Messages

Sorted now and in thanks. Clowns Abú

Hey AZ, my Clowns have been relegated from the A league to the B. I cannot join the B at the moment as its full. I think it's a matter of increasing the max teams while people change over.

What a load of nonsense from The Stallion.

To be fair he's consistent..

Is paying top dollar in free agency, particularly on the defensive side, not generally shown to be a vastly more inefficient way of building a team?

You're right that its not the correct way to build a team but its a great way to finsh off a team and make a good team a contender such as Talib and Ware to Denver a few years back

I would enjoy watching American football and could pass myself watching a game of basketball but baseball has to be one of the most boring things I have ever attempted to watch. I just can't see the appeal or how it is so popular, anyone care to try to explain it to me?

It's a completely different mindset. You have to get into the strategy of it, and the fact that every pitch is a contest in itself. All major league hitters can hit any pitch as long as they know what's coming, so the battle between pitcher and batter is unique in each case, and is fascinating when you understand it. Each pitcher has several (at major league level) pitches with various speeds and movements. Fastball, slider, curveball, changeup, even knuckleball. Each of these pitches gives a batter a different challenge, and they have to pick up what the pitch is, and react to it, in a fraction of a second. Then the hitter will have preferences, a pull hitter hits across his body like a hurler, and tends to be able to drive it a long way if he catches it flush. An opposite field hitter is able to hit the ball away from himself, a left handed hitter that can go opposite field will hit the ball to his left.

Then you have the field strategy about positioning of the infield, and the outfielders to play against pull hitters etc.

So a game of baseball is a series of strategic battles, and depending on the situation of the game (score, runners on base, etc) even the nature of those battles can change. With 27 outs required to win a game, you see an amount of them and if you appreciate what's going on, it's a very pleasant, mellow way to spend a few hours.

Oviously then you have the physical skills of the pitch, varying speed up to maybe 100 mph or more, making the ball move but still land in an area about 2-3 feet by 1 foot, from over 60 feet away. And then the ability to hit that ball, moving like that, and place it either opposite field, or try and hammer the bejaysus out of it.  And then the ability in the field to track a ball in the air, make a catch, throw it back in accurately to the correct place, or stop a bullet line drive hit at you in the infield. All pretty impressive when you see it up close.

Sometimes baseball gets a bad rap because players like David Ortiz don't exactly look like prime physical specimens, and he isn't, but there are a lot of athletic guys on the team, and some of the athletic feats, or technical proficiencies are very impressive.

And anyway, sitting down for 3 hours eating hot dogs and nachos, and drinking a beer. What's not to like?

Tullamore have a Softball team, ya might get yourself down there and do a bit of coaching...

any streams for the Spain game?

Its on the TV3 player

http://www.tv3.ie/3player/live/tv3/

The ever presents in my life - Man U, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton!


33 others that i have seen in the Top tier! God I'm old! 

Middlesbrough
Burnley
Brighton
QPR   
Reading
Hull City
Derby County
Sheff Wed
Cardiff City
Ipswich Town
Fulham
Birmingham
Leeds United
Wolves
Nottm Forest
Blackburn
Bristol City
Bolton
Charlton
Wigan Athletic
Millwall
Coventry
Bradford City
Barnsley
Sheffield United
Swindon Town
Oldham
Blackpool
Oxford
Portsmouth
Wimbledon
Luton Town
Notts County

Poor Chelsea snubbed!!

I was rereading a few old discussions on this thread. I think this is one of, if not the, best threads on the board for debate and discussion. It rarely gets personal or defensive, and I suppose a lot of that is because a lot of people are interested, but not a whole lot are emotionally invested the way we are with our GAA teams etc. Mind you, I would put my allegiance to the Cardinals up quite high

MLB season is just around the corner as well as March Madness Final Four. We actually have a 10 seed (Syracuse) in the final four as 3 of the 4 #1 seeds were knocked out at the elite 8 stage. Kansas fell to #2 Villanova, Oregon were handled by #2 Oklahoma, and Syracuse took care of Virginia. Only North Carolina remain as a #1 seed, having beaten Notre Dame in the elite 8.

UNC play Syracuse and Oklahoma play Villanova in the final four, and the championship game will be on Monday. My money's on Oklahoma at this stage I think.

Baseball spring training is drawing to a close, and Opening Day is officially April 3rd, with the Cardinals playing the Pirates, the Rays and the Blue Jays, and the champion Royals against the runner up from 2015, the New York Mets.

It's always a nice feeling when Baseball starts up, as it's a real sign of summer coming down the road, so go Diamondbacks!

I think im going to give the fantasy baseball a go this year, I can barely name any players outside of the Blue Jays so it'll be a difficult learning experience.
Has anyone else done it before? Any tips?

[Best Draft Pick:]

Well done Savage on the win. My Clowns didn't even bring their B game for the final, was very one sided. I think im becoming the Mayo of this, 4 final appearances with one win.
My season roundup: (would like to see other players' as well)

Best Draft Pick: Antonio Brown (Round 1), finished as the top fantasy scorer in the league
Honourable Mentions: Tom Brady (5), Jarvis Landry (6)

Worst Draft Pick: Nelson Agholor (7) Bit of buzz about him in the preseason led me to take him in the 7th, 21rec 1TD for the season.
Honourable Mentions: Jimmy Graham (3), CJ Spiller (8 )

Best Pickup: Khalil Mack, sack master went wild for a few weeks when needed
Honourable Mentions: None

Worst Pickup: DuJuan Harris, picked him up when Rawls went down as it was noted he had a chance at winning the starting job, he became unemployed the same evening I picked him up...

Worst Drop: Corey Graham, he was pretty solid as a DB, 7-8 tackles a week but had to drop him on his bye week

Thanks again AZ for running it, will try again next year.

Lads do you think Cam NEwton will be rested this week against the Seahawks? They've already clinched the playoffs. Would you start Newton or Kirk Cousins?

Don't Carolina play the Giants this week? They bet the Seahawks earlier this year

Some shitehawking at the Toronto - Texas game 5 as well. It was tied at 2-2 in the 7th, when the Toronto catcher went to throw the ball back to the pitcher and the Texas batter accidentally (I think it really was accidental) got in the way and the ball deflected off his bat and rolled along the ground. This made it a 'live' ball, and the Rangers scored to go up 3-2. The crowd went a bit buck mad, and started firing stuff onto the field (harmless stuff like plastic bottles and rubbish, not el Classico stuff like pigs heads and motorbikes). The game was held up for ages, but the umpires and review guys eventually upheld the call and the run stood.

Luckily for MLB the Blue Jays went on to have a big bottom half of the 7th and won the game anyway (helped by some atrocious fielding in that half of the inning by the Rangers. Maybe they were guilty) but MLB dodged a bullet there if the Rangers held on to win 3-2.

I'd say our resident Toronto resident, Gab, was in the middle firing out abuse and bottles at the blues

Watched all of this last night, unbelievable game (Jays fan ). The refs done brilliant and made the right call on the Rangers 3rd run in what was turning into a pretty hostile atmosphere. Rangers threw it away in the bottom of the 7th, they could have had 6 outs in the inning but 3 back to back errors loaded the bases with no outs.
Ill have Bautistas home run on repeat for a while

Id add Lance Briggs as another notable free agent. Hes 34 years old though so may not get another deal

[The NFL are some marketing men though]

By the way, has anyone watched Draft Day yet? It's a typical Costner movie. Actually quite a good premise, and I'd like to see a movie made which followed it from the draftee's perspective as well, all the way through the last college season etc.

The NFL are some marketing men though. They've turned a process similar to a schoolyard captain picking teams into a multi million dollar show.

On that note, did you see the new Combine for veterans is coming in March? 100 guys who thought their chance had gone...

[Block Kick need to be increased from 2 points to 4 points]

For defensive player scoring, i reckon a Safety & Block Kick need to be increased from 2 points to 4 points. Minor one as they dont happen often but still i reckon they should get a little more credit...

Always knew this one would catch someone out, this week it was me...

[Who has visited more than one third of these nations?]

Who has visited more than one third of these nations?

A better challenge would be to name these 196 in their native language, but you'd want a fierce keyboard. My keyboard doesn't have 日本.

That might make for an interesting thread. How many of all the 196 countries have GAABoard members visited? Between us can we knock off all 196...