I actually did get cool stuff... includng a Canadiens towel set, new gloves, and some business clothes - desperately needed.

I think my Christmas present to myself may be a Jays flexpack. The new offer is a real good one. If others are doing the same, what sections do you sit in? We should try to band together...

Dan Gutman's classic It Ain't Cheatin' If You Don't Get Caught. Too bad it's not updated to include Albert Belle and Sammy...

I got the 81 games/81 dollars Jays pass.

Shandler's Baseball Forecaster!

I got the second season of 24 on DVD. Unfortunately my TV has been in the shop for a few weeks and there's no telling when it might finally get out of there (it's a warranty repair, and they need to get authorization, parts, etc.)

Socks!! And lots of them. A few DVD's and a digital camera as well so it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas once again.

Moneyball, LOTR: TTT: EE, camping stuff, baseball tarot cards, other assorted things.

Merry Jesusmas from this lurker to all of you.

Merry Christmas or equivalent holiday greeting to all.

I picked up some nice presents, including both X-Men movies and Two Towers EE on DVD, not to mention some badly-needed clothes and a wicked pair of wireless headphones, but it seems as if I'll be treating myself to one item from my list: Diamond Mind Baseball. Anyone have any recommendations for extra season/team disks?

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and Happy holidays to all of you. Thanks for making my world, in a small but significant way, a better place. Got to run, niece and nephew have just appeared.
Happiness and good health to all,
jason.

Merry Christmas to all! I finally got the 3 Letters From a Nut books by Ted L. Nancy (or if you believe most people, Jerry Seinfeld). Has anybody else heard of/read the books? I've already finished the first one. A lot of very bland and repetitive stuff, but there are a few gems in there. I also got Forrest Gump by Winston Groom :-) It is out of print, and on Amazon there was only one for sale in Canada. That's another book I've been trying to get for a while.

Anyone have any recommendations for extra season/team disks?

1994 is one of my all-time favourites. :) Playing that year through to the conclusion is really fun.

DMB season disks, though, are expensive. You'll play for years, though, on the incredible collection of PUBLIC DOMAIN (i.e. *free*) season disks available at A Page For All Seasons.

I find the Classic seasons to be much better value - better gameplay for less money. Not having real-life platoon splits, oddly enough, provides more realistic gameplay since every player has a standard platoon split rather than outlandish splits caused by small sample sizes.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a safe New Year. I didn't get too much this year but on a baseball related note I got the worst baseball gift any Blue Jay fan could get. :(

Someone bought me a Cooperstown Collection Majestic Yankees jacket. I'm humbled that someone spent so much money on a high quality piece of sports clothing it's just that as a Blue Jays fan it's a betrayal to my fandom. I won't be wearing this Jacket very much, if at all.

Maybe if the Yanks win the Series in '04 i'll burn the jacket LOL

Maybe I can swap you some old baseball cards for the jacket!

sportsman: You can always tellw hen a non-sportsperson make an effort, as they just dont understnad something like fan allegience to one team. It's like me that book "the sweater".

Nah no thanks, i'll live with the indignity, besides i've been known to give teams bad luck as I got a Dallas Cowboys coat in 94 and that was when they started their slide into mediocrity.

...stirring...stirring...ah...vertical now...

Thank you, one and all, and happy Christmas.

An autographed photo of Bo Belinski for this Angels fan. Gave my Dad (who grew up in Detroit) a pic of Don Newhouser, which brought back memories and a smile to his face. Wonderful how baseball reinforces bonds between father and son!
Off tomorrow for a Mexican cruise with the wife. Can't wait!
Hope everyone is having a peaceful holiday season!

oops. make that HAL Newhouser for my Dad.....

Merry Christmas, folks.

I got, for the first time in my life, a stack of truly crappy presents: socks, unwearable sweaters, etc. Truly astounding, given the quality of the gift suggestions my wife was funnelling to my parents and siblings.

Just to be clear, I mean this not at all as complaining, but as an odd sort of bragging. There's a certain quiet dignity and nobility in cheerfully enduring a truly lamentable Christmas sweater. For more on this, I recommend Nick Hornby's "About a Boy."

Ok, I'm not making sense. Too much nogg, clearly.

All the best to all you good folks out there.

Oh, and I got the 81/81 deal for the third year running. It is, without a doubt, the best 81 dollars I spend every year. It's a ridiculously sweet deal.

Cheers.

I just wasted 8 hours of my life playing "The Simpsons: Hit and Run" on XBox. What an amazing game, if a Grand Theft Auto ripoff, if only for the episode references and great voice acting.

I also got a brand spankin' new stiff-flex Titleist 3 wood that I can't wait to hit on the driving range when it gets warmer.

I must not be a die-hard, as I haven't checked in here for a while. It just amazes me that there's now 365-day activity in our little community. Season's greetings to all.

I got the Let It Be (Naked) CD and the Seabiscuit movie among other thoughtful gifts, and we enjoyed a wonderful Christmas dinner. In the annual touch football game, the boys, now in their late teens and early 20's, proved that athleticism can (eventually) beat old age and guile; my son rubbed it in later by whipping a couple of the geezers at chess.

I'll be just an occasional visitor here for the next week, as the holiday visiting schedule is busy. I can't wait for tomorrow, when my fellow Beatlemaniac the Spider, a.k.a. Dugout Joe, and his son arrive from Florida.

Enjoy the junior hockey and the leftovers!

My brother bought me the 1982 Blue Jays Topps team set feturing the likes of Jerry Garvin, Glenn Adams, Alvis Woods, and of course, Wayne Nordhagen.

I was 5 years old in 1982...I dont remember watching most of this guys play...must have been difficult at times...

Luis Leal didnt have terrible numbers...why was he out of the game at such a young age?

Merry Christmas to all

The whole rotation in '82 looks pretty decent to me. The offense, though, looks a little lackluster ( I, of course, wasnt' around then. Xander just sparked my curiosity so I looked at Baseball-reference's team page for them).

http://bbfl.scottlucas.com
I got the flu. And the 2004 Bill James stat book.

Hope everyone out there is having a happy holiday.

Leal pitched huge numbers of innings as a youngster and like most pitchers who do that, ran out of gas at a young age.

As a late addition to the Christmas gifts received list, I aquired EA Sports' MVP Baseball 2003 for PC. I've played it a couple times...there are some new control features, mostly on the pitching/defense end that add a new layer of complexity to the game (granted not a whole lot more).

Rosters are current as of opening day 2003 (to the best of my knowledge, that's the most recent EA Baseball game) though they aren't exactly error free. For example, Phelps is the Jays' every day catcher and Myers DH's, Thurman started my first season in Franchise mode on the 40-man and in the 'pen and Cory Lidle doesn't exist (by name or inference...I believe he opted out of the MLBPA liscencing agreement).

The graphics are generally very good except for an occasional glitch (I believe its in the software because I'm running a fairly high-end system and don't have the same problem with other 2003 EA products). The glitch just makes the pitcher or batter something like a stencil (you can partially see through him) for a split moment, though it doesn't effect the overall pace of the game.

Franchise mode is quite good...You have to balance many things including your manager's letter grade (I haven't quite figured out what it's dependant on but I imagine it's how you treat your players), accomplishing specific goals for your team over a 10-year period (they vary depending on how good a team you pick to start your franchise with), there's a fairly accurately gauged budget that you have to keep to each season and a momentum meter exists for each team and fluctuates more or less depending on the importance of a game (games are ranked on a scale of 1-10).

They've also done a nice job on the stadium art (they put in the historical moments on the Skydome's outfield wall) and included the San Juan home of the Expos as a stadium option.

I wouldn't pay the $45 it probably cost as a new game (I wouldn't pay that for any game) but I believe it retails for about $20 now so it's worth its weight in gold.

Lidle doesn't exist (by name or inference...I believe he opted out of the MLBPA liscencing agreement).

He was a replacement player in 95 and thus can never be a union member.

He was a replacement player in 95 and thus can never be a union member.
That's something I hadn't heard before, now I dislike him on principle too.

I got a Homer Simpson hockey jersey that I love.

A, 2004 is already pretty far along. I got the game for PS2 a while back, and the franchise mode impressed me as well(and is probabaly deeper on the PC). I am a major fan of the pitching mode. It's the first game I've played that requires skill to pitch.

BTW, Tony Batista to the 'Spos on a 1 yr. deal

I got a new-logo Jays T-shirt - still can't believe my parents were able to track one down in Lindsay, of all places - and a baseball book I'd never heard of: I Don't Care If I Never Come Back, by Art Hill. And other cool non-baseball-related stuff. I asked for the $81 season pack, the new Jim Bouton book, Prospectus premium membership, and other stuff, but didn't get it. I may have to shell out myself.

A good time was had by all.

All this talk about baseball video games -- does anyone here have All Star Baseball '04?

Oh, and I got nothing baseball related. I need a new family.

No '04, Rob, but I have '03. The Jays moves have me just excited enough that I think I'll buy one of the new baseball games this year...even though I did last year

The coolest gift of all waited until today, when my father an stepmother arrived from Nova Scotia to see their grandson (today was one of those days you remember years later... pure happy times with family, everyone drawn together close).

They gave me the auction catalogue from the Barry Halper Collection of Baseball Memorabilia. Three beautiful books packed with rare pictures and photos, a gorgeous production. Even the tiny information booklet is packed with gorgeous photos... Lou Gehrig, Bill Dickey, and Tony Lazzeri in an argument with an umpire; an autographed photo of Yogi Berra in 1950; one of Ted Williams in 1940; Babe Ruth signing autographs in the dugout in 1927; Rabbit Maranville in 1931 with the Braves, drinking from a "Fountain of Youth" in spring training (Maranville would have been 39 at the time, and looks 45).

I'm going to be up half the night.

http://me.woot.net
Merry Christmas to me. With the Chapters gift certificates I got for Christmas, I went out and grabbed a copy of Moneyball, returned the book I got my girlfriend and got her one she didn't already own, and bought a Foxtrot day-by-day calendar.

On the same day, Apple returns my iPod from "repair" (as it turns out, it wasn't broken in the first place) but replaces it with a 20 GB model (by accident, I assume, in my favour!)

All Star '04 doesn't come out for another month or so. I never liked the gameplay on that one so I'm waiting for World Seri--er, I mean, ESPN Baseball '04. It's just too bad that the High Heat series is dead.

It might be brand loyalty, but I like EA Sports' MVP game (they completely retooled and renamed their baseball franchise for '03). The only thing it lacked was a fantasy draft which is always fun every once in a while.

I'd like to see a videogame review done by some Bauxites when the videogame baseball season begins. I've never been truly happy with baseball videogames. There have never been enough features for me (stats, season mode, etc). As well, the games are always too easy and I end up scoring 25 runs a game. Of course, the last baseball videogame I owned was Ken Griffey Baseball for my Super Nintendo.

Jason Johnson signs a 2 year, $7M contract with Detroit. Since when is a person with the following description worth $3.5M???
Johnson, 30, was the Orioles' second-winningest starter behind Sidney Ponson last season, going 10-10 with a 4.18 ERA in 189 2/3 innings. His victories matched a career high, set in 2001.

Even for the Tigers this seems excessive for marginal starting talent especially considering is K/BB was 1.45 and he allowed 216 hits, including 22 homers.

Sorry, wrong thread, I'll cross-post :-)

I received a SABR membership for Christmas, and after perusing the mysabr site, I have some very vague and general questions. If any fellow members could drop me a line at the email address above, I'd appreciate it.