Posts made by Yanny

Those new shuttles can’t come soon enough.

I’ve been a little busy with my other baseball leagues and my blog.

Dear God, I loved that game.

Wow. Awesome job man. If I had space for it, I’d buy it from you without hesitation.

Results
Based on your answers to the above questions, your current life expectancy is 81 years. If you’re not happy with the result, consider that by adopting a healthier lifestyle and avoiding various risk factors, you can increase your life expectancy by up to 15 years.

Your “ideal” weight for maximum longevity is: 191 lbs.

The three biggest positive factors that you have going for you are:
    1. Age of grandparents
    2. Personality type
    3. Smoking

The one biggest negative factor that you have going for you is:
    1. Gender

In no order:

Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time (maybe the best ever)
Final Fantasy 7
Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess (absolutely awesome)
Wii Sports
Tiger Woods Golf - Wii
Chrono Trigger (Haven’t beaten it yet Agent? Keep trying! The endings are great)
Earthbound
Halo 2
Starcraft
Guitar Hero 2
MLB 07 The Show
Hearts of Iron
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
Rome: Total War

And of course…

Oregon Trail 2

He played for the Montreal Royals in 1946 - before he played for the Dodgers.

Eh, go swallow a hockey puck :)

The Brooklyn Dodgers my friend :)

“I asked them, ‘Did you pick me because you thought that I lacked the courage to fight back?’, but they replied, ‘No Jackie, we picked you because you had the courage to not’”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/04/taking_a_bat_to_prejudice.html

Like many New Yorkers leaving home for work on April 15, 1947, he wore a suit, tie and camel-hair overcoat as he headed for the subway. To his wife he said, “Just in case you have trouble picking me out, I’ll be wearing number 42.”

No one had trouble spotting the black man in the Dodgers’ white home uniform when he trotted out to play first base at Ebbets Field. Suddenly, only 399, not 400, major league players were white. Which is why 42 is the only number permanently retired by every team.

Jackie Robinson’s high school teachers suggested a career in gardening. Robinson’s brother Mack had finished second to Jesse Owens in the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Whites who won medals found careers opened for them. Mack, writes Jonathan Eig in " Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson’s First Season," wore his Olympic jacket as a Pasadena, Calif., street sweeper, while Owens found himself racing against horses at county fairs, “one small step removed from a circus act.”

To appreciate how far the nation has come, propelled by what began 60 years ago today, consider not the invectives that Robinson heard from opponents’ dugouts and fans but the way he had been praised. “Dusky Jack Robinson,” as the Los Angeles Times called him, alerting readers to the race of UCLA’s four-sport star, ran with a football “like it was a watermelon and the guy who owned it was after him with a shotgun.”

That cringe-inducing fact is from Eig’s mind-opening book, an account of a 28-year-old man “filled with fear and fury” and terribly alone. It includes unfamiliar details about familiar episodes. There is Lt. Robinson’s 1944 refusal, 11 years before Rosa Parks, to move to the back of a bus at Fort Hood, Tex. And shortstop Pee Wee Reese, a Kentuckian who until 1947 had never shaken hands with a black person, crossing the infield to put a hand on Robinson’s shoulder when Cincinnati fans were being abusive.

But Eig is especially informative about the dynamics among the Dodgers, who, like many teams, had a Southern tinge. The most popular player was nicknamed Dixie (Walker) and one of the best pitchers was the grandson of a Confederate soldier. The Dodgers’ radio broadcaster, Red Barber, a Mississippian, considered resigning, then thought better. Radio presented Robinson as television cameras could not have – as, Eig shrewdly writes, “all action,” undifferentiated by visual differences from his teammates.

After the opening two games against the Boston Braves, the Dodgers played the Giants at the Polo Grounds in Harlem. The president of the National League, fearing excessive enthusiasm, suggested that Robinson should develop a sprained ankle. He did not, and the crowds were large, dressed as if for church – men in suits and hats, women in dresses – and decorous. Soon a commentator wrote, “Like plastics and penicillin, it seems like Jackie is here to stay.”

The Dodgers were not. Ebbets Field’s turnstiles clicked 1.8 million times in 1947, more than they ever had before or would again. But in 1947, in a Long Island potato field, Levittown was founded, offering mass-produced, low-cost housing emblematic of postwar suburbanization. Dodger fans were moving east on the island. After the 1957 season, the Dodgers moved west.

Only 25,623 fans went to the game on April 15, 1947 – 4,000 fewer than on Opening Day 1946 and 6,000 fewer than the ballpark’s capacity. Perhaps some white fans were wary of being with so many blacks. Usually blacks were no more than 10 percent of Dodger crowds, but on this day they may have been 60 percent.

By 1956, Robinson’s last season, he had lost his second-base position to Jim Gilliam, a black man. Robinson died of diabetes-related illnesses in 1972, at 53, the same age Babe Ruth was when he died. Ruth reshaped baseball; Robinson’s life still reverberates through all of American life. As Martin Luther King Jr., who was 18 in 1947, was to say, Robinson was “a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

“Robinson,” writes Eig, “showed black Americans what was possible. He showed white Americans what was inevitable.” By the end of the 1947 season, America’s future was unfolding by democracy’s dialectic of improvement. Robinson changed sensibilities, which led to changed laws, which in turn accelerated changes in sensibilities.

Jack Roosevelt Robinson’s middle name was homage to the president who said “speak softly and carry a big stick.” Robinson’s deeds spoke loudly. His stick weighed 34 ounces, which was enough.

As a lifetime baseballl fanatic, I couldn’t be more impressed by how Major League Baseball honored Jackie Robinson today. I am amazed. MLB is pure class.

Google ‘INTJ’ or ‘ENTJ’ and you’ll see a ton of sites that explain your personality type. This one http://www.personalitypage.com/INTJ.html got me dead on.

This one is very good too http://www.typelogic.com/intj.html

When Dr. Jung created these types, he created them under the notion that these four traits have binary relationships with each other. People either think ‘J’ or ‘P’, not a little of both. Because of this, INTJs are significantly more different compared to ENTJs than simply a switch from ‘E’ to ‘I’. Their whole thought process functions differently.

It’s really interesting stuff. I’ve never had a personality test nail me so dead on.

TYPE: ENTJ

1%/67%/56%/1%

whatever that means?

You are a moderately strong N/T, but a neutral E/J.

Extrovert vs Introvert - Do you draw strength from other people, or inwardly? Extroverts like to be around lots and lots of people, and like their recognition. Introverts don’t neccessarily hate being around people, but see people as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves.

N vs S - An iNtuitive person doesn’t focus on what is immediately in front of them. They usually end up thinking ahead of all the various possibilities of an action. We Ns daydream, calculate, and worry. Sensers focus on the facts at hand before moving on to another case.

T vs F - A Thinking person uses his or her rationality to determine what is the best course of action. A Feeling person acts via gut instinct and emotion. Ts are very often considered “heartless”

J vs P - A Judging person plans everything out before hand. When they go to the mall, they have a list of things to do in their head to complete. A Percieving person likes to improvise, and let the course of events dictate their next action. They walk around a mall, take in the sights, and maybe get around to buying something if it catches their eye.

You’re not an INTJ :)

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

I’m a weak ‘I’ and a strong ‘NTJ’

I am seriously tempted to buy a Xbox 360 just for Halo 3.

Jsp, I’m not sure if there is a way to change the name easily. I know that it’s possible through some of my admin options, but would be really annoying.

Oh, and my signature is a quote from Meatloaf’s “Wasted Youth”.

I joined this site mid-2001, way back when. I used to play the game Everquest, and at one point I made a character. The random name generator came up with “Yanbun”. That character eventually became my main guy and I used it on a lot of online sites. When I joined this site, I couldn’t really use such a weird name (though my email was Yanbun100@hotmail.com at the time), so I used the shortened “Yanny”.

The avatar is from Shining Force 2, an old Sega Genesis game, one of the best RPGs of it’s time.

I’m starting to get a nice little reptuation among Yankee fans. I am actually in the process of switching to a huge network of blogs. Hopefully, my readership will break out of this 700 unique user bubble that I’ve been in for months.

All right. Someone is getting a very nasty email from me.

(In case you guys didn’t know, I maintain the top Yankee prospect site on the internet at yankeeprospects.blogspot.com)

Descartes didn’t even believe that until he won an award for it.

I am going to post two articles written by competing blogs. I would like to ask you if you think the 1st article was plagurized by the 2nd.

Age: 18
Height: 6’7"-6’9" (Depending on who you ask)
Weight: 185-215 (Again, depending on who you ask)
Drafted: 8th Round in 2006 out of High School
Position: Starting Pitcher
Throws: Right

Fastball: Betances is 18 years old. He is a big guy. He has yet to put a lot of muscle on his frame. He throws a 93-97 mph fastball, hitting 98, with nasty movement on it. He throws it with command and consistent mechanics. His fastball can do nothing but improve. Betances entered camp a raw talent, throwing 3-4 mph slower and with a mechanical delivery all over the place. The Yankees took him in and almost immediately corrected his flaws, resulting in a beautiful product.

Curveball: Betances throws a knuckle curve. He entered camp with a slight feel for it, but it was not much of a weapon. As would be a theme for Betances, this would change almost immediately. In less than two months, Betances transformed a pitch which he had little feel for in to a true plus pitch. His curveball is a strikeout weapon that sits in the low 80s.

Changeup: Yet again, Betances entered camp without much of a changeup. In fact, he entered camp barely knowing how to throw one. At least he had some experience with a curveball. With a little instruction, Betances was almost instantly able to throw a plus changeup, which compliments his fastball perfectly. He does not yet use it as a strikeout pitch, but that could change in the future.

Command: Betances entered camp with the typical “tall man syndrom”, meaning that he had difficult repeating his delivery. That lasted about a week. To compare, it took Randy Johnson the better part of a half decade to do the same. That said, Betances is not 6’10". People tend to overestimate height, and I would say that Betances is more likely closer to 6’7" than 6’9". After that week of adjustment, Betances never let up. He was dominant.

Performance: Betances has a short pedigree in professional baseball. After signing, he tossed 23.1 innings (the Yankees limited his workload, as they do with a lot of 18 year olds), striking out 27, walking 7, and allowing just 3 earned runs (1.16 ERA). Betances did this following a 40+ inning high school performance where he struck out over 100. Why did he fall to us in the 8th round? Well, there are a few reasons. First off, no one thought that he would sign. Second, he pretty much said “If I am going to sign, it is only going to be with the Yankees”. Third, he was not a three pitch pitcher prior to attending the Yankee camp. He tossed a live fastball and had little in terms of secondary pitches. This is a steal.

2007 Outlook: Dellin will certainly head to Charleston, where he will join a very talented rotation. The Yankee goal in 2007 will likely to simply keep Betances healthy, marginally effective, and adjusted to everyday baseball. He has no lingering issues with injury to worry about, but at such a young age who knows what health problems he may encounter in the future. He could very well take the Phil Hughes path, moving up to Tampa after some limited time in Charleston. If he manages to pitch 120+ innings, we Yankee fans should be very optimistic about his future. If he dominates Charleston, we may have another top-flight prospect on our hands.

Health: Incomplete. He is too young to determine anything about his health, although he has no immediately apparent health issues.

Ceiling: Betances has no ceiling. He is that good. If he can continue to stay mechanically clean and throw three plus pitches, he will be a success in this league. He is so young that he should be considered years ahead of schedule. I have not seen Betances pitch, but after reading a lot about him something struck me. He knows how to adjust. He quickly learned pitches, he quickly learned how to fix his mechanics, and he quickly learned how to attack hitters in professional baseball. Who does this remind me of? Phil Hughes.

Reaching Ceiling: He is so young that he will have dozens of opportunities to fail. Nothing can really be said about this right now.

Comparison: Can I say Phil Hughes? I guess I cannot. Besides a few inches and a few ticks of velocity, the two prospects seem to be mirror images of each other. Since I cannot say Phil Hughes, I am going to compare Betances to a healthy Mark Prior.

My take: I originally had Betances rated much lower, for the same reason that I rated Montero lower. But I stepped back and reflected on my choice. Betances is very young and very inexperienced. However, I cannot ignore how quickly his pitching intelligence kicked in and he adjusted his game. Some players just have it. They just know how to play. It is natural for them. Betances seems to be a natural. I am going to cautiously predict that Betances will have a Hughes-like rise to power, becoming a top-5 pitching prospect in this league in the next few years. Yankee fans should be very excited about him. His height and velocity give him an advantage over a guy like Hughes. Cross your fingers that he stays healthy.

The young 18 year old Dellin Betances, was drafted in the 8th round of the 2006 draft out of high school. The 6’7" right hander features a nasty fastball clocked from 93-97 MPH, occasionally hitting 98. Betances also throws a knuckle curve, but when he entered camp, he claimed that he didn’t have a complete feel for it. When the Yankees drafted and signed him, they took Dellin, and began working on those mechanics. It went from a pitch lacking a feel for it, to a true strikeout weapon that sits in the low 80’s.

Dellin came into camp with a change up, although he barely knew how to throw it. The Yankees started working on it like his knuckle curve, and transformed it to another strikeout weapon, that goes great with his fastball.

Betances came into camp with a lack of command, mostly because he couldn’t repeat the same wind-up motion, that didn’t last long with Dellin.

Here’s the line on Dellin for his brief 2006 season:

23.1 1.16 0-1 0 0.90 10.4

IP ERA Record Saves WHIP K/9

Although Betances has no apparent health issues, it is very early to tell if he’s injury-prone, or not.

If you look back to the beginning of the article, you’ll see that the Yankees drafted this youngster in their 8th round. With this kind of scouting report, how did he fall so late? Well maybe it was because he specifically said that he will only sign with the Yankees, no one else. Betances has a future career, whether it be in New York, or somewhere else. If he maintains those three plus pitches, keeps adjusting as quickly as he has already shown, and stays healthy, the Yankees may have another “blue chip” in their farm system. At this point, I rank Dellin #4 in the Yankee’s Farm System.

Thanks. I’ll explain after I get a few opinions.