Matthew

For those of us who do not worship at the Yankee/Red Sox altar, there's a very big series this weekend between the Giants and Rockies. The Giants are coming off a brutal loss yesterday, where Matt Cain pitched a great game, made one mistake that was hit for a home run that barely cleared the fence, and left the game tied 1-1 after eight innings. Giants lose on a lead-off home run in the tenth. Anyway, it's Jonathan Sanchez (5-10) of the Giants vs. Aaron Cook (10-5) for the Rockies. Sanchez is coming off a good start against the Mets, even though he lost, but he got blasted in his one start against the Rockies this year. Cook has not been pitching well, so, it seems to me that the bullpens will be involved in this games in the fifth for both teams. The Giants really need to at least split this four game series to keep on having hope in the wild card race, three of four would be fantastic, the other options I don't want to think about. Unfortunately, the Giant offense is struggling right now, even Panda, even though he had three hits yesterday, is not hitting that well right now. So, we'll see how this plays out for San Francisco as they go against a very hot team in the Rockies.

The commercials for this movie actually makes me want to run away and never see it. Awful advertising.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writ...l#ixzz0OgHjd7IS Put me down as agreeing with Dan on this one about Rowand, he is not having a good year and his fielding is getting worse as the season goes on, even Duane Kuiper & Mike Krukow were getting on Rowand's case about the poor job he was doing in center during the Mets series. I watch the Giants a lot, and Rowand just never seems to get a good jump on the ball, I'm in the not impressed column on Rowand right now. Only two errors and a near flawless fielding percentage trumps one bad series with the Mets. He has been a sparkplug on a team in desperate need of a leader. Rowand provides just that. You know, I remember hearing the very same complaints when Marvin Benard was on the team. Same with Robby Thompson. I guess you just can't please some people. IMHO: Bengie Molina is the leader of this Giant team -- he's a true gamer. The future, in terms of leadership, is very promising for the Giants. I see the big leaders being Panda, Lincecum, and Nate Scheirholtz (who could turn out to be a great player). The Giants will be a very interesting team to watch in the years to come, that old Dodger/Giant rivalry might get very intense after it's all said and done.

John Calipari & Rick Patino, great leaders of the youth of Kentucky . One of the reasons I much prefer pro sports over college is that, in the pros, no one pretends that it's not about money.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writ...l#ixzz0OgHjd7IS Put me down as agreeing with Dan on this one about Rowand, he is not having a good year and his fielding is getting worse as the season goes on, even Duane Kuiper & Mike Krukow were getting on Rowand's case about the poor job he was doing in center during the Mets series. I watch the Giants a lot, and Rowand just never seems to get a good jump on the ball, I'm in the not impressed column on Rowand right now.

Giants vs. Reds game while catching up on my correspondence . The Cincinnati stadium looks empty...

Wow! I just watched Chris Carter's take on Favre, and he was not a happy camper ... at ... all. Wow.

What I don't get is why a team would damage their future for Favre? There's no way that Favre will get the Vikings deep into the playoffs. If one thing was made clear last year it is that Farve gets worse as the season goes on, and he cannot take the pounding any more. So, why rest your season on the back of some forty year old, who can't play at that high level anymore? Adrian Peterson is in for heavy going this year. Edit: For spelling

Making my way though Anthony Blunt: His Lives by Miranda Carter. Interesting biography of Blunt, who was one of the infamous Cambridge Spies, who also happened to be a very influential art historian. I became interested about Blunt by reading the novel The Untouchable by John Banville, which is a fictional account of Blunt's life, and to my mind, is one of the great novels of the past twenty-five years. All this came about because, after one year, I discovered that my library has a downstairs section that contains biographies, westerns, and science fictions -- did I feel stupid, like, Matthew, what did you think the stairs going down were for? :blush:

Brett Favre please go away already, your time is over....

It's not looking too good for the Cubs right now. On another note: How long has the "walk-off bounce" been in effect? It seems that every walk-off homer gets celebrated with the bounce now, it can't be more than two years for that.

Any bets that Stephen Strasburg will sign today or not? I can't believe that he will turn down a 15-20 million dollar bonus, but with Boras as his agent, I guess anything is possible.

It's amazing, and fun, that the Mariners are still hanging around in the wild card race, just six games behind. Looking at their schedule, their August games don't look too bad, they have the Tigers, Oakland, Cleveland, and Kansas City. Who knows, with a schedule like that they might make up some ground. However, in September the have, among others the Angeles, Yankees, Tampa Bay, Blue Jays, as well as Texas -- tough going for most of the month. Tampa Bay is the one team I cannot figure out, they just can't get going, I thought there was a good chance that after they beat Boston, they would go on a big run, but they continue to be hit and miss. Which is a long way of saying that Texas just might pull this wild card spot off after it's all said and done. It would be very strange if the wild card race came down to when Texas vs. Seattle go against each other in the final weekend of the season.

Ray Charles On Voice Of America, 1960 (Live At The Newport Jazz Festival)

Magic was the player I enjoyed watching the most. I third the sentiment! I loved watching Magic play, for me, he's the best player ever.

Happy Birthday!!!

Yeah, but Uribe sure as hell beat your smug little Dodger asses today, didn't he. Walk-off HR, baby. And they are throwing at everybody's big hitters, too. Typical Dodger chicken shit. And Freddy Sanchez plays 2B. Six more games in September with my guys and I hope to God they just bury those stinkin' Dodgers then bean Mannywood, Ethier and Blake [twice] right in the ear hole....the lucky bastards. FUCK the Dodgers. Grrrrrr Whoa big fella, I'm a Seattle Mariner fan, not a Dodger fan.

I'm here in the Bay Area for the week, so I've been watching the Dodgers - Giants games. The Blue has hammered the Giants the first two games, not even close. We'll see about this afternoon when Lincecum takes the mound for the Giants. This Eugenio Velez, plays second base for the Giants, I cannot stand his style of play, it's about the ugliest I've ever seen.

Nice pick up at Half-Price Books: Baby-Face Willette -- Behind the 8 ball plus Mo-Rock.

Was I the only one (maybe besides Dan ) that got tired of all the curtian calls by the Yankees? Geesh, just sit down already! I don't think I can take the Yankees in a world series. What's great though, is that both Texas and Seattle are in the wild card hunt, it woould be great to see either one in the playoffs.

Does anyone do baseball worse that ESPN, please talk about what's going on in the game once in a while, please!

Clearly, the Yanks-Sox game was the game last night(It ended late, and the half hour baseball tonight they re-run at 3 am only had highlights up to the 14th) but the Mariners game has to make that team feel great. Langerhans was supposed to be a big part of the Braves offense for years to come, and had one of the worst starts ever in 2007(.068 in 44 abs)...glad to see him as the hero. And braves, after being royally screwed by a dope of an ump(McCann made the best throw he ever made in his life to get Furcal at 2nd, but the ump called a strike a strike, but apparently really meant ball 4 so it was 1st and 2nd, and Casey Blake hit a 3 run homer) came back against Broxton to tie it up in the 9th, and won the game 9-5 in the 11th! West coast games suck, because espn is basically off the air after 2 am. I have no idea how people on the East Cost stay sports fans, no way I'm staying up a late as you guys, games that start at 10:30 p.m., absolutely not.

What was really exciting though, was Ryan Langerhans home run to win for Seattle in the bottom on the 11th. The wild card is looking interesting right now: Boston Texas 1 (Big Al is excited! ) Tampa Bay 2.5 SEATTLE 5.5 Cleveland 15.5 (Had to add that for Soul station!) Obvious that Tampa Bay has the talent to take it, but sometimes having the talent is just not enough. I don't think Boston can hang on, their ptiching is way too iffy right now.

I'm in that boat also. I'd buy this set.

John Kruk had them in the World Series this year as his prediction on ESPN.