Celtics Signed Shaq

By dfunzy on 8/5/10 9:42am
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The Irish in Boston have sent for an O'Neal to shore up their defenses, offenses, and in fences, for the coming invasion from the South.

The Boston Celtics has signed long-time NBA, 15-time All-Star, 7-foot-1, 325-pound, Shaquille O'Neal to a two year deal at $3 million. The Shaq reinforces Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. The Big Boston Three are now the Bigger Boston Four. Well, Boston has to be ready for the "Heat," like in the MVP packed and powered Maimi Heat.

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Nomar Garciaparra Retires

By dfunzy on 3/10/10 4:22pm
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Nomar GarciaparraNomar GarciaparraThis morning  Nomar Garciaparra, 36,  and the Red Sox announced his retirement from baseball as a Red Sox. Nomar Garciaparra signed a one-day minor-league deal with the Red Sox organization  to retire as a member of his favorite team. This is a happy and sad day for Red Sox fans -- sad to see Nomar Garciaparra retire from baseball; glad that he has returned to the Red Sox Nation. In retirement he will  join ESPN as a baseball game analyst.

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Boston Red Sox Roster

By colormejosh on 3/7/10 1:15am
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NO. NAME POS
78 Lars Anderson 1B
48 Scott Atchison RP
51 Daniel Bard RP
75 Aaron Bates 1B
19 Josh Beckett SP
-- Billy Bell RF
29 Adrian Beltre 3B
61 Randor Bierd RP
30 Boof Bonser SP
64 Michael Bowden RP
80 Dusty Brown C
11 Clay Buchholz SP
53 Fernando Cabrera RP
23 Mike Cameron CF
59 Fabio Castro RP
17 Manny Delcarmen RP
73 Felix Doubront SP
7 J.D. Drew RF
2 Jacoby Ellsbury CF
91 Luis Exposito C
84 Miguel Gonzalez SP
22 Bill Hall 3B
-- Brett Harper 1B
32 Jeremy Hermida RF
70 Tug Hulett 2B
76 Jose Iglesias SS
83 Kris Johnson SP
92 Ryan Kalish CF
93 Casey Kelly SP
40 John Lackey SP
31 Jon Lester SP
87 Che-Hsuan Lin RF
25 Mike Lowell 3B
12 Jed Lowrie SS
74 Robert Manuel RP
41 Victor Martinez C
18 Daisuke Matsuzaka SP
54 Darnell McDonald RF
82 Adam Mills RP
72 Gustavo Molina C
96 Yamaico Navarro SS
46 Joe Nelson RP
37 Hideki Okajima RP
34 David Ortiz DH
58 Jonathan Papelbon RP
15 Dustin Pedroia 2B
-- Jason Place LF
56 Ramon Ramirez RP

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Team Japan Repeats

By jemanji on 3/24/09 11:30pm
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We read a blogger once marvelling, "Ichiro's going to get 4,000 hits."  A snarky reply followed instantly in the comments:  "I wasn't aware AAA stats counted" (referring to the Japanese major leagues).

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DiceK Shows the Miles

By jemanji on 3/24/09 9:35pm
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Joe Morgan -- Crown King of MLB (TM) Pride -- opined, before DiceK took the mound against Roy Oswalt, that (1) Oswalt would win, (2) DiceK would start walking people, because intimidated by MLB (TM) hitters, and (3) that the only reason the MLB (TM) guys weren't winning was because it was "a tournament atmosphere" (in which accidents could happen).

Later in the game, after DiceK and Team Japan crushed Oswalt and America, a more subdued Morgan marvelled at DiceK's ability to make great pitches in deep counts, and recommended he stop pitching as though he were "intimidated" by the names he grew

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Give Papelbon 2 Innings

By jemanji on 3/12/09 8:56am
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As far as I can tell, Jon Papelbon came into the 8th inning in 11 games in the 2008 season.  The Red Sox' record in those games:  11-0.

That's no big hurkin' deal.  As James once put it, suppose you had a racehorse that was 15-41, but 14-1 when leading

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Colloquy on Papelbon's Long Saves

By jemanji on 3/12/09 7:56am
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Q.  Can you prove that it's OK to bring Jon in, in the 8th?  Do you know it's safe?

A. No.  I doubt anybody knows.

.

Q.  Look, blast it, no matter how you look at it, it's better to be safe than sorry.

A. I think that DiceK should throw only 60 pitches once every two weeks.  Can you prove it's OK for Dice to pitch more than 30 pitches a week?  Well, then, it's better to be safe than sorry, right?

If "better safe than sorry" is a law of baseball gravity, then everybody throws one pitch a year, right?

………

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DiceK Finds His Range

By jemanji on 3/7/09 8:50am
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DiceK's RESULTS, not stats, the last two years:

2008 - 15-12, 4.40

2009 - 18-3, 2.80

After the first year, 2007, longtime readers of D-O-V asked us if we'd lowered our BUY recommendations on DiceK.  They weren't panicking.  Readers had respect for DiceK because of the K's and their understanding of how he works, and all that stuff.  But they wanted to know, after 2008, if DiceK were a bit less of a pitcher

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The HR vs BB continuum

By jemanji on 3/7/09 6:50am
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Fangraphs had an interesting article http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/dice-bb which illustrates, very well, the difference between the varied points of view in baseball cyber-space.  In this paradigm, we simply adjust Matsuzaka's "luck stats" (strand rate, BABIP, HR/F*, etc) so that they are equal to the league average, and boom.  We realize that you can't walk 5 men a game and be a good pitcher, ergo, Matsuzaka isn't a good pit

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Fight Night Sox-Rays

By jemanji on 3/7/09 4:43am
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Here's the video of the June '08 fight between Shields, Crisp, and friends.  :- )

Give Shields credit for *enthusiasm* on that opening right hand, but I doubt that Angelo Dundee is going to give much credit for the overhand, bottom-of-the-knuckles "paw" strike.  LOL.   Doesn't anybody ever think to drop the brow, put the left arm up and throw one really hard at the midsection?  Wouldn't break your pitching hand if you happened to connect, either...  and ESPN would probably put the ensuing nausea-fest on its top 10 plays...

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