Yankee4Life

Nice idea to get the Cubs fans involved. It would be great if someone in here won.

I've tried this too on XP, Vista and Windows 7. All with Firefox. It doesn't work.

Updated to 2-3 ...Starting this week's random thoughts with a big welcome to the month of February because Spring Training starts this month and that means baseball news, baseball talk and spring exhibition games. The first games are slated to start in eighteen days when a split Red Sox roster face off against Northeastern and Boston College on February 21st. The Red Sox like to start out the spring by playing against college teams so they can feel good about themselves after they beat their brains in. The rest of the teams open up two days later. They'll be playing against major league competition. ...Football is what's on everyone's mind today of course and as soon as this NFL Championship game is done the better. I'm pulling for the Baltimore Ravens today by default because as a Raider fan I can't bring myself to root for the San Francisco 49ers. ...About a week and a half ago a career criminal escaped from a Detroit jail and he now has a nationwide manhunt out looking for him. This was no daring jailbreak that took place in the middle of the night and it didn't involve getting over barbed wire fences or crawling through tunnels. That's strictly TV stuff. This guy did it the easy way by walking out the front door undetected and was not discovered missing until five days later. He was able to do this by switching ID wristbands with another inmate. It appears that the guards at this jail are so used to just looking at the ID bands of the inmates and not their faces that this guy took advantage of it and literally walked out and didn't look back. The Deputy marshal in charge of catching this man said this prisoner is "smarter than your average criminal." Considering the way he escaped he's smarter than the prison staff too. ...I bet this guy will be following all the gun control laws now that he's out. ...Whatever the true story behind FOX News not renewing Sarah Palin's contract is it really doesn't matter to me. The point is that she's gone and it is nice to see her star fading from view. Palin quickly became an inspiration to morons everywhere and the press couldn't stop talking about and covering her and eventually her family. Fortunately that was the beginning of the end. Her endless jabs at the President and her complaints with the media (except for FOX) were basically what she talked about so when her three year contract with them expired and they offered her a fraction of what she was making, that was that. She and her family may not be front page news anymore but you never know, they could bounce back. Her daughter Willow is 17 now and with a stroke of Palin luck she could get knocked up and there you go, another reality show in the making. ...I heard another funeral story last week although this one is not nearly as dramatic as the one I talked about last October when that guy from Brazil showed up at his own wake. There was this 88-year-old man who died recently that was such a fan of Whopper Jr's from Burger King that before going to the cemetery to his final resting place the funeral procession took a detour through the Burger Kind drive-thru and ordered forty of them and placed one on top of his casket before burial. I just hope that someone had the presence of mind to check the bag to make sure they got the order right and that they didn't give the guy a BK chicken sandwich instead. ...When it's time for someone like Lindsay Lohan to leave this world her procession will stop off at the closest liquor store instead of driving through a Burger King. ...Jim Nabors got married last week at the age of 82 to his long time companion that he was with for the past thirty-eight years. They had to fly to Seattle to have this done because the state of Washington legalized these type of marriages in December of last year. Sergeant Carter was right all along when he said Gomer didn't know which end was which. ...On Tuesday Apple will be releasing a 128GB version of their iPad tablet. This version will be exactly the same as the previous versions except this one will have double the amount of internal storage from the previous 64GB maximum. And it can be yours for only $929. This is amazing! This is revolutionary! Look what Apple is doing now. They're adding more storage space. It has never been done before! Nobody can do it like Apple! ...I can't wait to see if there will be any idiots camping out for this. ...Another company releasing a new version of their product this month is Sony. On the 20th of February in New York they are going to unveil the Playstation 4. The price of this new console has not been announced yet but if you think back to how much the PS3 was when it first came out (over $500) you can just imagine how much the price tag for this one is going to be. Console owners realize that eventually there is going to be newer versions of their systems. That's how it always has been. But basically what they want besides better graphics and gameplay is to be able to play the games that they have on the new system. Sadly the PS4 was not built with this in mind. The chipset and graphics chip in the new Playstation have been made by different companies that are in the Playstation 3 so this is going to make backward compatibility less likely to happen. I don't know how I'd feel about that if I were a Playstation 3 owner. ...When I read that there is going to be a new reality show coming in the summer called Top Hooker my mind imagined all sorts of interesting scenarios until I heard it was going to be a show about fishing. ...I really don't know how to react anymore when I read about these steroid scandals because I have become so accustomed to them. Can all the stories coming out of Miami be true? Are all these players named actually guilty? I believe that this Anthony Bosch person had better have his facts straight before the media got a hold of it. A number of players were mentioned and no one was surprised to learn that Alex Rodriguez's name was on this list of players. This guy has so much bad luck in his life that he may as well run half way out to meet it from now on. Nonetheless I do have some questions about this: 1.This report has in it as many as twenty major league players but as usual Rodriguez' name is mentioned first and the other players seem to be a side note in this. Believe me I'm not trying to defend Rodriguez here at all. I've had it with this guy as much as everyone else. But if there were that many players as the report said why only focus on one guy? Guys like Gio Gonzalez and Bartolo Colon have been virtually ignored here. What I am trying to say here is that every player on this list should be scrutinized the same no matter who they are but it's Rodriguez who gets the brunt of it because of who he is and that he's an easy target. 2. I don't give a you-know-what what happens to Rodriguez after this. Exactly what are the Yankees losing here if they are able to do the impossible and get rid of him? He's a .270 hitter who hasn't hit more than twenty home runs in a single season since 2010. 3. I don't get how the hell this stuff that these guys were buying were supposed to help them. Do you? And it's too bad for Rodriguez that this business closed down because he should get a partial refund because whatever he did purchase (or did not as he says) it sure as hell didn't help him in the past two seasons with the Yankees as he changed from a power hitter to someone that the pitchers don't even worry about anymore when he comes up to bat. 4. I wonder how the Toronto Blue Jays feel about this now that Melky Cabrera's name was brought up here and how surprised they were that Jose Bautista's name wasn't? 5. Nelson Cruz of the Rangers hasn't said a word yet about these allegations and he's been completely ignored here so far. It doesn't make him less guilty. It just means he hasn't found a lawyer yet. ...I get e-mails from Amazon.com all the time that are an attempt to peak my interest to buy the newest movie, game or book and the last one I got from them I had no trouble saying no to. Amazon let me know that the book Francona: The Red Sox Years was now available for purchase. I was as interested in this as a Kardashian would be in avoiding the spotlight. ...A truck in China that was carrying fireworks that was to be part of the celebration of the Lunar New Year exploded on an expressway bridge and caused part of the bridge to collapse. This unfortunately happens when people get careless and become unsafe around these type of explosives like throwing your cigarette out of a truck that's full of fireworks. ...Former Cub and Diamondback first baseman Mark Grace is going to jail for four months because of a second DUI arrest he got in a fifteen month span. Part of his sentence includes work-release jail time as well as three years of supervised probation. I know DUI's are very serious and I'm not trying to defend him here but when I see someone like Lindsay Lohan get away with what she's done over the past few years and nothing happens to her, why does this guy get four months? ...Some of Grace's work-release time will consist of him doing commentary for the Houston Astros this season. If that doesn't make you stop drinking nothing will. ...Finally, a R.I.P. to Patty Andrews who died last week at the age of 94. She was the last surviving member of the Andrews Sisters. They were a sister group whose harmonies entertained millions of servicemen during the second World War. If you ever want to catch them on film to see how good they were watch Buck Privates, an Abbott and Costello film from 1941 that they were in. They were part of an era that will be sorely missed.

Well, what can you do when you get a response like that? You just walk away.

There's a lot of guys in the Hall of Fame that were not likeable people to be around. You used Ty Cobb because that was the easiest and most obvious example. Go look up Rogers Hornsby. While he was no Ty Cobb this guy wasn't pleasant to be around either. No thanks. I don't listen to anyone who has to cut and paste from Wikipedia to try and make a point. How about trying to read a book to find out more about Cobb instead of relying on a Wiki entry? This last statement made by you was pretty stupid too. Honestly, it was. The guy that you quoted, jogar84, did not say Rose had to be likeable to get into the Hall of Fame. He never even came close to saying it. He said Rose burned too many bridges with people. I am guessing that he means that Rose spent years and years denying he bet on baseball and once he realized that was getting him nowhere he decided to confess everything. That's just my guess. And the last part he said that Rose is unlikeable as a human being and all I can say is if you want examples of what jogar meant then go buy a book on Rose and you'll see how unlikeable he was. Rose wasn't even popular with his Reds teammates because his personal stats always came first. Guys like Wade Boggs were not exactly the most popular players either but he got in. That's because he didn't bet on the game. Orlando Cepeda was in prison for almost a year after he got arrested in 1975 for smuggling marijuana down in Puerto Rico. He did not get selected to the Hall of Fame but he did get in by the Veterans Committee in 1999. Again, he didn't bet on baseball. My point is that there are players in the Hall of Fame that may not have been the nicest or most popular or have done something to tarnish their image but they are in. And all of them are in because they did not bet on the game.

You don't install a mod over a pre-existing mod. You can install multiple versions of Mvp baseball on your hard drive and therefore have as many season mods installed as you wish. Search the forums and you will find a thread that goes into detail how this is done. It is a very simple procedure. And let me explain it to you for the last time. There is no link here on this site to download the 1994 Yankee Stadium mod by itself. There used to be a link when Eamods and Mlbmods was around but not anymore. You found that out for yourself and you also realize now that you can't get it because the link is dead. That's why I told you to get the 1994 mod.

You sent me a PM about this last week and I told you that the link to the EAmods site was no longer working because the site is not there anymore and I also said your best bet was to get the '94 mod. You're a contributor so you can download whatever you want and you want someone to get you a copy of this stadium because you can't be bothered to download this mod yourself? WTF??? This forum provides a lot of help to people but there are some things like this for example that you are expected to do on your own without having anyone do it for you. SEE 1994 mod. DOWNLOAD 1994 mod. HAVE 1994 Yankee Stadium. DONE. And just to show everyone I'm not exaggerating here's my response to him when he asked me about this:

You're kidding? Really? I've never heard this. Damn guy must get around.

That's a hell of a good question. There are some Korean users that are on this website Sabugo and I have been wondering if they know about this or have it. I'd love to have this game. But again, why the hell did EA just release it in Korea?

I wouldn't change a thing. Great job!

Updated to 1-27 ...Like most people I am in support of newer and tougher gun control laws that won't just keep young school children safer but everyone else too. And ever since the Newtown incident last month I can understand school administrators being a little jumpy but what one Pennsylvania school did to a little girl was completely out of line and in the end the only thing it accomplished is that it made them look like idiots. A five year old girl was suspended from the Mount Carmel Area Elementary School after she made what the school called a "terrorist threat." She was suspended and labeled a "threat" after school officials overheard her suggesting that she and a classmate should shoot each other with bubbles. The "weapon" that she was going to use to do this was a Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower. Instead of stopping and saying wait a second, what are we doing here, they went even further. They suspended the little girl for ten days and ordered her to undergo a psychological evaluation. Her suspension was later reduced to only two days when it was determined that she was normal and not a threat to others. Then again "normal" is what these school administrators consider themselves to be and they were the ones who put this girl through all of this. Who knows what crimes this kid might do next. Maybe she'll sneak in a bible and then they'll throw her out labeling her as a religious fanatic. ...The next thing we know is we are going to have universal background checks for automatic bubble blowers. ...And don't think this is an isolated incident. Early last week a little girl threw out a piece of paper that looked like it was in the shape of a gun and when another student told on her to say she had a gun the teacher scolded her and searched her in front of the other students and told the fifth grader that he should call the cops on her and she could be arrested. Keep in mind that this was a piece of paper and there was no hiding the fact that it was. We really can't seem to do a damned thing about the real killers but they are all over the kids who are packing bubble blowers and paper guns. These type of terrorists have no chance. ...Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. ...Last Monday the 21st was called Blue Monday because it was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year. I've never heard of Blue Monday until just recently but I think there might be something to it because that was the day that my wife told me that her niece was coming up to spend the weekend with us. ...The Chicago Cubs announced a $300 million renovation project on Wrigley Field beginning next winter and it is going to be so involved that it could take up to five off seasons to complete. I wish them the best of luck and I hope it all turns out well for the fans but the only question I had is why are they waiting until the winter to start the work on the ballpark? They can start as soon as the regular season is over in early October because the Cubs always have other plans when post season time comes around and playing baseball isn't one of them. ...It's a smart move by the Cubs to spend all this money fixing up the place because if you remember an off season a few years back they spent this much buying players and that's how they ended up with Alfonso Soriano. ...Before I go any further it would be neglectful of me not to thank the Baltimore Ravens for beating the New England Patriots in last Sunday's AFC Championship game. Anything that happens to make a New England sports fan upset is ok by me in my book so thank you very much. ...We've got one more week to go before the Super Bowl gets here and by that time there's going to be articles written covering every angle you can think of. So far the most interesting one I've read is the price of the tickets just to get into the Superdome. If I had to take a guess as to how much this would cost I'd have never come close. If you were lucky enough to snag a ticket to the upper level behind the end zone you'd only have to part with $2,130 per ticket. It gets worse. A pair of lower-level seats near the 50-yard line can be yours for $27,600. I don't know if I should be happy that I'd never consider paying that amount for one ticket or be upset knowing that I am poor enough to never be in that position to actually be able to buy one. ...Since the Dallas Cowboys won't be playing in the Super Bowl this year they figured they may as well start their off season the only way they know how when another one of their players was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. This time it was nose tackle Jay Ratliff and all he did was crash his 2012 Ford pickup into an eighteen wheeler. Ironically this happened on the same highway where last month teammate Josh Brent drove drunk and a Cowboys practice squad member was killed. Neither Ratliff nor the driver of the 18-wheeler were injured. This was just another example of the Cowboys showing what "America's Team" is all about. ...If this keeps up they are going to put up signs on that stretch of highway that say "Beware of deer crossing and fast driving Cowboys." ...One night last week when I was watching the news they had a news story on right at the end of the telecast about a little three year old boy in Australia who has made a name for himself by handling alligators by wrestling with them in the water. His father owns a wildlife park in Australia so this is how he got exposed to these animals at this young age. These kind of stories don't impress me at all because things can go wrong here so fast. The next time we'll hear about this little three year old is when one of those gators opens his mouth fast enough and grabs a piece of his arm and doesn't give it back. ...McDonalds and one of its franchise owners in Michigan have agreed to pay $700,000 to members of the Muslim community to settle allegations that a Detroit-area restaurant falsely advertised its food as being prepared according to Islamic dietary law called halal. There are only two McDonald's restaurants in the U.S. that sell halal products and both are in Michigan because that is the home of one of the nation's largest Arab and Muslim communities. This lawsuit had its origins almost a year and a half ago when a Muslim bought a chicken sandwich and found out it wasn't halal which meant that God's name was not invoked before the animal was slaughtered. Somehow to a Muslim if you don't do this the chicken won't taste like chicken. Let me see if I have this right. They come to our country and we have adjust to their ways but when we go to their country we are supposed to change to their customs and way of life. These are people that blow things up on a whim, behead women, throw acid in the face of their daughter because she looked at someone and they are somehow offended that a chicken wasn't "blessed" properly? All I want to know is why would someone who is so concerned with the religious preparation of their food eat at McDonalds? ...Last week hundreds of Chinese workers held their Japanese and Chinese managers hostage for a day and a half because they were only allowed two minute toilet breaks while at work. If a worker was late once past the two minute allotted time they would be fined 50 yuan (about eight dollars) and if they did it again they would be fired. What if you had to do something else instead of pee in a urinal? You can't get that done in two minutes. How would you like to be the guy who is in the restroom with a stop watch timing everyone? It's funny that we cannot go to or trade with Cuba but we buy mostly everything from China. Go figure. ...The CEO's from Walmart and Apple, two corporations that have factories in China, were furious to learn that some of the workers there were given two minutes to take care of business because they figured that one minute was more than enough. ...Apple announced last Wednesday that their stock dropped more than ten percent basically because they were not able to generate revenue growth by rolling out new versions of old products and lacking in revolutionary new products. This doesn't surprise me at all. They've released the exact same thing with a small face lift every year and it took the world six years to figure it out. ...Lending a hand while holding my nose Dept: If there are any of you out there with young kids that you are now in the process of potty training let me point you in the direction of a new product that could help. It's called the iPotty and for forty dollars you get a plastic child-sized toilet with a removable bowl and for the pièce de résistance an adjustable stand is included for mounting an iPad so your child can play games and watch videos while learning how to take care of themselves when nature calls. The iPotty also comes with instant Facebook updates so everyone can immediately know what your child is doing and where he's at. Maybe if this catches on down the road for an additional fee they'll offer iWipes although I am not sure if the kid will use them on himself or to clean the iPad with if he ends up touching it. ...Now that I think of it the iPotty is the perfect place for all Apple products. ...Why are people coming down on Manti Te'o? It's not like he used this news to get money out of people or special favors. People that actualy do try to get money off of people in a sneaky way don't even get questioned as much as this kid has been. ...Did you hear about that fifteen year old kid in New Mexico who killed his entire family and then after he was picked up by the police he told them he wanted to shoot up a Walmart? The relatives of this kid released a statement saying he was a troubled boy (you think?) but was also an outgoing person who wanted to serve in the military. They went on to paint a picture of the kid that was so good that once they were done you would want your daughter to date him. Then they really got serious. They said they were "deeply concerned" about some people in the media portraying this kid as some kind of monster. Is that so? When you kill five members of your family including your nine year old brother and two youngest sisters, age five and two, that's the definition of a monster. When you also have the desire to kill people at a Walmart, that's the definition of a monster. Someone should tell the surviving members of this family that monsters have a way of hiding for as long as they want. Until they don't want to anymore. ...Lance Armstrong has told the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that he now wants to help clean up cycling with them. Isn't that something how people get so altruistic after they get caught? The next thing he'll do is become a born-again Christian.

Mvp Caribe 2012 Continued Look at this picture and try to guess if the baserunner was safe or out. In this case the umpire called him out. Action in the Criollos de Caguas bullpen. Catch of the day goes to the Mayos first baseman as he makes a diving catch to prevent a base hit. A wild throw past first base eventually lead to the Criollos scoring their third and final run of the game.

Mvp Caribe 2012 Continued Criollos pitcher Kelvin Villa strugged the entire time he was out there. Run number three of the inning is about to score off of Villa. Got to give this guy credit for hanging in there because when the manager went out to the mound for this conference Villa had only pitched 3 1/3 innings and was blasted for eleven hits. He didn't stay around much longer. Villa gets out of the inning when a Mayos baserunner gets too greedy for his own good. The Mayos defense was not that good as the committed two errors in the game that lead to all three runs for the Criollos.

The great modders over at the Caribe website have recently released Mvp Caribe 2012 and you can download it over at their website by clicking on this link. Once again for those of you who are unaware, you must be registered on that website to get this mod. When you download it you will notice that they are up to version 1.1 now. I did my mod review with version 1.0 of the mod and the upgrades that were put into the newer version are as follows. 1. The roster and attributes have been updated to the end of the regular season. 2. Each player has his actual statistics up to the end of the 2012-2013 season. 3. Errors reported by the users have been corrected. 4. The uniforms were updated.The missing ones will be updated in version 1.2 5. New portraits and faces. Please note that the above was written in Spanish and I did my best to translate it. Let's just say they upgraded a lot. To install the game you will need your disks and the password to put in when you are asked is www.mvpcaribe.com. The first thing that jumps out at you is how well these guys do the video that introduces the mod. Whomever is in charge of making the videos for these mods is a genius because they look great. They year they actually were able to get two Mexican players (catcher Ali Solis of the Tomateros ball club and first baseman Albino Contreras of the Yaquis) to walk up to each other and stand face-to-face and hold up their game pads. Whoever came up with this idea did a great job and it was nice that those two players agreed to do this. The music chosen for this mod seems to have been made especially for it because it fits in so well. The Caribe team never fails to capture the feel of baseball south of the border and the passion of the fans who watch the games. There is quite an extensive set of uniforms that have been included in this mod and each team has many choices to choose from. The old throwback flannel ones look great and each stadium has been reproduced very well for this mod. They put something in this year during replays that is quite impressive. When you view a replay you will see a white light surrounding a featured player that makes them stand out. If I am not describing this right please forgive me but watch the attached video that I have here. After the center fielder makes the catch the replay comes up and you will see the white light on him. Whatever they call it and whatever it is it looks great. The game I played was between the Criollos de Caguas (Puerto Rico) and Mayos de Navojoa (Mexico.) Kelvin Villa pitching for the Criollos and Hector Velazquez for the hometown Mayos. The Mayos won 5 - 3 and the feel, sight and sound of the game made it like you were actually at one of the games down there, which is what the Caribe team was aiming for. This is a great mod to play during these winter months and also for any time of the year. They did a great job once again on this and I highly recommend this. For those of you who want this and you go to the Caribe site, click on this logo to go to the download area to get the mod. http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/892/downloadcaribe.jpg Here is a video of the last two outs of the game. Screenshots Welcome to Mvp Caribe 2012 Overhead view of the Mayos de Navojoa's ballpark Another great job on the Caribe overlay. Driving in the first run of the game

Wait a second...you want answers too?? Ok, let me help you out here. Before he got TiT to work in Windows 8 he installed some thing-a-ma-jig and then turned off a whatta-ya-call it and then it worked! :)

That third goal you scored the Blackhawks goalie just handed it to you :D

I'm not arguing with you at all. Honestly if you want the truth I'm laughing at you. But I do agree with you on one thing. I'm not interested in this either.

Hahahahaah

Ok, I got to ask. What's CRS? :D

See, there you go confusing him now.

You're memory must be pretty bad if you can't remember making this post previously in here. I mean you don't even have 30 posts to your name yet.

This question was covered in another thread that you started last summer. I don't think anything has changed since then.

That's where you have to go to get a copy of this game. Try eBay first, they always have them and for much cheaper than that goof on Amazon is selling it for. That person has been offering the game for that price for years now. He started out at $249.99. Don't even bother with that unless you have money to burn. Sometimes on this site people sell this game but not lately. Good luck.

Updated to 1-20 ...Roger Clemens' sister attacked Goose Gossage on Twitter after the former Yankee reliever applauded baseball writers for denying her brother and Barry Bonds entrance to baseball's Hall of Fame last week. For those of you who are unaware, Gossage has been one of the most outspoken Hall of Famers that have been opposed to having Clemens and Bonds enter the Hall. This isn't the first time Clemens' sister has used Twitter to go after people in defense of her brother. Two years ago she attacked Andy Pettitte and other witnesses during the jury selection for Clemens' first trial. Clemens himself has been very quiet about all of this and if you were him you would be too since he's the one supplying the words for his sister to write. You can't keep the Rocket down. You can keep him out of the Hall but he'll find a way to throw stones so you'll notice him. ...I am sure that I am in the minority in this, but the news about Lance Armstrong coming clean about using performance enhancing drugs did not even interest me. Should it? I've been so used to ballplayers being caught using this stuff and then issuing mea culpas that it means nothing anymore. It's his problem because he chose to do it and to cover it up by trying to intimidate anyone who dared say he wasn't on the up and up. And if someone like Roger Clemens ever goes this route to admit what he did he's going to end up being treated even worse then Armstrong because when Armstrong was at the top a lot of people liked him and you can't say the same about Clemens. ...Aside from the Hall of Fame news last week there hasn't been much baseball news so far this month and that really isn't surprising considering the time of year. But give these writers credit because they have to think of something. Someone actually took the time to project the opening day payroll of every single major league team and for the first time in many years the Yankees do not lead everyone in total payroll. That honor now goes to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who have a $213 million payroll thanks to that huge trade with Boston last year and the free agent signings in the off season. That's $76 million dollars more than the World Champion Giants are starting the season with and with all this cash the Dodgers are throwing around they just might be good enough to come in second place in the National League West. ...Horsemeat has been found in some supermarket burgers in Ireland including a burger sold by U.S. global retailer Tesco that authorities said was made of roughly 30 percent horse. The Agriculture Minister of Ireland is blaming a lone meat processor in Northern Ireland for the mix-up and this was exposed to the public when someone found a horse show in their burger. ...Eighteen frozen human heads were found seized by customs officials during routine X-ray screening of cargo arriving at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. The heads were used for medical research in Italy and were being returned for cremation in Illinois. The bodies from the neck on down caught a later flight. ...Wouldn't you like to see the look on the someone's face if they accidentally brought one of these things home thinking it was their luggage? ...Three men and a 14-year-old kid were arrested when a violent brawl broke out at, of all places, a baby shower in Boston where punches and bottles were thrown and furniture being smashed. I have no idea why men would be at a baby shower in the first place unless there was some kind of contest going on to guess who the father of the baby might be. Either that or they were fighting to see who would be taking the mother-to-be home that night. This just proves that the people in that city just don't act like this at sporting events, they're like this at all times. ...I can't wait to read about what these people do when this kid has his first birthday party. ...I've only been to one baby shower in my entire life and that was the one for my sister. I went there at the end with my brother-in-law to help pick up the gifts and put them in the car to bring home. The closest thing to violence that day was when my sister saw me trying to take a cookie that someone had made for her and I got my hand slapped. That's the last time I've been to a baby shower but not the last time I got my hand slapped. ...Only in Philadelphia Dept: Philadelphia police arrested a man last week after he punched a woman and dragged her by her ankles to the subway tracks and then threw her on top of them. He then took her cell phone and walked away. Aside from some bumps and bruises the woman will be fine. The unmistakeable lesson to be learned here is not to take your iPhone 5 out in public in Philadelphia for any reason because you never know to what lengths someone will go to to get one. ...A Southern California teacher who was fired from her job last year because the school district found out she was a porn star before she took on her teaching duties was denied her appeal to get her position back. The district said they first became aware of her hidden past when the fathers of every student she had insisted on being at the parent-teacher meetings. ...The NRA made themselves look like damn fools last Wednesday when they came out with an ad that was critical of the President and his gun control stance because the Secret Service people who protect his two children at their schools are armed even though he opposes the NRA's call for armed guards in schools. They neglected to say that everyone who is part of the immediate First Family has security guards that are assigned to them and remain with them for life even through administration changes. And yes, they are armed. It makes me wonder what the head gun nut at the NRA would be saying right now had he had one of his kids enrolled at Sandy Hook and they were one of the twenty who died last month. In that case this ad would have never been made. It's always easy to distance yourself when it doesn't happen to you. That's the mindset of the NRA. ...Three people were wounded at a North Carolina gun show when a 12-gauge shotgun accidentally discharged when its owner was taking it out of its case at the entrance of the show while he was having his personal firearm inspected before entering the building. It seems as if this good ole boy must have had other things on his mind because when he went to grab the gun from the case it went off in his hands and three people near him got mementos from the show they didn't expect. You can teach gun safety to owners but they are the ones that have to apply it. You can do background checks on people before they get guns but how do you do a background check on stupidity? ...Where I live we have a group of crazies that call themselves The Polar Bear Club and every year they get together on usually one of the coldest days of the year and the whole lot of them run into Lake Ontario wearing nothing but their bathing suits and start swimming around. There's always a TV crew there filming this and when it's all done they pick one person to interview to ask him how it was (it was great!) and what they do it for (it's a lot of fun!) and all the while they are on TV their bottom lip can not stop quivering. I'm willing to try new things up to a point but the only thing I'll jump into in the wintertime besides a shower is a jacuzzi. ...Alex Rodriguez underwent successful surgery on his left hip last Wednesday and his doctor said that he should be able to resume his playing duties sometime around the All-Star break. That's just great because the Yankees really need to get his .260 batting average back in the lineup as soon as they can. ...How come all of a sudden no one wants to go with Robert Wagner for a ride on his boat? ...R.I.P. to ex-Baltimore manager Earl Weaver, who died on Friday while on a Caribbean cruise at the age of 82. When I was a kid growing up I did not like Weaver one bit because at that time his Orioles had some good teams and they'd beat the Yankees continuously, much to my frustration. After I got a little older and he retired and left baseball I realized how good he was for the game and how much I missed having him around baseball every day. The guy was a classic example to me about appreciating what someone did and contributed to the game after they had left it. It kind of reminds me of when Howard Cosell left Monday Night Football. Cosell's approach to covering the telecasts got some people upset especially when he said something they didn't like. But people still watched. And when Cosell decided to leave the Monday night booth those same people were happy. That is until they started to realize that the telecasts minus Cosell were not the same anymore and some of those same people wanted Cosell to return. They didn't appreciate what he did until he wasn't there anymore to do it. That's how I felt about Weaver. Couldn't care for the guy when he was in that Oriole dugout but after he left it I missed him. R.I.P. Earl of Baltimore. ...Just a few hours before I was getting ready to wrap up this week's random thoughts I came in here and I saw a shoutbox post from KC that Stan Musial died and that really hit me hard. You can't say enough good things about him that have not already been said before. I never saw him play so learning about him for me was through books, articles, columns by sportswriters and film clips. I actually met him once. It was back in 1992 and I went to a card show and paid $25 to stand in line to have him sign something. He had photos of himself and before I got there I purchased a Cardinal hat for him to sign. The instructions from the people running the show was not to linger and keep the line moving and the people ahead of me really didn't ask him much except how are you and how do you feel. Small talk like that. When it got to be my turn I was nervous and I thanked him for signing my hat and picture but then before I left I had to ask him this. Mr. Musial, I said, how was Ebbets Field? Was it as special as people have always said it was? He stopped what he was doing and put his pen down and said Brooklyn was a wonderful place to play and the fans were great. It was a fun place to play in as a visiting player. I thanked him and I left. I'm glad I met him. R.I.P. Stan Musial. ...Ok here we go for the Championship game predictions since I did so good last week. I think. Let's see, I don't want the 49ers to win at all so I will go for Atlanta but it wouldn't shock me at to see the Falcons fold up at the worst possible moment. In the AFC, Ravens over the Patriots. I realize in both predictions I am going against the team that I do not want to win for one reason or another and that should explain why I never place an actual bet on a game during the season.