<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Friday, August 27, 2004

SMORGASBORED 

There's one main motive to this post, and it's to move the sidebar back to the top (i.e., get the sidebar-pushing photos off the front page). The other semi-motive: shorties.

-- Clint Nageotte will take on a much more familiar role on Saturday, that of starting pitcher. He will be pitching the second game of the doubleheader. Will he look like the Nageotte that debuted against the Astros and did fairly well, or will he walks eight guys in five innings? One thing's for sure, he's got a crappy Kansas City lineup to work against.

-- The Oregon Baseball Campaign is pushing on with their plans for a $350M ballpark even as the likelihood seemingly increases of the Expos ending up near the nation's capital. Peter Gammons said on Baseball Tonight earlier this week that the Expos were basically on their way to the DC area, with the money and other details having to be hashed out. Has Gammons been wrong before? Many, many times. Gammons aside, though, a couple of things raised my eyebrows about the plan. One is that the plan calls for $115M of the $350M to come from taxes to future baseball players and team personnel. I'm not sure if there's precedent for this or what, but will prospective players want to pay federal income tax, Oregon state income tax, AND a ballpark tax? Seems like a reach to me. The other thing that raised the brow is that the stadium would be a 38000-seater. That sounds to me like a small ballpark, and one that would probably be shoehorned into Portland somewhere. The probability of parking being absolutely horrible would probably be pretty high. That's where the ticket-stubs-as-free-TriMet passes idea comes in (the Portland Beavers do it already).

Still, why the NHL hasn't elicited more of a groundswell in Portland than baseball has is beyond both writers of this weblog.

-- Short hockey note. The Phoenix Coyotes have done some things this offseason. Having already signed Brett Hull and Mike Ricci, the Dogs have signed Petr Nedved (pretty good post-deadline last year with Edmonton) and have traded Daymond Langkow for two key pieces of the Calgary Flames' run, Denis Gauthier and former Seattle Thunderbird Oleg Saprykin. New players, new arena. The Glendale Coyotes.

-- Don't click the upcoming link if you're squeamish. I got a hold of the link, and basically, if you saw Chappelle's Show during the first season and thought the R. Kelly video (and remix) were hilarious, then take a look at this. No, there's no graphic depictions, just a lyric sheet.

Have a great Friday, all.

/ Click for main page

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Click for Sports and B's 

home page