First cool snap of the summer for some folks, I guess, Jennie. Here in NC, last night was the first time in months that I slept without the window fan. Mid-50s...amazing for early August, and very much welcomed.
So I'm supposed to go see Manny tonight at the Dodger's game. Is it wrong of me to forget to tell my "friend" that it's a 6pm game? I don't think I could stand the sight of it.
Jennie, I'm heat intolerant. Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy the subzero stuff, which is one of the reasons I left upstate NY, but given the choice between piling on layers to keep warm or being miserable because I can't cool down, I *much* prefer the former! And after 20 years in the South, I may very well head back up North eventually. Too damned hot here.
I was going to rant about the "good guys" comment but my google search found the same rant. You'd think that the other announcer (who sounds fairly normal) would have throttled his ass by now.
Jennie, if I could teleport myself out there I'd gladly take your place. Am I sad he's in blue? Of course. But I'd gladly watch and root for my departed baseball boyfriend...
I saw the end of the Dodger's game last night with Manny happily jumping up and "bumping" all his Dodger teammates. I guess it's stupid of me to be anti-Manny now but to see him SO happy elsewhere makes me feel like a scored wife.
Yeah, with the NY Post, who knows? It's a total rag. If he wants to do it for "revenge," that's no good at all and I'd be ready to flog him with his own dreads (hee hee). If he's just more comfortable back East and in the AL, or if he just wants to be back in a big market, that's a different story. I'm a former Yankees fan and, just as I never hated the Sox back in the day, I don't hate the Yankees now. Still, he seems to be happy in LA so far, and the Dodgers at this point seem to be a pretty good team, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him remain there for awhile.
I don't know if Manny will stay in the NL. He is getting older, and I don't know if he can keep playing the outfield for the next 4 years. Better to be a DH on an AL team.
It looks like the Yankees, as much as I hate it, seems to be a better and better option for Manny. I'd hate to see the backlash on that.
The good thing is that the Yankees aren't the team they once were. The Rays are a bigger threat than they are, if they don't figure out their pitching by next year.
It would break my heart to see Manny on the Yankees. But if he went to the Yankees, just imagine all the problems he would cause. I don't think they would have any chemistry whatsoever.
Yeah, I can't see Manny on the Yankees without Manny fundamentally becoming Not-Manny. He's too much of a free spirit to thrive under the Steinbrenner regime.
Yeah, I don't think Manny would be a good fit for the Steinbrenner way of doing things (which M.O. I can't stand, and that's one of the reason that I got sick of the Yankees...too regimented, to the point of being crashingly boring). I'd rather see him on a team that lets free spirits be themselves.
lone1c, he's in excellent physical shape for an "older" player, and he works very hard at the craft of hitting. And if he keeps hitting the way he has been since he went to LA, why not? Others may have a different perspective on it, of course.
The Yankees have not been doing well though. Ian Kennedy came back last night and got shelled. What if Stenbrenner gets desperate? And if they don't sign Giambi, DH is open.
And don't the Dodgers also have a hair policy? It doesn't seem like Manny'll cut his hair anytime soon.
But if Manny goes to the Yankees, you can be sure he'll be booed. If he goes to another team, there'll be more of a chance people will actually remember what he did with his bat in Boston.
ecl: My thinking is more that even though he's in good shape, I would imagine that Manny's antics--and especially the way he left Boston--would give many teams, particularly those with not so big payrolls, considerable heartburn.
lone1c, I still wonder how much of Manny's ugly departure was influenced by Boras. And are you talking about the bad parts of his antics, or did you take exception to the humorous antics as well?
Lulu, honestly, I know NYY would never let Manny keep his hair, but I do hope that the Dodgers remain at least somewhat lenient and that he gets no more than a trim. I realize that he hasn't always had long hair, but those dreads are so much a part of his persona now, I'd hate to see them totally gone.
ecl: I was referring to the "Manny being an a**." I don't mind the high-fives and other harmless antics--it's a game, so a little levity is perfectly OK.
But refusing to play when the manager puts you in the game? That's a no-no. Making up phantom injuries because you want a day off? Absolutely not.
Ian, that's funny, I just noticed the rules, was off looking at them, came back, and there you were with them.
Looks like I'll have to keep my thinly-veiled rage in check.
Rules showed up just now - they've been a long time in the offing.
It feels like a lot, and I don't want to be all paternalistic about what people do... but it's really pretty simple: have fun, don't act or talk like a preteen, and be nice to fellow commenters.
They also reflect my personal aversions to things like LOL and :P - stuff like that makes me gag (I'm sorry, I can't help it).
Everyone here is so fun and interesting, and pretty much follows the rules already. I just thought if would be easier for new folks to have the guidelines written down, so they're not worried about what they can and can't do.
Personally i think the rules are a good idea. after all it's your site and if you don't like the way people behave, you by all means can do what you want.
Also: I thought that same page would make an excellent place for a Glossary - a place where we could define terms and nicknames we use here that others may not recognize.
If you have suggestions for words that need to go in the glossary, I'd love to hear 'em.
I did call it Ellen but I wasn't envisioning any runs scoring.
Texy it was beautiful here too all day. Nice little sea breeze coming in. Although I wouldn't know because after 12 Noon when i got back from fc's hometown, I was watching the futures at fenway.
So Texy, I'm going to go way out on a limb here, because I'm upset about some of the things on the list. I can't help it. And I don't have "Windows Mail" set up so can't contact you so have no choice but to say it here. Do you really and truly prefer that we express joy or annoyance in words rather than a very occasional and well placed LOL or :P or something of that nature? I can understand your aversion to *constant* text-speak, but occasional smileys are so minor, I think. We even use them occasionally in interoffice e-mail where I work, at a medical residency program. And do you prefer that we never even acknowledge that we have crushes on particular players, i.e., fangirling? And no links unless they're done via that terribly complicated HTML formula that I have to cut and paste every time from my HTML cheat sheet?
Honestly, I used to love it here. It felt so friendly and welcoming...like I was hanging out with my buddies. Now I feel like I have to watch every single word that I post, lest I should say something that you frown on. So I'm really upset. I'm not trying to start trouble, just speaking my piece. I hope that's okay. If it's not, I'll be glad to go away and never come back. All I ask is that you allow me to still *read* this site.
I was just upset fc because those fuckers tell me I don't come up to Newington enough and the night I do, none of them can go out because their wife wants some QT since softball got canceled.
I signed up for the 5-day free trial of MLBtv so I could watch the game while I'm in California, but I'm blacked out. I think they look at your home zip code or something so it's kind of ironic that here I am as far as you can get from Boston and I can't watch the game. There's no black out for listening, though. Luckily.
First of all, ecl, you have never (to my memory) run afoul of those rules. So if you don't change a single thing about how you post, you will be just fine.
Secondly, there is a huge difference between refusing to spell out words and constantly posting in txtspeak, and punctuating the end of an occasional joke with a ":)" or yelling an excited "OMG" when a run scores. I must admit, I cannot STAND :P, nor LOL, but those things just happen sometime.
On the URLs, that rule is there for one reason: when you (and I don't mean you personally, but "you" in the general sense) post long URLs, you break the code on the site, and mess up the design. Then I have to go back in, and hand edit your comment to fix the long URL. Honestly, it's a pain - and often times, I'm not around, and then the code lays around broken until I can fix it. But like the rules say, if you can't bother with HTML code, just use http://tinyurl.com/. Easy peasy.
And crushes on players are perfectly fine. And this discussion has come up multiple times before... crushes are fine, but I want to limit the preteen fangirling. This is a community of Sox fans, but it's not a fansite message board.
Basically, the rules are my way of (nicely) trying to keep this place fun, interesting and baseball-centered - and prevent it from feeling like a junior high cafeteria. Seriously, that's really all the rules boil down to.
Everyone does not need to watch what they say, or obsessively check the rules before uttering a word -- they're merely meant to be a guiding hand that keeps the tone and fun of the place focused on baseball, the Red Sox, and the games (and our fellow commenters).
Texy, the reason I have "never run afoul" is because I have completely stopped posting any smileys whatsoever over the last couple of weeks. I've been trying very hard to express emotion only by using :::these::: I'll endeavor to continue doing it that way since that's what you prefer.
It's not that I "can't be bothered" with HTML, it's that the code, beyond bold and such, doesn't make a single ounce of sense to me. That's why I made myself a cheat sheet awhile back should I ever need to link, but that was more for my LJ. Here I'm posting quickly and on the fly. I think I've only linked anything on a gameday thread twice this entire season. But that said, right now I'm going to try testing this tinyURL thingie to see if I can make it work. If I mess it up, sorry!
May a new girl join the conversation? I just got in from an early evening and would love people to watch the game with. And this game has taken quite the turn for the better since I started reading along. I'm to superstitious to leave now!
Works for me too, Ellen. Someday I'll manage to memorize all that weird HTML code. And someday I'll find all of MLB too young to be attractive to me. I hope so, anyway.
ecl- you've been posting here for months, you've always been fantastic. Believe me, you're a huge part of the community and don't need to change a thing.
(and don't take the "can't be bothered" personally- I meant that literally, whether it's because you're too rushed, too tired or it's too difficult... whatever the reason you don't want to use HTML, just use tinyurl)
So TG, is it acceptable for me to acknowledge in a tasteful manner that I find someone attractive? As in "____ looks great tonight," or "_____ has such lovely skin, jawline, eyes," etc.? Because even though my baseball boyfriends on this team are either gone or good-as-gone, I can't help but notice some of the other guys, you know?
Matsuzaka has done surprisingly well tonight. (I haven't had a near panic attack since the third inning, which may be a new record for me watching Dice-K.)
Ian, I think I'll go with tinyurl for the time being. I'll use my LJ as practice for the HTML until I get more comfortable with it. Remember, this stuff was totally from scratch for me as of May. I can word process with the best of them, but computer code is a foreign language to me.
And, by the way, I'm really glad that we finally did some heavy scoring! Very timely (although I'm late on mentioning it).
ecl: considering everyone does that all the time, including me, I sure hope so. Otherwise, I'm going to have to ban myself again- and I just got out of trouble for that Pedroia stuff.
Ecl - while I'm not typing long posts, I am getting lost in the Olympics. I loved the guys gymastics. There were two amazing horse and high bar routines.
1. Don't tell me the results! No spoilers!
2. Phelps is swimming in 8 events, right? So by the time he's done winning all his medals, the Olympics will be over.
it's how i watch all of the title fights in boxing that are on PPV or any of the MMA PPV events. and the occasional premier league futbol games. I also used it to watch the C's since i don't get them here.
I guess I should have specified: once Phelps is done winning all his medals, the Olympic swimming will be over with. He would, if he could, swim every single event... but no athlete can do that.
OK - I'm back after a driving hiatus. I just feel the need to continue my obsession of hatred and found that there's a "Heave the Hawk" website out there. IT'S NOT JUST ME!!!!!
Pierzynski looks pretty self-explanatory to me. K______ski (as in shchefski) is one of the weirdest disconnects between spelling and pronunciation that I've ever seen. I've lived in North Carolina for 20 years and still can't spell it. And you'd be surprised how many people DOWN HERE insist that it's pronounced "Kr-shefski!"
lone1c, Mientkiewicz is another one that doesn't confuse me. It's the huge series of consonants all at the beginning, as in Coach K, that I can't make sense of. And his assistant coach, Steve Wojo (not gonna attempt that one either).
on August 9, 2008 7:06 PM
Hurray for winning Baby Sox.
I'm ready for another win.