The Ted Turner Memoirs part 3: Painkillers Are A Man's Best Friend.

[lilbiggio]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Big Squeezy

Wow, I can't believe Wilson turned down your offer to stay with Texas. That's insane. At least you got Zambrano who will hopefully be able to keep it together and fit into your rotation. I'll be reading this one as well, great job with it so far.

Yeah it sucks in a way, because he held out for a long time before deciding to resign... but I can't hate the game for trying to keep it somewhat legit although that was a bit extreme of a measure to keep realism...

The first day of Spring Training is like the first day of school in the third grade. Everybody has a crazy story to tell about their vacation. Some kids got new shoes, or a cool Trapper Keeper. In the sense of our story friends, we got players coming in breaking all kinds of Ted Turner house rules:



John Rocker walked into camp sporting a new handlebar mustache. Now I'm not a person with the quality of hate that dislikes a good handle bar mustache (Damn you OS for banning the word H---er).... And I appreciate the thought of a person trying to keep his Baron Davis beard in control. But John Rocker had broken cardinal rule #1.

Keep yourself Disguised at all times

Although this rule wasn't written earlier in the story, or even mentioned in a subtle way, now was as good a time as any to throw this in there, and yes... Ted Turner was not pleased with these developments. The PR nightmare of ESPN figuring out that John Boy Rocker was really John Rocker could be in jeopordy.

Thankfully he still had the cool *** sunglasses. For the time being until the beard could grow back out that would be a happy compromise.

[lilbiggio]

Spring Training Part 1 of 2

The first half of Spring Training taught us a couple of things...



5.Judging by what happened against the bad boys of the AL, there is a very good chance that Carlos Zambrano will NOT be iimposing his will on too many people this season. Sorry.

I gave him starts vs. New York and Boston and Zambrano got rocked once the lineup came around for seconds... His slider is money though... gotta give him that, but Big Z is not untouchable to opposing hitters unfortunately.

4.Jordan Schafer is holding his spot at the midpoint of March as the team's starting CF. This guy has quickly become a star in the making. But surprisingly, Nate McLouth is not just sitting on the bench collecting money so far in 2012. Nate has had a splendid Spring with 3 Jimmy Jacks, and an above .300 average so far... so he might still be able to grab the spot back. But if I had to bet money, McLouth will be traded by July.

3.Rafael Furcal's presence at the top of the order is mighty. A switch hitter with speed and contact really makes our lineup a lot more potent. Alex Gonzales days are numbered.



What the HALE?!

2.Dan Uggla who was relatively silent all season last year, did absolutely jack **** in the playoffs, and did not play like a power hitter that the simulation would make one think in games that we played . Has returned...

With a VENGEANCE.



Ok, ok... maybe he just returned and nothing more, but we NEED this kind of Dan Uggla. If he can keep playing like this, the team just got substantially better.



1.Freddie Freeman still sucks for some reason on MLB the Show 11... he doesn't hit for power. He's not really fast. He's not clutch, and he plays average to below average defense.. but atleast he got long sleeves. Next to John Boy he is easily the coolest looking player on the field.

[lilbiggio]

Sorry for the delay in between updates. It is rather hard to get into any kind of rhythm during ST. With the CPU subbing guys in for no reason, combined with the general lazy feel to each day, it was quite the obstacle getting through the final weeks of March.

But it's done. And now, we can tie up everything into a nice little package and move on into the Regular season with a few things learned about our squad, and a couple dissapointments, and surprises.


Spring Training part 2 of 2



This should be fun...

Quote:

John Rocker got better over the offseason. That's a win. John Rocker is still giving up unneccessary demoralizing homeruns. that's a loss. As a result he'll start off back in AA. But it looks like unlike 2011, he won't be there for long. He finally has a third pitch and had a decent but not major league worthy spring.

Quote:

Minor had a teriffic Spring. Came up out of nowhere and took the 4th spot in the rotation with a 2.05 ERA in 6 starts and 21 strikeouts as well.. As our only lefty not only will we be counting on him to mature fast, we will need him to take his nickname of Lefty Sinclair with honor and make it work. As we found out with "John Boy". If you say it enough times, it'll stick... I guess.

Quote:

I hate the first games of the year. Everybody seems to play like absolute boo boo defensively. Rafael Furcal just got cheated on this one. Easy routine pop fly to short. He's there for about 5 seconds, and then out of nowhere, ball hits him in the head Canseco style. I was so pissed I saw no need to capture this moment in any way.

Quote:

Well... I guess one more photo won't hurt.

[lilbiggio]

30 Clubs in 30 Days: Atlanta - MLB Network

Quote:

Hazle Mae gets an exclusive interview with new Braves pitcher Carlos Zambrano. And the MLB Tonight Crew discuss random things, while some brief highlights of the Grapefruit League conclude our Spring Training Coverage.

[lilbiggio]

Ah yes.. you smell that? That's the smell of April.

It's something about writing about April in the middle of September that makes the sun shine a little brighter. Something that makes the trees rustle a little more. The Dos Equis taste a little better.

With Spring Training now becoming a memory that we hopefully won't have to endure again for another full calender cycle we head into the 2012 Regular season with the final cuts list. These are the guys we'll be rolling into battle with against the big ugglies of the National League's East:



The Boys from Cobb County: A recap
Brian McCann is hands down the best catcher in the National League. Buster Posey is good in his own right, but McCann's power and contact numbers have earned him the spot as team captain heading into 2012 and Chipperless. His stats were getting so nutty at one point this spring, we just simply stopped playing him for fear of injury. This guy was straight beastin' in the Grapefruit circuit.

The biggest shakeup was the absence of Nate McLouth from the starting lineup. Jordan Schafer raised some eyebrows after Nate went down with a 60 day injury last season, but now with a head to head competition, Schafer was so much better than McLouth it wasn't even funny. He earned this opportunity, and now we don't know what the hell to do with Nate McLouth who is now serving as the 4th outfielder.

The Rotation

Ace- Tommy Hanson
2. Jair Jurrjens

These two are our best pitchers and are strikeout machines.

3. Carlos Zambrano
4. Mike Lefty Sinclair Minor.
5. Kris Medlen

Zambrano is too good to be anywhere other than 3. Minor impressed us so much this spring that we want him at the 4 hole to start off the next series after our first three give it a go in a 3 game set. Kris Medlen is hanging on by a thread in the starting rotation falling all the way from his 2010's rookie year status of #2 dog in da yard, to last on the totem pole at #5.

Kawakami is right on his heels, but the youth movement as suggested by Rexis has led me to giving Medlen the nod, this time around.

[lilbiggio]

A 9-3 Groundout, one of the rarest plays in the great game of baseball. A play only accomplished 7 previous times in the over 180 year history of the game. Somewhere back in the day, Abner Doubleday, preferably while smoking that good opium with a glass of hot tea and a slice of mince meat pie, had good reason for this not to be a routine play. It's embarrasing bro..


Yet, MLB the Show 11, allows for the impossible to become reality on an everyday basis... simply with a little bit of luck, a splash of hard work, and at times questionable coding.. history can be written and broken at any moment.

On a seemingly routine frustration play that we've all done plenty of times, Jason Heyward of the Atlanta Braves became only the 8th player in league history to enter a very exclusive fraternity. The "I threw a ball just for the hell of it to first base, and actually got the put out, 9-3 Ground Out Kappa Alpha fraternity" is pretty hard to get in, because frankly the odds of getting thrown out from rightfield are pretty long odds.. Damn, what a hilariously legendary way to open up the 2012 season I must say boys and girls!

We won't dwell on why he was playing so shallow with no one on base in a tie game, because the play was cool as hell.


ESPN Sunday Night Baseball - 9-3 Ground Out


For the third season in a row the Ted Turner Memoirs kicks off the season with a L. I thought due to the fact that everything seemed to be rolling pretty well in March that we'd break that streak... but then I forgot about Stephen Strasburg. And Stephen Strasburg did what he does, which is throw 100 mile cheese that was darn near impossible to foul off, let alone hit.



Hanson wasn't too bad himself on this opening night game at Ted Turner's Field. However after a back and forth duel between the aces went into 5 scoreless frames. Andruw Jones of all people broke the tie with a two run bomb to left. Virtual Checkmate with Strasburg on the mound.



Uggla would tie the game with a 3 run shot of his own in the 7th. The game would then go into a bit of a lull as both bullpens unloaded reliever after reliever into the game, until finally our pen did what it does best, and choked away all the momentum with an atagonizing solo shot given up, this time on the hand of Eric O'Flaherty.



Oh well, 0-1, yall know the drill, rotation sim and pick up where we left off this time with Jurrjens on the bump. Hopefully it'll be a better result next time out.

[BestServedCold]

I've actually been thrown out from right field in a (real-life) baseball game.... then I threw the guy that threw me out from right field from right field lol.

btw, I'd love for you to create a player in my coaching dynasty
http://www.operationsports.com/forum...p-signups.html

I'm surprised that no one seems to want to join it, but I guess I overwhelmed them with the application process

[lilbiggio]

Yes!


A week has passed since the last update... damn near almost two now, and this post has not fallen into the obscurity of page 2. A hell hole that many a dynasty thread falls victim to. Now thankfully we got guys like BHurst who at times keeps this forum single handedly alive during the dog days of the winter...but 9 times out of 10 lady page 2 gets her grasps on your post one way or another.

I've been to page 2, it's nothing pretty... it's a fate that I am hoping to avoid, but with over 70 hours of work to be done, the Memoirs were put on ice like a chilled Chanmpagne bottle. I must say I was surprised that we survived the near scare.


But now we can break that trend because, well because a couple of things happened down yonder. Firstly being my work is done... And two the break in postseason play has afforded me some time... Page 2 will just have to wait for someone else. Ha Hah!


I don't think I've ever beaten the Cincinatti Reds. We could look up the MLB show user played games history book and it'd read the same. Loss, Loss, Loss, Loss, Blown saved, loss, Homer, homer, loss, loss...

What a horrible feeling. Dusty Baker's boys are not this good.

But maybe Joey Votto is.



Remember last season how much we were on Albert Pujols's jock? The only Non Braves CPU player to ever get his own highlight? Well Votto is damn near the same player with a different mother. We simply could not pitch to this guy because any pitcher's pitch was getting squeezed at the plate, and any hitter pitch was getting jacked over the wall.

Should have won this game we had it wrapped up 3 times, but Votto hit a solo game tying HR in the 13th to to extend the game, and well from there... you know how we lose ball games... the result was inevitable.