Joe Lucia

IIRC, it ended via pinfall. Bash at the Beach, I do believe.

You shouldn't jump into hoppy beers right away. You need to ease yourself in...it's a learning process.

Quick trivia: when was the last playoff series that the Braves *won*? 2001. They swept the Astros in the NLDS. Since then... 2001: Lost NLCS 4-1 to Arizona 2002: Lost NLDS 3-2 to SF (led 2-1) 2003: Lost NLDS 3-2 to Chicago 2004: Lost NLDS 3-2 to Houston 2005: Lost NLDS 3-1 to Houston 2010: Lost NLDS 3-1 to SF 2012: The wild card horseshit They also got swept in the 2000 NLDS by the Cardinals. So, one series win in their last eight playoff appearances. That is, how do you say...not good. The team won 95 games in '00, 101 in '02 and '03, 96 in '04, 94 last year...they weren't exactly slipping in through the back door. You could make the argument (and you wouldn't necessarily be wrong) that the Braves dynasty really ended when the Yankees kicked their shit in during the '99 WS. The early part of the 2000s reminds me of the Chargers from a few years ago, consistently winning division titles and dick else aside from that.

I don't know much about ...football (sigh), but I'm going to attempt to jump on the bandwagon with everyone else this year. The little NBC EPL site told me I'm supposed to support Chelsea, but I don't know much about anything. So at the very least, this will be an interesting little experiment...

The Shield is on Amazon and I *think* Hulu as well. I'm giving the series a watch through for the first time since right before season seven...god it's amazing. Going to be watching the finale of season three tonight....forgot how slow the build to the shit hitting the fan with the money train was.

Probably still in the works. They'll announce the next batch for the late winter/early spring in a couple months probably.

That gif is glorious. BB had never had an ep top three million viewers, let alone approach six. That's absurd. There will be a drop for the second ep (because there's ALWAYS a drop), but lord knows how much. Cranston directed last night's ep, btw

ESPNers have been popping up on DP over the last few weeks (and not just for exit interviews either)....wouldn't be surprised to see him go on too.

So many people are frothing at the mouth about Olbermann to ESPN, but that segment last night showed he can bring the heat without alienating half the audience.

I have a much bigger problem with full-blown roids than HGH. HGH could probably end up being very beneficial at the end of the day. And don't even get me started on the minor leaguers who test positive for weed. I could literally not care less about that. The coke/meth suspensions of the past though? Yeah, that's an issue.

WHODUNNIT TALK! I doubt it gets a second season. Ratings have been bad (1.0/3 million pretty consistently past week one), and the budget is absurd (750k per day, with each episode taking three days...that's something like $20 million for a nine episode run? YIKES.

If Juan Francisco didn't get traded, he would have been the perfect choice.

Let's go to the 18th tower with Gus Johnson and John Daly. In my post for AA about this, i said that Fox needs to keep Gus and Buck far away from this. I think they will, but they've got plenty of time to decide things.

In the AL, I'd probably take the Rays. The DL stint for Price earlier this year and the one for Moore now have effectively limited their innings so they'll be fresh for October. Their pen has also been sneaky good (as usual) this year, and the offense has been a machine for the first time in years. NL is much tougher, because while the five teams are already essentially decided, one doesn't really stand out. I actually think the Dodgers are the team to beat right now with the way they're clicking, but if the Braves get the top seed, they've been unstoppable at Turner this year: 14-2 against the five other NL teams above .500. That's gross.

If you wanna hear something *really* fucked up, Fox just won the rights to the golf US Open starting in 2015. Fox? Golf? ZUH?!

Oh yeah, the Canadian rights are going to go for a ton. I read something along the lines of that if CBC loses the rights, they'll lose around $150 million of ad revenue along with it. Brutal.

ESPN and the ACC re-upped last May, and Notre Dame made the jump in September. The ACC's media rights never really were up for grabs, and I really don't think NBC had any idea of the shitshow that would happen with the Big East at that time. EPL and NASCAR will give them a shitload of content for the fall, though.

EY Jr is only two and a half years younger than David Wright. Not sure what that says about him. Lagares is interesting going forward though...he'll probably end up as a fourth OF thanks to his glove, as I'm really not sure there's really anything sustainable with the bat. Awful plate discipline, gap power at best...but he's only 23. Wilmer Flores could be *real* fun though.

Here's a piece a coworker wrote about CBS Sports Network and the awful rights it has. What a shitshow. re: FS1 on DirecTV. I'd assume it would be the same channel number as Speed, which I believe is somewhere in the 600s along with BTN, Fuel, CBS Sports, etc. If they're lucky, they can get it slid up into the 200s like NBCSN did awhile back. First ~two weeks of FS1 programming located here, A lot of nice college football that first weekend. NHL has a deal with NBC through 2021. Don't even think about that going anywhere. re: more games on TV. Networks bid on contracts like anyone else bids on contracts. Let's use MLB as an example. ESPN has Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday rights. They are paying $700 *million* per year for those rights. What if they want to add...say, Friday Night Baseball too? Increase that contract by $200 million minimum per year. Same thing happens with NBA. There's typically at least one game on national TV every day though, considering ESPN's three days, Fox's one day, and MLB Network showcases/simulcasts. I'd wager the NBA has the same thing thanks to simulcasts on NBA TV, but I don't watch and have no fucking idea.

No HD for ESPN Classic.It's really just become a spillover channel for ESPN/2/U at this point in time along with ESPNEWS.

Yeah, there are three left. The ratings have been pretty terrible because A) they're airing in the middle of the summer, where they haven't aired a 30 for 30 in something like three years, B.) the lead-in is a two hour primetime SportsCenter that has seen its ratings fall in the tank over the last year, and C.) the subject matter hasn't exactly been something that drags in eyeballs. I'd imagine the US Soccer one will do the best numbers, but that's like saying that the sun will rise tomorrow morning.

yeah, Gattis would go into a coke rage and try to snort the base lines.

Except for the players driving drunk. They can stay.

fyi, NBC has the NASCAR back-end schedule starting in 2015. Fox has a ton of college football rights, including solid chunks of the Big 12 and Pac-12 packages. They have exclusive rights to the new Big East college hoops schedule. FS1 also has numerous studio shows already staffed and ready to roll, something that can't really be said about NBCSN and CBSSN. FS1 isn't going to fall flat on its face like some of you think, and it's not going to immediately challenge ESPN like others think. It's going to fall somewhere in the middle, and its success or failure will be based on the content. I'd be willing to bet money that by the end of the year, their averages are kicking the shit out of NBCSN and CBSSN (which is an absolute shithouse disaster of a network that I think I've watched once in three or four years).

Honestly - I think all they really cared about was him being out all of next year so that way they can easily get under the luxury tax, then they basically get their reset credit and can start spending again. Hence bitter Buck Showalter On one hand, I do agree with Buck that it's bullshit that they get to wipe $26M off the books for next year while also getting $32M to subsidize Soriano and Wells...but christ, they have so many pending FAs and a weak upper farm that they're going to need to spend anyway, and with the FA market looking shitty, things could get ugly in a hurry.