francois Chau
http://tinyurl.com/l6ke7

Poor dead horse.

What would be more important are the road splits but even those are proven to not be entirely accurate in predicting future performance. Some players simply hit better at home no matter what the park is. JD Drew loved DS and posted an ops over 1000 at DS and less then 800 on the road. Jeff Kent on the other hand has hit better on the road over the last 3 years even taking into account that his home park was Minutemaid for 2 of those years. He's also not very good during the day.

I get all my advice in this area from Larry David, the kindest, gentlest man on earth.

Saenz' numbers were almost exactly the same as Choi's last year.

But of course Choi wasn't as sexy as Seanz last year and that understandably tends to skew perceptions.

But now two of them show up a mere 6-7 days later.

Just not with the bases loaded. Saenz 'clutch' line zigs and zags.

--Jim Tracy, on batting Izturis leadoff and Jason Phillips at 1st base.

But you can for Nomar? If Choi's history doesnt count, why does Nomar's?

George later confirms it with the great observation where he points to the part of his head and says once it (his forehead) advances to this part, its all over.

Elaine also confirmed to George in this episode that despite what women tell him, hair matters.

Try saying that 10 times fast.

Gonzaga has Micah Downs, whom transferred from KU sitting out this year. He was a McDonalds All American last year. Plus with Raivo, Pargo, Heytveld they'll still be really good next year. Nobody can replace Morrison, but if Morrison comes back along with Downs next year...They could be top 5 in the nation. But I doubt Morrison comes back. He could pull a Leinart though.

Nomar is a household name who I am very familiar with and he has been among the games best for many seasons.

I've seen Nomar play countless times. Prior to Choi coming to LA the only thing I can remember about him is that he got hit in the head with something.

But I thought you watched and listened to alot of baseball?

I've named my microwave "Nomar". My oven is called "Olmedo".

The mainstream media is a very powerfull force.
It makes me sick.

unfortuantly 2005, 2004, and 2003 arent among those "many seasons".

at least we would know who'd win a popularity contest, now as for who's the better 1st baseman ...

Nomar could win a DT popularity contest if he was playing LF, 3rd or SS.

Oh, wait.

I agree with Bob that the Super Quiz is probably the most "telegenic". That's held in a big area, such as a gym, and the teachers and parents are allowed to fill the stands and watch. But the subject of the Super Quiz usually yields pretty dull questions and it's not terribly exciting unless you're rooting for a team. My junior year, however, they flashed the wrong answer to one question and that was very exciting. I still remember the proctor looking out over the field of "zeros" signs being displayed by the graders (it was an easy question, so nearly everyone got it correct and was graded wrong) with a look of unease on his face, as all the type-A students screamed various things at him, and most of the coaches were screaming from the stands too. Then the coaches all rushed off to file their formal protests and the scores were later corrected. Good times.

The speech and interview portion are the only other portions of the actual tests that would be worth recording. Other than that, it's literally just sitting at a desk in a classroom filling out answer bubbles. Wait, the arts test does have a music portion in it, so perhaps you could get something out of the students listening to various songs being played and identifying/answering questions about them.

The breaks and mingling would be of some human interest. As you can imagine, it's generally a lot of very stressed students either frantically cramming or comparing notes.

The awards banquet, which in SoCal when I was there was always held at one of the ballrooms at Disneyland, could yield a few minutes of decent footage. My senior year, my team was almost all seniors, knew we had done really, really well and would be accepting a lot of medals, and so we decided to go all out - we girls wore prom dresses, and the guys wore tuxedos. But then I think we had more of a sense of humor and fun than many of the other teams did...

But in the end, I think it would make best recording if you picked one school's team and followed that team throughout the months of prep through the contest and banquet. There's one school, I forget which now, which always won the first place team honor because they were the only school who got to take Academic Decathlon as a class during the regular school day. The rest of us had to come in after school or on weekends. Every year when they were announced the winners at the banquet, there would always be a chorus of sarcastic "What a surprise"s all over the ballroom from the coaches who had to devote their own time outside of school to coaching their teams.

There is another academic competition that's national that would be more telegenic. I forget the name of it, but it's held after the school year ends, and each state selects one high school to send a team to the competition. My senior year, my high school sent my academic decathlon team. It's called the Academic Challenge or something like that, and the way it's held is a lot of fun: It's tournament-style, with three or four teams participating in each match, and it's just like a game show. The procter reads out a question and whichever team pushes their buzzer first gets to answer. The questions are really brutal, cover a wide range of subjects, and are much harder to study for than the academic decathlon competition. There's even Latin for those few students in the U.S. who still take Latin! The year I went (and perhaps all years), it was held at Disney World, all the teams got to stay for free in one of the nicest hotels in the park, and we spent three days competing and the rest of the time going around the theme parks. It all culminated with another nice awards banquet, and a dance where the DJ realized he was stuck with a huge mass of type-A students who never did anything but study, and taught them all the Macarena. (It was 1996.)

1. Nomar Garciaparra is my very favorite player in the major leagues.

2. Nomar Garciaparra does not hit well enough to play 1B; he will provide, at best, production equal to what Choi and Saenz provided in platoon last year. Likely, he will be worse or injured.

Here is my new hopefull lineup later this season (if only to tune up martin and guzman for 2007):

furcal
martin
drew
kent
nomar
guzman
cruz
mueller

Hopefully we can get a top free agent starting pitcher for 2007 and billingsley turns out to be a dominant starter for 2007.

Choi should start because Choi is way hotter than old man Nomar, who is hella lucky to have scored Mia Hamm (even if Mia's personality is kinda milquetoast).

Now that we've finally hit the lowest common denominator of argument, thanks to me, can we give it up? ;)

Yes.

But that was the lineup i hope to see later this season.
Martin and guzman gets tuned up later this season for 2007.

www.blount.com

The Raiders are expected to draft a QB, though, so I don't expect Brooks to start for more than one season at best. So there's that, at least.

Not you too. ;)

Of the players we have that are likely to start, my lineup would be:

C- Martin
3b-Mueller
RF-Drew
2b-Kent
CF-Cruz
1b-Nomar
SS-Furcal
LF-Guzman

My thinking is that we need the guys that get on base the most, to bat at the top. So Martin/Mueller should get on quite a bit. Drew/Kent/Cruz is good power in the middle. Nomar is in a spot where his free-swinging shouldnt hurt him much. And then Furcal/Guzman is still some punch at the bottom.

I'm getting to the point where I don't care if I like the players, I just want them to win games. Should I be worried?

What a great way to waste an afternoon. I'm thinking about getting "I'm bald and I vote" bumpersticker. I can almost bet there is a "Bald people for Voldemort" one already.

As to charging the mound (that was where I was at before my meeting, and really I'm just now catching up....) I like the idea of a HBP batter getting a free chance to hit the pitcher by throwing the bat. You could call it a free throw. The Ventura/Ryan one is a classic.

I sort of feel sorry for those (and you don't know who you are) that just miss the greatness of this place.

One argument:
Choi's salary: $350,000
Saenz' salary: $650,000

Garciaparra's salary: $6,000,000+ (up to $10,000,000).

Choi/Saenz easily outperform Garciaparra.

Another argument:
Jason Repko '05: 276 AB / .229 BA / 8 HR / 30 RBI / 16 BB / 80 Ks

Choi '05: 320 AB / .253 BA / 15 HR / 42 RBI / 34 BB / 80 Ks

Yet people think Repko is a valuable asset and a scrappy player, whereas Choi is some hideous evil deadweight who kills babies.

Maybe the format shouldn't be strictly the Academic Decathlon format. But I think a team academic competition would be very popular on TV. But I'd like it to be more than a trivia contest or game show. I'd like the answers to involve thought.

And the winners would get to choose who gets home field advantage for the World Series.

LoDuca's wife is pretty hot. Who won "the trade" in terms of significant others? Much like the real debate, without seeing Choi's SO (if he has one), we can really judge.

I like to imagine, though, that he's dating someone who looks like Yunjin Kim. (Sun on "Lost")

The NFL has given me the same attitude. I'm all about the team and dont really care whom is on it. I guess I really am just rooting for laundry afterall.

251. If she looks anything like Sun did last night on Lost, we have a winner.

There's people that claim Sonia Flores (whom appeared in playboy) is the "Sonia" that Loduca is married too. However, I think Sonia Flores and Sonia Loduca are two different people. The only references to Loduca having a hot wife come from dodgerblues. However, I've yet to see any pictures of this woman and Loduca together.

This is quite a mystery....?

We can really settle this debate once and for all if we know about Encarnacion's wife. Right now, the Dodgers won the trade.

Is Sun lying?

Or did the island fix Jin's "problem" the way it cured Locke's paralysis?

They showed her during a game one time and I thought "man that girl looks alot like the girl in the playboy video that one of my friend's has" cough, cough.

Not that I have seen the video or anything. Or even owned it one point. I just heard that they look alike.

Or go to Sonia Flores IMDB page. I still dont think its the same girl. The Sonia Flores that was in the playboy video has also been in a Tupac/Biggie movie in 2003...

At least hotness is something that is actually subjective. I can say that I have seen alot of hot women and know what hot is without it actually being wrong.

267 Maybe Paulie and Sonia weren't a couple in 2003. I know exactly which video she was in. Not that I have watched it anything (wink).

All of this is gonna require a slightly higher payroll, but if you want to win you gotta spend unless you have a bunch of prospects producing.

The 2006 team has flaws, but probably good enough to win our weak division but knocked out in the 1st round.

There, i had my say.

It also occurs to me that Sun herself isn't completely sure either one way or another, and unless Sawyer is packing another kind of test away in his supplies, she will never have any way of knowing until/unless she ever gets off the island.

I wonder what the inside joke was when we saw Sawyer reading Judy Blume.

The ending was chilling, I thought.

I'd also like to say that Hurley did more with a "Hi, Sun" line than most people could do.

276 I found the ending very chilling also.

Sonia Flores IMDB Page:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1187218/

Movie Review of Tupac and Biggie movie she was accredited to be in:
http://www.chartattack.com/damn/2002/10/1622.cfm

Excerpt of the review: In one scene, he interviews Sonia Flores, the former girlfriend of two LAPD officers — Rafael Perez and David Mack — who Broomfield has linked to killings. Flores proceeds to go on about their drug use and kinky sex-capades, with Broomfield encouraging her for more lurid details.

So Loduca you think is married to this woman?

Also, Lo Duca lives fulltime in San Antonio, which is not exactly the center of the entertainment industry.

The known "Others" we've seen William Mapother and M.C. Gainey are fairly big guys.

http://midnightowlvideo.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=71&sid=66301822c07807342b2dae1b0d55313b

This is just a messageboard, but the last guy says she used to work at Hooters in Texas.

Ok, I'm reading that Navarro won't be ready for opening day and that Alomar is going to be the starter opening day. Now is this just for opening day? Or is Martin going to get the larger portion of catcher at bats while Navarro is rehabbing?
vr, Xei

1 that did playboy
1 that was involved in the Biggie murder
1 that worked at hooters in Texas and married Loduca.

Who knows?

I can easily see the existence of 3000 Sonia Flores. It is Texas, after all.

Interesting article about Soriano's move to left field over at SI.com. TinyURL isn't responding right now, so I broke the url up into 2 lines (so we don't break anything here).

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/
writers/jacob_luft/03/23/soriano.defense/index.html

Or maybe school let out.

I'm not much on TV. I watch Monk occasionally with my wife, but either DT or one of my friends suggested I watch Veronica Mars. I've seen like 8 episodes and, while I don't think it's the greatest, it's better than I thought it would be. I'm still not big on teenage angst of any kind.

I wasn't big on network TV stuff until our DirecTV system came with it's TiVO. I like it much better than the DVR I had with DishNetwork.

This is the story I have been following the most out of curiosity on how it all plays out.

he shows hes healthy and returns to his 2004 with the glove and bat. colletti engineers a 3 team trade involving the mets, nationals with izturis, jayson werth and lance carter going to the nations, soriano going to the mets and lastings milledge going to the dodgers.

and yes, "whos to say" this isnt possible?

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/335191.html

Otherwise, chat can continue here.

Henry Gale is the name of Dorothy's uncle (Auntie Em's husband).

I was in two high school academic decathlons in the 80s. The first year, our coach made everyone wear blazers and ties in our school colors, which looked good on the guys but not on us girls. I think I still have that tie.

That said, I watch a lot of baseball, and let me just tell you, mister. . .

"Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

Things are pretty grim on the Blue Devil Radio Network -- everybody on the edge of tears. I listen out of morbid curiousity.

Same here. My wife's co-workers made fun of us for choosing LSU. They all have Duke going to the finals.

224 - Superquiz was always fun for our team because we would fist-pump and such when we had to certify our correct answers. Other teams HATED that, but we had SWAGGER!! I also took home 8 medals in that tournament. Just FYI.

Christina, do you mean Quiz Bowl is the televised one? There was a big article about that in the NYTimes mag a couple of months ago, Ken Jennings and a group of professional nerds like him were trying to spread the game to more high schools iirc.

Youse all should go rent or download "Cheaters" though, two hours later you will know exactly how telegenic Academic Decathlong is.

321 - HAHAHAHA, I had Fastball on my campus the week before the 2004 election and they played "Can't get fooled again" between rants. Then our county went red.

Hmm, actual baseball content...has anybody read the book full of lies about Barry Bonds yet?

https://dodgerthoughts.baseballtoaster.com/archives/335191.html