Arkady Renko

If you're talking to me, you should know that I hate both teams. I used to hate the Yankees more, but the obnoxiousness of Red Sox fans has made me change my tune.

It didn't seem like much of one until the last couple of years. It was just like the Red Sox was Sisyphus and the Yankees were the boulder.

They should just abolish all other teams and just have the Yankees and Red Sox play each other every day...

It seems like Bennie Anderson means that we won't try very hard to get Shelton. It seems like the strengths and weaknesses of Anderson and Teague complement each other on the left side. It seems like Shelton would make the left side a little too plump and slow.

Any chance some unannounced restructuring changed things?

All right, I already said that I was not going to get into further discussion over this stuff, since this was a prediction thread. But people keep on attacking what I said. So, I regrettably have to weigh back in. It is more so with the AL Central, but the AL West is weaker than the AL East. The unbalanced schedule within divisions make teams in weaker divisions have higher records than they would normally. To prove me wrong you'd have to show that the AL West is a better division than the AL East. Now, top to bottom maybe you could prove this using a long enough time frame and show that, but at the top, the AL East has been better. It is much harder for the small market teams in the AL East to compete when they have to beat out the teams with the two highest payrolls. It is self-perpetuating as free agents will avoid the small market teams in the AL East specifically because they feel that there is little chance to compete with those two clubs. Eventually I think the Yankees will get too old and the Red Sox will have some bad luck with injuries and such but that doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.

Could you please provide a link to his career retrospective. The members of the Banta Bonanza Brigade of CNY would like to post it in our HQ's lobby.

Nirvjam, I am far from a Yankees fan, but I completely agree with you in regards to Maris. The man never got the true respect he deserved.

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It actually depends on the position.

Don't they have altered rules in the All-Star game? Something about checking?

Thanks for the compliment. May I also commend you for your ability to string out a once half-funny joke for more than a year? I don't know who you are, but I'm certain that you must be a product of one of the wittiest members of the TBD brain trust. Tee hee!

I'm not a huge hockey fan, so forgive my ignorance, but it always seems like there's more scoring in Olympic hockey. Why is that? Wider ice? What?

All right, ManTheMyth... this specific resolution involved the North Dakotan State Senate, but I assume you were alluding to actions taken by our congress in regards to steroid use in baseball and in regards to Terri Schiavo. So I will try to address those concerns. You obviously supported one position with Terry Schiavo and that's fine; it is a respectable side to take. Debating the issue over and over again seems pointless considering how thoroughly it has been discussed at TBD and elsewhere. But the other side thought it was murder so they didn't think it was a waste of time to have congressmen interrupt their vacations to do like an hour long vote. Big deal. You just thought it was a waste of time because you didn't like that one branch of government, the legislative branch, was getting involved after another branch of government, the judicial branch (on a state level) had already gotten involved in this personal matter. As far as baseball goes, government has every right to be involved in that dispute if they want to be involved. Public money goes into baseball parks, federal law exempts baseball from anti-trust laws and remember that Congress is a large part of setting drug policy in this country. Using steroids without a prescription is illegal in this country last time I checked. In fact the whole controversy blew up over a FEDERAL case against BALCO. What has been going on in baseball has been an illegal drug ring and if baseball couldn't end its existence, Congress got involved. The fact that it went this far was MLB's fault, not Congress'. If you don't think drug use should be regulated by Congress, that's fine, but the law's the law. If Congress paid more attention to this issue because it involved baseball, fine, the public seems to care about it and that's who these representatives are accountable to. And, um, I seem to recall some drawn out hearings about some stupid game show being fixed in the 50s? Didn't Congress waste a lot of time on that at height of the Cold War? Congress isn't doing big "important" things all that much anyway. They pass laws and confirm appointments, hold hearings and negotiate over these votes. Because of this fact they have a lot of free time to do less important things. They pass seemingly pointless resolutions expressing outrage or concern about this or that. They sometimes pass resolutions as insipid as recognizing some celebrity's birthday. They take time to listen to the Backstreet Boys talk about strip mining and to Elmo talk about public television. They grandstand on every issue. Doing so on the fate of someone's life and on drug abuse and cheating in a sport seem just as reasonable opportunity for them to do so.

....says the person who spends his time logging into a second screen name at a sports message board instead of doing something constructive.

For what it's worth.. AL East: Yankees AL Central: Twins AL West: Orange County Angels AL WC: A's NL East: Braves (Until someone knocks them off, they deserve this) NL Central: Cubs NL West: Dodgers NL Wild Card: Cardinals WS: Yankees over Cardinals MVP: Tejada=AL, Pujols=NL

Sorry, I probably shouldn't have brought this up in this thread when I think of it. Probably a topic worthy of discussion elsewhere.

Or it could be that their market size means that they will always have a built in revenue advantage. The Bills are well run and have one of the most supportive fan bases in the NFL yet if revenue sharing didn't exist, they couldn't afford to stay in WNY. Should we just let the "free market" work in the NFL and have all the teams move to the biggest cities? MLB's popularity has shrunk while the NFL has surpassed it. The very reason is that all of the teams and their fans know that if they run the business well, they can be competitive every year.

The championship is all that matters? Then why do we care so much about getting to the playoffs or having a 9-7 season over a 6-10 season? Small market teams can consistently compete in the NFL. Most teams' fans garner some hope that they can be the next San Diego Chargers. Most fans of baseball teams feel like they have no shot year after year. The Twins and As may not spend that much but they play in weaker divisions (unbalanced schedules benefit them significantly) and have benefited from being lucky enough to have much shrewder management. Having that kind of organization that can occasionally challenge teams spending twice, three or four times more than them is extremely rare. They are lucky enough to have it. It is extremely hypocritical for Bills fans to be saying how income disparities are good for baseball when the Bills would either be 2-14 or out of Buffalo if the salary cap didn't exist.

Except that dominance is much harder to come by in the NFL. Look at the churn of playoff teams outside of the Patriots and the Eagles. Exceptions to the rule do not prove that the NFL and MLB's situation is anywhere close to the same. At least in the NFL when a team can be consistently good you can be much more sure of good management rather than economic advantage. The Angels, the Red Sox and the Yankees all have what in common?

I think all baseball teams should be contracted besides the Yankees and the Red Sox. Then the media can circle jerk them without guilt.

How about someone show some guts with their predictions about the AL East and the AL wildcard?

Yes Bills fans would love it if the NFL was set up in the same way...

I notice a lot of the same teams being picked as the ones who got in last year. This illustrates one of the major problems with baseball.

There's a Purdue University in Australia too or are you an international student?