With different ideologies from others and  my incoherent,blatant disregard to political correctness, I have modified the Top - 10.

Let me know if the changes are acceptable.

#10  Money in a big sack with a "$" on it shows up for the umpiring crew before every series.

#9   Anything the Tampa Bay Lightning can do, we can do better! (and not cause the game to stop playing for over a year to recover)

#8  If the name is changing, let's "Win one for the Devil"

#7   With this villainous club(Young,Dukes, and Mick-that writer on the DRAYS blog)), the 'Rays hire Vince McMahon to fill the Trop. We need to be the bad guy. And we'll like it,DAMN IT!

#6  Bugs Bunny signed as a free agent to play all 9 positions. If that fails, scientific evidence proves that rabbit feet are lucky.

#5  Because the champagne hangover always hurts worse but feels better than the hangover caused by drinking my bullpen woes away, which lasts forever!  

#4   Free parking and 50 cent beers at Ferg's before home games for anyone not wearing an opponents jersey or derby to promote fan loyalty.

#3   Because baseball games are played on FieldTurf II, not excel spreadsheets.

#2   'Rays sign Hulk Hogan who learns how stay back on a breaking ball. (and pass a steroid test) Barry Bonds will issue all tests.

#1   You didn't think they could, but they sure do find a cure for death. They take Ted Williams' frozen parts, bring him back to life and reattach his head. Then we dig up Babe Ruth and revive him too. Come to find out they both wanted to don a Devil Rays uni all along. Ted DHs at a .409 clip and drives in 145, while Babe throws 3 no-hitters, beats Kobiyashi on July 4th at Nathan's on Coney Island, while winning 30 games on the mound and comes second in Cy Young voting to Scott Kazmir (with THIS outfield, we don't need dead Ruth to hit!)

Penned,

"The Mick"

    After study, affirmation, and learning of all the quirks that go into "why" teams win the World Series, here are the TOP - 10 reasons the 'Rays will win it all in 2008:

#10  Ever heard of "bribes"?

#9   Anything the Tampa Bay Lightning can do, we can do better! (and not cause the game to stop playing for over a year to recover)

#8  If the name is changing, let's "Win one for the Devil"

#7   With this villainous club(Young, Upton,Dukes), the 'Rays hire Vince McMahon to fill the Trop. We need to be the bad guy.

#6  Bugs Bunny signed as a free agent to play all 9 positions. If that fails, scientific evidence proves that rabbit feet are lucky.

#5  Because the champagne hangover always hurts worse but feels better than the hangover caused by drinking my bullpen woes away, which lasts forever!  

#4   Money in a big sack with a "$" on it shows up for the umpiring crew before every series.

#3   Because baseball games are played on FieldTurf II, not excel spreadsheets.

#2   'Rays sign Hulk Hogan who learns how stay back on a breaking ball. (and pass a steroid test)

#1   You didn't think they could, but they sure do find a cure for death. They take Ted Williams' frozen parts, bring him back to life and reattach his head. Then we dig up Babe Ruth and revive him too. Come to find out they both wanted to don a Devil Rays uni all along. Ted DHs at a .409 clip and drives in 145, while Babe throws 3 no-hitters, beats Kobiyashi on July 4th at Nathan's on Coney Island, while winning 30 games on the mound and comes second in Cy Young voting to Scott Kazmir (with THIS outfield, we don't need dead Ruth to hit!)

Penned,

"The Mick"

 A well pitched, well played, well fought battle between the Indians and Yanks. The better team won, there is no doubt. In a game of  the hit series survivor, the Tribe outplayed, outwitted, & outlasted the Yanks.

    Scalped was manager Joe Torre. The Chief of the Yankee Tribe was skinned and laid to rest as New York skipper by the hands of the Indians from Cleveland. While I never did give Joe much credit  for managing the best players money can buy, he was the best man for the situation. The way Torre handled the NY zoo, media, criticism to himself and players, and still found time to manage and win for a dozen years, I give kudos to the slain leader of the Yankee squad. With the influx of youngsters added onto the Yanks team, I felt this was Torre's finest managerial job he had done. He no longer had all the best players at every position, the best starting-5 rotation in MLB, and no best bullpen in baseball.  I'll miss Torre and his casual strolls to the mounds at all the parks.

    The other dearly departed who deserve all the criticism for the Yankees and their losing was Chien Wang for basically handing Cleveland a pair of games. The other player to hand Cleveland the post season victory, start your chant, DEREK JETER clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. Jetes was horrible! He sucked playing SS, he sucked hitting. He SUCKED PERIOD!

    The new kids on the block were lead by veteran pitcher Paul Byrd who baffled Yankee hitters. Byrd, who looks like the late great superstar of WWE wrestling Chris Benoit put "the crippler" on the Yankee bats. A missed 3rd strike check swing call by 3B umpire Bruce Fremming almost opened the flood gates, Byrd was able to hold on and ward off  the Yanks into submission.

    Heroes? There were many. KLuv showed off his flare in games 1 & 2. Fausto mowed down the Bomber bats, Hafner came up with key hits, Garko was clutch, Shoppach played a great role last night, Sizemore, Martinez were solid. Sabathia, though not at his best still got the win showing why he deserving of his hardware he'll pick up at seasons end (Cy Young), Perez & Betancourt were outstanding out of the pen.

    A great win for the Cleveland Indians, it was a looooong time coming.

Headlines next week:

                            "Tribe scalps Sox! 4-0, head to World Series"

TWO WORDS!

                        GAME OVER!

In a game where the much ballyhooed Yankees offense was meant to make it's precense felt, young Fausto Carmona baffled Yanks hitters before a rompous, jovial, sell out crowd at Jacobs Field.

As reported yesterday on this wonderful "baseball" blog, when on, Carmona is virtually unhittible. Yesterday, my fellow fans, Fausto was on man! The 96 MPH sinking, winding, diving fastball-sinker had the entire Yanks line up leaving Jacobs Field with that pit one feels in their stomach when somethings gone bad.

Every team in MLB hopes to win the World Series. When Arizona won they had the two best pitchers in MLB at the time in Schilling/Johnson. This dual led the 'Backs to a title. This season we may be witnessing deja vu. To be Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia, and the best young pitcher on the planet, Fausto Carmona, seem to be the equivilent to the Johnson/Schilling tandem.

It may be premature, however, we're witnessing a hot, peaking team, with SP & RP to shut down the best team in MLB and all others.

I won't rasmble on, we all know what happened.

Feel free to e-mail me for more Indians insight.

All bandwagon fans are welcome! RJ's aboard with his new headress and warpaint and finally has that feeling of playoff baseball. Something that we will never experience under the rotton ownership of Greedy Stuey Sternberg and his do-boyz from kosher NY.

Just look at these numbers:
Jeter - 1 for 7

ARod - 0 for 6

But why stop there?

Posada - 0 for 7

Matsui - 0 for 7

Damon - 1 for 9

Cano - 1 for 7

Cabrera - 1 for 8

Mientkiewicz - 0 for 4

Abreu leading the team with a ringing 2 for 6.

TWO WORDS:

                    CY YOUNG

     After reading the deluded integral parchment of "how this board will change colors," it's quite easy to comprehend, there's nothing changing on the Mudhen front.

     Here to stay is Greedy Stuey and his comments, "payroll will be added." No shit Stuey, for $24M in the BIGS you can't even buy Arod for crying out loud. No commitment to adding quality yet again will leave the worst team in MLB in the doldrums of last place in 2008 yet again. If Greedy Stu and his arsenal of imbiciles in the front office don't decide to spend, trade, and and get stars in Tampa Bay,it's same o'l , same o'l Mudhens baseball in 2008. IT'S TIME TO INVEST & COMPETE OR BE RUN OUT OF TOWN!!!!!!!!

     On a good note!!!! How 'bout the Tribe just cold-cocking the Yanks last night?

     Player of the game, Kenny Lofton is home and his bat's doing the talking. Sabathia wins despite a lackluster performance, Garko, Hafner, MArtinez, Cabrerra go yard! What a GAME, I absolutely love the post season!!!!!!!!!!!!! Watching the playoffs and your favorite team, there's nothing better. Winning against the highly favored Yanks, ooooooh, it's that much better.

     Tonight, Fausto Carmona takes the hill against And Pettite and the Yanks. If you have not seen this cat throw, he throws a sinker in the mid 90's that is near impossible to hit when he's on. Hopefully he will be on and the Yanks will return to the Bronx down 0-2!!!!!!

     I figured I'd share my exhuberance with all of you since the Mudhens are at home, drink'n a beer, watching the tube.   AGAIN!!!!!!!!

TWO WORDS!

         GO TRIBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a random thought here. After watching the Cleveland Indians draw just 25,000 fans for a game the other day I started to ask myself why? As I debated with myself I also looked at Tampa Bays miniscule avg. per game attendance.

In Cleveland, the Indians were 3-4 gms up on the El Tigres in the A.L. Central, on the perverbial "Warpath", and appearing to run away for their 1st Division Title since 2001.

Is it the lack of a marquee name or player that dwindles the crowd? Is it the many lies owner Larry Dolan has laid on the GREAT City of Clevelands fans? Are the fans rebelling against their owner?

The answer to all three is yes. So I looked at the importance factor. Winning cures all ill's. However, if Barry Bonds and the Giants came to town at Jacobs Field there would be a sell out.

So what's more important, marquee names on a team or winning?

In either instance one would have to be crazy not to spend to bring some sort of marquee name, every day player to the Trop? Beyond printing my own money, and starting my own Private Monetary System to attract and throw at free agent baseball players around the globe, here's what I found:

Not scientific numbers here at all, and open to debate.... but what would 10,000 more fans per game add up to? Let's say each fan spends $65.00 per game (tickets, a couple of dogs, the highest priced beer and pop (soda for non-Northerners) on the planet, some junk from the Devil Ray's store, parking, etc). By the way, does Sternberg somehow have his hands down the pants of the parking vendors outside Tropicana Field grounds or does the city get that? Anyways, we pay for parking next season is what I've been told so that's Stuey's monetary gain next season. Anyway, $65 X 10,000= $650,000 X 80=  $52 million. Can that be right? Is my math correct?

Of course, not all of that $52 mil is pure profit, but a lot of it is because expenses are fairly fixed whether you have 27,000 or 37,000 attendance. So let's say 60% of $52 mil - or $31,200,000 is pure profit. (not counting a probable increase in road attendance or TV/Radio revenue if they add a marquee player at the start). So what would $31 million have bought? I'm not that up on what quality, marquee players are costing these days. Remembering too that whatever the price, it would be spread out over the term of the contract. The ironic part is in Cleveland for instance, owner Larry Dolan is having his cake and eating it too. He's making a crapload of $$ without making large capitol investments, and has a first place team. Cleveland started the season a smidge above $60M in team payroll. Is this Stuey's ultimate goal? I hate to say it, it's going to be a whole lot tougher in the A.L. East if we do not sign that "Marquee player or two.

Just crunching numbers, anyone's input is welcomed.

Oh yes, I almost forgot:

                       "ROLL TRIBE ROLL!"

If Sternberg didn't make the deal of the Century when buying 48% of the Mudhens no one did. Stuey is shrewd, is all I have to say. He's most likely recovered all the monies laid out in  his purchase of the Mudhens by going cheap and playing minor leaguers.

Here's the diddy to consider:

Stuey & co. purchased 48% of Tampa Bay's baseball team for $65M. Naimoli still has his hand out for 15%, & 37% is owned by investors. Not to knock Naimoli or the investors, but these guys are dumb asses!

Why? In 1995 Naimloi's group purchased the team for $130M. They basically sold half the team in 2005 for $65M. Forbes magazine now values the Mudhens at $270M.

So how did greedy Stu & his wallstreet penny-pinchers fair in this deal? Quite simply put they paid $2 for a $4 share of stock. Stu paid $65M for roughly half of a team that's worth $270M.

Not only has Stu made the deal of the century, he's sticking it to all the fans of Tampa/St Pete by fielding the lowest payroll in MLB. I say fielding the lowest payroll, not players. Stuey and his do-boyz look at player salary they're fielding, not the player.

Greedy Stu's all about the money and contracts he puts on the field. He could make a killing if he sold the team NOW! I realize this is a business, however, when you're in the public eye and people around the Bay area count on you, Stu's really sticking it to everyone putting cheap crap on the field and lying his ass off. For that alone he should be run out of town.

Let's hope and pray that he sells, and soon.

Mark Cuban, come on down!

"Due to budget cuts, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off."

                       --Stuey Sternberg.

Stuey, here greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy.

"I went to  a baseball game last night, and a scalping broke out."

     I don't know if the Indians are on their preverbal "warpath" or not. Last night, Jake Westbrook completely baffled Mudhen hitters as they dropped yet another game by the score of 8-1. The only thing good about our Mudhens (got free tix & was at the game) looking at the scoreboard as it was disco night. All the players were dressed in 70's outfits, had fro's, sunglasses, it was hilarious. Almost as hilarious was the way the Mudhens played ball as they just dropped to 30 games under .500.

     The race to 100 losses is in sight. The race to yet another 1st round pick is all but in the bag as the Mudhens have the worst record in MLB thus will receive the 1st pick in the 2008 amateur draft......again!

     The wrap up..... The Mudhens looked like a third world country going up against a super power last night. There's that much of a difference between good teams and the Mudhens.

And Stuey's pointing fingers......geeeeeeez. You dont build cars and not have them equipped with with tires, batteries, and an engine and expect the public to pay for the junker do ya Stuey?

Same goes for the Mudhens!

Roll Tribe Roll! Back at the Top of the A.L. Central and playing the worst team in MLB. It gets no better than this!

Thank you Stu Sternberg!

Stuuuuuueeeeey!  Here  greedy, greedy, greedy , greedy.

Alright, to all of those who have to read my displeasure of Mudhen ownership, I offer you this.

I'll be at the game tonight at the main entrance at the Justlookitup.com Monster Truck. Come by, see me, and I'll give you all the free beer you want to drink. Free beer for putting up with my tumultuous jargon on a fairly regular basis as of late. No catches, just free beer. I'll get there at 5:00. Two hours of drink'n may be what the Dr ordered.

I'll be wearing my Indians derby and my Mudhens (Devil Rays) jersey. I answer to Mick.

Just a peace offering to all the diehard D' Ray fans. And if Stu's there, I'll even pour him a chilly. Beware of the earful though.....

I sure do like the artwork of Mudhen baseball. If we're renaming the team, Mudhens gets my vote. Especially if Stuey refuses to spend and we have to endure another season of Minor League baseball at the the Major League level.

If the shoe fits.....

http://www.mudhens.com/view_news.asp?id=401

Chiavacci is Key as Hens Shutout Bulls, 4-0.

TOLEDO, Ohio (August 9, 2007) - The Toledo Mud Hens (69-51) shutout the Durham Bulls (64-55), 4-0, in front of a sell-out crowd on Friday, August 10 at Fifth Third Field. RHP Ron Chiavacci (10-6) pitched seven shutout innings, giving up just three hits and striking out eight, to become the third Mud Hen to reach double digits in the win column. CF Andres Torres hit a two-run home run in the seventh inning that helped secure the Hens' win. Indianapolis lost their game against Louisville, which shrunk the Hens' magic number down to 17 games.

The Hens were the first on the board after three scoreless innings. CF Andres Torres led off the bottom of the fourth with a standing double. Henry Mateo hit a sacrifice bunt and reached second on a throwing error by the Bulls' third baseman, Joel Guzman. The play allowed Torres to score from second. After four innings of play, the Hens had a 1-0 lead against the Bulls.

The Hens provided Chiavacci with some more run support in the bottom of the fifth. 1B Chris Shelton led off the inning by hitting a double. C Dane Sardinha hit a fly ball to the right fielder, but the play allowed Shelton to reach third. With two outs, the next two batters for the Hens, Torres and Mateo, walked to load the bases. LF Timo Perez was the next batter to face LHP Mike Prochaska. During Perez's at-bat, Prochaska went to throw to first base, but instead awkwardly threw the ball down on the ground. The throwing error allowed Shelton to score and the Hens took a 2-0 lead against the Bulls after five.

Torres added two extra runs for the Hens in the bottom of the seventh. SS Erick Almonte led off the seventh with a walk. Torres followed with a shot over the right field fence. The two-run blast marked Torres' third home run on the season for the Hens. After seven innings, the Hens had a four-run lead.

LHP Vic Darensbourg pitched a scoreless eighth inning for the Hens, giving up just one hit and striking out two. RHP Aquilino Lopez pitched a perfect ninth inning, striking out the side.

Prochaska (1-1) took the loss for the Bulls, despite only giving up one earned run. The Bulls defense did not help themselves out any, committing three errors in the game.

Notes: The game marked Fifth Third Field's 29th sell-out in the 2007 season and the 169th in the history of Fifth Third Field. The Hens will embark on a six-game road trip beginning on Saturday, August 11 through Thursday, August 16. The Hens will play three, two-game series at Indianapolis, Norfolk and Richmond, in that respective order. Probable starters for Saturday's game are RHP Dennis Tankersley (8-6, 4.93) for the Hens and RHP Bryan Bullington (10-5, 3.86) for the Indians. Join Jim Weber for all the live play-by-play on 1470 AM - The Ticket.

-Nori Wieder, Toledo Mud Hens