Free Republic

Personally, the video you are about to watch is pretty amazing: I would say this is pretty conclusive evidence of why Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera is able to throw only one pitch that has unpredictable, yet precise movement. He has mastered the Angels so far in the ALCS but has Major League Baseball gotten a look at how he "warms up" for his appearance on the mound? You be the judge... * With a tie game in the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees bring in Rivera. * After warming up, he has his back to home plate so the...

A town baseball field in Farmington, Connecticut may seem about as far away from the major leagues as you can get. But it's been witness to baseball history recently, reports CBS News correspondent Anthony Mason. The key to throwing a gyroball, says sportswriter Will Carroll, is a football-like spiral spin that's easy to learn but hard to master. Minor league pitcher Steve Palazzolo is learning to throw what some claim is the first new pitch in a generation. It's called the "gyroball." True believers claim it's almost un-hittable. "We know that a curveball curves and a slider slides and a...

Matthews Has Cheney Heckler on Hardball08/25 06:54 PM - The Markup, Videos The heckler, in a scenario that no one could have foreseen, proceeded to heckle both Matthews and the other guest on the program: The heckler is Dr. Ben Marble, who famously approached Dick Cheney as he was speaking to a group of reporters in a Katrina-ravaged Mississippi neighborhood and told him to engage in an act of congress with himself. Tonight on Hardball, Marble interrupted host Chris Matthews and his other guest, Katrina survivor Rockey Vaccarella, several times. Most egregiously, he shouted down Vacarella, who recently met with President Bush, by interjecting, "You...

Voting irregularities were few in Minnesota this year -- until it really counted. Defeated Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry likely is going to get one less electoral vote nationally than he should have -- 251 instead of 252 -- because of an apparent mistake Monday by one of Minnesota's 10 DFL electors. One of the 10 handwritten ballots cast for president carried the name of vice presidential candidate John Edwards (actually spelled "Ewards" on the ballot) rather than Kerry. "I was shocked ... this will go in the history books," said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, who presided over a...

Does Anyone Have a Wav. or an mp3 of Zell Miller's "Spitball" Comment from the RNC convention? I have a co-worker who would like it.

MATTHEWS: Do you have confidence that your colleague John Kerry can deal with the situation that exists in Iraq should he win with election? BIDEN: No. Either is he, because he doesn‘t know what he‘s going to be left with.

The People's President For he is the man for the people, of the people. He represents the truest of American ideals in domestic and foreign policies that as a nation we are desperately pleading for. For over twenty years he has served in the Senate proudly, and during his youth, in a time when a man makes decisions that will define the choices of his future, he stood proudly and volunteered his service to the United States of America. His ideals and choices for strengthening America are clear based on his Senate service. He believes in a nation that is...

MIDI - RED RUBBER BALL (ha ha, John F. Kerry...ha ha, John F. Kerry ha ha, John F. Kerry...ha ha ha ha ha) You can trust me to lead this great land 'Cause a boat a long, long time ago had been under my command I'm the one who has believed we should live and let live And I will show our enemies we'll fight more sensitive All those big mean weapons I don't like...oh, no no, not at all The only thing we're needing is a big wet spitball (ha ha, John F. Kerry...ha ha, John F. Kerry...

Spitball Kerry! No B-1, no B-2, no Apache, no Aegis, no F-14a, no F-15 Eagle, just SPITBALLS!! Go, Zell go!

The MRC's Geoff Dickens caught this exchange, on Monday's Hardball on MSNBC, in which Matthews not only refused to admit his distortion of Malkin's point, but repeated it: Matthews: "Welcome back to Hardball. Before we go to Dick Cavett, we want to get some final thoughts from Doug Brinkley and Stanley Karnow. Let me go to Doug Brinkley on a hot point on this program. Doug, there was a woman on the show the other night, Michelle Malkin or something, who was discussing in rather loose terms the idea that maybe John Kerry had purposely wounded himself to win a...

I have created a Yahoo! Rotisserie baseball league named Free Republicans. I will offer league positions to FReepers first. I ran a league as commissioner last year and finished third. My 13 year old son, GrimFReeper, finished second. Egads! League Rules1. This is a FUN league. The prime objective is to have FUN. 2. This is a standard rotisserie league. The stats are RUNS, HR, HITS, SB, RBI, W, S, K, ERA, WHIP. 3. The only exceptions are the last trade date has been moved from 8/15/04 to 8/29/04 and there are 2 players on the DL. 3. All players...

<p>MARTINEZ - A judge sentenced 13-year-old Jeffrey Figueroa to a week in Juvenile Hall Thursday for damaging a classmate's eye with a pointed spitball and reprimanded his parents for taking the confidential case to the media.</p> <p>The Figueroas, along with family and friends who testified about the boys' good character, maintained that the spitball's direct hit was an accident. A child can't just be a child anymore, mother Yvette Figueroa testified.</p>

WALNUT CREEK (Reuters) - A 13-year-old California boy who was facing a possible eight years in juvenile prison for a spitball attack on a fellow student was given a much lighter sentence on Thursday -- although he will still log some time behind bars.Jeffrey Figueroa, who made national headlines after he was convicted of two felonies for injuring a 14-year-old boy with the speedy spitball, was ordered to spend a spend a total of one week in juvenile detention -- logged on weekends -- in a case that his lawyer said showed prosecutors intent on "criminalizing childhood behavior.""These kids aren't...

<p>WALNUT CREEK - Twelve-year-old Jeffrey Figueroa shot a spitball in gym class last fall.</p> <p>Eight months later he became a felon, convicted in juvenile court last week of battery and mayhem for launching the gum wrapper that hit a classmate's eye.</p>

Lots of people look upon baseball's last several seasons and are not amused. Not everyone enjoys a ball game turned into a batting practise scrimmage. It's not that baseball doesn't have other problems to fix - like salary inflation, revenue sharing, and a division alignment that's all but cut the legs out from under the pennant races. But you could solve all those problems this minute and still have a game distorted by the idea that no one cares about anything but relentless offence. Real baseball fans - those who savour the noble game, not those who can't stand the...

SPIT AND POLISHMarch 29, 1957 Early in the training season, Charley Dressen split his squad down the middle and the two halves -- designated in the box score as the Have Nots and Haven't Eithers -- played a ball game that ended in a tie. "The Senators this year," wrote Bob Addie in the "Washington Post," "are so bad they can't beat themselves." Since then Dressen's disciples have contrived to beat themselves in some games and the opposition in others, same as all the clubs do during the muscletone season. No effort has been made to check the records, but...