S5Dewey

That's her! A guy could do worse!!

Mal says he can get WEEI. It must be on his computer. Maybe you can get the audio there, but it'll probably take a little doing.

All I can tell you is that my local radio station carries the Sox. I turned the audio off on the tv and I'm listening tot Stiggy & Neveritt. There's a slight delay so I always know what I'm going to see on the tv in about five seconds.

IOW he's the anti-ESPN.

Who's the babe next to Belichick? Is that his wife?

I know Mookie is a great outfielder but he doesn't look nearly as comfortable as JBJ does in CF. This is why I hope we see our "regular" outfield in the playoffs in every AL park. This current alignment weakens the defense in two spots.

Hahahahahaha... great line!!

You and me, Mal. One would think that these clowns would get better but instead I think they're worse - if that's possible.

I give up. I can't listen to these announcers slobber over the Yankees any longer. I may try it again later in the game.

And we start the ESPN Sunday Night Death March. If I set the time the game ends at midnight who'd take the under and who'd take the over?

It may (or may not) be more beneficial to the batter but having a batter on 2B is certainly more beneficial to the team than having one on 1B.

The Sox this year have attempted 104 stolen bases and been successful 87 times. That's an 84% success rate. If the break even point is around 70% statistically the Sox should be running MORE. And they're not the only ones: LAA - 83% Brewers - 80% Cleveland - 80% Baltimore - 78% Washington - 77% CWS - 75% Cincinnati - 74% Houston - 74% NYY- 74% Arizona - 73% Atlanta - 73% Minn - 71% KC - 71% Texas - 71% Colorado - 70% Assuming that the 70% success rate is correct then 16 out of the 30 MLB teams - more than half - are at least breaking even on their steals. The problem with statistics in general is that they assume that what happens once will happen again. In the case of stolen bases it's probably safe to assume that if these teams attempted more stolen bases their percentage would go down because they'd be stealing in situations with a higher opportunity to be caught. Here's why you can't say that attempting to steal a base is either good or bad: Like in life, if you're good at something it's a good idea to do it, and if you're not good at it it's a bad idea. However, attempting to steal a base per se is not a bad idea.

Since we're guessing, it could very well be that the Yankees as an organization feel that their farm is deep enough and good enough that they don't have to win it this year, that this is a building year for them. The Sox do have to win it because their window is small. If that's the Yankees philosophy I don't agree with it because I believe you need to pull out all the stops every time you have a chance to win the WS. You never know what's going to happen 'next year'. As I keep saying, "Don't save a pitcher for tomorrow. It might rain tomorrow". But I wasn't the first one to say it.

As we speak the Yankees are hanging a blanket up in their clubhouse with three holes cut in it.

Since I seem to be into anecdotes today here's one about Weaver that you may or may not know. Earl Weaver memorized the entire rule book and could recite it chapter and verse, even knowing which rule number went to which situation. When asked why in God's name he'd do that he replied, "Being right isn't everything. Being able to prove it is."

Thanks

So the playoffs are still 5-7-7? Wasn't there some chatter last year about making all the playoff series 7 games?

I know, and I'm not excusing Smith, but he's not the first pitcher to throw his glove in disgust. I'm sure I've told the story here about Bill Lee giving up a HR and then throwing his glove into the dugout at the end of the inning saying "Every time I throw that f***ing pitch some ********** hits it out of here!" (I was directly behind the dugout and heard the whole thing.)

If the Sox can win tonight it'll be time to get out the wooden stake and the mallet. We wouldn't be ready to start driving the stake yet but at least we'd have them out & ready.

I'd bet there are Yankees fans who are saying that after losing the first three and falling 8 1/2 back this is a must win ballgame for the Y's, if just to say that they can play with the Sox.

His arm was coming around. It was his brain that malfunctioned.

I wish there were a way to coordinate Castiglione and Neverett with the video on ESPN on days like this. I've even been known to do that knowing what's going to happen on the tv before it happens. (I don't know if that sentence makes any sense,....but.. you know what I mean! LOL)

Well, that eliminates me from participating in the game thread.

I'm not sure where that line between "fairly paid" and "overpaid" is when we're talking about what Sale has brought to this club. Maybe the more reasonable question to ask is where would we be if we hadn't made that trade and instead either kept the players we traded or traded them for another player. Then the next logical question is, would that "other player" bring more to the team than Chris Sale does? I doubt it.

That's a pretty big drop from year five being an MVP type player to year 6 being replacement level. I certainly would be happy with five years of MVP quality from Mookie followed by a (IMO) more reasonable assumption of a decline over the next five years to the point of being slightly above average. And that's what I think we'd be getting.