a700hitter

Hey! I may be old, but I am not miserable.

Life just keeps getting better for Red Sox fans. In 2004, the Red Sox beat the Yankees in historic fashion. The Yanks had the worst choke in the history of the game. The Red Sox sweep their way to a second World Championship, and in game 4, AROd announces that he is opting out of his contract and Yankee fans meltdown. HOF Manager Torre parts ways with the Yankees 12 Yankees from the Championship era are named in the Mitchell report. How many more were doing the juoice we can only guess, but their clubhouse must have been like a crack den with syringes all over the place. Their championships that occurred right smack in the middle of the steroid era are forever tainted as a group of cheaters. Clemens, the Whore of Famer phoney had it coming. He is the pitching counterpart for Bonds. We will not have to worry about Clemen's threats to boycott the HOF if they put a Red Sox hat on him. I think he'd wear any hat now. What sweet irony. Pettitte, the hypocritical family man got busted. I guess his family had a price, which is why he came back to NY. He said that he would pray for guidance about coming back to play in 2008. I wonder if he prayed for guidance before he stuck needles in his ass. The legendary workouts by Clemens and Pettitte don't look so legendary right now. I couldn't be happier that after the initial erroneous leak that neither Varitek or Damon or any 2004 Red Sox made the list. Yankee fans can scream bias, but if you think about it, the steroid era came to a crashing halt after 2003 when BALCO heated up. The users got scared and many went cold turkey and fell apart. Didn't Giambi and Kevin Brown pick up the mystery parasite in Japan at the beginning of 2004 and weren't they basically useless that year? Didn't Sosa go on the DL from sneezing that year? 2004 can be pointed to as the beginning of the post steroid era because of the increased scrutiny by law enforcement, etc. The Red Sox two championships are secure from being tainted. If any of the prominent Sox had ever done ROIDs, they most likely did them before 2004. The only Sox named Manny on the list was Manny Alexander. Too bad Yankee fans. The only Red Sox from 2007 were Gagne and Donnelly. Gagne, not only contributed nothing, but he practically wrecked the Red Sox season single-handed. Donnelly contributed next to nothing. I laugh at Yankee fans that were suspecting/hoping that Manny/Ortiz/Schilling would be on the list. At Spring Training 2004, I saw these guys with their shirts off. They could easily have given the Michelin Man a run for his money. If they were doing Roids, they must have been laced with Wendy's. We get to look forward to raising the Championship banner on opening day and the Yankee tradition has been permanently sullied, desecrated and tainted. Life is wonderful. Happy Holidays!!

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7553182 They must have heard that he is very serious with his training. He could be a difference maker.

No, but you would be really mad.

I like that John Henry. He looks like a mild-mannered wimp, but to become such a rich man in his line of work he had to be a cut-throat tough SOB. He brought that mentality to baseball. When the team flopped in 2006, he made it known that he wanted Theo and crew to aggressively improve the team. When we lost in 2003, he loosened the purse strings and we got Schilling and Foulke. Red Sox fans owe JH a debt of gratitude.

Yeah, Security mashed that guy in the stands.

I got a pair for Texas on Sunday, but only 2 singles for the Saturday game.

Anyone have any success or luck getting tickets today?

...or will he be coming back? http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1049328

Any word on whether the Sox and the Twins resumed talks after dinner? Is it possible that Sox officials are already negotiating with Santana's agent, or would there be a separate announcement in that regard after the trade is agreed upon?

Hank's deadline has come and passed. Is there any word that they are meeting at this hour?

This is some game. How many times have the Pats been down to their last play. Holy crap! He threw the TD pass. He was inbounds. What is the flag about?

Less than 2 hours before Hank's empty bluff of a deadline expires. He is really making an ass of himself this offseason.

One by one, the big pitchers have been re-signed by their teams. Oswalt and Houston, Buerhle and the White Sox, Zambrano and the Cubs, and now Peavy and the Padres. Who thinks Santana will really be traded? I think they will trade him only if the Yankees let themselves get raped. http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7518156

JayHawk, what part of "I give up" didn't you understand? Surrender is not enough for you? I have said that I will refer to him from this point on as "Future Hall of Famer, Melky Cabrera" or "All Star Melky Cabrera."

JAyHAwk, sometimes you just have to give up. Your argument doesn't hold up no matter what kind of numbers you look at. Give it up on this and move on to your usually insightful posts about the issues of the day.

I am not saying to dismiss him. He may have a long and productive career, but to compare him at this stage to the greats of the game has little validity. Compare him to first or secon yera guys in the last couple or three years that's fine, but HOF ers. Sorry, but it doesn't resonate.

I don't have a problem with the comparison spanning a shorter time frame, but not across 40 years when the changes in the game have been huge. Like I said, Yaz and Rose were All Stars by their 3rd years and Yaz was a batting champ. Melky has to step up his game big time this year for him to be compared to those guys.

It suffers because you are comparing a guy that is an average OF --4th OF type player to Hall of Famers. Based on that reasoning, you could compare many average 4th OF types to Hall of Famers. I just don't think such comparisons have much validity, not even enough to wait and see.

For all of your good researched posts and analysis, it is statements like this that make your credibility slip. Comparing players against their contemporaries using stats has a lot of validity although there are certain intangible qualities that don't equate or translate well to stats. Comparing across eras and generations using stats is very unreliable. The game has changed. Middle infieders used to weigh 150-160 lbs 40 years ago. Today many of them are tipping the scales at around 200 lbs and hitting 1 handed HRs. Pitchers don't throw complete games and bullpen specialties are still developing. ...and on and on. Comparing Melky at this point in his career to HOF's like Yaz and Rose among others is ludicrous. I saw those guys come up. Yaz was an icon on Long Island in two sports by time he signed with the Red Sox. His basketball career scoring average record held up for about 40 years. The guy won a batting tite by age 23, his third year in the league. If Melky wins a Batting title this year or in 2009, then a comparison might be valid. By Melky's age, Yaz was already considered a star player in a major leagues that had only 10 teams in each league. Melky is not even considered a star on his own team. Rose was a consistent .300 hitter 200+ hit man from age 24 in an era when the league average was around .250. He was an All Star by age 24 on a team that had Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson in their primes and a young Tony Perez and two 20 game winners.

These guys already have shown something at the major league level, and they are major league ready. I see Ellsbury in the "can't miss." category. Bowden and Masterson might be very good too, but the are at least a couple to three years away from being major contributors, so I won't miss them. By the time they are ready, Santana may have won one or two more Cy Youngs and a Championship or two. I am generally impatient about waiting for prospects when they can get us stars, but Ellsbury and Bucholz have earned their place and they have shown extreme promise at the ML level. I'd still trade one of them but not both.

As between Ellsbury and Bucholz, it will be interesting to see which one the Sox will part with if they close this deal. Based on what I have seen, Ellsbury clearly will be a star. If the Sox are willing to part with him instead of Bucholz, they must have a very, very high ceiling for Bucholz. What I have seen from Bucholz has looked very promising too, but I haven't seen enough to be as sure about him as Ellsbury. Giving up one of them will be hard, but they'd be getting a Cy Young pitcher in return.