Don

Add in the fact that Jepsen has put it all together this year, and we've got a way better bullpen than last year.

Yeah, I don't know what the deal was earlier this year in Pittsburg. Ever since he's been on the Angels, he's been excellent. I'd say we won that trade by a mile.

New reports coming in that Shoemaker is pounding whiskey in left field and challenging the Green Monster to a fist fight.

Yeah, having an undrafted guy that was never suppose to make the team turn into a legit starter is pretty big.

BTW, I've heard, and this is just a rumor, that Matt Shoemaker once killed a grizzly bear via staring contest.

If it wasn't for Abreu, he'd have a solid shot at it. I think he should finish in the top three though.

I really just hope it's not a PCL. One of my best friends in college was a baseball player that tore his PCL trying to lunge for the bag to beat out an infield single. Nine years later, he just had his fifth surgery. It's the same injury that derailed Kevin Garnett for two plus years.

I'd be fine with a visible shot clock for pitchers, as long as it's not the first pitch of an AB. Just start the clock whenever the pitcher gets the ball back from his catcher. I'd also like to see non-change mound visits treated like time outs. You get three per game.

I just hope it's not a PCL tear. That's a notoriously hard injury to fix.

I'm still amazed nobody got prosecuted for that. That's got to be attempted manslaughter at least. Just so incredibly dumb.

The Red Baron is kicking some major ass these days.

New Mexico is a shit hole. I've driven throughout the state several times and there's just a weird, creepy aura to the place. I stopped in Albequerque late at night due to a snow storm during a road trip last year, and went to a grocery store a few blocks from my hotel to get some beer and a frozen pizza for the night. The cashier proceeded to tell me all about the addicts that always shoot up behind the store. Charming.

This is exactly where I see an issue. The Cleveland Indians name doesn't bother me, nor does the FSU Seminoles name. But Redskins? That's the literal equivalent of the US or Europe going into Somalia and starting a soccer team named the Mogadishu Darkies. I understand my post may get deleted because of that term, but it is the real equivalent.

There was an article about the difference between the 2013/14 Angels today. And to your point, it basically pointed out how several "small" improvements can make a huge difference. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/los-angeles-angels-al-west-comeback-mike-trout-garrett-richards/

I'm confused. Initial reports say the struggle started in the car and that a round was fired while the officer was in the car. So, was the kid shot struggling with the officer in/near the car? Did he then get some distance away and then charge at the officer? That seems like a pretty odd thing to do.

F'ing slide shows.

I still don't know if it was a good shoot or not. There isn't a complete enough story yet to be sure in either direction. The number of bullets or their entry points doesn't do much to clarify that, though it does contradict some eye witness accounts. So, yeah, there's no way that officer should be arrested at this point, and it'd be nice if people could calm down and wait for the facts. Looting does nothing to promote an image of a group out for justice for their community, though some have said that the looting is a product of "outside individuals". Either way, everyone protesting is responsible for reigning that behavior in. As for the police, they did everything wrong from the beginning, and have created a bit of a mess for themselves. They withheld information about the shooting, which may have seemed like a pretty practical move, but was viewed as a sort of "We'll tell you when you're old enough to understand," response by the black community there. They also showed up on the scene of the protest like they were ready for war and harassed media members. It didn't help their image, and that doesn't usually assuage an angry group of people that feel marginalized in the moment. I also think the timing of the convenience store video was bad, as it didn't help their racist image. To a lot of people, the release of that video said, "We just want you to know that this kid was an asshole anyway." I guess I'm saying that the people of Ferguson aren't doing themselves or their community any favors right now. They need to stop with the extreme cries for arrest before the facts are in, and they need to self-police against the looting. And the police aren't doing themselves any favors. They need to get their act together in the treatment of media, down to individual officers. And they need to work on their image a bit. We don't know what happened with Brown for sure, but the Ferguson PD has made themselves look like a group that is capable of shooting someone that didn't warrant it and purposefully covering it up.

That's on the people doing it. The camera crews have a right to be there. And what happened to those crews on Tuesday was criminal.

Lol @ Instigating with a camera. Did they throw them at police?

But no assault charge, I'm sure. That's my number one issue. Cops need to be subject to the same laws and consequences as the people they police.

It's almost as though they asked themselves "How can we make ourselves look like the biggest group of violent, cowboy assholes possible?" It makes the event that started this thing way more suspect. They clearly aren't big on professionalism or restraint as a department.

They're really digging themselves a hole in Ferguson tonight. Firing tear gas at people running AWAY from them, arresting reporters for no good reason, and drawing down on pretty much anyone walking the streets. It's almost a clinic in how to permanently destroy a relationship with a community.

I know of a great place for hole-in-the-wall Mexican food near you. Santa Ana

Murdering someone with their fists doesn't help their public perception much either. Going back to Poozy's original point, I don't doubt that stories get twisted to fit a pre-determined narrative all the time. I think that's why it's important to get to the facts of any given situation to come to a solid understanding of what happened. That's why I hope more departments begin using the uniform-mounted Go Pros. It offers more protection to the public and to individual officers. It certainly would have helped clear up what happened in Ferguson, MO, which I really have no clue about regarding who was in the right or the wrong. The cop might lose his job or worse over a clean shoot, and he also might get away with murder. And to me it is extremely unproductive that this story is and will continue to be about race rather than about properly documenting interactions between police and civilians. The same thing happened in the Trayvon Martin case. It became about a white guy (who was actually Cuban) shooting a black teenager when it really should've been about why anyone ever thought Zimmerman was smart enough to carry a gun in public or participate in a neighborhood watch group.

I suspect it wouldn't have made much of a difference from a foreign policy perspective. From 2001 to about 2004/5, most politicians on both sides of the aisle were pretty pro-war, as was most of the American public.