sabugo

I have been a fan of Gardner thorughout his carrer. That being said, I can see that he's getting old and become less and less of a threat on the offensive end. Still, I think it was a good idea to have him for one more year, for his clubhouse presence and maybe to teach some defensive skills to the younger guys. I just don't think he was supposed to be on the field this much, but with so many injuries, he's been basically forced to play a lot more than it was antecipated. Oh, and he doesn't steal bases anymore but he's still a pretty good base runner. The All-Star voting is a joke. As it is in many other sports. Guys used to play in all-star games to prove something, or at least the game was interesting or competitive. Now it's just a huge event that accounts for nothing more than popularity. I teach and coach kids. Fortunately I have a great group of parents who refrain from looking like assholes. I'm really lucky in that regard but I also enforce some respect. I have actually had a mother tell me that if we weren't so relaxed with the kids that she would have pulled hers out of our class - she had just witnessed a mother and a coach scream all the forbidden words during a 7 year old match. Just this weekend I had kids competing, and in one instance, the referee completely screwed up - not a matter of opinion, he just got it wrong - I chose not to say anything, not a word (this kid's dad is also a student of mine). No point in arguing with referees when there's 6 year olds involved. It's definitely not the message that I want to deliver to my kids. But yeah, some parents are the worse. I have personally seem them threaten referees and even other kids! As for the London series, I was at a tournament for most of the weekend and missed it. I happened to ask my wife for the score at one point and she said something like 15-7 and I figured she misread or something. I guess the lack of familiarity with the field accounted for a lot of those runs.

The shoutbox doesn't seem to be working. For me, the shoutbox it is definitely a plus.

It does that sometimes. It's perfectly safe. Make an exception in your anti-virus software.

I second that

Praia dos Pescadores is about a 20 minute drive from where I live. That story was all over the news. People were asking 'was it an accident?', 'was it a crime?', 'were these people stupid or just careless?' Truth is, we'll never know. Ever since I read that story about the woman who fell to her death while searching for the newest pokemon, I'll believe anything. Speaking of race relations, I did notice there were very few interracial couples while I was in the US. Maybe it was just the places I visited, but there's definitely more here in Portugal.

Brazilians do crazy stuff. They're great fun, and as part of my daily life is being around brazilians I've come to appreciate their culture. For portuguese speakers there's really a lot to enjoy.

Apparently, the Twins were all the Yankees needed at this point.

I was going to ask this in the shoutbox, because I heard it during the game and I wasn't sure I heard right. Wow, 21 pitches! That's the new record, right?

Now this was cool

This season it seems like every game I watch either ends up 1-0 or with the Yankees getting badly beaten. I'm afraid to turn on the TV later tonight. The lone exception was the Austin vs Kelley game.

I get that Holt felt like he had to say something after that slide - which didn't seem an intentional spiking to anyone. But turning that into a beaning is just a dick move by whoever decided it was warranted.

8 RBI's are the most for a shortstop in Yankees history. Stanton must not be used to the cold or something. 5 K's must also be some kind of a record for a man with a contract like that. Still, the boos seemed a bit premature. We are only 5 games into the season.

10-10 going to the tenth inning. Wow.

Hmm, what?

It's basically the 99,9% having to acommodate to the 0,01% Much of what today is called insultuous and bullying was just called 'don't be a pussy' and 'growing up' when I was a kid.

More food for thought: - I just read that in NYC, subway conductors are no longer allowed to treat passengers as 'Sir' or 'Maddam'. Only gender-neutral expressions are now allowed. This is beyond stupid. I can't believe this... Then again, an MMA fighter is pressing charges against another because he got punched in the face after an argument on the street. Keep in mind ladies and gentleman (oh, I'm sorry, I meant 'everybody') that this is a guy who gets paid to beat another human being to a pulp, yet he feels butt-hurt enough to file a complaint because he got what he deserved. This is the same human being who felt it was OK to travel to Brazil to fight and then proceed to insult the country and its people on numerous occasions. I'm an atheist, but I really hope there is a special kind of hell for this guy and for whoever came up with the idea of 'gender neutral'.

I'm thinking of quite some people who should read this before travelling half-world to wreck havoc. I missed this thread.

Just out of curiosity, what difference does it make ?

Are you hiding from your wife, your boss, or your kids?

Man, I missed this! I happen to agree with a lot of what you say. Voting is down all over the world, not just the US. People are kind of tired of what regular politicians say and do. To me, Trump is just what he always has been - A guy selling a product, and this time he sold himself to the American people. I highly doubt much will change. You put it perfectly when you said politics is the art of making nothing happen while appearing busy. Like a former portuguese dictator once said: When you don't want something done, name a commitee. About the Jeter-Rodriguez-Teixeira situation, I wonder how many of those decisions actually went through Girardi. I think he's a good manager, and he's done a pretty good job with the material he's had. I mean, there is now way the Yankees top brass let Joe sit Jeter. Or even Teixeira - and he did try to play Austin as much as he could. As for A-Rod, they couldn't wait to push him out the door. I still believe A-Rod is going to be an asset in developing and mentoring young players. Best day of the holiday season to me? December 27th. That's when it's all over! In all, between Christmas spent with my wife's family and mine, my brother in-law's birthday on the 25th and mine on the 26th, I went through 6 different Christmas\Birthday parties this year. Oh, and that leftover food and cakes and whatnot from all those parties ended up in my refrigerator because my house was the last stop of this whole never-ending Christmas partying. I gained 15 pounds. Seriously. Fifteen. In three days. I'm fighting next friday, so you can guess how fun it was losing all that extra weight. Goalkeepers are strange in every sport. Hope Solo is just following what's normal for people who don't mind when others shoot things at them. I don't know much about football (of the american kind that is). I just know that the Portuguese American Football champions are a team started by a guy I went to school with and who is a distant cousin. He's the team president as well. In three years he started the team and now is running all over the competition and they even had some ex-NFL guys on their roster. So that's my team. Go go Lisbon Devils! I don't dislike Michael Kay because I've only ever heard him. And most of the times, since the games are played at around midnight in Portugal, I watch the games on mute or with very low sound (except when Sanchez hits a ball, that can be heard all the way over here. Wow!) I'd prefer the Yankees trade Ellsbury, but I get what you're saying. It's so sad about the Steve Martin tweet. I mean, when is this politically correct thing going to end?! It's not like he insulted anyone, he made a compliment for christ's sake! Grow up already! I always say that the problem with this world isn't dumb people. It's people who think they can think. And they can't apparently. Want to watch something scary? Turn on the news. Next week is the Jiu-Jitsu European Championship. Last year, the day before my students fought, I totally ripped off Mariano Duncan and posted this on our board: "We fight tomorrow. We win tomorrow. That's it" In english and all. I had four people fighting and we got a gold and a bronze medal, everyone fought admirably. Some of the proudest days of my life, and I couldn't stop thinking of out that phrase helped motivate my guys. I'm doing it again this year. Man...baseball!

Man, this is beyond cool!

The case looks cool.

I bet he'll be almost as good as Sir Didi