83Gator

I doubt Girardi will be fired before the final year of his contract. Loria doesn't like to pay managers to not work for him. I think that's one reason he brought Torborg back to start 2003. Girardi signed a 3-year deal with the Marlins so I imagine he'll be our manager at least into the 2008 season. I think calling for Girardi to be fired is about a year premature right now. He's having serious problems with his game management but he has the players playing hard which is the most important part of the job anyway. With this roster, even if he'd made every move correctly we wouldn't have more than 1 or 2 more wins, if that. When they hired Girardi, I thought they gave him a bit too much power in selecting his coaching staff. I thought his bench coach should've been an ex-manager. Nothing against Gary Tuck - he's supposed to be a fine catching instructor - but I'd rather the bench coach be an ex major league manager or at least somebody who's managed 1000 games or so in the minors. This reminds me a little of when Luis Pujols took over Detroit and he was so overmatched they had to bring in Felipe Alou as his bench coach. I hope they don't do something like that here because it'll undermine Girardi but a more experienced coaching staff would be a big help right now.

curious to see who got taken off the 40 man roster in order to make room for Cepicky. Didn't we free up a spot on the 40-man roster when we sent Megrew back to the Dodgers?

Update: I just checked out Tauck and another travel site and their trips are expensive. The 20 day trip to australia and new zealand is about 5,000. My price was steal then, I will def raise it. They also did not have multi region and over 3 week trips. I will do more research on the matter. The 20 day Tauck's trip is a lot more than $5,000. It's closer to $6,000 per person unless you want to go in Aussie winter (and it does get cold there down south in Melbourne or even Sydney). That doesn't include the intra-Australia airfare that you have to buy, which is another $2500 per person. So that's $8500 per person, and doesn't include the overseas flight to get there. Checking Travelocity real quick, the cheapest I found on a round-trip from Miami to Sydney was about $2200. Now you're up to $10,700 per person and that's just for 20 days. Tauck's is making a fortune off of this but some of that is because they get bulk deals - I bet it would cost a person more than $10,000 to do the same trip on his or her own, stay in the same hotels, eat at the same restaurants, and see the same stuff. One thing I remember about all the tours I've been on is that the Tour Directors definitely know the areas they're touring on, and they've built up a lot of relationships with the locals (if they're not locals themselves). That takes years to build up. It's what helps get them through the airport when one of the guests has a bit too much luggage, or gets them seated at a restaurant quickly when the tour is running behind and needs to catch a plane or a show, or gets the guests the best rooms at the hotels.

There are a lot of companies out there that do similar things. One company is Tauck's, which is who we travel with a lot. You may want to check out their web site and see if they're doing something similar to what you're thinking of. The trips we've taken with Tauck's are typically one or two days in a city and then onto another city, which is exhausting. I know Tauck's has other tours that stay 3 or 4 days in a city, but I don't know much beyond that. Cruises also do a similar thing. You can easily find 90 day cruises that go around the world. The nice thing about cruises is that you don't have to pack every day like on land tours. Your hotel goes with you. The bad thing is it's tough to do inland cities, though we've managed to see Moscow and Xian while on cruises. Your price is much too low though. Airfare alone would kill you. So would hotels - people who are retired and can spend 45 days away from home expect nice hotels. You also could run into a problem with how well people can get around. We recently did two weeks in Australia with a group made up almost exclusively of retirees. They were probably the fittest group I've ever toured with but they still had a slip and fall broken hip injury at the end of the tour. I've been on other tours where some members are just a bit too old and can barely keep up. Other tour companies you may want to check out for pricing and similar offerings are Caravan (though I think they only do the Americas since 9/11), Trafalgar, and Globus. To break into the business, maybe you should consider becoming a tour guide for one of the major tour companies. You'd still get to see places, they'll put you up in the same hotels as their clients, they'll feed you, and you'll make about $5-10 per day per person in your group in tips. With a 40 person group, that's $200-$400 a day. Not enough to retire on but enough to get experience in dealing with people and the logistics. It's a rare person who has the skills to handle both - the logistics of travelling are very difficult, especially in foreign countries. Even a place like Australia was a chore for our tour guide to manage (though he did it perfectly).

Nope. Local revenues are defined as 'net local revenues'. I think the Marlins' local revenues will pretty hold steady. I think there's a core group who will stay and the bandwagon fans never mad/ke much difference. Net local revenues are defined as local revenues less stadium costs. As I'm sure you know, payroll isn't part of it so I musta misinterpreted your statement of "By reducing payroll but not necessarily cutting that much from the profit margin, the Marlins will not see a rise in revenue sharing transfers as in the past"; I thought you were associating payroll with revenue sharing. That wasn't my point though - my point was that local revenues, even net local revenues, will go down. Even though the Marlins have a lousy lease they still get revenue from tickets sold and I gotta disagree with you if you think there's not going to be a bunch less tickets sold. They'll be lucky to break a million in attendance. If they drop about 800,000 in attendance, and you figure it's about $10 a ticket (and that's probably low), that's about $8 million less in net local revenues. Parking and concessions won't matter much because they never got much out of those but the actual ticket sales will hurt. Meanwhile, I don't expect the stadium expenses (rent, electric, etc.) to drop much if any. So net local revenues should drop which means they should be taking more out of the revenue sharing pool. I'd also expect the total revenue sharing pool to rise because it seems like overall attendance records are always being broken and average ticket prices always go up. If the $60 million of shared revenue is accurate, there is no way the team made money last year. But if it stays the same, or goes up about $5 million this year as I expect, I think they'll make a mint this year. And Marlins2003, I think a large part of people associating money going into Samson's pocket is because he's not just an employee like Girardi and Beinfest - he's also Loria's stepson. I'm a Detroit Lions fan and I don't make any differentiation between William Clay Ford and Bill Ford. But I'm not one of the people who think there is a $6.5 million Rockies payment going into anybody's pocket. Even if it did exist, whether it's going into Samson's pocket or Loria's pocket isn't the point of the people who are upset about it anyway. It's that it's money going into the pocket of the "owner" that's not being reported on. It seems like a kinda minor point you're railing against - Samson or Loria, at least in this thread. Would you be happy if the earlier posters complained about the money going into Loria's pocket instead? You'd be better off arguing that the $6.5 million is a reporting mistake. But it looks like you missed that part in my post.

Here's 3: Magic Johnson Oscar Robertson John Stockton you can probably find 12 more point guards for the list on the current roster of the Knicks.

This one is tough because so many guys play both big guard/small forward. I think Jordan was technically a big guard for most of his career. So is Kobe. If they're guards, they should be on any list for best all-time shooting guard.

I'm not the biggest fan of Loria and Samson's business practices, but have we considered that that artcle is wrong? Before we accuse Samson of pocketing that $6.5 million, shouldn't we question whether that article has the facts correct? We've all read enough articles to know that even writers like Ringolsby aren't always 100% correct. I found some old articles on the Hampton trade that took place when the trade was approved by MLB. It calls for the Marlins to receive money from the Rockies through 2005. When the Hampton trade was first made, I think it was structured so that the Marlins were on the hook for most of his salary in 2006-2009 and that the Braves paid in 2003-2005. MLB didn't like that for some reason so the deal was modified so that the Marlins were on the hook the first three year. Maybe the Rockies payments to the Marlins moved also. I think Ringolsby is wrong and is looking at the original iteration of the deal. Or that the money is passing through the Marlins and going to the Braves. I doubt the Marlins are getting this money. I think the Marlins cut from shared local revenues was about $21 million last year, but I'm going from memory. Why wouldn't it go up though? I thought the sharing was based on locally generated revenues, not profit margins. Per the CBA, 34% of the local revenues go into a pool that is divided equally among the teams. That $21 million, if it's correct, has to be the net amount (money out from the pool less money contributed). Since the Marlins will be having substantially less local revenue this year, they'll be donating less to the pool. Yes, there will be less overall money (assuming that other teams revenues stay the same) but they'll net out more because they'll be putting so much less into the pool to start with. Then if you factor in a rise in other teams local revenues, I don't see how revenue sharing for the Marlins won't go up this year. Overall, I think the Marins got about $60 million before they sold a ticket, between local revenue sharing and their share of the national TV and radio deals. I gotta check that number though - it may have been $40 million. Edit: So far, I'm up to $47 million - $14 million from Fox, $10 million from ESPN, $2 million from XM, and $21 million from local revenue sharing. I really believe it was about $60 million though so I need to keep digging.

What we've got here is a failure to communicate. - Cool Hand Luke I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! - Network I'll have what she's having. - When Harry Met Sally There's no crying in baseball. - A League of Their Own You had me at Hello - Jerry Maguire Yippy Ki Yay ****** ****** - Die Hard There's no place like home - The Wizard of Oz I am big. It's the pictures that got small. - Sunset Boulevard

Argh, so many. I'll come back with a sh*tload later. But to begin: "Bond. James Bond" -Any James Bond movie "We're going to need a bigger boat." - Jaws (guy with the glasses whose name escapes me now) "Do or do not, there is no try." -Yoda, Return of the Jedi Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss' character) Actually it was Chief Brody (Roy Scheider)

Steve Carlton, 1972 Phillies 27-10 8 Shutouts 1.97 ERA 30 CGs Team went 59-97

I'm most interested now to see who the other people working in the government Nathanson mentioned are. My money is on William Devane, Audrey's dad, Secretary of Defense Heller. He's supposed to be back in the next couple of episodes and the chip that Nathanson gave to Jack had DoD encryption.

Just like the food (I happen to like the Coral Reef Restaurant), you'll probably get a lot of differing opinions on the fireworks. My favorite fireworks show by far is Illuminations in Epcot. Make sure you get a good spot that's not under a tree. Also try to judge the wind - the show has lots of smoke and you don't want it blowing in your face. We usually watch the show by France Island or on the bridge between England and France. The bad part - it's a long crowded hike to the front of the park from there after the show. You may need to camp out early to get a spot on a railing. When we went for New Year's Eve 1999/2000, people were camped out around the lagoon at 11:30 AM (not PM) for a midnight show. I'm sure they took shifts guarding their spot. Most nights, people will line up 60-90 minutes before the show. We usually wait until about 30 minutes until show and find somebody short lined up against a railing and stand behind them. Standing behind a family is best because they're less likely to be joined by somebody large and sometimes dad will pick up one of the kids and you can slide in to the railing. Avoid standing behind a spot where there are one or two people (usually college age kids) with a blanket on the ground. They've got 30 friends somewhere that will be joining them and blocking your view when the show starts. MK has a good fireworks show called Wishes but I liked their old show better. I really like the SpectroMagic parade. It went away for a few years (I think to EuroDisney) and then came back. I usually catch the second SpectroMagic parade because it's theoretically less crowded. I've always watched it from Frontierland. I'm the only person on the planet that doesn't like the nighttime show at MGM. It's everybody elses favorite but it just doesn't do anything for me. You do get to sit down during it.

The couple of times we tried to make reservations at Chef Mickey's on short notice we struck out. I've managed to eat there twice - it's okay but I prefer the Crystal Palace for character breakfasts, probably because I like Eeyore. Last time we were there we managed to get right in at the Coral Reef without reservations. Sometimes it just works out. Never ate at the hoop de doo revue. Gotta try that sometime. Another good place for dinner is the California Grill on the top of the Contemporary, which I think somebody mentioned earlier. They changed it in the last year or so that you can't go up there without a dinner reservation anymore which should keep the crowds on the observation deck a little smaller for the fireworks. We have dinner there every time we head to Disney, always on our first night there before we've hit the parks. Kona Cafe in the Poly has a good sit-down breakfast. I like their banana stuffed French Toast. Ohona's at the Poly is a lot of fun for dinner and the food keeps coming. I thought the Luau at the Poly was overrated. I did it once and will probably never do it again. It wasn't bad but there's so many other places I'd rather eat at while at Disney. As far as counter places - My favorite counter place at MK was a little place between Main Street USA and Tomorrowland. They had good pizzas and chicken strips but they coverted it to a noodle station about 2 years ago. There's a counter place near the Hall of Presidents that serves soup in a bread bowl that's usually very good. Adventureland has a place that serves some mighty tasty pineapple smoothies. And of course, there's Mrs Potts in Fantasyland for ice cream. Epcot used to have a place called "Ice Station Cool" or something like that. You could go in there for free soda samples from different countries. Something free at Disney! We'd go in there if we were thirsty because there was no limit to how much you could drink from the soda dispensers. The ginger-ale (I forgot the country it was from) was good but the soda from Italy was vile.

Cinderella's Palace or whatever it's called in MK has a neat ambiance. My wife asked for a wine list once and the waitperson, staying totally in character, informed my wife that "the Princess has a dry kingdom." It's another very pricey place (notice a trend?) but I've always enjoyed it. It's very difficult to get reservations there; besides Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary, it's probably the toughest place in Disney for us to get reservations. We usually head over to Epcot for dinner anyways with a Park Hopper.

I stayed at Carribean Beach resort a couple of times several years ago. I liked it just fine. I stayed at Dixie Landings a few times too and it was pretty indistinguishable from Carribean Beach. I've stayed at the Swan, Poly, and the Contemporary (which is by far my favorite), especially with a MK view, but they're all ridiculously expensive. I don't think you're going to go wrong no matter where you stay on the Disney grounds. 1truefan is absolutely right - mention that it's a birthday when you check in and when you make reservations. They'll do something special. Last year, in my room at the Contemporary, they left me balloons and a birthday card signed by Donald Duck himself. 1truefan is also correct that you need to make food reservations right away. They used to take them 90 days in advance but I think they've extended that to 6 months recently. Epcot is the best place for food. Here's my opinions on Epcot food. All are overpriced (around $40 for 2 for lunch, $100 for 2 for dinner) but that's Disney. You need reservations at all of them, though sometimes you can get lucky if you go at an odd times, like before 5:00 PM for dinner. Le Cellier - Canada: very cute. The best, perkiest waitstaff in Disney. We go there for lunch. They have good bread, great soup and really good burgers. I'm not a steak eater but I've heard the steaks are excellent. I strongly recommend it, especially for lunch. Rose & Crown Pub - England: so-so. It's English food which kinda limits things. The fish & chips are tasty enough but there are better choices. France: they have two restaurants. The upstairs one is snobby and definitely not worth it. The downstairs one is better and a little less expensive but it's very crowded. They used to have a little cafe which I loved and they didn't take reservations but they shut it down about 10 years ago. Restaurant Marrakesh in Morocco: we ate there once for dinner. Way too hectic for me. Not my kind of food either. Alfredo's in Italy: very disorganized and very crowded but really good food. The Fettucini Alfredo is excellent. I always get the tri-sampler (fettucini, lasagna, and something else) and it's always way more food than I can eat. Desserts are good too. This is one of our favorites. Japan: One of the restaurants is like Beni-hana's. It's good but I'm not real outgoing so I don't like eating with people I don't know. America: Get a funnel cake! Norway: We never ate there but I've heard good things about it. The pastry shop is good. Germany: Never ate there. It smells like beer whenever we go near it. China: Never ate there. I heard it's just like a regular Chinese restaurant but much too expensive. San Angel Inn - Mexico: This is the inside restaurant. Excellent food but VERY slow service. One of our favorites for lunch. Coral Reef Restaurant - Living Seas: Very cool giant aquarium. Ask for a seat down by the glass. It's very expensive ($120+ for 2 for dinner with wine) but is probably our favorite place in all of Disney. We eat there every New Year's Eve. We even had dinner a couple of tables away from Jimmy Carter one year. We usually spend two days at Epcot and do Canada and Mexico for lunch and the Coral Reef Restaurant and Italy for dinner. At MK, we usually go to Crystal Palace for breakfast. It's a good breakfast buffet and character breakfast, with Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Piglet. It'll run you around $35 before tip for 2 people though. One comment on the rides - Soarin' is very cool and not at all scary. It's not worth a 90-minute wait but I don't think any ride is worth 90 minutes in line (45 minutes is our limit). We Fastpass it.

Based on those rules, is Messenger still a rookie? I looked at the transactions page on the floridamarlins.com site, and I think he had these services times: 6/22/05 - 6/28/05 7/8/05 - 7/26/05 8/6/05 - 8/7/05 8/8/05 - end of season That comes to 6 days + 18 days + 1 day + 23 days (only counting until 25-man roster limit day of 8/31) = 48 days. I could easily have missed an option/recall in there or maybe they count days differently.

You have any idea on where I should go tomorrow then? I didn't get mine either. My season ticket rep told me they'll have extra passes in the Gate G lobby. I figure I'm going to have to pay the $5 parking unless I can talk my way past the parking lot folk or get the money reimbursed once I'm inside. It's only $5 and it's going to a charity so I'm not too concerned if I don't get it back.

I'm kinda looking forward to watching a young team. Last season was as frustrating as any I can remember. At least this year my expectations won't be as high and I can enjoy watching the young guys get better. But ... going to the games when the Mets, Cubs, or Braves are in town will be tough. Those fans are loud, obnoxious, often drunk, and do everything they can to ruin the game for the Marlins fans. Think how bad they'll be when they really do outnumber us in the stands.

I think Seaver was in the Marine Corps Reserves. Lots of players back then were in the reserves. I vaguely remember Bud Harrelson missing time for reserve duty every year.

Maybe you can rationalize starting Conine instead of Hermida today against Livan, but you won't be able to rationalize it for very much longer. We had a struggling player in 2003 and we just up and replaced him with a rookie, why can't we do the same this year? You can't compare Hermida to Cabrera. Cabrera is one of the best young hitters of all time. He didn't break in against a tough opponent (Tampa at home). And everybody seems to forget that even Cabrera struggled some the first couple of months. He hit .158 his first month and was hitting .233 after 10 weeks, though with terrific power. If Cabrera stuggled some at first, why wouldn't you expect Hermida to also? Hermida shoulda started at least one of the games against the Mets and any other manager in baseball would've had him in there. But today is not the day. Tomorrow is better.Well, besides the glowing contradiction that you agree with me by saying he should be starting but then not starting him now, your premise has one major flaw: you are looking at Cabrera under today's eyes, not under June 2003's. When Miguel came up, not only was he not "one of the best young hitters of all time," he was "bench him and let's trade for Rondell White." We could stomach it, however, because Miguel only had to top the relative production (or rather, the lack thereof) in left field from Todd Hollandsworth. Now Jeremy Hermida has to replace the gap in the order left by one Mike Lowell, as Cabrera would be staying in the lineup but switching positions. One thing that Hermida has going for him over Cabrera is he is significantly more patient at the plate than Miguel is, so he will have a much bigger edge in transitioning from AA pitching to Major League pitching. So, in layman's terms..... Why not? Um ... where did I even hint that Hermida was replacing Cabrera? Of course Cabrera is staying in the lineup. We're replacing Lowell, who is just about as useless as Hollandsworth was in 2003. You're right that Cabrera only had to be better than the guys he replaced - the platoon of Hollandsworth and Banks because we had no other options. Hermida needs to be better than not only Lowell but also our other option (Conine). What should've happened is Jack should've made this move a month ago with Conine and if that didn't didn't work then we could've gone to Hermida. My point is talentwise, Cabrera is one of the best young hitters of all time, probably top 10. And that much talent struggled some in his first 10 weeks. I don't think anybody believes Hermida is one of the 10 top talented young hitters of all time. If somebody with as much hitting talent as Cabrera could struggle, so could Hermida. My point was that Livan is not the guy to give a rookie his first major league start against, especially at the expense of Conine who hits Livan well. There will be a lot of pitches from Livan that are on the corner or maybe just off the corner. You think a rookie is going to get those calls? Jack should've started Hermida against the Mets. Anybody else would've but Jack manages by superstition and won't change lineups after a win, even if certain guys in that lineup aren't hitting. Going forward, Jack should go with a modified platoon - Conine against lefties and some of the tougher righties (like Livan) and Hermida the rest of the time. I don't think that's a "glowing contradiction." Hermida should get some starts, maybe 2/3 of the time. Just not today. Though with the way this game is going, it couldn't hurt. Maybe Hermida would flourish - guys with less talent than either Cabrera or Hermida have come up and lit it up, like Shane Spencer and Jeff Francoeur. Against Livan, I'm going to err on the side of caution and start the guy hitting .429 against him. Though as long as Lowell isn't in the lineup, I'm happy. Jack should've made this move a month ago. Now with our schedule compared to Houston's, I hope it's not too late.

Maybe you can rationalize starting Conine instead of Hermida today against Livan, but you won't be able to rationalize it for very much longer. We had a struggling player in 2003 and we just up and replaced him with a rookie, why can't we do the same this year? You can't compare Hermida to Cabrera. Cabrera is one of the best young hitters of all time. He didn't break in against a tough opponent (Tampa at home). And everybody seems to forget that even Cabrera struggled some the first couple of months. He hit .158 his first month and was hitting .233 after 10 weeks, though with terrific power. If Cabrera stuggled some at first, why wouldn't you expect Hermida to also? Hermida shoulda started at least one of the games against the Mets and any other manager in baseball would've had him in there. But today is not the day. Tomorrow is better.

Conine is the right choice today. I don't want to give a rookie his first start against Livan; Livan gives veterans fits. Besides, Conines is batting .429 against Livan.

If that's what it says, then I completely apologize.? Like I said, Im not a season-ticket holder, so Im just going by what I had heard from other people.? And if it does say that, no one has a basis to complain. 905959[/snapback] That's what it says. It's in the orangish booklet that says "Catch the Fish! In 2005" and "Renewal Book" on the cover. It's on pages 5, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, and 31. Maybe they made it obvious after all. 905963[/snapback] That's why you and many others here should get your facts straight before you add on to posts from whiners who either can't read or don't understand basic business. The Marlins are not trying to pull something over on anyone. And if you don't like it, don't buy the tickets. As for moving the team, if I owned it, I'd move it in a heartbeat. This isn't a real baseball market. In real markets they don't bitch and moan over such trivial issues. They pray for the playoffs and pay the price to attend. 906099[/snapback] Huh?? All I added to this post was what the renewal booklet said a year ago. How am I not getting my facts straight and how can't I read? BTW - even though it was in the booklet, it's possible some people renewed last year on the phone and their rep didn't explain the playoff ticket policy. It's one reason I won't renew at the little renewal stands they've set up at the stadium - I want to get the entire renewal package, in writing, and have a chance to read it before I commit to giving them money.

If that's what it says, then I completely apologize. Like I said, Im not a season-ticket holder, so Im just going by what I had heard from other people. And if it does say that, no one has a basis to complain. 905959[/snapback] That's what it says. It's in the orangish booklet that says "Catch the Fish! In 2005" and "Renewal Book" on the cover. It's on pages 5, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, and 31. Maybe they made it obvious after all.