To one and all on this terrific blog that makes the Times look terribly frail... Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the food, folks. I plan on eating way beyond the point of my hearts content.

Okay, TJ Simers is officially retarded. IT'S A LINK, YOU JACKASS. EVERYONE KNOWS WHAT A LINK IS. Welcome to the World Wide Web, you halfwitted excuse for a million monkey typewriter experiment.

Clippers 9-2, never seen such a thing on Thanksgiving before. You can tell the Clippers are getting more respect from the Staples center as they have been stuck with the Thanksgiving game since they moved to the Staples center, but this year it is the Lakers who have to play on Turkey day. I can no longer use the excuse I have a game to go to if I want to leave early.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

My oldest brother has a copy of the 1988 World Series highlight video and my nephew likes to watch it. He has told me "55 is a really good pitcher."

Stan from Tacoma

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/24/D8E325882.html

Enjoy the turkey/ham/whatever today, folks.

I think we should stop treating Plaschke and Simers with equal disdain. Simers takes off after everyone, no matter what side they are on, and doesn't take himself all that seriously. I give him points for that, at least.

Do you think Santa would think I'm crazy if I tell him all I want for Christmas is Orel Hershiser?

Also, the Red Sox will be getting Mota, while also trading another prospect, reliever Harvey Garcia. So it's Beckett, Mota, and Lowell for Ramirez, Sanchez, Delgado, and Garcia

Both of these are official from what I can tell

I like Michaels, probably as a leadoff hitter. I'd still prefer signing Giles, although that assumes Cruz plays regularly. Sign Giles and call Cruz a 4th OF, I'd love to get him. But we have no need for him as a bottom of the order guy

And as he left Guatemala (temps in the 70s and clear), he was headed for Western Michigan and a snow storm.

Welcome to the U.S.!

this would probably make maury wills ga-ga.

On a diffrent note, unbeknownst to me my mother invited another couple for dinner tonight who are one of the two remaining groups contending to buy the Nats. He wouldn't say much about it and it would be impolite to have pressed but I did tell him that if he got the team he should avoid emulating Frank in any manner. He just laughed knowingly.

Trade Dioner Navarro, Antonio Perez and a Prospect to the Marlins for Miguel Cabrera and Paul LoDuca.

Sign Nomar to a one year deal.

Trade Bradley and Aybar to the Reds for Adam Dunn.

Lineup (when Izturis is back)
SS Izturis
3B Garciaparra
1B Cabrera
2B Kent
CF Drew
LF Dunn
RF Cruz/Werth
C LoDuca

McCourt is raising the ticket prices. The average ticket will now cost over $20. The payroll is expected to be reduced to $75 million. McCourt must be planning on pocketing a lot of money.

Seriously, he's going into his age 23 season next year and seems like he is getting better and better. His comps through age 22 at bb-ref are mighty impressive. When Mantle, Aaron, F-Rob (sorry Bob), Cepeda, etc have similar comps at the same age, there is reason for drooling at the dude.

Our only hope this offseason is to net Brian Giles. I'll be happy if a few other minor deals are made to solidify the rotation and 3rd base. The old adage in fantasy sports is always to acquire the best player in a trade, well I'd have to say that Giles that sort of player in our current predicament.

package bradley and jackson to get something this offseason... even that combo doesn't give you that much bargaining power

colletti doesnt like pitching prospects
goodbye billingsly

nomar sucks

bosox dont even have a gm and they just got a rediculous deal

33 Can you say which one?

39 - there is no such thing as untouchable. In fact he should even trade Gagne if there is someone that wants him and is willing to part with a #3 or #4 all-star caliber bat.

They've got to start moving on these deals or there going to be spinning the "hypothetical" pick ups of Rafael Palmiero and Sammy Sosa as the franchise saviors!

If you have a 21 year old who's amongst the top 15 players in baseball, you don't trade him I don't care how much of a fire sale you have. Cabrera hit .323/.385/.561 last year. He did it for 370,000. Why would you trade this man? His replacement would make just as much.

The mere fact that you consider Gagne the Dodgers most untouchable player tells me that you haven't fully

http://tinyurl.com/cy57c

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/birthday.html

The link will play a midi of "Happy Birthday" is that bothers you.

I assume McLaren was recommended by Piniella. Don't know if that's a good thing or not, but if we hire him, we'll have Lou, one step removed.

With 15 people, the probablity is around 15% that two people will have the same birthday.

15% is not all that long of odds.

Who knows, he may have been an invited guest.
Since we all know that Fregosi is the guy Colletti wants, I'm sure he's just going to pump him for information on Gathright so he can decide if he wants to trade Gagne for him.

So it would be (4*(1/30^2) + (1/28^2) +7*(1/31^2))/12

Three times out of three tries. Let's assume that all months have 30 days, would that mean 30x30x30?

Note how Plaschke writes a book review:

http://tinyurl.com/cey82

There are real paragraphs used.

Could you please translate? What does that formula mean translated to odds?

So we're basically saying 900-1?

54 - this is basic combinatorics, a class I found maddeningly difficult, though this is one of the easier pieces. The math for this is done by the successive removal of probabilities. For one person, the probability of having the same birthday is always unity. The generalized case is

1-(365!/((365-n)!-365^n))

You can find a complete derivation here:

http://tinyurl.com/4u99g

For example, three 30s or three 31s are pretty hard to get. Three 29s would just be too hard to figure out for a guy who holds a History degree.

The chances of the 1-28s corresponding should be the same.

Thanks. I'll tell my father and my son that we're somewhat special, although maybe not quite as special as Jim Fregosi.

Not that anyone cares, but in our case the day happens to be the 23rd.

Thank you for caring Bob

1. The percentage of "important things" that I care about is relatively low, or
2. The percentage of "things I care about" that are important is relatively low?

113*((12/365)^2)+7*((11/365)^2)+4*(7/365)/124

This should account for leap years as well.

"For a turkey of greater than ten pounds, the roasting time should be equal to 1.65 times the natural log of the weight of the bird in pounds, cooked at 325 F."

http://tinyurl.com/bozb5

"I've been with Lou for 10 years, so there is a lot of Lou in me."

"There's no question that I've patterned myself after Lou. The most important lesson he's taught me is that you can't force things to happen. There were the years we had all the home run hitters. He'd say how much he wanted to run, but it wasn't the right team for it. So he didn't run."

The 10 year comment was while they were still at Seattle together and before McLaren followed Lou to Tampa, so they really have been together for a long while.

I find the second quote interesting because he seems to be saying, don't make your ballclub into something it isn't. Take the players you've been given and use them to their best advantage. That thought process could really appeal to Colletti since he's the one that will be giving the new manager his players. DePo might have appreicated having McLaren instead of JT. Sounds like he might have played Choi instead of using a catcher at first base.

I hope they don't find out that Kim McNg insn't.

That would assure her of a lifetime job, since the McCourt's are always looking for value.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Gov. Bill Richardson is coming clean on his draft record - the baseball draft, that is, admitting that his claim to have been a pick of the Kansas City A's in 1966 was untrue.

For nearly four decades, Richardson, often mentioned as a possible Democratic presidential candidate, has maintained he was drafted by the Kansas City Athletics.

(snip)

But an investigation by the Albuquerque Journal found no record of Richardson being drafted by the A's, who have since moved to Oakland, or any other team.

Informed by the newspaper of its findings, the governor acknowledged the error in a story in Thursday's editions.

"After being notified of the situation and after researching the matter ... I came to the conclusion that I was not drafted by the A's," he said.

(end excerpt of http://tinyurl.com/8vl8y)

One day a newspaper will call me and break the news that I was not, in fact, the fifth Beatle.

In fairness to Richardson, I think his explanation is reasonable.

http://tinyurl.com/bshwd

So did this happen when the wrist was broken, during rehab, or just another Werth injury later in the year?

That said Plaschke is to Halberstam what I am to Marva Collins. And Plaschke's been at his career a lot longer than me.

It will be a rematch of the 1978 Garden State Bowl. That was a fun game.

Jon, I just nominated you for best sports blog over here:

http://tinyurl.com/dqpen

It will be the last game in the current configuration of Stanford Stadium. It will be renovated and the capacity dropped to about 50,000 and have the track removed.

And presumably have seats replaced.

Notre Dame is the bird flu of college football.

The number one name on my offseason wishlist is still Bradley.

OK, they weren't that high density, but still . . .

I'm just trying to help.

I'm not available for rentals now either.

"The sad thing is that Papi isn't a bad first baseman"

Wow.

http://tinyurl.com/by5qq

Didn't see this mentioned yet. Maybe, if we try really hard, one of us will get through. It would be nice if we could make a pitch for... um, I mean ask a question about aquiring Brian Giles.

I'm going to get back to work on my hipnotic/subliminal message text program. Not that it has anything to do with Tuesday's upcomming chat. :)