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As the BB hit counter clicks relentlessly toward 10,000, I'm scared -- this HTML-impaired geezer must modify the digits.com code and the mysterious Greymatter templates. If the site acts a bit strange, try to follow this advice, which I saw on TV late one night and adopted as a personal philosophy:

Trouble is temporary. Please stand by.

Of course, I am thrilled at the rapid growth of this forum, and at making so many great new baseball friends. At this rate, we'll need a sixth digit in the counter sometime during the 2004 season! We may also experience a change of address soon, as in our own domain and server. Stay tuned...

You have probably noticed the boring welcome message is gone, replaced by an Authors list in the sidebar. The next step is to create a new Lineup page, so if my co-bloggers would e-mail whatever personal information they want to share, we'll get that going, and add a "search by author" function to the site. On the other hand, it might be more interesting if Mick wrote John's bio, and vice versa.
Milestones & Changes | 18 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
_Jordan - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 10:15 AM EST (#98917) #
Excellent -- our own Y2K crisis! Does this mean the bank machines will all start spewing cash and great fiery rents will open up in the earth's surface? That would be way cool. :-)
_Mick - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 10:28 AM EST (#98918) #
John Gizzi's Bio
John Gizzi is a person dynamically involved in the process of becoming. He believes "political humor" is both a redundancy and an oxymoron. John efficiently evades government surveillance relying only on sleight of hand, stale Ho-Ho's and the enduring belief that someday, someone, somewhere will understand that Jeremy Giambi is really just an OK fourth outfielder. John led his high school baseball team in stolen bases even though one of his teammates made the major leagues primarily because of his speed. (John did not make the major leagues.) He can speak for hours, often intelligently, about fair poles and foul poles, Pesky poles and laissez-faire Poles. John is married -- actually, secretly married to seven different women -- and has 12 children, though he recently released seven-year-old Olmedo when given the opportunity to adopt a tyke he's named Erubiel.

That is all.
Coach - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 11:36 AM EST (#98919) #
A reply in 17 minutes, Mick? You must have already written the Gizzi bio, and were just waiting for an invitation to publish it.

I am wearing out my F5 key; less than 20 hits to go...
Craig B - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 11:41 AM EST (#98920) #
Jordan, I never took you for a Millenarian.

Bio:

Craig, who is widely acknowledged as the worst hitter of all time (non-quadriplegic category), is a tax lawyer (i.e. heartless corporate weasel) in Toronto, of all places. His notably scruffy exterior hides an even scruffier mind underneath, mostly dominated by Frank Zappa, obscure Simpsons trivia, and subparagraph 212(1)(b)(vii) of the Income Tax Act. He is currently on probation for a stint as a graduate student in philosophy.

A recovering Expos fan, he lives in Hamilton with his wife, his cat, and their soon-to-be-born child (his and his wife's; the cat claims innocence in the matter). He has a particular horror of modern war, postmodern thought, and Tippy Martinez.
_Jordan - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 11:57 AM EST (#98921) #
Woo-hoo! I was visitor #10,001!!!! It would've been nicer to be Visitor #10,000, but hey, I'll take it. Congrats to Kent and all my fellow contributors and authors for breaking Warp Five (Digit)!
Coach - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 11:58 AM EST (#98922) #
Damn, I missed the magic moment! Thanks to Jordan, I was at the bank machine.
_Dave Concepcion - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 01:41 PM EST (#98923) #
Woo-hoo! I was visitor #10,001!!!!

I feel for you, man. I was churning around third base running as fast as I could after homering for what I thought was going to be major league baseball's one millionth run and that rat bastard freak Astro Bob Watson beat me to the historic score by less than one second.

At least I have two World Series rings and Bob has ... let's see now ... NONE. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ...
Dave Till - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 01:49 PM EST (#98924) #
Bio:

Dave Till is acknowledged to be the second-worst hitter of all time, next to Craig B; a lucky triple in a Don Victoria Softball League game in 1971 is all that kept him from the bottom spot. He lives in Toronto, and has a day job as a technical writer. His hobbies include digital photography, performing, web design, and writing long screeds about the Blue Jays. To find out more about Dave, go to his vanity web site.
_Steve Z - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 02:17 PM EST (#98925) #
Great work guys! I hope I helped in some way (albeit in a very minor way) by providing my fellow Fanhome users with a link to this site at the time of Catalanotto's signing.

And now it's time for my daily hijack:
Here's a beautiful summary (one that we've heard many times over, but worth putting out there) of JP's latest coup, courtesy of Jayson Stark's latest column:

One team proving that you don't have to use the nontender option as just a bottom-line payroll game is the Blue Jays. They raised eyebrows by making a free agent out of Jose Cruz Jr., arguably the best player ever to get nontendered. But they turned the $5 million they saved into a starting pitcher (Tanyon Sturtze), a No. 2 catcher (Greg Myers) and two of the best role players on the market (Mike Bordick and Frank Catalanotto). Combined salaries of those four: exactly $5 million.
_Steve Z - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 02:32 PM EST (#98926) #
Breaking News: Halladay and Politte have signed one year contracts: link
_Jordan - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 02:46 PM EST (#98927) #
Jordan Furlong is:

__ employed as editor-in-chief of National, the Canadian Bar Association's magazine, while preparing a subversive movement to bring innovation and return integrity to the practice of law.

___ a one-man global consultancy with offices in New York, Brussels, Osaka, Montevideo and Corner Brook, and a client list featuring no one from the Fortune 500 whatsoever.

___ entirely too conversant with the works of George Meyer, Aaron Sorkin, Neil Tennant and Rick Berman, and not nearly enough with those of Fulton Sheen, David Maister, P.J. O'Rourke and Roger Angell.

__ continuing to forge his soon-to-be-mammoth life story, Never Been Hip: The Autobiography of My Own Biggest Fan, with an introduction by Eric Woolfson.

___ a lifetime 1-for-13 (12 Ks) in the St. John's (NF) Juvenile Baseball League as a first baseman, right fielder, and eventually scorekeeper. Had a pretty good knuckleball, though.

___ mounting a campaign to host the 2012 Olympics.

___ very happily married and living in Ottawa.

___ five-time winner of the Buckeye News Hawk Award.

___ most assuredly making half of these entries up.
_R Billie - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 02:55 PM EST (#98928) #
Just a mini-hijack here...Halladay and Politte both signed one year deals today to avoid arbitration.

Halladay will make $3.8 million (all figures U.S.) in 2003 while Politte's deal calls for a salary of $845,000.

That only leaves Stewart and Escobar in line for arbitration (or forced raises as I like to call them).
Coach - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 03:29 PM EST (#98929) #
Steve Z and R Billie, you da men! That's great news, and as Craig's already stared a new thread, I'll comment there.

Jordan, we have (so far) resisted Newfie jokes around here, but the Rock is a good place for the Furlong Olympics, and I have to question the meaning of one word in your bio -- "return" integrity to the practice of law?
_Jordan - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 03:39 PM EST (#98930) #
"return" integrity to the practice of law?

Well, I'm fairly cynical about the profession I belong to -- I'm probably being too harsh, though, to be fair. Maybe you could change that to "re-emphasize integrity"?
_Johnnie Cochran - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 04:15 PM EST (#98931) #
If you're emphasizing anew
Then I must tell you
You can't say "re-"
About law's integrity
Coach - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 05:35 PM EST (#98932) #
Dave (Till, not Concepcion): nice site. You may be drafted to improve our no-frills Web design; do you know anything about CGI scripts? The "ghost signs" are particularly interesting, and I hope you don't mind me reproducing one of your baseball pictures here.




I liked all your photos, but this one is my favourite, probably because it's the batter's box. (If that catcher played for me, though, he'd get an earful. Nice target. I'm not a big fan of high kicks and long strides for hitters, either. Just pick it up and put it down.) We'll add more graphics, and spruce this place up a bit if -- when -- we get settled in our own Web space.
Gitz - Friday, January 17 2003 @ 11:52 PM EST (#98933) #
Hey, I just noticed Mick's surprisingly accurate bio of me. I can't be as witty with his, except to say that one of his favorite hobbies is to hit the "random" link at baseballreference.com, so he can prove to the baseball world that he knows some colourful baseball names, when all he's really doing is proving he knows how to click the "random" link.

One thing, though, was clearly wrong with my bio: I prefer Ding Dongs to Ho-Hos -- except sexually. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Coach: "Giz" is unacceptable, but "Gitz" is OK. A free box of Ding Dongs to the first person who figures out the pronunciation of my last name.
Coach - Saturday, January 18 2003 @ 02:16 PM EST (#98934) #
Gitz, the contest can only be open to Americans; you can't ship Ding-Dongs across the border. A customs inspector will open the package and eat them. I've only known you guys at a distance for a short time, but I'm sure you will agree that like Yogi said, 90 percent of Mick is half mental.
Milestones & Changes | 18 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.