With Opening Day so close I'm having hot dog-based fever dreams, I decided to face a pair of problems squarely. One is how to properly organize my thoughts about the critical storylines we'll be following on MLB Trade Rumors this season. The other? How to entertain my daughter, who just turned one. Let's face it: after a while, even an infant turns to you with a look that says: "I get it. Pat the Bunny is both a proper name and a suggestion. What else you got?"
So to help her to sleep at night, let's take a look at what will keep the rest of us up, furiously refreshing the page:
A is for Albert, El Hombre's contract year
Who will show him the money? Should Cardinals fans have fear?
B is for Beltran, the limping Met in right
Look for New York to deal him to someone in the fight
C is for Crawford, who Sox got with late swoop
Did Boston overpay? And how do Rays regroup?
D is for Doug Davis, a story sweet and true
He'll soon help some rotation, and tears will flow on cue
E is for Ethier, who Dodgers may soon deal
While stardom is elusive, his production is for real
F is for Fielder, first baseman oversized
Who may lead Brew to pennant, then be free agent prize
G is for Gerrit, Cole should go first in draft
Consensus is a different pick would be extremely daft
H is for Houston, where Drayton's leaving town
New boss must reverse trend of Astros heading down
I is for Iannetta, catcher a mile high
Will he fulfill potential? Or will Rockies say goodbye?
J is for Javy, the once (and future?) stud
Will move from Yanks to Marlins revive this Gotham dud?
K is for K-Rod, will his huge option vest?
If he finishes 55, the Mets have failed their test
L is for Lee, last winter's big to-do
If Cliff's performance dips, how soon will Philly boo?
M is for McCourt, whose divorce battle rages
Will it affect the Dodgers' ability to pay their wages?
N is for Nathan, who's back from elbow woes
A large amount of money will ride on how he throws
O is for Orioles, with new faces from the past
In league's toughest division, they still should finish last
P is for Pirates, where hope is finally seen
Will record, after years of losing, mirror Charlie Sheen?
Q is for Quentin, Pale Hose need him to bash
With strong walk year, by winter's end he'll be awash in cash
R is for Reyes, a decent bet to go
A bidding war this summer will deal Mets fans a blow
S is for Sabathia, opt-out can make him free
But who'll outbid the Yankees? No one that we can see
T is for Tampa, in division nonpareil
Rays spent sparingly this winter, but what they spent, spent well
U is for Utley, who battles Wounded Knee
If he cannot recover, who will his stand-in be?
V is for Victor, who Tigers signed for bat
But now they'll catch Avila? I mean, what's up with that?
W is for Wilpon, who faces massive debts
The smart money says he will be forced to sell the Mets
X is for Xavier, left fielder at Chase
Expect him to have 25 home run pace
Y is for Yankees, and here is some advice
When you deal them a pitcher, make Montero the price
Z is for Zambrano, half-pitcher and half-storm
Says here that he will recapture his earlier ace form
g is for get a life. love this site, but you obviously have too much time on your hands. try a going on a date or building model airplanes or something.
There are like 10 writers. And Tim has a wife and I believe a kid. The guy who wrote this comes on once every 4324342 years.
this guy is a jerk. I am so tried of people saying that theYankees should deal Montero for pitching. Let the kid be. Go with the young kids, enough already. I am sick and tried of the Yankees dealing their top prospects for an instant fix. A Jax deal is going to come back and bite them in the ass.
Signing Teixeria was a great deal , but at what price? They had to surrender Mike Trout to the Angels who is now ranked the #2 prospect right behind Bryce Harper. He went from #51 to #2 in one year. And Gerritt Cole refused to sign with the Yankees at 17, despite the facts he grew up a Yankee fan , his whole family famiily are Yankee fans and he always dreamed of playing for the Yankees. The Yankees offer the jerk 5 million dollars and he turns it down because Boras told him to. Now , it appears he is going to be the #1 draft pick this year. I hope he enjoys playing for the Nationals .
Pittsburgh has the 1st pick assclown… Nats dont pick until 6th…
sup guys just thought i’d stop by to tell somebody who is paid to write material for the baseball website i am using my spare time to comment on that he should consider doing something more productive
Good grammar is the difference between helping your uncle jack off his horse, and helping your Uncle Jack, off of his horse. Just sayin…
the sentence you commented on is flawless
“helping your Uncle Jack, off of his horse” is funny but flawed
use of capitalization & punctuation without attention to purpose is about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit
Hypocrite much? You did not use one capital letter nor any puncuation. To be honest, both of you fail at grammar.
you and i both know what the traditional rules of grammar are. only one of us has scrutinized them for usefulness. there is nothing impressive about your ability to memorize and blindly follow someone else’s rules
But you just snapped at darrelld for not following the rules while you aren’t following the rules either. I give up. I don’t get it.
that is a ridiculous summary. he introduced the subject of grammar light-heartedly. i responded in kind. then you came in calling fail
story’s moral: next time you don’t get it, give up before you start
“sup guys just thought i’d stop by to tell somebody who is paid to write material for the baseball website i am using my spare time to comment on that he should consider doing something more productive ”
Not one piece of capitalization or puncuation.
“the sentence you commented on is flawless “helping your Uncle Jack, off of his horse” is funny but flawed use of capitalization & punctuation without attention to purpose is about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit”
Yet again, no capitalization nor puncuation.
“you and i both know what the traditional rules of grammar are. only one of us has scrutinized them for usefulness. there is nothing impressive about your ability to memorize and blindly follow someone else’s rules”
You guessed it.
“that is a ridiculous summary. he introduced the subject of grammar light-heartedly. i responded in kind. then you came in calling fail story’s moral: next time you don’t get it, give up before you start”
Okay, this one has a couple pieces of pucuation, but not at every sentence and the trend continues with capitalization.
and yet every sentence was an easy read. so what are you doing?
amusingly, for the most part it is only he unthinking rule-followers that feel compelled to criticize others for not also following them — even when their writing is completely clear
you won’t find me mocking you every time you needlessly capitalize the first word of a sentence for example. why? because so long as the writing is clear, who cares that you decorate some of your words like a 9 year old girl drawing her crush’s name in a hello kitty notebook. have a great time
I will quote you one more time. “the sentence you commented on is flawless “helping your Uncle Jack, off of his horse” is funny but flawed use of capitalization & punctuation without attention to purpose is about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit”
You were complaining about his grammar when yours was not up to par. And stating that your comment is flawless was just ridiculous. And yes, most of the comments are fine to read but the first one took a couple looks. Whatever.
We get it. Most MLBTR commenters don’t know, or don’t care about orthography.
Who knew that using the alphabet in an acrostic mannor would start this crap up again.
I could care less about his grammar. It’s the hypocarcy that I am talking about.
Blah blah blah cry cry cry
Ahhh mature
How far to the right and tiny can the reply boxes get?
We’re on the verge of a major discovery. We cannot stop replying now!
I will reply to your message until we see how small it gets…
Wow. It does get pretty small
Can’t get any smaller…can it?
Incredible!
I would “Like” this 1,000 times over if I could
THATS WHAT SHE SAID
the sentence is flawless because it reads easily. you think i’m unaware that it was without punctuation or capitalization? gee, no weirdo had every mentioned that to me before and the text of the fifty published articles i read every day never struck me as any different in appearance from my own writing
dude’s sentence was flawed because the placement of a comma interrupted the reading of it. i don’t error-check sentences for their use of arbitrary grammar conventions because that is an utter waste of life. i analyze them for the success with which they convey their meaning – because that is the purpose of writing
for example your two sentences here: “I could care less about his grammar. It’s the hypocarcy that I am talking about.”
these rate poorly on conveying anything meaningful. “i could care less” suggests the opposite of what you meant it to. “i couldn’t care less” would have made sense
and the word is hypocrisy, not hypocarcy – which does not even mimic the sound. though if you’re going to study a word, at this point i’d recommend “prescriptivism” so you can hopefully learn why you’re wasting your time being annoying
Ladies and Gentleman. I think I hit a bit of a nerve.
________________________________
I was trying to be funny, I hope it worked:) I still have to look at my keyboard while typing..
You should be banned from MLBTR out of principle. Sitting in the law school library studying was so awful before I read this poem and remembered what holiday today was!
preach. had this up during crim law!
L is for LAME…you got that one wrong. Really…you did not have to make it rhyme…
you forgot D is for Disaster , cuz thats what this was
True, I did…L was the first one that came to mind.
all in all one of the funnier threads ive ever read
4/26 of these are meant to dampen Mets’ fans mood the night before opening day. Get a life.
Because Mets fans had nothing to be upset about until this post happened…
you must not have known what happened at wounded knee to make such an ugly joke about utley “battling wounded knee”. serious lack of taste.
It’s been how many years? Are you really going to nitpick about something meant for amusement. History reigns eternal, but if we watch what we say or reference for every atrocious thing in history we’d need a new language and retire words like numbers are in baseball.
We don’t need a new language. My History teacher spoke and English and I got the jist of what’s happened in the past.
over a century is waaaaay too soon.
Ann Frank was not over a century ago….
While I appreciate the effort, that was cheesy as hell.
This had SO MUCH potencial.
+1 for the idea
+1 for the “B is for Beltran, the limping Met in right”
-3 for everything else
The rhyming was a little over the top.
I rapped this out.
This made my seven-month-old daughter cringe, and she’s usually pretty receptive to stupid things.
There’s ajoke in here but I’m trying to be a Christian.
It only counts as a set-up if someone follows through with the knockdown. Your Christianity is depriving the MLBTR community of potential gems, and that’s not very Christian of you. Just saying.
For further future reference, Philly fans don’t “boo” failure. We “boo” lack of effort. But way to jump in on the bandwagon that is the national media. I know, maybe we’ll get lucky enough to have the opportunity to throw snow balls at the Astros before, during, and after the game.
So what did Santa Claus ever do to you guys? Did he not bring enough cheer to boys and girls the world over? Did he not put sufficient effort into his sleigh-driving, despite managing to visit homes on six continents in the span of a single night?
talk about bandwagon…you can speak for an entire fanbase? 90% of people who boo at any baseball stadium do so because they are drunk….a sensitive Philly fan, how sweet!
Philly fans boo things that they either don’t like or that did not go in their favor.
See: Drew, J.D.
I think Parra is more likely to start in left than Nady so 25 may be hard to come by.
I enjoyed it.
But then again I’m procrastinating so I enjoy everything.
Hahah I can’t believe so many people are so serious. Lighten up.
I can’t believe it’s not butter.
W is for Wilpon, who faces massive debts
The smart money says he will be forced to sell the Mets
I say “H” for HOT DAMN, and HURRY UP [lets]!! : p
W is for Wilpon, he and Madoff were in cahoots…
Here’s hoping they get fitted for matching jumpsuits.
…And D is for “damn straight,” ’cause that is a sentiment to which I relate!
F is for…..
W is for the words that I’m about to say:
Everybody chill out and enjoy Opening Day!
😀
Whats with the random spacing in the middle of X. I felt that needed to be said.
Sorry for the trolling. I’m bored as hell and not ready to go to bed.
What the hell is going on in this thread?
pure comedy and some over excitement for opening day
Fail and bans. Thats all I see.
relax , tell me you didnt laugh multiple times in the last 20 minutes reading this
A lil bit.. but the Mods are gonna come through here with a bulldozer
really i only see one or two that might be ban worthy and only one for sure
i made it one letter
Oh its coming..
the end is near
You have no idea.
Seriously though this site is moderated by some sticklers thats for sure.
Way back in the day the site wasn’t really moderated at all. But I’m sure the users on the site has gone up like 200 percent.
they removed a comment i wrote one time about a police officer who murdered somebody, mike vick and plaxico and it wasnt insulting to anybody but the american judicial system and they left one about cops anally rapping a prisoner with a baton , so i guess it depends on who is doing the moderating but if you look at the rules their pretty strict about comments
H is for Horrible.
LOL at every comment I have read hooooooooly Mccourt…
I appreciate the originals, but does this really fit this site?
link to mlbtraderumors.com
kinda sad that 1 there are a couple people on here dumb as hell…mr. rapper boy up there and 2 the only teams that reallly mentioned no matter how bad they are, were the high market teams…such garbage…
Is Quentin in his walk year?
I belive you have the first serious baseball comment thus far. And it only took 98 before we got to it. I feel happy and ashamed at the same time.
But yet you fail to answer his question. Yes, Quentin is in his walk year.
I’m not sure which was worse:
a. That it took so many comments(the 2nd page of comments, in fact) to address this issue or…
b. That when it finally got addressed, no one posted the correct info that no, in fact, Quentin is not in a “walk year”. He can’t become a free agent until after the 2012 season, in fact(unless the White Sox non-tender him after 2011, for some as- of-yet undetermined reason.)
If you want proof, go to Tim’s article on the subject from 3 months ago:
link to mlbtraderumors.com
Still, nice effort by Howard, even with the bit of misinformation. 😉
I actually thought it was pretty entertaining!
@JacksTigers
I could care less about his grammar. It’s the hypocarcy that I am talking about.
This is a bit of an oxymoron, no? You’re trying to prove a point about his hypocrisy on grammar.
In any case, out of the 116 comments on this page, at least 100 induced a concussing facepalm, and after thinking for unknown reasons that Rickey Henderson (RE: laugh) was a shortstop, I don’t need these haha!
EDIT: Disqus fail count 3643724637824632678 and rising.
There aren’t enough numbers in the world to count all of the Disqus fails. And I’m tired and going to bed. Good luck to everyone and I hope you guys survive the war zone that will be bannishments and removed comments in the morning.
Uff, so glad I’m not working the mod shift today. This thread is ridiculous!
What about now? :p
Okay, just ran through this thread. Hope I didn’t miss anything. What a mess!
I think you nailed it. Bravo!
Anyway, happy start of the season. I notice some guy named Sabathia looked pretty good yesterday…almost unheard of for him in early spring. 🙂
That’s gold, Howard. Gold!
straight up i want your job. i can tell your living the life since your writing the abc’s to your kid in baseball form. this is my f’ing dream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW that’s all I got to say
I guess everyone is just on a good baseball season opener high.
LETS DO THIS!! 2011 is now!
#winning @ the charlie sheen reference ! haha
This is the best thing that has ever appeared on MLBTR. Ever.
P is for popsicles… Mmm popsicles
This is not Quentin’s walk year. He is arbitration eligible, one more year.
Why is it for the first 2 weeks of the season the home teams aren’t warm weather cities and domes? Arizona AT Colorado? Atlanta AT Washington? San Diego AT St Louis…really?
N is for New York, baseball’s only home
Having garnered just under 1/4 of the entries for this poem.
Maybe it’s the excitement of opening day but I got a kick out of this.
hahaha never got as much enjoyment out of reading comments on this site as i have on this thread.
Well, since the Tigers didn’t make your headlines…
AA is for Al’s kid, the catcher of the present and future
BB is for Boesch, who’s known for his basch
C is for Coke, things go better with him
D is for DD, the architect of the roster
E is for Enrique, swingin the mop
G is for Guillen, still limping along
H is for Jhonny, and it doesn’t belong here, either
I is for Inge, the great Brandbino
J is for Justin, the ACE of the staff
K is for Kelly, mister versatility
L is for Leyland, skipper of the team
M is for Miggy, best hitter in the game
O is for Ordonez, on base and on track
P is for Porcello, and Penny, and Perry
Q is for Joaquin, set em up and shut em down
R is for Rhymes, and lots of good times
S is for Scherzer, and Schlereth, and Santiago
T is for Thomas, as in Cletus and Brad
V is for Valverde, Victor, and Villarreal
W is for Casper, and hope he does Wells
X is for AJax, gold glove on the way
Y is for Rayburn, but without the Y
Z is for Zoomer, at 100 mph
The three letters missing are F, U, and N.
Let the games begin, because Baseball is FUN!
The World series winning San Francisco Giants aren’t a storyline at all?
If it doesn’t relate to the Mets somehow, Howard’s not interested.
Absolutely not, with regard to the Yankees. They’re always criticized for trading away young talent for proven veterans – this is their chance to let the farm system work for a position player again, much like Jeter, Posada, and Cano have worked.