scrounge

at least the contagion has been limited to the Greater St. Louis area

140?!? Brown bitter hot tap water...blech. They may require it lower, but it's because of liability. Not taste.

Coffee is supposed to be heated to 200 degrees ideally for best flavor extraction. I call BS on the "substantially hotter" bunk, because not much hotter and it would actually be boiling, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't when they handed it to her. I'm sure the rest of that account is true, but I do not accept the premise, unless the standard is tepid 160 degree gas station coffee.

MLB Press Release 1/16/2014 2:43 P.M. ET MLB clubs unanimously approve expansion of instant replay Major League umps will serve as replay officials, who will make final call; All replays may be shown in-park PARADISE VALLEY, AZ - The 30 Clubs of Major League Baseball have unanimously approved the expansion of instant replay, which will be in effect for the 2014 Championship Season and the 2014 Postseason. The historic announcement was made this afternoon, at the conclusion of MLB's quarterly owners meetings. Both the Major League Baseball Players Association and the World Umpires Association have given their consent to the game's new protocols for instant replay. MLB's new system of instant replay dictates which plays are subject to review, how instant replay will be initiated by field managers and how the review process will be conducted. As a part of the expansion of instant replay, Clubs will now be allowed to show all replays on the ballpark scoreboard, regardless of whether the play was reviewed. "I am very pleased that instant replay will expand to include additional impactful plays," Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig. "The new system will give managers valuable recourse in potentially game-changing situations. The opportunity for our fans to see more replays in our ballparks is also an important modification that the Clubs and I favored. "I thank the Major League Players and Umpires for their cooperation with this change, which will serve our shared game well. I also extend my gratitude to John Schuerholz, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa, Peter Woodfork and Chris Marinak, all of whom worked extremely hard to make this highly complicated task a reality." Managers will have at least one challenge to use. If any portion of a challenged play is overturned, then the manager who challenged the play will retain the ability to challenge one more play during the game. No manager may challenge more than two plays in a game. Once the manager has exhausted his ability to challenge plays during the game and after the beginning of the seventh inning, the Crew Chief may choose to invoke instant replay on any reviewable call. Home run and other boundary calls will remain reviewable under the procedures in place last season. A designated communication location near home plate will be established at all 30 MLB ballparks. There, the Crew Chief and at least one other Major League Umpire will have access to a hard-wired headset connected to the Replay Command Center, which will remain at MLB Advanced Media headquarters in New York. Major League Umpires will be staffed as Replay Officials at the Replay Command Center. After viewing video feeds, the Replay Official will make the ultimate determination of whether to overturn the call, based on the continuing standard of whether there is clear and convincing evidence. Instant replay will be utilized during some televised games in Spring Training for the purposes of educating on-field personnel on the rules of the new system. Other protocols of the new system for instant replay are as follows: PLAY TYPES The following play types will be subject to review: Home run Ground rule double Fan interference Stadium boundary calls (e.g., fielder into stands, ball into stands triggering dead ball) Force play (except the fielder's touching of second base on a double play) Tag play (including steals and pickoffs) Fair/foul in outfield only Trap play in outfield only Batter hit by pitch Timing play (whether a runner scores before a third out) Touching a base (requires appeal) Passing runners Record keeping (Ball-strike count to a batter, outs, score, and substitutions) All other plays will not be reviewable; however, the Umpires may still convene on the field at any time to discuss the play. INITIATION OF INSTANT REPLAY Field managers may initiate replay review on one reviewable play per game by verbally indicating his intention to challenge, in a timely manner, to the Crew Chief. Guidelines will be established to determine whether a challenge is timely. The manager may request that the umpire review multiple portions of the same play, but he must specify exactly which portions of the play he is challenging. If any portion of a challenged play is overturned, the manager who challenged the play will retain the ability to challenge one more play during the game. No manager may challenge more than two plays in a game. Once the manager has exhausted his ability to challenge plays during the game and after the beginning of the seventh inning, the Crew Chief may choose to invoke instant replay on any reviewable call. In that circumstance, the Crew Chief is not obligated to invoke instant replay if requested by the manager. Home run calls that are currently subject to instant replay review will continue to be reviewed at the Crew Chief's discretion. Managers may request that an Umpire review a home run call, but managers cannot challenge home run calls. REVIEW PROCESS Once instant replay review is invoked (either by the Manager or the Crew Chief), the Crew Chief will signal to the official scorer that the play is under review. The Crew Chief and at least one other umpire will then move to a designated communication location near home plate, where they will have access to a hard-wired headset connected to the Replay Command Center in New York. Major League Umpires will be staffed as Replay Officials at the Replay Command Center, located at MLB Advanced Media headquarters, for all Major League games. The Replay Command Center will have direct access to video from most cameras in the ballpark in real-time, regardless of whether they are shown on the live broadcast. The Replay Official will look at the video feeds and determine if there is clear and convincing evidence to overturn the call on the field. If the Replay Official overturns a call on the field, he will also use his judgment to determine where to appropriately place runners if the play had been called correctly on the field. The umpires on the field will not have a monitor to review the play and they will not leave the field at any time. The Replay Official will make the ultimate determination of whether to overturn the call. On-Field personnel may not argue with the decision of the Replay Official. CLUB ACCESS TO VIDEO To determine whether to challenge a play, personnel in the dugout will be permitted to communicate with a video specialist in the Clubhouse who has access to the same video that is available to Replay Officials. This communication will occur via the dugout phone. Both the home and visiting Clubs will have standardized technology to ensure each Club has equal access to all video. No monitors or additional electronic equipment will be permitted in the dugout. SCOREBOARD REPLAYS Clubs will now have the right to show replays of all close plays on its ballpark scoreboard, regardless of whether the play is reviewed.

Not the base rule book but the NFHS 2014 Rules By Topic with caseplays is out if you want a hard copy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582082316/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1582082316&linkCode=as2&tag=hubpages05ec-20

What kind of politics are there? Just who gets the championship game? Seems kind of petty for some to get all wrapped up on that, like anyone will care after the week is over, but there are some pretty petty people out there.

OSU would be favored by a FG over Auburn, so I don't exactly know how FSU vs. OSU would be a bad championship game, but somehow FSU vs. Auburn will be a good football game. We are talking about a team equipped with a large majority of players that played on a team that went winless in the SEC last year. Auburn will get smoked. So much for that theory..... My youthful, energetic Buckeye brother isn't having the best run of predictions, huh?

because the world just started in 2012...

I think what you're seeing isn't a difference in sports but rather elite teams in the post season getting a bunch more slack. A HS coach would never get away with what Saban did late in the Sugar on that PI call, for example...just like a manager in the World Series would have to do FAR more than what he could get away with in the regular season to get ejected. It's only natural, it happens in all sports, I wouldn't extrapolate any great learnings or assumptions from it.

This is rapidly becoming the most over-used, worthless term in the world. We aren't cavemen who hunt animals with flint-tipped spears. Things change. We evolve. That doesn't mean that there is some major conspiracy to turn all American males into p*ussies who wear skirts. And the biggest motivator behind this action is likely money. Cash. As in the stuff that MLB owners do not want to have to pay to players, as the NFL has had to do, because they (the owners) ignored data that likely could have helped prevent brain injuries to some players. I guess you think Dave Duerson was a wuss, too ? The man killed himself, likely because of the addled state of his brain, from repeated head blows. Think about he and Mike Webster before you go saying that we are "wussifying" this country. And while you're at it, look this up: Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Let me know if you'd like your son to develop this from a "sport". For you younger types, lets add some recent player names that suffered from CTE that killed themselves and sometimes killed others as well. Names like certain HOFer Junior Seau who shot himself. Or Ja'Von Belcher who shot his girlfriend at their home in KC, then drove to Arrowhead and proceeded to shoot himself in front of his team mates and colleagues. We don't even need to go to football after the news of Ryan Freel last week.

Let me know when B1G teams come down South in September.... That weather excuse is complete BS. It is...on BOTH sides. At the elite D1 level, this is a non-factor. Plenty of southern kids come to B1G schools and do perfectly fine and plenty of northern kids go down south and do perfectly fine. It's not like their genetics suddenly flip when they sign a particular letter of intent. Unless it's extreme, cold isn't all that big of a deal. Wind and rain are the biggies, and that happens everywhere.

The CDC also has a free course as well, but the NFHS one has the advantage of storing a record of your completion online in case you lose or fail to print off. I think the NFHS concussion course is one of the few free to anyone courses as well, you just have to register (again, for free).

I would agree...for most situations. For adults or older HS players, I'm totally with you. But for young kids or exceptionally short players, sometimes I find that I have to adjust downward. I think that's the issue with keeping your eyes at the top of the batter's zone. If you adjust downward for an exceptionally short batter, you could be losing the outside corner because F2's head is obscuring your view. By keeping your chin at the top of F2's head you should have a great view of the entire zone almost every time. Of course adjustments are necessary when the batter, F2, or both are squeezing the inside. You're right, but I find that I lose the entire low part of the zone if I don't come down a little bit. Best compromise of a bad situation. I'm only talking about batters so short that the top of their zone is well under my chin, relatively rare but it happens, at least to me.

I would agree...for most situations. For adults or older HS players, I'm totally with you. But for young kids or exceptionally short players, sometimes I find that I have to adjust downward.

I noted that busty coeds in tank tops isn't on the list....it really should be.

I understand that many believe traditional masks protect better, and you've got to use what you feel comfortable with, but I simply do not buy some of the arguments on the physics of it. It's all about force and what's transferred. It's either absorbed or deflected. Masks by design are generally flatter in profile compared to an HSM, especially a quality one like All-Star, specifically designed to deflect by having sharper angles. I actually use both mask and HSM (some assigners do not like HSMs for whatever reason, plus I find it marginally easier to wear sunglasses), a Diamond with Team Wendy pads and an All-Star MVP4000. I've taken shots with both. Straight on shots with the mask do NOT spin, which isn't surprising. The only ones that spun the mask for me were outside the eyes. Those shots, while loud, glance fairly harmlessly off my HSM. Plus, I recall Brad from All-Star posting a summary of their research that even shots that do spin or knock off the mask have already transferred the force to your head, so any spinning or removal of the mask doesn't attenuate the force you receive much anyway, it just reacts to other elements of the force. It may look dramatic, but if there's little/no reduction in energy transfer, then what's the point? And @Platejob29, I respect your experience and hope you don't suffer any more injuries, but I don't think the whiplash effect is as you state. You're right, there is more weight with an HSM. But I think you're missing that because there's more weight, it's harder to get it moving. In other words, it takes more force to move a heavier object than a lighter one. So a ball hitting at the same speed will move a heavier object less than a lighter one. An analogy is a marble at the same speed hitting a small marble and then a large one. The small one recoils further. I doubt it's all that meaningful anyway, since the weight difference between a mask and an HSM may not be material compared with the overall weight of your head and the initial force, but if it is, the heavier head/HSM system would have less whiplash than a lighter system, not more. Frankly, I don't think it's anywhere near as simple as "traditional vs. HSM". A traditional mask with Team Wendy pads probably protects far better than a cheap HSM like a Diamond Edge or some used thing you buy at a used equipment store. But comparing top-quality to top-quality, like a mask with TW vs. an All-Star 2500? Different comparison. It seems that there are just some shots that either will only be able to do so much about and many that both will be very protective from. There's inherent risk in both, but overall an HSM (again, of equal quality) seems to be the equal of a mask for many hits and superior for others. But really, the key is to use what you feel comfortable with and get the absolute best quality in either.

I think this is more folk tale than physics. Any shot that makes your mask spin was almost assuredly not a direct blow but rather at some sort of angle; after all, how could it spin if there wasn't some center of rotation not in direct line of the force? For an angled shot or something on the side, there's just as much chance it just glances off an HSM. In fact, since many traditional masks are flatter than a quality HSM like an All-Star, I'd say the chances of more force being applied is actually higher. And I'm not buying the Wilson's claims...if I can depress the pistons with just finger force, how much attenuation is there from a 90 mph baseball? All-Star or nothing IMO.

"Joe, where was that?" "It was inside, Coach" "It wasn't on the corner?" "It was, Coach, but only for 47% of the plate" Seriously, no human, not even the best MLB umpire, has that kind of accuracy or ability to discern that. This is overanalytical nonsense.

That's my BIGGEST pet peeve by far… When I was 14, I was umpiring a 6 year old's softball game. I had only umpired like five games in my life prior. I called a strike on a pitch that probably (in hindsight) was a ball, but honestly it's 6YO softball, who gives a crap… Well, a 300 lb. bodybuilder 1st base coach intimidated me into changing my call. After the game, I felt like crap and almost cried. He legitimately scared me and I was ready to never go back to umpiring for a time. As the new UIC of my league, that is one thing I will NOT stand for from coaches. Good for you for standing up to her. Something similar happened to me as well...I was 16 doing a 9 yr old game. There was no training back then - I signed up, they gave me a balloon and mask and old shin guards and said good luck. In that particular game, I called some kid out or something on a close play, I don't remember the exact details. Some pot-bellied daddy coach comes barreling down from 3rd base, runs right into me, and knocks me on my butt with his potbelly. It was a small town 30 yrs ago so nothing happened, but I gave it up right there and then and didn't come back to it for over 25 years. Now it wasn't just because of that, life happened as well - college, Army, young kids, etc - but that was a reason too.

"Balls down" is customary around here, but I also am able to recognize that it's a local variation and not the approved, official terminology. "No Catch" is heard on occasion, just not as often.

Absolutely I respect that!

So we're only going to pick the most advantageous data points? If the assertion is that a certain group is dominant, does it make more sense to choose the largest data set of that group's performance against other groups or only the performance of a handful of that group? And let's look just a little deeper at that. If there's a measure more easily manipulated than CFB poll rankings, I'm not sure what it would be. It's HIGHLY dependent on pre-season rankings - so the SEC self-perpetuation machine keeps on going. Why is that the SEC won about 10% of national championships before the BCS but 55% of them after? Is it because this long-standing group somehow magically became so much better in 1998 than the rest? Doubt it. The # of NFL players compared to other conferences didn't change all that much. The overall OOC and bowl records as we've seen is no great shakes - and that's WITH the advantage of nearly all bowl games being glorified home games. What is it about this contrived system (created by a former SEC commissioner, of course) that seems to favor them so and create this everlasting meme? Preseason rankings frame the entire debate and make it virtually impossible to climb unless those ahead of you lose. So with SEC teams starting off with 3 or 4 in the top 5, they start the race on 2nd base. Indeed, many of the power brokers have a direct financial investment in the success of the SEC. This isn't tinfoil conspiracy stuff - ESPN invested $2.25 BB (that's billion with a big B) in the SEC Network alone. CBS is a direct partner. ESPN is notorious for highly promoting the products on their network and giving short thrift to others (ever see many NHL highlights on Sportscenter? Their NBA coverage did something like double the air time when they got the NBA deal). So the meme goes on. Lower ranked SEC teams (Auburn 2010) get an inordinate boost by beating other SEC teams. Other teams are crippled by losses but not SEC teams. They never have to leave their own protective cocoon to get the benefit of the doubt and it just keeps perpetuating, despite the larger sample size of results. SEC losses are discounted because, after all, they lost to other SEC teams. Witness 2011...#3 Oregon was beaten by then-#4 LSU in Dallas and dropped TEN spots in the polls. Oregon was essentially eliminated from nat champ consideration. #2 Alabama was later beaten by #1 LSU AT HOME and dropped...all the way to #3. One freakin' spot. Lo and behold, what does the BCS give us for a national champ game? Alabama LSU II Electric Bugaloo....ensuring an SEC winner no matter what. I'm not saying the SEC sucks - it's the best conference right now, but not by much. The P12 this year except for the very team top - and I'm not completely sure about that - is close and the rest aren't as far behind as the Booyahs make it out to be. And I won't even get into the healthy (not the main reason by any means but significant) amount of sheer luck involved in that SEC streak even at the champ game level. But let's not elevate them into Triple AAA NFL on shallow analysis when the facts say otherwise.

OSU would be favored by a FG over Auburn, so I don't exactly know how FSU vs. OSU would be a bad championship game, but somehow FSU vs. Auburn will be a good football game. We are talking about a team equipped with a large majority of players that played on a team that went winless in the SEC last year. Auburn will get smoked. What Vegas favors isn't a good reference for how good a team is or how good a match up will be. Vegas had Baylor beating OK State and OK State blew them out. Vegas also had OU down to OK State by a large margin and OU beat OK State. Vegas also had a pretty large point spread on the OSU Michigan game and that wasn't exactly a blow out was it? Also had OSU beating MI State by a touchdown if I remember correctly. My point is that just because Vegas favors one team by a certain number of points doesn't indicate how good he team actually is or how good of a game two teams would play against each other. Also worth noting how incredibly bad the Big 10 is as a whole when compared against the SEC, PAC 12, and even the Big 12 who had an awful year compared to previous years. Now the back half of that is just garbage. If the facts matter - and perhaps they don't - but if they do, the record is far more mixed than the hyperbole constantly spouted by the Booyah Network and most pundits. Let's look at data from the start of the BCS era (not incl this past year since this is from last fall), it's VERY mixed: SEC vs. PAC-12 regular season: 10-12 SEC vs. PAC-12 bowl games: 1-0 SEC vs. Big 12 regular season: 6-10 SEC vs. Big 12 bowl games: 21-8 SEC vs. ACC regular season: 42-36 SEC vs. ACC bowl games: 16-9 SEC vs. Big 10 regular season: 7-4 SEC vs. Big 10 bowl games: 19-19 SEC vs. Big East regular season: 16-15 SEC vs. Big East bowl game: 3-8 This season, what little actual data we have is also mixed. AL was ok vs a bad VT team but not great. LSU was pretty meh vs TCU. Arkansas got beat by Rutgers (!), Tennessee got housed by Oregon, Florida - yea, getting beat by an FCS school, etc. Now the top of the SEC? Sure they've been great. But they're considered great often because they beat other SEC teams who are considered great so the self-fulfilling prophecy just keeps on going. Has the Big Ten lost OOC games as well? Of course. UCLA killed Nebraska, Wisc got beat by ASU. Both Pac12 teams that ended up pretty darned good - and Wisc's loss was one of the most controversial of the year due to officiating issues to a team that ended up in the conf championship game. The SEC has had the best team for awhile (though even that's a bit trumped as well) but the conf as a whole is a little bit better, not hyperbolically SEC Uber Alles better as a lot of pundits think. The SEC east in particular is a bunch of hot garbage outside of Mizzou and South Car. And speaking of a Mizzou (as well as A&M)..two good to average Big 12 teams just waltz into the SEC and within two years, one beats Alabama and the other goes to the conf championship game? Hmm....

This is from 2009!!! I'm new here and at the time I was unaware that replying to an old post would move it to the top. I apologize for causing such an uproar. It's not a problem, I bet a lot of people hadn't read them or forgot about them. Welcome to the group.