Youk Of The Nation

I don't know anything about soccer but I bet a tournament encompassing all of these countries would provide some excellent opportunities for puns, if I actually cared to watch.

How long someone has been a member of the site has no bearing on their right to point out when you add unnecessarily douchey things to your posts. In this case, I happen to agree with what you said and in fact don't consider it all that bad seeing as SoxSport does indeed tend towards tedious repetitiveness, just wanted to remind you that even newbies can call people out on being jerks.

I think the repeated misspelling was intentional. My guess is to emphasize the Yankees' tendency to overpay for "star" FAs.

I see your point, but he's only had one full season since 2011, how can we be completely sure that 2011 was a fluke?

True, but as much as I hate to agree with something jacko said, Ellsbury doesn't have the same durability as some of those guys. He has missed a couple significant chunks of time due to injury, but neither of those were from being fragile, they were from being run over by guys like Adrian Beltre, which is more or less comparable to being run over by a large truck made out of smaller trucks carrying smaller trucks.

Okay, this thing where everyone begins their replies with the name of the person they are replying to needs to stop. We all know who you are talking to. That's what the quoting function is for. It just comes across as pretentious, and this is coming from the most pretentious person on this site. Also, the first three posts in this sequence (dupree's, UN's reply, dupree's counter-reply, and UN's final reply) were all good posts. Take out the obnoxious personal attacks in the first sentences (dumbest thing I've ever heard from UN and typical dick from dupree) and it was a perfectly acceptable and reasonably intelligent baseball discussion. I don't know why everyone needs to add those prefaces, but you should all stop. Fred, other than those first sentences I mentioned this was a legitimate baseball discussion until you dropped in with an insulting post that added absolutely nothing to the discussion. I don't like UN any more than you do (in fact, I probably like him even less than you do), but there was no reason at all for your post. I can't count how many times you have "complained" about UN doing that exact same thing to you. From now on, whenever any of you make a post, stop and ask yourself "Can I make this point without adding something about how stupid or annoying the other person is?" If the answer is no, then your point probably wasn't all that necessary to make in the first place. In conclusion, either stop insulting each other and ignore each other when you do, or insult each other until you either burn out or I ban you, but stop PMing me and asking me why I'm not banning the people who do to you the same goddamn thing you do to them. Now, as for my take on the Ellsbury situation, I don't pretend to know as much about the intricacies of contracts and trades as the rest of you, but I feel like this is neither a loss nor a win for the Sox OR the Yankees. It's too early to tell if the Yankees will regret this signing, but I have every confidence that the Sox can field a team capable of repeating without Ellsbury. The Sox won a WS after they lost Pedro Martinez, Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Kevin Millar, Nomar Garciaparra, Keith Foulke, Jonathan Papelbon, Josh Beckett, Bill Mueller...you get the point. No one player is going to plunge the team into the Dark Ages of Cubs-like baseball. It's going to suck seeing such a great guy in pinstripes, but we'll get over it. I'm already mostly over it. JBJ might be a good replacement this year, or he might not. Either way, treating this like the end of the world is silly, and immediately assuming the Yankees will regret the contract is even sillier and smacks of reactionary hopes rather than analysis. I happen to agree with some of you that 7 years will probably be too much, but it's too soon to tell. He hasn't even played yet. Let's not dwell on what this does for the Yankees, let's focus on what to do for the Red Sox.

I might have some reservations about cheering for him when he returns.

Yes, you said that. Two posts ago.

And Hinckley had a feeling Jodie Foster would be really impressed if he blew away Ronald Reagan. That's why people don't make important decisions based on vague feelings. Although honestly, I can't believe she wasn't at least a little bit impressed.

And also I was DEAD THE WHOLE TIME!

I didn't think they would make the postseason either, until about a month into the season.

I was about to post the same thing until I scrolled down and saw that you'd already taken care of it. Great minds think alike.

I say Cox, Maddux, Glavine, and Biggio make it in this time. Somehow, I don't think Paul Lo Duca, Mike Timlin, Jacque Jones, and Hideo Nomo are going to make the cut.

At the risk of seeming like I don't hate the Yankees with a passion that burns hotter than the surface of Jupiter, (I do), this really isn't accurate. Pitching is basically the only reason the Yankees were in the Wild Card race up until the last couple weeks of the season. It was offense that they didn't have. They had Robinson Cano and beyond that, players that could charitably be called "a bunch of guys wearing the same uniform". The pitching tailed off during the last month or two of the season, but aside from Philol Hughes, pitching is what kept the Yankees clinging to relevance. Hiroki Kuroda would have won 20 games if he hadn't gotten the run support of a special-needs little league squad.

Chris Carpenter retires. Always had a soft spot for the guy, he has the same first and last name as my stepdad.

You know, this is a good point. Maybe we should look into creating some sort of sub-forum in which to discuss the Yankees...

My distaste for spamming is waging a fierce internal battle with my appreciation for breasts.

Guerrero's should have been just the square, with a diagram of a stadium inset.

Ohh, okay, then yeah, that makes sense.

I am okay with that. If they want to limit mound visits to counteract replays, that sounds fair for everyone. I don't like the idea of limiting pitching changes, though. Also, keep in mind that it's highly unlikely that replay would be used during every game. I think limiting it to three challenges for each manager would probably convince them not to use it every time they feel like something might not have gone their way. Think of how many times a manager comes out to argue during a game. Sometimes whole games go by without it happening.

I am very much in favor of replay for everything except balls and strikes. Home runs, fair/foul calls, safe/out calls on the bases and at the plate, and all the other little things that don't come up often (catcher's interference, contested HBPs, et cetera). A lot of noise has been made by people about the integrity of the game and the value of keeping baseball the way it has always been, but I don't really see any benefit in that. As far as I can see, the major arguments are these: 1. Baseball should not be changed dramatically. Well, this one is ridiculous. I am a huge proponent of the preservation of important ideas, achievements, and historical landmarks. I have already made it clear on this site that I would never support, for example, the demolition of Fenway Park. However, I believe that the best way to continue pushing baseball along with us into the future is to keep a balance between the old and the new. Batting helmets, home run replay, free agency, and a dozen other changes to baseball both on and off the field have taken place between the creation of the major leagues and today. Each one has been accompanied by a ludicrously hyperbolic group of "purists" assuring us all that these changes would represent the beginning of the end of professional baseball, it's popularity, and possibly the universe itself. Thus far, unsurprisingly, that has not happened. Forgive me for getting Trekkie on you, but the Federation government has strict regulations regarding the preservation of historical buildings. Some are still around by the 24th century, and yet many have public transporter stations built into them. That is what baseball needs to do. Mix the old and the new. Preserve the essence of this great game while not letting it get swept away in the raging river of progress. As long as the baseballs remain the same, the bats are still made of wood, and it's still being played by human beings, I see absolutely no problem with implementing technological advancements. It can only serve to keep baseball part of the 21st century. 2. It will slow down the game I don't know if anyone has noticed, but baseball is slow. It is always slow. Between coaches and catchers visiting the mound, pitching changes, pitchers taking their sweet time, time-outs, and occasionally naked people running onto the field and taking selfies (I swear, the voices told me I would be rewarded!), baseball has been, is, and always will be much more slowly paced than nearly any other sport. (I'm looking at you, soccer. f*** you, you suck). Home run replay has been in use for a few seasons now and it has not noticeably corrupted the smooth flow of a baseball game. It has not even been used during every game. Retrosheet has a list of every reviewed HR call since the creation of the rule and it is barely a fraction of a percent long as the list of games that have been played in the same timeframe. Even replay of every disputed call during a game would not add more than a few minutes to the length of a game. I think we can all agree that five minutes added to the game's length is a more than adequate consequence to making sure the correct calls are made.

You started this. I'm ending it. Stop now.

Ugh. Cabrera wins MVP again. The BBWAA is apparently made up entirely of Pakleds.

Definitely an easy choice this year, especially in the AL.

Do they vote on it before the WS? I know the MVP is already decided before then.