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JACK BILLINGHAM

As most Denizens know, Dr. D's boyhood team had an impossible collection of 8 regulars who were, each of them, lordly on offense as well as defense.  The Reds would always have a good pitcher or two - Gary Nolan or Don Gullett or somebody, and those guys would go 15-3 in front of the Big Red Machine.  (Hmmmmmm speaking of James Paxton ...)

But on Jack Billingham Day it would become a desperate contest between JB's "atom balls," with Dave Concepcion diving left and right every inning, and Johnny Bench's attempts to reach the fences two or three times and overcome the natural deficit posted by the starting pitcher.

Often it worked for Billingham.  Note carefully the line of 15-10 records alongside 88 ERA+'s on his baseball card.  Sparky Anderson wasn't the original Captain Hook for nothin'.

At last count the "Give him a chance why don'cha" crew had +5:  Malcontent, Zoom, Dipoto, Electrokraken, and one other guyy I TOLD you already I don't remember nothin'.

The "SSI Worst Wager:  ignorance is the root of bliss" crowd had +6, of which I remember Dr. D, Taro, Wish, Seattle Sports and there were two other guys.

.....

We done tolja we weren't going to gloat about this.  From Dr. D's point of view the best (reasonable) case scenario -- in, say, five Gallardo starts -- is about a 3-2 record full of Dyson rundowns, 11-8 scores, and a DL swapout for Dillon Everton.  But who knows; Jerry Dipoto may know a lot about baseball.  We've heard rumors.  So have enemy batters trying to survive the ninth inning.

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FOR THE ANGELS

Sosh will pat RHP Jesse Chavez on his diminutive right shoulder and point moundward at about 7 pm.  While watching his iPad with a hawk eye regarding the MRI on Garrett Richards.  Chavez has thrown 1000's of excellent pitches in the major leagues, primarily 93 MPH fastballs and Brad Radke-ish changeups.  Unfortunately for him, he has thrown dozens of lousy pitches in the major leagues and has gopheritis.  His labs came back at 1.3 homers per nanoliter.

About time for Boomstick to shake off that really bad head cold so we can get back to Paxton.  Oh, wait, two games more yet.

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MAKE THE SHOUT BOX SHOUT-Y AGAIN

The last coupla games, the Denizens have been using that day's pre-game article Shout Box to chat the game.  In essence, we have the same Shout Box we did before, good for 24 hour wedges of conversation at a swat.

Each day, howzabout we consider Shouting underneath the most recent Dr. D article for general conversation.  It would then naturally morph into an in-game thread.  Detecto will forward, encourage, and otherwise facilitate this trend if Denizens are so inclined.  Today, that would be THIS article's Shout Box.

So, remarks most directly related to HWMNBN might logically go into the CMS comments here, and remarks related to the M's in general into this Shout Box.

Or not,

Dr D