A hopeful gasp, that is

Where have we heard those words before.

I see your point and he did set forth his bias. It just appears a little too cozy.

BTW, put me down as the number one fan of Lauren Bacall as Slim in To Have and Have Not. Grace Kelly in Rear Window a close second, but Becall was smoldering in a way that just doesn't exist anymore.

Ooh, Grace Kelly, now you're talkin'....

Meanwhile, reposting from previous thread, since it came at the end:

Gosh, I have no doubt Tim Lincecum is going to be a great pitcher, but it seems a little early to be readying him for the majors.
http://tinyurl.com/28zwyb
"Seven of the nine were strikes, including the three he blew past Tomas De La Rosa and one that broke Nate Schierholtz's bat."

After taking care of De La Rosa and Schierholtz, I annoint him ready for Albert Pujols!

Oh those wacky Giants writers...

Rooting for an injury is an unhappy thing to contemplate. But rooting for an injury in February is pretty silly.

On another topic, my birthday present from my wife is that we're going to Vero next year for the last ever Dodger Spring Training. Anybody got recommendations for places to stay, eat, other activities? Is it possible to play on the Dodgertown golf courses during March?

Obviously being a nice guy doesn't help you get into the HOF. It hasn't helped Ron Santo.

I am in my 40s. What are my options? Nicole Kidman? Pretty but not beautiful and definitely not sexy.
Gwyneth? Not even pretty.
Sandra Bullock? Nah.
Julia Roberts? Never beautiful and her looks always seemed trendy to me.

I think my generation is out of luck for a contemporary starlets. Or I may just be forgetting a slew of them.

Maureen McCormick?

How about Diane Lane? She's a winner.

28: I think its become established now that starlets only exist from age 19-27. So you're supposed to be cleansing your mind of Catherine Zeta Jones and making room for Siena Miller. Didn't you get the memo.

Contemporary fan club: Rachel Weisz.

- Doug Benson, panelist, Best Week Ever

I think Kate Winslet (who is still pretty young at 32) is beautiful. She, more than any actress her age, seems to have "screen legend" potential. Now some might say that 5 Oscar nods already make her a screen legend but legends are made by history, so we will have to wait and see.

If we are talking just "starlets" from the 80's, Phoebe Cates would be one (following up my Fast Times reference from Jon's Oscar thread on Screen Jam).

I will not go down the Jan Smithers (Bailey Quarters), Connie Selleca road (okay, just a little).

I loved the Newsradio Maura Tierney.

Penelope Cruz will be sexy at 60.

i think a few years from now--IF our young pitching pans out--we will pass them by, but right now their young talent is overwhelming.

I once spent a weekend teaching her some of the finer points of baseball. (She became an avid fan very late in life, in her eighties.) Such a sweet lady.

Or all 3...what the hey.

schmidt/lowe/penny/wolf/? vs. webb/rj/livan/d. davis/? has too many unknown variables to call.

that leaves the lineups, which at this point favors arizona, in my view.

he goes a bit overboard in annointing them the next league powerhouse, largely due to their lack of pitching prospects. however, as we've seen firsthand, pitching prospects don't always pan out.

long-term, i take us based on our pitching depth; this year, i give them the slight nod.

She wanted me to speak more Minnesotan with words like "boooooooooooat".

Now, then, about this intersquad game, Megrew sounds like he made quite an impression. And I wonder how many home runs Bigbie needs to hit in spring training to be considered for the team (24?)

As far as movie star I second the Jennifer Connolly vote from the previous thread. Also in the style over substance category: Tea Leoni.

53 This is the one in West L.A. - 1980.

54 Zambrano, doubtful unless Penny is traded.
A. Jones - I am sure he will get a call.
Dunn - Doubtful based on what others have said already.

Is it me or does Ethier look like he has built up some "pythons" to use a Hulk Hogan reference.

From what I have seen so far, a lot of guys look to be in really good shape to start spring training though I miss the Dodger Stadium workout days.

Who's that, your daughter's favorite actress?

Being employed is for suckers.

This is a little before your time but we did get quite a chuckle when in the classic film, "The Warriors," the leader of the rival gang clinked two bottles together while yelling "Warriors come out and play."

That's when play had two or three sylables.

As for comparing the two organization's young talent, let's get something perfectly clear: we don't just have an "edge" on them in pitching. It's pretty much Godzilla vs. Bambi. I don't think I even have to go into details, knowing how much people here know about our young pitchers. So moving on to position player comparisons, I'll say they do have an overall "edge" here, but not by as much as some people think. The difference is arguably "small" in absolute terms, and even more so in relative terms, compared to the gap in the Dodgers' favor pitching wise.

Comparing catchers, NOBODY thinks Montero is as strong a talent as Martin. At first base, Jackson is not better than Loney. They both lack HR power, but I give Loney the edge because of superior pure hitting ability and defense, while sabermetricians will like Jackson's walks more. At second base, Callaspo is more advanced than Tony Abreu and Callaspo's stats have benefitted from extremely hitter-friendly home parks and leagues his whole career, but Callaspo and Abreu are very comparable talents. At shortstop, Arizona clearly wins with Drew, as neither Hu nor DeJesus come close to him. At third base, we definitely win with La Roche, who beats Mark Reynolds by a lot. In the outfield, Young, Gonzalez, Upton, and Quentin beat Kemp and Ethier, but after disappointing years by Young (low batting average in a Triple A park the equal of Vegas for hitter-friendliness) and Upton, I think Kemp may be the best out the five, and one of Arizona's four is going to have to go in a trade because they can't all fit in an outfield.

But the real question is, what are Perry's motives here? It's just so obvious. Perry is a sabermetrics guy, and Arizona has a saber-friendly GM, while every sabermetrician in the media today hates the Dodgers for firing "one of our own" and/or sees a bleak future ahead for the Dodgers because they do not like Colletti at all. Perry also probably believes in the non-credible TINSTAAP doctrine, which would make him discount our superiority in pitching. The math, as they say, adds up.

2004 featured Verlander and Jered Weaver who made their marks last year, with Homer Bailey, Humber, Phillip Hughes and Scott Elbert all among their organization's top prospects.

They had to carry Harry to the ferry
They had to carry Harry to the shore
They had to carry Harry to the ferry
'Cause Harry couldn't carry anymore

The rhymes only work with a West Coast accent. People from the East or South or Midwest would think that "Harry", "ferry", and "carry" don't rhyme.

Another example is "Mary", "merry", and "marry", which all sound the same out in these parts, but don't if you were the dialect coach for "The Departed."

As ToyCannon would remind us, position does matter. I was a Santo, denier, but I was wrong. Santo belongs.

However, his case is better than it might appear at first because (a) The low-offense era he played in depresses his stats, (b) He was by most accounts excellent defensively, and (c) 3B is historically the weakest position in terms of HOFers, so he's quite a bit better than many 3Bmen already enshrined.

Well it isn't particularly impressive to have Beltre as your best comparable, expect for age 25 when it is high flattery.

Whatever, I still say he is marginal and there is a ridiculous hitter bias where only inner circle starters get in, while Santo makes on "good for the era" and "good for the position".

Santo was playing in one of the most pitcher friendly eras, which massively suppressed his stats.

George Brett's is 135

'Nuff Said.

now with greg miller potentially back in the starting pitcher mix, i'm having a hard time drawing up future rotations. i think my latest 2010 one featured billingsley on top followed by kershaw, elbert, kuo, & miller.

I wouldn't compare Santo to Beltre. Recent comments have addressed the value of the EQA stat because it is adjusted for league offensive levels, home parks, league difficulty, etc (though defense is not considered).

From '63-