There's a very high chance that you haven't heard of marula oil; you're not the odd one out. The truth is that a lot of people have not hear about the fruit, so knowing about the oil is far-fetched.
The Marula oil is extracted from the kernel of the fruits of the Marula tree, which is native to southern Africa. This oil is used for cooking, to treat leather and for cosmetic purposes among other things.
Traditionally, the people in southern Africa have known the benefits of this oil for moisturizing the skin and this is why their women use it for their skins and for their babies. It is said that women used Marula oil instead of water to clean themselves in times past.
Marula is a good choice for treating scars and stretch marks. When used regularly over a period of time, it will help to reduce the appearance of scars or stretch marks. It can also be used to prevent stretch marks. The reason for this is that it contains fatty acids, antioxidants and other minerals.
Another reason why it works so well is that it easily absorbs into the skin. You can use it massage your skin to get best results and leave your skin supple.
If you suffer from skin conditions like eczema, Marula oil is definitely worth the try. Instead of all those products with petroleum bases and artificial fragrances, this natural oil will nourish and moisturize your skin to improve its hydration and prevent dryness which is a trigger for many of these skin conditions.
Marula oil contains vitamins C and E alongside fatty acids which combat free radicals and help to reduce their damage.
The result of this is a skin with a youthful look as it helps the skin to repair itself by boosting it capacity to produce collagen to maintain softness.
You can use this oil at night before you sleep; you can also use as a pre-shower or post-shower anti-aging moisturizer.
You can use Marula oil to improve the firmness of your skin, reduce pigmentation, boost your complexion and smoothen out your skin.
Containing vitamin C and fatty acids, it helps to deal with areas of cellulite. With regular application of this oil, you skin will turn out smooth soft and silky.
You can use Marula oil as a healthy means of taking off your make up. It will help you avoid any damage to your skin due to harsh chemicals and also nourish your skin.
You can simply dab some on a cotton pad to wipe off your makeup and rinse your face with water afterwards. This is a great way to remove makeup without stripping your skin of too much moisture.
The good thing about Marula oil, as with many natural oils, is that it works great on all skin types. It is not too heavy, making it to absorb fast into the skin without clogging pores. It keeps the skin moisturized without making it greasy.
It is easy for anyone of any skin type to use this oil, either by adding a little to your cream or beauty product or by use it on its own regularly.


Budapost » Does Hungary need an Apocalypse?
Does Hungary need an Apocalypse?
A centrist analyst believes that Hungarian politicians mirror public sentiments. Polarizing and combative rhetoric are not the inventions of parties but rather the expectations of voters. Regardless of the composition of the government, politics will remain divisive unless Hungarians become more compromising in tone and ideas.
"We are the problem," Gábor Török comments on the state of Hungarian political culture. The centrist analyst dismisses the view that Hungarian parties are responsible for "the disappointing state of the political community". Politicians act according to public expectations, Török suggests. PM Orbán is not a dictator, he adds. "Viktor Orbán does not want to lead the country anywhere….All he wants is to be supported by it and remain in office." PM Orbán offers what Hungarians ask for: divisive political rhetoric and simplistic messages rather than a meaningful political vision and governance, Török contends. Unless "political culture" changes, regardless of the composition of the government, those in power will act likewise, he is convinced. He speculates that it would take "an Apocalypse", an overall political crisis to make Hungarians realize that political opponents should not be considered as existential enemies, that dissent should not be seen as treason, and that our favorite politicians need not be regarded as Gods.


PASADENA, Calif. -- On a new list of the 100 most influential people on Earth, three work at the same California address, where they've led projects to study things that are not on Earth. The list announced today by TIME Magazine includes Don Yeomans, Pete Theisinger and Richard Cook, all at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Yeomans manages NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office at JPL, which coordinates the search for and tracking of asteroids and comets passing into Earth's neighborhood to identify possible hazards to Earth.
Since 2004, Theisinger and Cook have alternated managing NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project, which landed the highly successful car-sized Curiosity rover on Mars last summer. Both previously managed NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project with its twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
The TIME 100, as the magazine's Managing Editor Richard Stengel has explained, is "a list of the most influential people in the world. They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers, they're leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries. People who are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the world and have an effect on a multitude of people."
"We are honored to have three distinguished individuals from JPL on the TIME list of most influential people," said JPL Director Charles Elachi. "Their contributions in the fields of asteroid research and Mars exploration is representative of all the exciting and important work being done at NASA and JPL on behalf of the American people."
Yeomans grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and now lives in Glendale, Calif. He graduated from Middlebury College, Vt., with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has worked at JPL since 1976. In addition to managing NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office, Yeomans is supervisor for JPL's Solar System Dynamics Group. He was a science team member for the Deep Impact/EPOXI mission, which deployed an impactor that was "run over" by comet Tempel 1 in 2005 and flew close to comet Hartley 2 in 2010. He was also the U.S. project scientist for the Japanese-led Hayabusa mission that returned a sample from near-Earth object Itokawa in 2010, and a team chief for the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission that orbited, then landed on the asteroid Eros in 2001. The first images of the return of comet Halley in 1982 were also obtained based on Yeomans' predictions.
Theisinger is a native of Fresno, Calif., and lives now in La Crescenta, Calif. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, with a degree in physics. His career at JPL began in 1967 with the Mariner 5 mission to Venus and now includes contributions to missions including the Voyager mission to the outer planets (launched in 1977 and still going) and the Galileo mission to Jupiter (launched in 1989 and concluded in 2003). His Mars experience dates back to the 1971 Mariner 9 orbiter mission to Mars.
Cook is originally from Bismarck, N.D., and now lives in Santa Clarita, Calif. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a master's degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. Cook joined JPL in 1989, working first on the Magellan mission to Venus. He was the Mars Pathfinder mission manager responsible for operating the first rover - Sojourner - on the surface of Mars in 1997. He held several roles on the Mars Exploration Rover project, which landed the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004, including flight system manager and project manager.
The NASA Near Earth Objects (NEO) program at the agency's headquarters in Washington manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of NEOs, or asteroids and comets, whose orbits periodically bring them close to Earth. NASA's study of NEOs provides important clues to understanding the origin of our solar system. The objects also are a repository of natural resources and could become waystations for future exploration. In collaboration with other external organizations, one of the program's key goals is to search for and try to mitigate potential NEO impacts on Earth. JPL conducts the NEO program's technical and scientific activities.
For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity to investigate the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed in August 2012 to begin its two-year prime mission. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For more about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl . The TIME profile of Yeomans can be seen at: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/don-yeomans/ . The profile of Theisinger and Cook can be seen at: http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/peter-theisinger-and-richard-cook/. More information on the TIME 100 can be found at: http://www.time.com/time100 .


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En Vogue is an all-female R&B performance musical group known for their sultry, melodic top 40 tunes. They have won more MTV Video Music Awards than any other female group in history and the quartet are considered one of the most successful female singing groups of all time, having sold more than 20 million records worldwide.
En Vogue Pictures
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2018 Billboard Music Awards - Red Carpet
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ABC's "Good Morning America" - 2017
Christopher Street West's 40th Anniversary LA PRIDE Parad...
2009 Essence Music Festival Presented By Coca-Cola - Day 3
Barnstable Brown Party Celebrating The 135th Kentucky Derby

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Podcast: Leo and sLimBO Collaborating – Yes!
Oslo based hiphop artist Leo sent a video greeting to sLimBO, one of Ghana's top producers, asking him to get in touch.
Oslo based hiphop artist Leo sent a video greeting to sLimBO, one of Ghana's top producers, asking him to get in touch. How did sLimBO react to the message?
In this episode I talk with Leo and his brother StarboiGH about the upcoming collaboration, and about the music industry in Norway and Ghana. The episode also features Leo's new song "Vi Flyr" (Norwegian for "We're Flying"), a joint with GriNGO09 that was released today.


Christmas Cards are done and mailed.
Image is self-explanatory so I didn't do a How It's Made video. I added an action wobble spring behind the nutcracker to make his head wobble. If you have any questions, just email me.


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Comparison of aircraft
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Find the plane by flight number
airmen
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A uniform
Assemblies and units of air equipment
warplanes
Home » News » The CIA called the organizers of the terrorist attack on board a Russian Airbus A321
The CIA called the organizers of the terrorist attack on board a Russian Airbus A321
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Representatives of the CIA called the organizers of the terrorist attack on board a Russian Airbus A321.
As reported by the leadership of the American intelligence agency, the main organizer of the terrorist attack on board a Russian passenger plane company "Kogalymavia" was the Egyptian group "Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis", which has very close ties to the terrorist group "Islamic State."
Experts do not rule out that the Egyptian groups had a much greater influence in Egypt, than the "Islamic state", and therefore most likely, its representatives have had a kind of "service" marshals "LIH", which claimed the lives of 224 people, including seven crew members 217 and passengers.
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Syria News January 19, 2020. The Khmeimim air base was attacked, the terrorists launched a counterattack.
Syria News on January 18, 2020. US military resorted to arming and stopped the Russian military patrol, Russia and Syria began to bomb terrorists in the north of Idlib
Syria News January 17, 2020. The Syrian army knocks out fighters from Aleppo, the Russian military sent a large convoy to northern Syria
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Amedeo Felisa (* 1946 in Mailand) ist ein italienischer Manager und Geschäftsführer des britischen Sportwagenherstellers Aston Martin. Von 2008 bis 2022 war er Geschäftsführer von Ferrari.

Amedeo Felisa studierte Maschinenbau an der Universität Mailand und kam 1972 zu Alfa Romeo. Dort war er ab 1987 für die Produktentwicklung verantwortlich. 1990 wechselte er zu Ferrari, einer weiteren Fiat-Konzerntochter, und stieg 2001 zum Generalmanager der GT-Sparte auf. 2004 wurde er stellvertretender General Manager und stieg 2006 zum General Manager auf. Nach dem Abgang von Jean Todt wurde Felisa 2008 zum alleinigen Geschäftsführer von Ferrari bestellt. Im Mai 2022 wechselte er zum britischen Sportwagenhersteller Aston Martin.

Weblinks
 Bild: Amedeo Felisa

Einzelnachweise

Person (Ferrari)
Person (Aston Martin)
Italiener
Geboren 1946
Mann

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G133: Athletics 20, Red Sox 2
Red Sox   - 000 100 100 -  2  9  1
Athletics - 042 021 92x - 20 19  0
Three former Red Sox players combined to drive in 13 runs: George Kottaras 5, Josh Reddick 4, Brandon Moss 4.
The last time the Red Sox allowed 20 runs was on August 21, 2009 (a 20-11 loss to the Yankees).
Aaron Cook / Brandon McCarthy
Podsednik, LF
Pedroia, 2B
Ellsbury, CF
Ross, RF
Loney, 1B
Saltalamacchia, C
Aviles, DH
Ciriaco, 3B
Iglesias, SS
Felix Doubront and Daisuke Matsuzaka will pitch the weekend games.
Labels: 2012 games
We Are All Wild Bill Hagy Now
Tonight, Saturday and Sunday: Orioles at Yankees
NYY  75  55  ---
BAL  72  58  3.0
The Orioles have allowed 44 more runs than they have scored (548-592). You would expect a team with those numbers to have a 60-70 record. Baltimore is 12 games better than that.
One reason is their astounding record in close games. The Orioles are 24-6 (.800) in one-run games and 22-12 (.647) in two-run games. Combined: 46-18, .719. (They are also 56-0 when leading after seven innings; Boston is 53-7.)
Only three teams in modern baseball history have won at least 70% of their games decided by one or two runs: the 1906 Chicago Cubs, 1909 Pittsburgh Pirates, and the 1954 Cleveland team.
G132: Angels 5, Red Sox 2
Red Sox - 010 001 000 - 2  7  0
Angels  - 202 100 00x - 5  9  0
With this loss, the Red Sox fell eight games below .500 for the first time this season. They are a season-worst 14 games out of first place in the AL East and a whopping 11 games out of the Wild Card race.
Lester (8-9-5-3-2, 121) pitched a complete game, but faltered early. Albert Pujols had a two-run single in the first, and hit one of four straight singles in the third, that gave Los Angeles a 4-1 lead.
James Loney (3-for-4) scored both Boston runs. He singled and scored in the second and homered in the sixth.
Jon Lester / Zach Greinke
Saltalamacchia, DH
Lavarnway, C
Aviles, SS
Daniel Bard will be activated for tonight's game. His numbers for Pawtucket are positively gruesome. In 32 innings, Bard allowed 31 hits and 29 walks, while striking out 32. He has a 7.03 ERA and a 1.88 WHIP. No one has even a shred of a clue how he will perform with the Red Sox.
Last night's start, Zach Stewart, was optioned down. The nine runs Stewart allowed were the most by a pitcher in his Boston debut in 109 years (Norwood Gibson allowed nine on April 29, 1903; on April 26, 1902, Pep Deininger allowed 11 runs to the Washington Senators.)
G131: Angels 10, Red Sox 3
Red Sox - 010 020 000 -  3 11  1
Angels  - 414 010 00x - 10 14  1
The Angels took three innings of batting practice against Stewart (3-10-9-0-2, 72). Of the 10 hits Stewart allowed, five were doubles and two were home runs.
In the first inning, it was the top of the order that pounced: Mike Trout singled, Torii Hunter doubled (1-0), Albert Pujols singled (2-0), and Kendrys Morales homered (4-0).
It was the bottom of the order that did the damage in the third: With Morales on second with two outs, Alberto Callaspo doubled (6-1), Erick Aybar doubled (7-1), and Chris Iannetta homered (9-1).
For Boston, Mauro Gomez went 3-for-4 and scored a run. Mike Aviles and Scott Podsednik each had two hits. All of Boston's 11 hits were singles.
Zach Stewart / C.J. Wilson
Gomez, 1B
Stewart, a 25-year-old right-hander acquired from the White Sox in the Kevin Youkilis trade, makes his Red Sox debut tonight.
A spot in the rotation opened up on Tuesday as Franklin Morales was placed on the disabled list with left shoulder inflammation. In 11 starts with Pawtucket, Stewart had a 3.94 ERA in 59.1 innings, walking 14 and striking out 51.
I felt like I started off strong [in Pawtucket]. I had a couple of rough outings in the middle, and I've been doing well lately. It's one of those things. It's just starting. It's how it always is, just try to stay as even-keeled as possible.
Stewart made his major league debut with the Blue Jays last June.
Angels  - 200 002 002 - 6  7  2
Alfredo Aceves, in his first appearance after serving a three-game suspension for "conduct detrimental to the team", recorded his eighth blown save of the season. No one in major league baseball has blown more saves this year.
After pitching a clean eighth inning, Aceves hit Erick Aybar in the foot with one out, and then walked pinch-hitter Alberto Callaspo on four pitches. Mike Trout singled home the tying run (on an 0-2 pitch) and Torii Hunter's sacrifice fly to center brought home the game-winner.
Boston led 5-2 at one point. Jarrod Saltalamacchia homered in the second, cutting the Angels' lead to 2-1. The first five Red Sox batters reached base in the fourth: Dustin Pedroia singled, Jacoby Ellsbury singled, Ryan Lavarnway walked, James Loney singled (2-2), and Salty singled (3-2). Another run scored on Ryan Kalish's double play grounder. In the sixth, Ellsbury singled, stole second and continued to third on a throwing error, and scored on Lavarnway's sac fly.
Buchholz (7-6-4-3-5) faltered in the first and sixth, but between those two Los Angeles rallies, he had a stretch in which he retired 16 of 17 batters. He gave up solo dongs to Trout and Albert Pujols. (Trout is now the youngest player in history to hit 25 homers and steal 40 bases in a single season.)
Clay Buchholz / Jered Weaver
Kalish, RF
Mauro Gomez was named the International League's Most Valuable Player. He hit .310/.371/.589 in 426 plate appearances, with 24 dongs.
To Read: Gordon Edes: "Red Sox Need To Redefine Strategy"
Adrian Gonzalez says Fenway's left field wall hurt his hitting style, and he believes the media took undeserved shots at him because of his low-key attitude.
What took my power away was the Green Monster. I used to hit line drives that way and they would be doubles. ... [The Boston media] didn't like that I was a calm person. I won't throw my helmet, I won't scream, I won't use bad words if I strike out. That's what they want over there.
In the wake of the recent mega-deal with the Dodgers, it may be significant that the Red Sox have placed Daisuke Matsuzaka on waivers. Dice will be a free agent at the end of this season.
G129: Red Sox 5, Royals 1
Royals  - 100 000 000 - 1  7  0
Red Sox - 102 002 00x - 5  8  1
In his first start since July 2, Matsuzaka (7-5-1-2-6, 101) was superb; the one run against him was unearned.
Cody Ross singled, doubled, and drove in three runs. Jacoby Ellsbury singled, homered, and scored twice. Scott Podsednik also had two hits.
Ellsbury's two-out home run in the first inning tied the game, and Ross's two-run single off the Wall gave Boston the lead in the third.
Luke Hochevar / Daisuke Matsuzaka
Dice comes off the DL to make his sixth start of the season.
It looks like David Ortiz is going back on the disabled list (Ryan Kalish was seen in the clubhouse). The best thing to do now is tell Ortiz his season is over and if he needs any procedures done on his right Achilles' tendon, to go right ahead.
Podsednik,LF
Gomez, DH
What The Red Sox Want
Just so you know.
The Sox want young, enthusiastic, hungry players who run out ground balls, hustle offensively and defensively, and give you a good day's work for the money.
Royals  - 000 400 020 - 6 11  2
Red Sox - 110 021 21x - 8 14  2
Pedro Ciriaco has at least two hits in 12 of his 34 starts for the Red Sox this year. On Sunday afternoon, he went 3-for-5, homered, scored two runs, and drove in two runs. His batting average rose to .360.
Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Cody Ross, and Mike Aviles each had two hits. Pedroia doubled and homered. Mauro Gomez walked twice and scored twice.
James Loney made his Red Sox debut, playing first base, batting fifth and going 1-for-5, with an RBI. Reliever Pedro Beato, acquired in the Kelly Shoppach trade with the Mets, also made his Boston debut.
Will Smith / Felix Doubront
Red Sox Suspend Aceves For Three Games
After turning in one of the worst relief appearances of all time on Thursday night against the Angels, Alfredo Aceves was furious at not getting the call for a possible save the following night against Kansas City.
Andrew Bailey pitched 1.1 innings and closed out Boston's 4-3 win on Friday night.
Mike Petraglia, WEEI:
According to three sources inside Fenway Park, Alfredo Aceves tore off his jersey while making his way from the bullpen back to the clubhouse in the moments after Boston's 4-3 win over the Royals ...
After Aceves dressed in the clubhouse, he stormed into the office of manager Bobby Valentine and slammed the door behind him.
According to one source, he requested a meeting with Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington and was denied at a time when Cherington was working to finalize the blockbuster trade sending Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Dodgers. On Saturday, Aceves was suspended for "conduct detrimental to the team" ...
The Red Sox will not miss Aceves when he's gone. According to Fangraphs:
Among 147 qualified relievers ... Aceves ranks 130th in ERA (4.60) and 118th in FIP (4.23). He's blown seven of 32 save chances, and after [Thursday's] fiasco he's now 140th out of those 147 qualified relievers in WPA (-1.23).
by allan at 10:45 PM 11 comments
G127: Royals 10, Red Sox 9 (12)
Royals  - 300 000 600 001 - 10 14  1
Red Sox - 043 200 000 000 -  9 20  0
The Red Sox bullpen blew a six-run lead, as seven straight Royals reached bases against Andrew Miller, Mark Melancon, and Craig Breslow (in order of both appearance and culpability). Then, in the 12th inning, the bottom of Kansas City's order staged a two-out rally against Clayton Mortensen, Boston's eighth pitcher of the night.
Tonight was only the sixth game since 1918 - and the first since September 1981 - in which the Red Sox banged out at least 20 hits and failed to score in double digits.
The 20 hits were a season high. Mauro Gomez had four hits, Cody Ross had three and six other Boston players had two. The only player in the starting lineup not to have at least two hits was Dustin Pedroia, who had one.
The Red Sox had built up a 9-3 lead thanks to the hitting of both Mauro Gomez (4-for-6, 3 RBI, his first major league home run) and Mike Aviles (a three-run dong in the second). Royals starter Jeremy Guthrie recorded eight outs and allowed seven runs.
Aaron Cook (6-7-3-1-0, 72) allowed hits to the first four batters of the game, but settled down after that, allowing only one baserunner past first.
Jeremy Guthrie / Aaron Cook
Lavarnway, DH
The Red Sox have called up shortstop Jose Iglesias and outfielder Che-Hsuan Lin. They will play with a 24-man roster, as first baseman James Loney is expected to arrive in Boston tomorrow.
Red Sox Finalize "Franchise-Changing" Deal With Dodgers
UPDATE: The trade is complete.
Michael Silverman, Herald:
The rebuilding of the Red Sox begins today. ...
Through a mixture of underperformance and bad seeds in the clubhouse, the Red Sox, out of the playoffs mix since 2009, have needed a massive overhaul that most thought would begin in the offseason.
And with the ink not yet dry on the agreement between the Dodgers and red Sox, the smear campaign has begun.
Nick Cafardo, Globe, on Adrian Gonzalez:
... a good defensive player but one who was part of the chemistry problem in the Boston clubhouse ...
Gonzalez had become a whiner who seemed to be involved in starting a group to complain about Valentine. He seemed to have an opinion on everything, and rubbed his managers the wrong way. Gonzalez was never the guy we thought he was supposed to be, no leadership skills whatsoever.
This is the trade that is apparently being finalized:
Dodgers get: Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, Nick Punto
Red Sox get: 1B James Loney, RHP Rubby De La Rosa, and three minor leaguers: INF Ivan DeJesus, OF Jerry Sands, RHP Allen Webster
Over The Monster:
This is perhaps the most monumental trade made by the Red Sox since Babe Ruth made his way to New York nearly a century ago.
The Red Sox are not just cleaning house.
They are gutting it. ...
The names the Red Sox are set to receive are not familiar to most but that is not the impetus behind the trade. The impetus is being able to clear as much as $271.5 million in committed payroll, a drastic slash-and-burn attempt by a Red Sox organization eager to return to the club to stable footing after losing its bearing the last couple of years.
A Red Sox source said last night that the Dodgers would be on the hook for "more than $260 million" of the remaining contracts of the four Red Sox players, which is nearly 96 percent.
Alex Speier of WEEI explains the team's sudden financial flexability:
While the Sox are reportedly going to send some money to LA in the blockbuster, the increase in flexibility beyond the 2012 season could be staggering. In one fell swoop, the Sox would go from $99.59 million in guaranteed deals to $38.8 million.
Alex Speier, WEEI:
The incentive for the Red Sox to steam forward in a sweeping roster overhaul ... is fairly evident. ... [This trade] makes all the sense in the world for a Red Sox team that has fallen out of contention.
It's no secret: In a 12-month span from Dec. 2009 to Dec. 2010, the Red Sox made a series of calculated, high-risk gambles meant to secure a championship core for the long haul, only to see their bets blow up in spectacular fashion.
Peter Abraham, Globe:
The biggest thing the trade does is give the Red Sox a chance to re-set their organization after what amounts to three years of failure. They can get back to the business of player development instead of spending on free agents. ...
It's a franchise-changing deal. In one day, the Red Sox changed the look of the team, created huge financial and roster flexibility, and improved the tenor of their clubhouse.
Marc Hulet, Fangraphs:
It's a good day to be a fan of the Boston Red Sox.
The rumored trade between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers will save the east coast club more than $200 million but it will also infuses the organization with some young, cost-controlled, high-ceiling talent. ...
The key to the deal is de la Rosa. A hard-throwing native of the Dominican Republic, just 23 years old, he has the ceiling of a No. 2 starter. Only his lack of consistent command and control keep the No. 1 label from being adhered to de la Rosa. ...
Allen Webster, 22, would give Boston a second hard-throwing, right-handed prospect. ... He has the ceiling of a No. 2 or 3 starter, or could strip down his repertoire to become a dominating high-leverage reliever. I'd slide Webster onto the Red Sox updated Top 15 prospect list at No.3 behind infielder Xander Bogaerts and right-handed starter Matt Barnes.
The Dodgers' claim on Gonzalez expires at 1:30 p.m. ET on Sunday.
Dodgers Awarded Waiver Claims On Gonzalez, Beckett
Update: Gordon Edes, ESPN:
Blockbuster: red Sox, Dodgers working on deal that would send Adrian Gonzalez, Crawford, Beckett and Punto to LA. Hurdles remain, but closing in
Is today April 1?
Nearly every baseball player on every team's roster is put on revoccable waivers in August. Some players get claimed, some do not. It's not news. Most big names are put on waivers as a no-risk way for teams to gauge possible interest.
What happens in almost all of these cases is that the team simply pulls the player back. There is no real talk of a trade, and there is nothing newsworthy to report.
That's what I was sure was going on today with Adrian Gonzalez and the Dodgers. But then I read this, from the pen of ESPN's Gordon Edes:
[T]here is a growing possibility that Gonzalez could be headed to L.A., multiple baseball sources said Friday. ... "I think something is happening, but I'm in a state of disbelief that it is," one baseball source said Friday.
And then I think I may need to keep a quarter of an ear tuned to this one.
Gonzalez - who had no comment on the waiver story - says he's sick of the soap opera stoked by the Boston media:
In Boston ... they never talk about baseball; it's always the same. That's one of the reasons why I almost never talk to the press here. Very few times they ask me about baseball. But most of the time it's about gossip, rumors, plots, well ... a soap opera. When they talk to me about baseball, I'm available. But that does not happen often.
Before the Gonzalez story broke, the hot topic was who did not attend Johnny Pesky's funeral.
(For what it's worth, Josh Beckett was also claimed by the Dodgers.)
Bruce Chen / Jon Lester
The Big Man returns. ... And Adrian Gonzalez is pulled!
Ortiz, DH
Gonzalez, 1B Ross, RF
Ross, RF Lavarnway, C
Lavarnway, C Gomez, 1B
G125: Angels 14, Red Sox 13 (10)
Angels  - 008 000 103 2 - 14 20  1
Red Sox - 150 012 021 1 - 13 18  2
C.J. Wilson / Franklin Morales
Gonzalez, DH
Angels  - 002 203 000 - 7 15  1
Red Sox - 000 200 010 - 3 10  0
It was, perhaps, Clay Buchholz's (5.1-12-7-1-3, 82) worst start of the year. He gave up 12 hits, tying a career high (6.2 innings, April 26, 2011) and allowed seven runs, tying a season high.
Buchholz faced the minimum six batters through the first two innings, but began the third by allowing three singles. The Angels hit two doubles and two singles off Buchholz in the fourth, and touched him for a home run and two singles in the sixth.
Los Angeles' 6-9 hitters went 10-for-16 in the game, scoring six runs.
Down 4-0, Boston halved that deficit in the fourth. With two outs, Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled and Ryan Lavarnway and Mike Aviles followed with run-scoring doubles off the Wall. After Pedro Ciriaco singled Aviles to third, the rally fizzled and the bats went cold. The next nine Boston hitters went down in order.
In the eighth, Dustin Pedroia singled, stole second, and scored on a throwing error following Cody Ross's double to right.
Scott Podsednik went 3-for-5 in the leadoff spot.
Jered Weaver / Clay Buchholz
Gonzalez, 1B
Game Previews: MLB, WEEI.
Kevin Youkilis hit a grand slam last night against the Yankees.
Aaron Cook (5-11-5-1-4, 85) allowed five consecutive singles - a couple of liners, a grounder, and two bleeders - in the fourth inning. He also gave up a two-run home run to Mark Trumbo in the fifth.
Boston got two runs back on Jarrod Saltalamacchia's 21st dong of the season. Scott Podsednik doubled and eventually scored on a wild pitch in the seventh. The Red Sox threatened in the seventh, but Mike Aviles grounded to second, stranding two baserunners.
For the 39th time this year, a Sox starter allowed five or more runs. The team's record in such contests dropped to 7-32, with the Sox having lost each of their last 18 contests when a starter yielded a handful of runs.
Ervin Santana / Aaron Cook
Nava, DH
Daniel Nava is expected to replace Carl Crawford on the 25-man roster, as the latter will have left elbow surgery on Thursday.
Crawford Will Have TJ Surgery On Thursday; McClure Fired
Red Sox statement:
Carl Crawford has a chronic left elbow ulnar collateral ligament tear. While he has been following a conservative treatment protocol and playing with this injury, his symptoms are getting worse. After consultation with the Boston Red Sox medical staff and with Dr. James Andrews, the decision has been made to proceed with a left elbow ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (Tommy John surgery). The surgery will be performed by Dr. Andrews on Thursday, August 23.
Also, pitching coach Bob McClure was fired. Randy Niemann will fill in for the rest of the season.
My Stephen King Project
Over at sharp pencils, I've been reading, and writing about, Stephen King's books in order of publication.
Last November, I read On Writing, King's non-fiction book on the craft, and was impressed. I had been wanting to read a couple of his novels - It and The Stand - for a number of years, and so thought, in my completist, obsessive way, that I'd read all of his books, in order.
Thanks to a number of area thrift stores and eBay, I have been able to get a hard cover copy of nearly all of his books.
Top five books (so far, in chrono order): 'Salem's Lot, The Stand, The Long Walk, Firestarter, Different Seasons.
March 5: Carrie (1974)
March 23: 'Salem's Lot (1975)
April 2: The Shining (1977)
April 5: Rage (as Richard Bachman) (1977)
April 9: Night Shift (1978)
May 8: The Stand (1978)
May 20: The Long Walk (as Richard Bachman) (1979)
June 2: The Dead Zone (1979)
June 10: Firestarter (1980)
June 16: Roadwork (as Richard Bachman) (1981)
June 23: Danse Macabre (1981)
June 29: Cujo (1981)
July 3: The Running Man (as Richard Bachman) (1982)
July 15: The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (1982)
July 28: Different Seasons (1982)
August 6: Christine (1983)
August 9: Cycle of the Werewolf (1983)
August 18: Pet Sematary (1983)
G122: Yankees 4, Red Sox 1
Yankees - 101 101 00x - 4  8  0
Ichiro Suzuki and Derek Jeter each had three hits and scored two runs, and Kuroda (8-4-1-0-4, 112) had little problem with an impotent Boston lineup.
Jeter doubled and scored on Curtis Granderson's two-bagger in the first inning and then doubled and scored on a wild pitch in the third. Beckett's (6-7-4-3-6, 98) wild pitch came immediately after Jeter and Nick Swisher pulled of an uncontested double steal. Ichiro hit solo home runs to right field in the fourth and sixth innings.
Adrian Gonzalez popped his 15th home run in the seventh inning. He was one of only two Boston runners to venture past first base. (Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled and was stranded at second in the fifth.) The three other hits: singles by Nick Punto, Ryan Lavarnway, and Carl Crawford. Not only did New York not issue any walks, but the Red Sox had only three 3-ball counts all night.
Josh Beckett / Hiroki Kuroda
Crawford, LF
Podsednik, RF
Ciriaco, SS
Punto, 3B
On July 29, Kuroda pitched eight strong innings against the Red Sox (8-7-2-1-4, 102), a game Boston won in 10 innings. ... Kuroda and Beckett were the starting pitchers on July 6, the night both teams scored five times in the first inning.
Stuff To Read: WEEI's Alex Speier has a good article on Pedro Ciriaco. Speier also wonders if it's time to start playing the kids. ... At Over The Monster, Brendan O'Toole muses about white flags and Carl Crawford's elbow. ... John Thorn asks: Who invented the shortstop position? ... The Chicago Reader has all you need to know about eating squirrels.
NYDN: Shoppach Wrote Message To Ownership, Not Gonzalez
Andy Martino and Roger Rubin, Daily News:
Boston Red Sox first baseman Adrian Gonzalez was not the author of the now-infamous text message to Boston ownership complaining about manager Bobby Valentine, although it was sent from his cell phone, major league sources told the Daily News.
Those sources also said new Mets catcher Kelly Shoppach was deeply involved in writing the message that touched off the latest Sox drama, but Shoppach would not confirm that charge.
A small group of players that has been unhappy with Valentine this season — a group that included Shoppach, according to a source familiar with the circumstances — was complaining about the manager in late July and engaged Gonzalez in the conversation. A member of the group suggested that the only way to bring about action would be to voice their problems to ownership. Gonzalez was tired of hearing the constant grumbling and agreed with them that a message from him — the team's highest-paid player — would get management's attention.
Several sources say Gonzalez had nothing to do with the message's content ... "The text message was not his idea or his opinion . . . or his words," one said. Those were from the small group of players that included Shoppach.
Asked about the authoring of the text message following Saturday's game at Yankee Stadium, Gonzalez said, "I know why you're asking, but we're not going to talk about that anymore."
On Saturday at Nationals Park, Shoppach denied any involvement in sending the text message, insisting, "I don't know what you're talking about." But on Tuesday when the Yahoo! report was published, Shoppach was asked about it and said of the Red Sox organization, "Let me be very careful. I think, and maybe this is as far as I'll go with it, too, there is a disconnect in communication between the players through the upper management."
G121: Red Sox 4, Yankees 1
Yankees - 000 100 000 - 1  7  1
Adrian Gonzalez gave Jon Lester (7-5-1-2-4, 105) all the runs he needed to work with when he belted a two-run homer in the first inning.
Lester retired the Yankees in order in only one of his seven innings. Two Yankees reached base in the first inning, but New York managed only one baserunner in each of the other five frames against Lester. Curtis Granderson hit a solo home run in the fourth.
Carl Crawford singled in the first and stole second before Gonzalez went deep. In the fifth, Pedro Ciriaco (4-for-4 in yet another outstanding game against the Yankees) singled and scored on Nick Punto's double. Scott Podsednik singled to lead off the ninth, went to third on Ciriaco's double, and scored on a wild pitch.
In seven games against New York this season, Ciriaco is batting .517 (15-for-29).
Jon Lester / David Phelps
Ross, DH
Felix Doubront has been placed on the 15-day disabled list, with Mauro Gomez being called up.
Boston is 6.5 GB in the wild card standings.
The Yankees hit five home runs - all solo shots - and dropped the Red Sox to 58-62, 13.5 GB in the East. Franklin Morales (5.1-6-5-1-3, 92) allowed four of the dongs.
Nick Swisher homered in the first and seventh innings, Curtis Granderson and Russell Martin went back-to-back in the second, and Derek Jeter went deep in the fifth.
Boston scored four unearned runs in the third. Mike Aviles singled and took third when Phil Hughes (7-4-4-1-4, 106) committed a throwing error on Scott Podsednik's grounder. Pedro Ciriaco's fielder's choice scored Aviles and, after Jacoby Ellsbury walked and Carl Crawford popped out, Dustin Pedroia celebrated his 29th birthday by hitting a three-run bomb to left.
However, the Red Sox would get only three runners on base over the next six innings: Aviles's two-out single in the fourth, Ellsbury's one-out single in the fifth, and Crawford's one-out double in the eighth. Boston failed to advance any of those three runners even one base. (After Crawford's double, Pedroia hit a shot to deep left center, but Granderson tracked it down one step from the wall.)
The Yankees snapped a 4-4 tie in the sixth. Casey McGehee and Granderson singled off Morales, ending his night. Jayson Nix's single off Clayton Mortensen scored McGehee.
Franklin Morales / Phil Hughes
Here's How Sox Would Tell Their Story
By Gordon Edes
ESPNBoston.com
The Boston Red Sox's ownership, manager, players and fans have all complained about the negative impact media coverage has had on the team. We at ESPN Boston are opting -- for one night, at least -- to tweak our regular coverage in advance of this weekend's series against the New York Yankees, so we used our imagination to take a positive outlook on the team's current plight. We are confident that your hometown heroes will respond to our exhortations and vanquish the Mighty Bombers. Fight hard, lads!
NEW YORK -- A weary but gallant group of Red Sox players, led by their plucky skipper Bobby Valentine, gathered in Baltimore's Penn Station late Thursday night to board the iron horse that will carry them to the Big Apple and a rematch with the Mighty Bombers of Gotham.
The Sox played their hearts out the past three nights against the Orioles, but Fate and Lady Luck dealt them a tough hand. Despite their best efforts -- which included a five-inning no-hitter (!!!) by Aaron Cook -- the Sox were able to claim just one hard-earned victory, steady Clay Buchholz spinning a beauty Thursday night in Camden Yards. Once again, the game's greatest fans were represented in large numbers, having made the arduous journey down the Jersey Turnpike to show their support for A-Gon, Pedey, Our Josh and all the Boys. ...
Buchholz's "Immaculate Inning"
Clay Buchholz pitched a no-hitter against the Orioles on September 1, 2007, but on Thursday night in Baltimore, he did something far rarer.
He struck out the side on nine pitches.
It was only the 47th recorded instance of what is known as an "immaculate inning" - striking out three batters on three pitches each. By contrast, on Wednesday, Seattle's Felix Hernandez threw major league baseball's 278th no-hitter.
Sixth inning:
Adam Jones    curveball  77   called - strike 1
curveball  77   swinging - strike 2
cutter     90   called - strike 3
Matt Weiters  fastball   91   foul - strike 1
cutter     89   swinging - strike 2
fastball   93   called - strike 3
Chris Davis   fastball   92   foul - strike 1
cutter     91   foul - strike 2
splitter   86   swinging - strike 3
The only other Red Sox pitcher known to have struck out the side on nine pitches was Pedro Martinez, who did it a little over ten years ago (May 18, 2002).
G119: Red Sox 6, Orioles 3
Orioles - 210 000 000 - 3  8  0
Dustin Pedroia, Adrian Gonzalez, and Cody Ross drove in runs on three consecutive pitches in the sixth inning as Boston snapped a 3-3 tie. And Clay Buchholz (8-8-3-3-7, 107) rebounded from a rough first two innings to give the Red Sox yet another quality start.
Although seven of the first 11 Oriole hitters reached base against Buchholz - including a two-run double by Adam Jones and a solo home run by Mark Reynolds - only five of the next 21 batters did. Buchholz allowed only two hits over his final six innings pitched - and he struck out the side on nine pitches in the sixth!
With one out in the fifth, Carl Crawford singled and Pedroia doubled. Crawford scored on a wild pitch and Pedroia scored on Gonzalez's game-tying sac fly. In the sixth, Scott Podsednik doubled and Jacoby Ellsbury walked. After Crawford forced Ellsbury at second, Pedroia, Gonzalez and Ross got their run-scoring hits.
Ellsbury went 0-for-4, ending his hitting streak against Baltimore.
Clay Buchholz / Chris Tillman
Ellsbury, DH
Podsednik, CF
Two things worth watching tonight:
Jacoby Ellsbury: Last night, he extended his hitting streak against the Orioles to 38 games (71-for-171, .415). The only longer streak since 1900, according to Elias, is Vladimir Guerrero's 44-game streak against the Rangers.
Buchholz: In his last five starts, he has a 1.15 ERA. Earned runs allowed in those starts: 1, 1, 2, 0, 1.
Gonzalez: "The Source Is Inaccurate"
UPDATE: Extensive Larry Lucchino quotes (in comments). He stated Valentine will absolutely not be fired this season. As far as the Red Sox making the playoffs, he wanted to be "realistic" about the next 44 games: "If that happens we'll be talking about a comeback for the ages."
WEEI's Rob Bradford talked to Adrian Gonzalez about Jeff Passan's report of the players/ownership meeting on July 26. Gonzalez says the portrayal of him as a vocal ringleader is false.
The source is inaccurate. It says that I was animated and one of the most vocal guys in the meeting, and that's false. ... Absolutely [I was surprised at the report], because, first of all, if somebody is going to try and be an unnamed source they better be right with whatever they say. This is putting our integrity and everything about us out there, and that's just unfair. ... I just know I was one of the least vocal guys there.
Gonzalez mentions a single source; Passan said he had three sources for the story. GM Ben Cherington, who is quoted in the original Yahoo! article, may have been one of them.
Just like every story around here, there are parts that are true, and parts that are false. I think it's wrong for the fans to get half of a story, half of the truth. Our focus has been to just go out and play ball and just worry about baseball. Things like this come up that we have to respond to, but at the end of the day it's about playing ball. ... Ballplayers get frustrated when things aren't 100 percent accurate, because then it's just making people perceive things that aren't true.
John Henry stated that it was he who called the meeting, not a group of players, during the Yankees series.
[N]o one in that meeting at any time took the position that Bobby should be or needed to be replaced. ... Players felt responsible for the record. They weren't blaming injuries or anyone but themselves. At the same time they openly spoke about what could improve in addition to their play.
Bobby Valentine was on The Big Show yesterday and described himself as being "four months into a very trying situation".
[T]here is a lot of emotion flying around here these days. One of the things I was discussing with one of the players was that all of this noise is one of the reasons players don't want to sign here, because they don't have to deal with this in other markets. They don't worry about the drama of the day. They can just go out and play baseball.
The whole "players don't want to play in Boston" is not supported by the facts. John Lackey and Carl Crawford both signed deals as free agents to play in Boston, and Gonzalez agreed to a long-term deal to stay with the Red Sox.
Re the recently-surfaced clip of Jon Lester throwing sunflower seeds in first base coach Alex Ochoa's face during an April game against the White Sox, Ochoa says it was nothing but a joke.
New King/O'Nan Baseball Collaboration: "A Face In The Crowd"
Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan, who collaborated on Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season, are releasing a new baseball-themed story, A Face In The Crowd, on August 21.
The story is available as an ebook and audio download.
Dean Evers, an elderly widower, sits in front of the television with nothing better to do than waste his leftover evenings watching baseball. It's Rays/Mariners, and David Price is breezing through the line-up. Suddenly, in a seat a few rows up beyond the batter, Evers sees the face of someone from decades past, someone who shouldn't be at the ballgame, shouldn't be on the planet. And so begins a parade of people from Evers's past, all of them occupying that seat behind home plate. Until one day Dean Evers sees someone even eerier...
An audiobook sample can be downloaded here.
G118: Orioles 5, Red Sox 3
Orioles - 000 005 00x - 5  6  1
I did not see tonight's game. Here is mlb.com's game story.
Aaron Cook / Miguel Gonzalez
Jacoby Ellsbury has a 37-game hitting streak against the Orioles. Since April 2009, he has hit .416 (69-for-166) against Baltimore. ESPN says it's the longest streak ever by a Boston player against any opponent.
Nuggetpalooza's Gary Marbry looks at Red Sox and squandered scoring opportunities. Marbry defines a "squander" as "an inning in which a team puts a runner in scoring position with no outs but fails to score".
Passan On Dysfunctional Red Sox: "This Is The Tip Of The Iceberg"
Adrian Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia, named as two of the "ring leaders" of a heated anti-Bobby Valentine meeting with ownership on July 26, did not deny that the substance of Jeff Passan's Yahoo! article yesterday was correct.
Gonzalez:
[The owners] had a meeting with the players, they had a meeting with the coaches and they had a meeting with Bobby, and it was to assess where we were as a team and as an organization and why we were where we were and what our thoughts were, basically.
Pedroia:
We had a meeting -- I'll be honest with everybody -- we had a meeting in New York and the coaches had a meeting, Bobby had a meeting, we all had a meeting, and when I spoke I said we all need to get better -- that includes owners, Bobby, coaches, and especially the players. ...
I'll go out there and play for [Valentine] any day of the week. I'm playing for all my teammates and it's unfortunate that all this stuff comes out. ... It's tough when all this stuff comes out that everyone's trying to get the manager fired. It's not the case, man. I don't know, I've never met the guy who wrote the story. ... I'm not going to blame anything on Bobby. I don't think anybody else is. It's on the players.
The Globe's Nick Cafardo had tweeted last night that Pedroia was angry at how he was presented in the article and denied "ripping" Valentine, but there were no Pedroia quotes to that effect in Cafardo's report. Pedroia did was express regret that the story had come out.
As far as Pedroia saying he had never met Passan, the writer spoke on ESPN radio this morning:
If that's the best thing that you can come up with, "I don't know the guy," as opposed to "What he's writing and saying is incorrect," then obviously there's some merit to the report. Trust me, I sat on this thing for a couple of weeks when I heard it from a very good, very plugged in source the first time, because I wanted to get confirmation. Obviously their ship is not as tight as they think it is because I was able to get a couple more people on top of that to talk about this.
It's a bad situation. Dustin Pedroia can characterize it however he wants. The fact is he was one of the ring leaders in that meeting. Adrian Gonzalez was front and center as well after sending that text message. ...
[T]his is a dysfunctional team. I feel like this is the tip of the iceberg to be honest, that there's a lot more that's going to come out about this as the team devolves toward September. ...
(Lots more Passan quotes here.)
Passan said he had sat on the story for a couple of weeks, hoping for further confirmation. Back on July 31 - five days after the meeting - Joel Sherman of the Post also mentioned Red Sox "players lobbying ownership for a change" of manager.
[O]fficials who have spoken to their Boston counterparts say the Red Sox believe the best help to their short- and long-term well-being is to begin remedying the faulty culture that has derailed the franchise since last September. Outside officials say the clubhouse dislike for Bobby Valentine is so intense, players lobbying ownership for a change is not an overstatement.
However, many of the clubhouse/organizational problems pre-date Valentine and the manager is not likely to be fired anytime soon. ... Beckett is available because, one NL executive said, Boston's front office feels the righty is a malcontent who has had a negative clubhouse impact ...
Since the players' meeting with ownership, the team has gone 8-10.
Gonzalez, Pedroia Lead Players' Revolt Against Valentine
Jeff Passan, Yahoo!:
Boston Red Sox players blasted manager Bobby Valentine to owners John Henry and Larry Lucchino during a heated meeting called after a text message was sent by a group of frustrated players to the team and ownership in late July, three sources familiar with the meeting told Yahoo! Sports.
The owners called the meeting for Boston's off-day in New York on July 26 after first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, texting on behalf of himself and some teammates, aired their dissatisfaction with Valentine for embarrassing starting pitcher Jon Lester by leaving him in to allow 11 runs during a July 22 start. It was the latest incident in a season's worth of bad relations bubbling between Red Sox players and Valentine.
Gonzalez and Dustin Pedroia were among the most vocal in the meeting, in which some players stated flatly they no longer wanted to play for Valentine, the sources said. The tenor of the 2 p.m. meeting at The Palace hotel in New York turned ugly almost immediately, according to the sources, whom Yahoo! Sports granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about internal matters.
Not all of the Red Sox players attended the meeting, the sources said, highlighting the chasm that exists not only between some players and Valentine but among players in the clubhouse. ...
[The players' discontent is] personified best perhaps by a picture circulating around via text message, according to a fourth source.
Pedroia, notorious among teammates for his wit and humor, is in the foreground with a giddy smile, his tongue wagging and both thumbs up. Next to him is allegedly Valentine, face down on a table, apparently asleep. A caption accompanies the picture: "Our manager contemplating his lineup at 3:30 p.m."
General manager Ben Cherington confirmed that a meeting did take place.
What a godawful mess this season has become. ... And there is still seven weeks to go!
A single ball-strike call in the sixth inning cannot decide a game - there are too many variables after the fact - but a missed call on a checked swing helped the Orioles put up a five-spot on Tuesday night.
Baltimore led 2-1 and had runners at first and second with one out. Matt Weiters tried to check his swing on a 2-2 pitch from Beckett (5.1-6-6-2-2, 86). Home plate umpire Paul Schrieber said Weiters did not swing, but replays showed conclusively that he did. If Schrieber had not blown that call and Beckett had then retired Chris Davis, the score would have remained 2-1. However, after the swing was called ball 3, Weiters's infield single scored one run, Davis's single to center scored another and then Mark Melancon allowed a first-pitch, three-run homer to Mark Reynolds (his second dong of the night). 7-1, Orioles.
A correct call may not have mattered much anyway (and maybe the Orioles would have won that alternate-universe game 33-1), as the Red Sox could not hit with runners on second or third base. Boston collected 11 hits - including three doubles and a triple - but left 12 men on base, stranding runners in every inning but the ninth: 112 112 310.
It was only the fourth Red Sox game since 1993 in which Boston got as many as 11 hits and scored only one run.
Cody Ross scored the lone run when he doubled in the fourth, took third on a groundout, and scored on Carl Crawford's single. Crawford, Ross, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Dustin Pedroia each had two hits; Pedroia doubled and tripled.
Adrian Gonzalez - who began the game with a major league-leading .420 batting average with runners at second and/or third - made the third out in four innings (1st, 3rd, 5th, 9th) and stranded four runners.
Josh Beckett / Wei-Yin Chen
Ciriaco, DH
Valencia, 3B
The Red Sox plan to active Andrew Bailey tonight. The man who was supposed to have been Boston's closer suffered a thumb injury in spring training and has not worked in a major league game this year. In six rehab appearances, Bailey pitched 6.1 innings and allowed one run, six hits, and one walk, while striking out 10.
Bailey:
Everything feels normal now. It's all behind me. ... [I]t's strong, just like it was before. It feels good. ... I don't really care [what my role is]. I just want to pitch ... finish the year and get to the playoffs.
Beckett's last two starts have not been good. He allowed eight runs in five innings against the Rangers last Wednesday - it was his ninth start allowing at least eight earned runs since 2006 - and he left his July 31 start in the third inning with back spasms. Beckett's problems on the hill may be tied to his fastball velocity, which has declined in each of the last four seasons.
Will Middlebrooks will not need surgery to fix his broken right wrist. Says Bobby Valentine: "It shouldn't be any problem. But then again, who knows."
Adrian Gonzalez is batting .392 since the All-Star break (42-for-107) and .422 (19-for-45) in August. He was recently named the AL co-Player of the Week with Orioles rookie shortstop Manny Machado. ... Dustin Pedroia is hitting .378 (17-for-45) this month.
Tim Britton of the Journal says the team's post-season hopes are dimming - they are 11.5 GB in the East and 5.5 GB in the WC - but not out of the question. Cool Standings has the Red Sox's playoff chances at 12% (up from 9.3% five days ago). Ian Browne also advises fans to keep the faith.
Shoppach Traded To Mets
The Red Sox traded catcher Kelly Shoppach to the Mets for a player to be named later.
Johnny Pesky: 1919-2012
Updated with more links
Boston Globe:
Johnny Pesky, who during a six-decade-long association with the Red Sox as player, manager, broadcaster, coach, and executive became one of the most popular figures in the team's history, died Monday.
Boston Herald (Steve Buckley)
Statement from the Red Sox
WEEI (Alex Speier)
WEEI (Kirk Minihane)
Red Sox players (past and present)
More Red Sox players' comments
Red Sox ownership group
ESPN Photos
The Many Problems With NESN
It has become a chore to listen to and watch NESN's amateurish Red Sox broadcasts.
Fans routinely misses pitches because NESN tries to cram an excessive number of commercials between innings, airs excessive replays, and lingers on irrelevant dugout shots. NESN gives us worthless "tours" of concrete hallways in other stadiums and asinine non-baseball segments. Worse than that, the network often fails to show the action on the field.
Announcers Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy have become sad parodies of themselves. While Orsillo still calls a decent play-by-play, he also swamps viewers with waves of useless information between pitches and batters. Remy, ostensibly an analyst, offers no analysis whatsoever.
I have been watching NESN since 2003 (via MLB's Extra Innings package). At that time, living in Manhattan, it was a thrill to have the Red Sox on every night. But NESN was far from perfect. It routinely aired too many commercials (or promos for their own shows) during breaks in the game. Inevitably, it would miss the first one or two pitches of a half-inning several times every night. That meant that NESN missed an entire at-bat if the first pitch was put into play. Several times, NESN came back from commercial with a batter jogging back to the dugout after making an out; one night, we rejoined the game as a batter was rounding second after homering on the first pitch. Also, Remy was constantly promoting his website and its various giveaways and sale of autographed scorecards. A Red Sox game often felt like a three-hour Remdawg infomercial. At some point, though, that suddenly stopped. The problem of missed pitches also vanished, though NESN continued to cut it very close, often coming back to the game as the pitcher was going into his windup.
NESN's problems have gotten worse over the last two years. Viewers are misses pitches again - and they are missing them in the middle of innings. In what I can only assume is a ploy to get more casual fans to tune in, NESN introduced a bunch of segments this season, including Small Talk, Ask Jerry, MLB News and Notes, and the clubhouse and booth tours.
Small Talk consisted of little kids asking Red Sox players questions, fans were invited to ask Remy questions via Twitter, and the network began showing us behind-the-scenes footage of the clubhouses of stadiums and broadcasting booths around the American League. News and Notes consists of three items of interest that most baseball fans probably knew about as many as 24 hours earlier. NESN routinely misses pitches and whole at-bats during these segments (at times, viewers have heard the crack of the bat and the crowd cheering). NESN would, of course, cut back to the game and show a replay of what they had failed to show live, so, in the producers' minds, we really didn't miss anything at all.
NESN needs to be able to show a complete baseball game in a competent manner before even considering adding any bells and whistles to the broadcast. And in nearly a decade of watching Red Sox games, I have found NESN wholly unable to master the simple task of showing a baseball game.
Some problems:
Runners Scoring. Every time a run is scored, by either team, NESN shows the player crossing the plate. Why is this necessary? Orsillo has told us the run has scored. That should be enough. Also, showing the runner as he steps on the plate means that we do not see the throw come in from the outfield and often miss a close play at second or third base.
Throws to First. NESN's producers do not switch cameras fast enough for viewers to see a pitcher's throws to first (and second). Even when Clay Buchholz, who throws to first compulsively, is on the mound, NESN seems surprised at every throw to first. Fans have missed seeing runners get picked off because of this slowness.
Replays. Almost every replay of a home run begins with a tight shot on the baseball as it leaves the pitcher's hand. At that moment, we cannot see the batter or where the catcher has set up. Once the ball is in flight, NESN often zooms in so close on the ball, we can practically see the red seams rotating. It gives us no context whatsoever of where the ball is in relation to the field. It's a tease of a replay, and NESN would be better served to not show a replay at all. Does the network show these angles so as not to confuse fans with live action? No, because they also show replays with the usual center field cameras - the cameras they use during the game.
Score Bug. Several weeks ago, NESN changed the location of its score bug, the box that shows the score, count, number of outs, pitch count, speed of the pitch, etc., from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. According to one report, the network claimed that the top left position of the bug cut off batters' heads when they were at the plate. While I do not recall that ever being an issue, I do know that the bug's new position has caused problems because NESN's camera operators have not adjusted their shots to compensate for the bug's new position. For example, here we "see" Jacoby Ellsbury tracking Alex Rios's first-inning fly ball on July 18:
An obvious solution would be to run the bug as one long line across either the top or bottom of the screen. (The fantastic Flip Flop Fly Ball has a great post about score bugs.)
Don Orsillo. He has always had a problem with not knowing when to keep quiet. His years-long habit of regurgitating various factoids verbatim from the daily press notes is evidence of his fear of silence. Since he is paid to announce, he must be announcing - all the time. But periods of quiet are not the enemy. The game needs to breathe. A good announcer knows that silence can be used to create tension. It is not an evil to be banished from the booth.
Orsillo is unable to incorporate these bits of information into a normal conversation with Jerry Remy or another analyst. They are never presented organically, but simply proclaimed. While he must think they are useful to viewers, they usually have scant relevance to what is going on in the game at that moment. All they really do is give Orsillo something to say between pitches. If Orsillo cut out 95% of these press notes - e.g., X is 4th among all major leaguers in doubles since the 2008 All-Star Break - fans would lose nothing and the broadcast would be improved. Amazingly, Orsillo often has no idea what he is reading. During a game against Baltimore earlier this season, he mentioned that an Oriole (Adam Jones, I believe) had signed a contract extension. Orsillo said this contract would last through 2014 and he specifically emphasized that it had several vesting options. When Remy asked what "vesting options" were, Orsillo said: "I don't know." He also has no sense of timing when it comes to these factoids. Giving a non-descript middle reliever's minor league history during a Red Sox rally in the bottom of the ninth is inappropriate.
When one team has been at-bat for a long time, Orsillo likes to note how long that team's pitcher has been waiting in the dugout. "It's been an #-minute wait for X." I've never heard another announcer do this. Has it been shown that a long wait (however one defines "long") leads to general ineffectiveness? Is there any corrolation between time spent waiting in the dugout between innings and performance? I have no idea and neither does Orsillo. But he keeps track, and so he tells us.
Like many announcers, Orsillo uses the same phrases over and over and over again. I created a Bingo Card last year with some of his well-worn catchphrases. This season, "out of the gate" was used many times every night for several months. A team doesn't have a lead, it usually has an "advantage". And if the day's weather was nice, you are sure to hear that there is "nothing but blue skies above" as the game begins. This sameness gives the impression of an announcer mailing it in, someone going through the motions of his job. Baseball is unique, and the announcing of a game should not feel like it comes straight out of a can.
Orsillo also often speaks in circular sentences, in which he repeats the beginning of the sentence at the end of the same sentence, on the assumption, I suppose, that the listener might have forgotten what he said less than five seconds earlier. It simply adds more noise to the broadcast. A perfect example of this, from July 3: "Oakland's pitchers are doing very well for the Athletics."
Some of this may not be Orsillo's fault. I believe (based on no solid information) that Orsillo is forbidden to discuss certain things with Jerry Remy. When Remy was out undergoing treatment for cancer, Orsillo worked with more than two dozen different analysts. He did a remarkably good job, adjusting his own duties to fit the style of whoever he was sharing the booth with. He was much more conversational, asking questions, seemingly more involved in the game and more knowledgable about baseball in general. There were also nights when Orsillo worked the game (or at least several innings) by himself. This was a revelation. Orsillo was superb. He dropped the pointless press notes, and he was offering decent analysis. Everything I assumed he was incapable of doing (based on his style with Remy) he was doing - and doing quite well. But when Remy returned, Orsillo went back to his annoying habits again.
Jerry Remy. When it comes to analysis of the game, Remy offers absolutely nothing to the NESN broadcast. That has not always been true; in seasons past, his insights have added to my understanding of the game, but those days are long past.
This year, his contributions have been little more than repeating Orsillo's play-by-play in slightly different words, or simply describing what we see on the replay. He does almost nothing else. His job has evolved into being the play-by-play guy for the replays. Some examples (and, honestly, I could have picked just about any at-bat in any game. These seemed especially bad. Remember that the replay is being shown on screen as Remy is talking.):
July 30, Miguel Cabrera, 1st inning:
Orsillo: 1-0 is back to Buchholz, who looks the runner back to second and throws to first, able to make the pick on a hot shot right back at him.
Remy: Very nice play for Clay Buchholz. That ball was down low to the ground and he was able to make the play, check the runner at second base, hold him, and then go to first base to get the out. So they get the out, they do not advance the runner from second base.
August 1, Miguel Cabrera, 1st inning:
Orsillo: 3-2 is on the ground and by the lunging Middlebrooks at third base. Crawford will throw it back in. It's a two-out single for Miguel Cabrera.
Remy: Well, Cook does get the ground ball, but the ground ball gets by Middlebrooks, and the base hit for Cabrera. ... A two-hop ground ball that gets by Middlebrooks at third base.
August 2, Denard Span, 3rd inning:
Orsillo: This is a fair ball, and a base hit down the right field line. Around from second comes Dozier, he will score. The throw goes to second and it is late. An RBI double for Denard Span and the Minnesota Twins jump on top, 1-0.
Remy: Span gets a fastball inside and hooks it right down that first base line. Hitting streak now at 11 games. There's the fastball, down and in. Everything had been away previous to this pitch, and Denard Span was ready for it. Bounces off the wall to Cody Ross, the two-base hit for Span, and the two-out RBI for Span.
Orsillo: Up to an 11-game hitting streak now for Span.
August 2, Ryan Doumit, 4th inning:
Orsillo: Sounds like a broken bat grounder to short. Ciriaco to second for one, on to first - and a nice stretch, nice dig out there by Gonzalez. Double play turned by the Red Sox. Two outs now in the top of the fourth. Nicely done, Adrian again at first base.
Remy: Yeah, very quick over to shortstop, on the feed to Pedroia, and then Pedroia quick on the turn at second base, to complete the double play. Of course, Gonzalez putting the finishing touches on it, with the stretch.
August 3, Kelly Shoppach, 8th inning:
Orsillo: Shoppach lines it into left field. Crawford will touch second and head for third - no, he's going to throw the brakes on and try to get back, and he will. The throw went to third and Darin Mastroianni got to that ball quickly, and got it back in in a hurry.
Remy: He sure did. And it looked like Crawford was headed to third base but because Mastroianni covered that ground so quickly out in left field, he had to hold up at second base. See how much ground he covers going there, to his right, and the throw right on the money at third base. Kelly Shoppach picks up his second hit of the night.
August 9, Michael Brantley, 1st inning:
Orsillo: And this is sliced down the third base line into left. From first to third goes Santana. The throw will go in that direction as up to second base goes Brantley. And all of a sudden, it is second and third now, with two outs in the first inning.
Remy: Right down the third base line for the double for Brantley. He's on an eight-game hitting streak. He gets the fastball from Doubront right there, the inside-out swing, right down the third base line, and by the time Crawford gets to it, two men in scoring position with two outs.
August 9, Lou Marson, 5th inning:
Orsillo: Lined into right field, a base hit for Marson. Over to play it is Ross. Just up over the outstretched glove of Ciriaco at second base. Lou Marson's got a one-out single and it breaks up a string of nine in a row retired by Doubront.
Remy: And Doubront was on a very, very nice [roll?] there, pitches very crisp, but Lou Marson this time takes the fastball that's down and in, and the inside-out swing to the opposite field for the line drive base hit. Ciriaco jumps, he can't make the play. Cody Ross on one knee out there in right field to make sure it doesn't get by him.
August 9, Jacoby Ellsbury, 9th inning (3rd pitch):
Orsillo: Swing and a miss. High fastball at 95, and it's 1-2.
Remy: A rising fastball that time from Perez, at 95 miles an hour.
Remy also practically yells his commentary for the first three innings or so every night before calming down and talking like a normal person. He is especially loud when announcing each team's fielders.
Orsillo and Remy almost never talk about what is going on with other teams - not like two fans at the game would talk. I assume they simply do not keep up with other teams unless the Red Sox are playing them that day. They also seem adverse to discussing what is going on with the Red Sox, which I have for years found remarkable. With the baseball cable package, many people from outside the Boston area tune in to NESN and they do not always read the Boston papers online. Having the team's announcers discuss the state of the club would seem to be an essential part of their jobs.
Orsillo and Remy often sound like two people each calling his own game from his own private booth. They often repeat the same information the other one has just said, as if they were not paying attention at all. When it comes to baseball, there is no real interaction or conversation between the two.
They do have their shtick, however, which seems forced, almost scripted, at times. And because of all the other non-baseball additions to the broadcasts, their inane banter now grates on my nerves rather than offering any possible amusement. Do mittens have fingers? Are bats considered birds? Don wearing eye black in the booth. Inning-long interviews with the weatherman from a new NESN business partner. Jokes about Don's appetite. Jokes about Remy's misanthropy. Don's dance moves. Remy edging dangerously into "Circle Me, Bert" territory by sending free hot dogs (not bought with his own money, you can be sure!) to various Red Sox fans in the stands. During yesterday's game, after the Red Sox had scored eight runs in the fifth inning, what was "coming up"?
Both Orsillo and Remy seem sometimes seem blind to the play on the field. They are not as bad as Yankees announcer John Sterling, who occasionally invents incidents on the field, but both Orsillo and Remy often have trouble seeing and describing what is going on in front of them. In the past weeks, Orsillo has said a ball was caught on the warning track when it was caught 20-25 feet in front of the track, a ball that hit (at most) halfway up the Wall was described as "high off the Wall". Recently, Detroit's Prince Fielder was struck near the right ear by a pickoff attempt at second base. The ball hit his helmet, knocking it off, and Fielder's hands went to the side of his head. This was visible (and audible) as it happened. During the replay, Orsillo and Remy both wondered if the ball hit Fielder in the back or in the ribs. It wasn't until the Tigers trainer had come onto the field, and was examining Fielder's ear that they realized what most casual observers already knew.
And then there are the little annoyances. NESN is relying on fielding percentage a lot this season and Orsillo and Remy seem very serious when they mention it. Many smart baseball minds realized how worthless fielding percentage was more than 120 years ago. And there are the verbal tics "and just like that" or "very quickly". One example: "and the count is very quickly 0-2". (Note: An 0-2 count happens in the same number of pitches every time: two. It arrives neither quickly nor slowly.)
NESN executives know that hardcore Red Sox fans will tune in no matter what - even if they watch in silence as I have done many times this season. But to keep ratings as high as possible, NESN needs to attract marginal fans or curious viewers, and those executives believe that the game is not enough. Non-baseball distractions are needed. With the Red Sox doing so poorly, the annoying sideshow is likely to expand and become an even greater part of the broadcasts. And I expect Orsillo and Remy will keep coasting in their jobs. And I'll likely be watching NESN on mute.
Labels: nesn
G116: Red Sox 14, Cleveland 1
Red Sox   - 320 180 000 - 14 16  0
Cleveland - 100 000 000 -  1  5  1
Jon Lester (6-3-1-2-12, 101) struck out a season-high 12 batters and Boston sent 13 men to the plate in a fun-filled fifth inning. Every player in the starting lineup either scored or drove in a run.
Lester last struck out as many as 12 batters on September 13, 2010, when he fanned 12 Mariners. He allowed singles to the first two Cleveland batters in the first inning - one of them scored on a sac fly - but was superb after that. He struck out the side in the third and fifth innings, and punched out 10 of his last 14 batters.
For the offense, Carl Crawford doubled three times, scored twice, and drove in three runs, before being pulled after the eight-run explosion because his wrist was bothering him a little bit.
Adrian Gonzalez hit his 13th home run in the first inning, and drove in four runs. Mike Aviles reached base five times and scored three runs. Dustin Pedroia also scored three times.
Danny Valencia made his Red Sox debut, going 0-for-4 with a sacrifice fly.
Jon Lester / Corey Kluber
Shoppach, C
David Ortiz (strained right Achilles tendon) had hoped to return to the lineup today, but that will likely not happen.
I'm only so-so. ... Still pretty sore.
Ortiz has been on the DL since July 17. He still leads the American League in OBP (.414), slugging (.609), and OPS (1.024).
Yankees Set To Sign 2004 Hero Derek Lowe
The Yankees are in the process of finalizing a deal for Derek Lowe, who was designated for assignment by Cleveland. He could be activated on Monday.
The Red Sox visit Yankee Stadium III next Friday and weekend.
Although New York placed CC Sabathia (left elbow inflammation) on the disabled list for the second time this season, Lowe is expected to work out of the bullpen.
In one of the finest outings of his 16-year career, Lowe put up a 6-1-1-1-3, 69 line on only two days rest against the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS.
G115: Cleveland 5, Red Sox 2
Red Sox   - 000 200 000 - 2  4  0
Cleveland - 001 011 11x - 5  6  0
Zach McAllister (8-3-2-0-4, 100) shut down the Red Sox. Over the final five innings, Boston batted with a runner on base only once.
Adrian Gonzalez's two-run double scored Jacoby Ellsbury (2-for-4, two doubles) and Carl Crawford and gave the Red Sox a 2-1 lead. It was short-lived.
Brent Lillibridge (3-for-4) homered in the third and stroked a game-tying RBI-single in the fifth. Franklin Morales (5.1-2-3-4-6, 108) struggled in that inning and, at 89 pitches, was sent out to pitch the sixth. He got the first out, thanks to a remarkable diving play by Dustin Pedroia, but then walked Asdrubal Cabrera, plunked Sing-Soo Choo and ended up intentionally walking Carlos Santana.
Andrew Miller allowed a sac fly that gave Cleveland a 3-2 lead. A squeeze bunt from Lou Marson scored Lillibridge (who had doubled) in the seventh. In the eighth, Santana doubled off Craig Breslow and scored on Ezequiel Carrera's single.
Boston was retired in order in the first, second, third, fifth, seventh, and eighth innings. In the sixth, Ellsbury led off with a double but was gunned down trying for a triple. Pedroia singled with two outs in the ninth.
The Red Sox dropped to 56-59; they are 12 GB the Yankees in the East and currently 6 GB in the wild card race.
Franklin Morales / Zach McAllister
Globe: Middlebrooks Has Broken Wrist
Will Middlebrooks suffered a broken wrist when he was hit by a pitch in the ninth inning of last night's game. He could miss the rest of the season.
He got hit pretty good in a bad place. I was hoping it was going to be a little more down on the meat. It's right on the bone.
He is the 25th Boston player to go on the disabled list this year, the most in any Red Sox season in more than 40 years (1971).
Danny Valencia has been called up to take his place on the roster.
Yet Another Buddha The Service Dog Update
It's been two months since my last Buddha update, so ... I am happy to report that Buddha, the dog adopted by Iraq War resister Jeremy Brockway and his wife, Ashlea Brockway, is now an officially certified PTSD Service Dog! And the ChipIn campaign has raised slightly more than $6,000 towards its goal of $8,000. Thanks to the JoS readers who helped make this possible.
Jeremy writes:
Buddha is now a certified service dog! I will share with you some stories from Buddha's certification.
The certification test is comprised of several small tests. The first part of the test was how well I could load Buddha into and out of our car. We passed that easily, since we have practiced that one quite a few times - basically every time we go somewhere.
Next we went to a store to do some distraction tests. Buddha and I walked around and Beth, the trainer, walked some distance behind us to observe our behavior and give the tests.
We did a sudden turn, a complete 360, various sit, heel, and down commands, and walked past several people. Buddha was perfect on those.
Next, Beth introduced some distractions by rolling a ball past Buddha as we were walking, and rolling a ball directly into his paws when he was sitting. He ignored it both times, remaining calm and alert to my commands, and staying pressed against my leg at all times.
The last test at the store was two parts. First, I gave Buddha the command "stay" and walked out of his line of sight. He stayed until I gave him the command "come."
For the second part, he had to do the same thing but with a stranger holding his leash. Beth asked a kindly store clerk to help with this part. Buddha was a bit shy of the store clerk, but he sat obediently and passed.
For the last part, we went to a Tim Horton's so Beth could observe us with all the distractions of a restaurant. Buddha ignored all the noises and smells, and obediently sat under my chair exactly like he is supposed to. Beth then put a piece of cheese right next to Buddha, which he ignored. As we were getting up to leave, Beth put the cheese right in Buddha's path, and he continued to ignore it and stepped over it.
Then we were done, and fully certified! Beth gave me Buddha's service dog badge, which is like his ID card and goes on his vest, and his license is in the mail. We can go anywhere now. It is such a good feeling.
Buddha is so much more than a dog. He is a life-saver. Thank you so much to everyone who made this possible. The kindness and show of support has been nothing less than amazing.
I had no idea that anybody cared, let alone all of you. It gets me all choked up. I cannot thank you enough for this. I had almost given up, but you have changed me and made it possible for me to begin to reclaim the life that was stolen from me. I am eternally grateful for all you have done. Thank you.
I remain continually amazed at how wonderful dogs are - how much benefit and love and hope they bring to humans just by being themselves.
The Brockways need to raise another $2,000 to help them meet the usual expenses associated with adopting a dog. If you can donate anything, it would be much appreciated. If you would rather send a cheque or money order, email me for the War Resisters Support Campaign's address.
Red Sox Finalize "Franchise-Changing" Deal With Do...
Crawford Will Have TJ Surgery On Thursday; McClure...
NYDN: Shoppach Wrote Message To Ownership, Not Gon...
New King/O'Nan Baseball Collaboration: "A Face In ...
Passan On Dysfunctional Red Sox: "This Is The Tip ...
Gonzalez, Pedroia Lead Players' Revolt Against Val...
G114: Red Sox 3, Cleveland 2
With 50 Games Remaining, Time Is Running Out
G112: Rangers 10, Red Sox 9
G111: Rangers 6, Red Sox 3
Henry, Cherington Back Valentine; Ortiz Receives I...
G110: Red Sox 9, Rangers 2
G109: Red Sox 6, Twins 4
G108: Twins 6, Red Sox 4
Sunday Start: It's Morales, Not Beckett
G107: Twins 6, Red Sox 5 (10)
G105: Tigers 7, Red Sox 5
Schadenfreude 133 (A Continuing Series)


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Discussion in 'MacBook Pro' started by justboy, Apr 22, 2011.
Im just looking for some quick advice before I pick up my new MBP tomorrow.
My main usage will be for recording drum tracks, small album and music production work over the summer and of course college work for next semester.
I have decided to purchase either the baseline 13 or 15 MBP.
Until today I thought I had my head and wallet set on the 13 but would I better going for the 15 for the extra performance and screen estate?
I guess you had a notebook before so how did you like its size.
The 13" has enough power to do quite a lot. Some people prefer the small size.
Some wouldn't want to work on such a small screen or they want more pixels to fit their stuff. It really is preference.
Performance wise, the 13" will be fine.. hell, I'm currently running Logic 8 on my 2006 1.8GHz MacBook and it runs flawlessly. The main upgrade in performance with the 15" is the graphics card - a non-issue when dealing with audio obviously.
Just to give you an example, I recently finished a project recorded a pop/soul choir. My 5 year old MacBook managed to record 10 simultaneous tracks with relatively little strain on the CPU. You won't notice any difference between the new 13" and 15" models.
My advice? Get the 13" and spend the money you saved on a decent audio interface/microphones.
I would go with the 15in it'll give you far better performance than the 13in model and the quad core will definitely help with your music production processes.
personally, i know I'll regret going for the dual-core i5 probably sooner than later...if it was just a matter of screen size, I could easily deal with the 13" screen (especially for that amount of money)...but, from what I understand, there isn't a noticeable difference performance-wise in the dual-core i7s in the high-end 13" edition.
The quad-core is well worth the money and will make the machine feel more future proof. Don't worry at all about the size difference, anyone who acts like the 15 will break your back over the 13 is being overly dramatic. I'd also recommend springing for the hi-res screen, it's extremely worth the added price. Save up and buy yourself 8GB of RAM in a month or so and you'll have yourself a very nice machine.
I have already checked out both sizes and they both appeal to me although the 15 would be less of a strain on eyes and offer more visual display when working in logic or protools.
I've owned both a 13 and 15" 2010 MBP's. In 2011 the CPU upgrades are significant so the 13" will have plenty of power for your needs. So I think your decision should be more about which size fits your needs best, and budget. If you do plenty of moving around then the 13" is a better choice. As a photographer I use an external monitor for serious work but need an external much less with a 15" monitor.
Screen size can really matter so if you are not constantly on the go then I would go with the 15". That's my story, I need portability but mostly stay put and 15" is just a really sweet spot. Upgrading to 8Gb of RAM also really helped with my work.
Like you said I could get the 13 but what happens if 2-3 months down the line my head starts to wander and I say the same thing. Should have went for the quad and I might not be in the position financial to change whereas I am now.
Thanks for the suggestion very insightful. That does make it a bit clearer, When Im back to college for my final year then there will be minimal moving around. Library would be the furtherest travel and this summer im taking a break from travelling so the MBP would be stationed at one spot.
Have many of you opted for the hi-res screen?
Great example Julian that was also very informative.
I actually opted for the 17" but if I'd gone with a 15" then I would without question have gotten the hi-res screen. It is absolutely worth the price.
Go to the store, and try it.
Yeah, performance wise, the new 13" and 15" will be good for many many years to come. I'm considering upgrading to the 13" soon as my laptop struggles in Logic when adding many effects.
Not me. I did want the anti-glare but Apple forces you to buy hi-rez to get that option. I am personally not a fan of the higher rez screens. They hurt my eyes and fixed font things, like web images or youtube videos will be smaller. I prefer bigger.
As a side note, I also keep my dock mounted on the side instead of the bottom of the screen. This lets me open my browsers from top to bottom to get the most viewing area. I began this with my 13" and now do this with my 15" and even when I use the full size of the 26" external when doing image editing.
go with the i7 13" for the power. If you want a bigger screen then you can buy a cheap 22" full hd off amazon.
Honestly, they will both suit your needs. For your situation, I don't see a "right" choice or a "wrong" choice. However, if you can afford it, I think you need to buy the 15". If you get the 13", I feel like down the road you'll regret not getting the "better" machine. Of course, this is assuming you can afford the "better" machine. Nobody should go into debt purchasing a consumer computer. Me for example, I knew I wanted to get a 15" and I thought for a fair amount of time which specific one to get. But being honest with myself, I decided I could only afford the base model. Nothing wrong with that. No regrets. It's a great machine. So basically, to sum this whole thing up, get the 15" if you can afford it. Getting a lower spec machine, while it appears to be the thrifty option, can turn out to be a costly mistake when you sell it 8 months later and buy the one you really wanted to buy the first time round.
Getting a lower spec machine, while it appears to be the thrifty option, can turn out to be a costly mistake when you sell it 8 months later and buy the one you really wanted to buy the first time round.
So true with many things - been there done that, including buying a MB + iMac, then selling MB to get a 13" MBP, and in the end I sold everything to get the 15" + high end external monitor which is what I wanted in the first place.
I also think the best value is always in the base models. The price difference between the base and high end is often more than the price of personally upgrading RAM and hard drive, even to an SSD, which offer much better performance advantages for the dollar.
Get a 13" MBP I love mine!


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Approval of Laws
By: SMAFassociates
A very important stage in the life of states is the approval of new laws, The legal term is "Approval" or enactment of a new act. In Italian the term is translated "Approvazione", in French "Adoption", in Spanish "Aprobación".
According to Dr. Curry, James M. (2018: Congressional Processes and Public Approval of New Laws. SAGE Journals), there is evidence that how US Congress makes a law affects public approval of that law.
Derivatives in Italy
The main tools of DERIVATIVES market in Italy are entering into and executing an ISDA Master Agreement (and the Confirmations under such Master Agreement, the "ISDA agreement") and a GMRA Master agreement (the "GMRA agreement") and to perform its obligations under such agreements.
This note will be over the two species of contractual netting agreement and about:
- The law governing the netting agreements and their transactions (and/or confirmations) and
- The netting arrangements and the law of the jurisdiction.
"A" as Abuse of Right
A legal term per day: A as "Abuse of right". In Italian "abuso del diritto", in French "abus de droit", in Spanish "abuso de derecho".
The term is commonly referred to the exercise of a right in order to harm a third party, disregarding the social duties, only to cause annoyance, harm, or injury to another.
"Greener" Internet
Avant-garde Ideas, News
GREEN INNOVATION ON THE INTERNET
A joint research by Renmin University of China and the Haldex Financial Technology Research Institute established that "green" logistics and retailing and the use of advanced technologies can significantly reduce environmental pollution and reduce resource consumption in China.
Avant-garde Ideas
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A Simple choice: SMAF
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Mizzou marches on at the SEC tournament and defeats Ole Miss | Mizzou sports news
By Dave Matter | March 10, 2022
TAMPA, Fla. — In a sparsely populated hockey arena about 1,100 miles from home, Missouri's 2021-22 basketball season took place on ice Wednesday.
A loss to Mississippi on the opening night of the Southeastern Conference tournament would have sent the Tigers back north after the season was completed but with an uncertain future.
Instead, Mizzou marches on – at least for another day.
The Tigers broke a halftime tie with a 13-2 showdown to open the second half at Tampa's Amalie Arena, holding off the Rebels 72-60, completing a rare three-game win of the season. It was the first time the Tigers had defeated the same team three times in the same year since their last trip to the Big 12 a decade ago.
Kobe Brown powered the Tigers with 16 points, 12 coming in the second half. Ronnie DeGray III added 14 points, all in the first half.
While Cuonzo Martin's bosses looked over his shoulder from the front row of Mizzou's section — athletics director Desiree Reed-Francois and university system president Mun Choi, who flew commercially from St. Louis on Wednesday morning — the Tigers coach calmed the unrest simmering about the future . For now. After Saturday's win over Georgia in the regular-season finals, it was the first time the Tigers had won straight games since November and only the second time all season.
The Tigers (12-20) play No. 5 Louisiana (21-10) in the second round on Thursday. Martin is without a win in five games against LSU in his five years with Mizzou, most recently at Baton Rouge with 20 points two weeks ago.
LSU coach Will Wade sat in the second row of the pitchside press office on Wednesday and got an up-close look at Mizzou coming out as an attacker in the second half. The Tigers attacked the color from the opening possession and scored on four early drives in the color by four different players. Boogie Coleman became the fifth Mizzou player to score in the half, beating the shot clock with a 3-pointer from the wing for a 45-34 lead. Brown stayed in attack while the Tigers maintained their double-digit lead and routinely plowed through Ole Miss' smaller defenders.
In the closing minutes of the game, with a chance to get within the single digits lead, Ole Miss headed a fast break straight into the most dangerous spot on the floor – Trevon Brazile's right hand. The freshman hit Jarkel Joiner's layup on the rim, straight to teammate Amari Davis to keep the ball alive for the Tigers.
The first half belonged to reserve forward Ronnie DeGray III, who arrived in Florida and shot just 27% from 3-point range, but sparked the Tigers early with three straight 3s before the second media timeout. The Tigers needed DeGray more than ever when Brown went on the bench with his second foul at 8:02 at halftime. The second forward shared free throws, hit with a post-up and ended the half with a game-high 14 points.
Brown came back into play with two minutes remaining after Javon Pickett appeared to land awkwardly on his right wrist. The coaches treated the senior guard on the bench for the remainder of the half, but he returned for second-half attack to add another day to his Mizzou career.
Dave Matter brings you the latest updates from the Mizzou sports scene.
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