This season we're going to be trying a new News & Notes format. Instead of the weekly column (which we all know was more of a "non-column" last season), I'll be doing more of a blog-type column. That is, whenever the mood strikes, be it stats night on Monday, the middle of a West Coast game on Wednesday night, or maybe even a Friday morning before I leave for work, I'll come here and post entries. Sometimes it will be a paragraph or two, sometimes longer.

I'll make sure I put a date on everything so you can easily tell what's new from what you may have already read. So feel free to come to this page often, or continue checking in once a week as the stats update, to check out and catch up on the latest entries in what I hope to be a season long blog.

If anyone else has anything to contribute, I'll be more than happy to post it here, with all credit given to the author of course. And if we get one of our infamous 20+ reply e-mail threads going, I may also opt to copy that into this space as well so it's saved for all posterity.


July 30th, 2007

Quat Thrusts! owner Doug Quat reveals his new "Simpsonized" look (courtesy of Simpsonizeme.com) and reviews The Simpsons' Movie

Doug has given this movie a rating of 3 ˝ Kellys:


For those of us who've seen every Simpsons' episode 40 or 50 times, the pre-movie trepidation was understandable: how can it be as funny as the show?

Fear not. The Simpsons' Movie delivers. In roto terms, it's like drafting Lance Berkman or Billy Wagner - not too much flash, but you know what you're getting, and at the end you're glad you took the plunge.

It's funny, edgy, acerbic, cynical and about 90 minutes long. And as with most Simpsons' excursions, it takes shots at the usual suspects: the government, big business, tree huggers, Neil Eskow.

Don't worry about the plot - that's not important. After 18 years and 400 shows, they've pretty much done stories on anything you could think of - Homer moving in with a gay couple, Otto moving in with Homer, Apu moving in with the Shanleys.

The story is simple, with a bit of and mystery mixed in - much like Dennis Milewski's fantasy baseball track record. Homer screws up, everyone in Springfield gets mad at him, and (spoiler alert) in the end he saves the day. How he and the family get from A(breu) to Z(umaya) is another wacky road trip that takes them from Springfield to Alaska and back by way of Mahwah (OK, not really).

While many of the secondary characters make only cameo appearances -- kind of like Joe M. at the Full Monty Draft -- they are all there. In a remarkable work of animation, any character that's ever been in a Simpsons' episode shows up on screen. If you look carefully in some of the crowd scenes, you can even find the brothers Legere (or was that Lenny and Carl?), Ian Morris and some guy with a bowling ball (I believe he goes by the name Jacques, not Brian).

The movie does suffer from a bit too much Flanders, but look at it like having a K.C. Royal on your roto team - it suck-diddley-ucks, but inevitable. In minimal screen time Monty Burns will probably get an Oscar nomination for tossing out a taught one-liner about "the white man finally having the power."

So, you noodleheads, dunderpates and slack jawed-troglodyes, go see this movie. And, if you would like to trade me some of your power or speed… Excellent!


COMMISH'S NOTE: Thank you Doug for the fine review. Please submit your ticket stub and expense report to the league office for re-imbursement. While we are happy to pay for your ticket, I regret to inform you that we cannot cover the cost of your popcorn, jujubees and 64 ounce Squishee...

July 10th, 2007

Some random thoughts as we hit a lull during the All Star break…

Barry Bonds got voted in to the starting lineup by the fans even though he trailed the 3rd place vote getter by almost 200,000 votes with only a week of balloting left? Add to that the fact that the Giants weren't even playing at home most of that week to get the fans to vote and I got to say something smells rotten in Denmark, eh? Well perhaps this can be easily explained by a simple scenario? The Cubs were playing at home that week and a bunch of old ladies from Naperville attending the game at Wrigley got confused when perusing the ballot and instead of voting for hometown Cub Alfonso Soriano they accidentally voted for ex Minnesota Twins OF Brian Buchanan! Oh, and don't let me here anyone complaining about a bunch of hanging Chad Durbins either…

So who is this new guy closing games for Colorado? Manny Corpas is it? Because I have to tell you, the first time I heard it on Sportscenter I have to admit I thought they said that Manny's corpse was the new Rockies closer! Wow, I thought, that's just Manny being Manny or more like Manny being dead… And while we're talking about new closers, how about one of my old Sesame Street favorites, Grover, getting a chance at some saves in Tampa Bay? Oh wait, that's not Grover? It's Glover? As in Gary Glover? Isn't he the guy who wrote that "dah-na-na-na-na HEY!" song that they played whenever the Hartford Whalers scored a goal? Oh, that was Gary Glitter. OK. Ah well, that's easily fixed, especially if you grew up watching "The Electric Company" on public television like the Legere Brothers did. We simply get Letter Man to fly into the stadium, rip the "R" from his chest and turn Gary Glover into Grover! Come to think of it, while we're here in Tampa, how many letters would it take to turn Elijah Dukes into something useful and productive?

Staying with the relievers theme we're weaving here how about Yankee pitcher Scott Proctor lighting his glove on fire! He claims the Yankees were in a slump and the only way to stop the run of bad luck was to torch his glove. Um, Scott? There was another alternative and while I don't want to be accused of promoting violence let me just say the words "Abreu" and "arson" both start with the letter "A". So if you were going to light something on fire to help the Yankees get out of their slump, well, you can figure it out from here… The Yankees also became the first team to sign a player from the Chinese baseball federation when they agreed to a minor league contract with a fellow named Zhenwang Zheng. I hear he that he signed with the Yanks because he didn't want to play for the Brewers; no wait that was that Yi guy in the NBA and it's the Bucks, never mind. Anyway, I don't know about you but I can't wait for the Chien-Ming Wang - Zhengwang Zheng battery to occur. That would be the funniest sounding pitcher-catcher combination since the 1932 Yankees had a reliever named Jumbo Brown and a catcher with a last name of Dickey…

Moving over to another sport for a second if I may? You know how in football when someone is really hurt they put them on the physically unable to perform list? And the abbreviation for that list is PUP. Well, what happens this season if Michael Vick needs to go on that list? And he puts up a fight with management? Can you see the headline in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution already? VICK FIGHTS PUP. Well that would be kind of fitting, no?… Staying in Atlanta, home of everyone's favorite owner Doug Quat, I'm told that DQ found himself in Wisconsin recently (details as to why are currently unknown) and that he attended a minor game between the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers and The Swing of the Quad Cities. Yes, those are confirmed real team names, I checked them out, Single A ball clubs. Of course, the first thing I asked when I heard about this was whether or not the motto for the visiting team was "you ain't got a thing if you ain't seen The Swing". And then I found it odd that a guy named Quat got to see a game played by a team from Quad Cities. You think if he mentioned his name to someone, they would've made him an honorary mascot for the game, "Dancing Homer" style, maybe? Heck, Doug could've been The King of Quat Cities…

Heading back over to the bullpen, I came across this guy the other day when perusing the free agent lists. The Reds have a reliever named Jon Coutlangus. Not sure exactly how you pronounce that last name but I'm going to go with "coo-tah-lang-gus". Which you might notice, sounds a little too much like a "naughty act". One that Japanese/Italian comedian Andrew "Dice K" Clay might refer to in his stand-up routine. If you're not sure what I'm referring to here let me give you a hint by saying that by using this clever wordplay one might saying that I'm a "cunning linguist", eh? OK, so now you get it. On to my next question. Who's the catcher here? I sure hope his name doesn't rhyme with "Horatio"… From Reds let's switch things up and talk about Green, as in "greenies", as in the banned stimulants that Detroit Tigers backup infielder Neifi Perez was caught taking, thus making him the first big league player to be punished for popping the green pills. Of course when asked about what he took, Perez probably claimed that he thought they were "those little rectangular Pez candies that come out one at a time when I pull back the plastic head shaped like Shrek". Hey at least he didn't claim they were Flintstone vitamins. Come on Neifi, you've got to keep up with the times. No one uses those things to stay energetic anymore. Haven't you heard? America now runs on Dunkin' Donuts!…

While we're on the subject of losers, how about a big shout out to the Phillies franchise, who with their next defeat, will experience the 10,000th loss in the history of the team. Wow, ten thousand losses? That's a lot right? You have to lose 100 games a year for 100 years to get to that number. Hey! Possible song parody for a future column. What's that song by the Five For Fighting guy about "you only have 100 years to live"? Anyways, I'll get the lyrics department on that one right away… But don't worry Phillie fans, I've got to think that your in-state rivals the Pirates aren't too far behind hitting 5 digits in the all-time loss column. Especially if the current team administration remains intact. As a matter of fact, Pirate fans are so upset with the club's perpetual losing that they've formed a club of Irate Fans. Notice that taking the "P" off of Pirate results in "Irate" as in "pissed off"? Very clever, kind of a "reverse Letter Man" thing. I like! Anyways, so these Irate Fans decide that they are going to stage a protest at the game and stage a grand walkout of the stadium in the 3rd inning. Sounded like a good idea on paper. However… Come the 3rd inning (and the Pirates are actually winning 6 - 2!) only 100 or so fans leave the park, 35 of which I hear were actually relocated Dodger fans who were trying to beat traffic…

Before writing the last paragraph of this column, The Commish decides to go downstairs to the kitchen and make himself some onion rings. His cat Gypsy is sitting on the couch, gives him a dirty look. He then sits down in his office, turns on XM Radio, Channel 8 (The 80s) and Journey's Don't Stop Believin' is on. He sits down at his desk continues typing this column. Looks down the hall sees his wife approaching and the cat coming up the stairs heading for the bathroom. Head back down, The Commish hears a noise, someone's has come into his office? Looks up… {this article fades to black}

July 2nd, 2007

Before we get into All Star snubs, manager firings and retirings, milestones with numbers like 3000 & 500 and untimely deaths of closers with fu manchu 'staches, let's take a break and have some fun with a few games, shall we? We can catch up on all that other trivial stuff in our next column (which I'll most likely be writing over the holiday later this week)...

Our first game is that classic memory game of Concentration. Below are cards containing pictures of the 16 first round draft picks in the league this season. Be sure to scroll down to get the whole board in on one screen. All the cards begin face down. Click on a "Homer At The Bat" card to turn it over. Then try to find the second card that matches the first. If the second does not match, both cards return to a face down position. If they do match, the cards are removed to reveal part of the background image. Note that once two cards are face up, they will not turn over/reveal automatically, simply click on another card to begin the next "round". Good luck!


Next we have our good old-fashioned Word Search, updated through modern technology so you don't even need a pencil to solve it! Simply use your mouse to circle the names of our league owners as you find them. Click near the first letter of a word and drag your mouse the full length of the word then let go. All found words will be removed from the list on the right once properly circled. Words can be found horizontally, vertically, forwards and backwards and don't forget about those tricky "diagonals"! If you get stuck or are just one of those folks who like to cheat you can click on the word you're looking for in the list on the right and click on the "find words" button at the bottom. When you're all done, hit the "Re-Scramble" button for a new look on the same words. Enjoy!


Our last puzzle in the game room is the always frustrating yet wildly addictive Slider Puzzle. Instead of the usual numbers 1 through 15 to put in order, we've got a picture puzzle. Rearrange the puzzle below by clicking on a tile to move it into the empty space. Rotate all the pieces around this way until the puzzle is solved. Happy solving!


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