M’s blogosphere gets ripped
Update: they’ve pulled the content and site before we got lawyered up, so that’s good. Read the comments for more.
Seasons greetings from Instamariners! We’re jacking all of the content on your site and re-branding it as our own! With lots of ads!
(handy mirror of the page source if they change it is here)
Yup, and that link there for the title of the post? Goes to us, Instamariners, not you. Where we have our own comment section. Like it’s our content. With more ads. Isn’t that awesome? And we know, you’ve got that thing on the front page that says
All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.
We decided to not do that, and reproduce it anyway. We’re sure your request doesn’t apply to us.
Oooh yeah. But don’t worry! You’re in good company! Your friends Deanna, and Paul, and, well, we’re kidnapping others as fast as we can!
USSM Year-end Best-of: July 2006
7-2: Dave says it’s time to move Ichiro to centerfield.
I loved my “Ichiro clips on YouTube” but MLBAM went through and cease-and-desisted them all. Thanks, MLBAM.
7-3: Jeff versus John McGrath in “McGrath: Ichiro Crippled Reed, Cost Mariners Share of First Place”
7-6: Dave’s “What I would do” ideas for improving the roster.
7-8: Worst outfield of the year.
7-11: Mariner trade value. Followed by 7-20’s: ranking of trade values within the AL West.
7-12: The promotion of Adam Jones.
7-15: It’s worth thinking about changing Safeco Field’s dimensions.
7-16: Hargrove’s bullpen management gets called “Brutal” by Dave
Mike Hargrove is the in-game strategist equivalent of General Custer. I, for one, can’t wait for the last stand.
And in the Game 92 thread, Hargrove’s blind spot for Everett is compared to his intolerance for Choo.
7-17: Mid-season review of 2006’s free agent pitchers.
7-18: Dave’s tying up loose ends post manages to hash on trading for Soriano, discuss buidling a bullpen, and lament the futility of mid-July Carl Everett before hitting the halfway mark.
7-21: “Buyers or Sellers: Why Choose?” Dave argues for a dramatic re-shaping of the team’s roster mid-season.
7-23: Dave breaks down Beltre’s hitting thus far.
7-25: Noah Barker.
7-26: Not a particularly great post, but it contained the news that Everett was DFA and Snelling was joining the team.
7-29: Credit Where It’s Due – Hargrove makes a good bullpen decision! YAYY
USSM Year-end Best-of: June 2006
6-2: Dave’s draft preview.
6-5: Dave does “Good News, Bad News”
6-6: I’m all excited about draft day.
6-7: “Why not Miller?” Dave explains the politics of the draft and how it led to the Mariners passing up Andrew Miller.
6-7: The wider view of the draft and economics. “Level the field, let them play.”
6-20: In “Abandoning the catch-up” I argued the small chance at division contention then wasn’t not worth sacrificing long-term success
6-22: Dave, basking in the happiness of brief success – “This is fun”
This still isn’t a great team. They have some major flaws, and while this season may not end with a championship parade, they’ve made a huge step forward – it’s no longer painful to be a Mariner fan.
Hooray for hope.
6-29 So what now? Dave’s plan to keep the team in contention from the season’s midpoint.
6-30: Dave reflects on the A’s vulnerabilities and the strange perception that they were the best team in baseball.
Bonus for the masochistic: totally unsupervised comment threads for Games 59 and 60
USSM Year-end Best-of: May 2006
5-3: Bloomquist and Lopez discuss Bloomquist being on fire
5-4: Why the players’ union should support the minor league umpires’ strike
5-10: Doyle Day
5-15: Photos from Tacoma, including ex-Mariner Snelling and the insane Diamond Dig. Game report from same.
A kid did a sweep-the-bases thing and after he was done, he brushed off the umpire’s feet, and the ump gave him a ball. Implied message: do as you’re told and debase yourself to authority, and you’ll be rewarded.
5-25: Why Albert Pujols will break the single-seaon home run record
Pujols’ hot start makes a run at the title possible, and unless we see a dramatic shift in sentiment, he’ll be given every opportunity teams can spare to make sure his path is clear.
Pujols, of course, got injured and missed a little time, but you essentially can’t miss any time and challenge a season hitting record.
5-28: Just jaw-droppingly horrible. Dave tears into Hargrove over a particularly, even for Hargrove, bad game.
The “Charting Felix” series started in May: on 5-17, the beginning. 5-22 (pitch variation, more changes, please). 5-26: Charting Felix against the Twins: see Felix succeed and fail with his pitch selection
USSM Year-end Best-of: April 2006
Game 24 thread: complaining about Gil Meche leads to the destruction of Seattle.
Roger Clemens, the 21st Century Wants a Word With You
Early analysis on aggressive baserunning
April also brought us the best quote of the year, from the PI:
“I never thought I’d see the day where there was less than 20,000,†said utility man Willie Bloomquist. “(Tuesday night) was the first time I’ve walked out for a game and gone, ‘Wow.’ It’s a little odd being able to hear conversations with fans.â€
“Really?†I wondered. “What did they say?â€
“You (expletive) suck, Bloomquist!†Bloomquist said.
USSM Year-end Best-of: March 2006
Book review: The Museum of Clear Ideas
Dave on the Thornton-for-Borchard trade
Bugs Bunny, Greatest Banned Player Ever
Dave scouts Daniel Bard and Andrew Miller
Dave compares Meche and Pineiro, which includes
Basically, Gil Meche sucks and Joel Pineiro doesn’t.
It’s a good piece of analysis, and also demonstrates that we get stuff wrong all the time.
Position roundtables: RF
USSM Year-end Best-of: February 2006
Slow month at USSM. The position roundtables are about it. (1b, 2b (and follow-up on Bloomquist-as-2b), SS, 3B, LF, CF
2/27:
How many Mariner fans does it take to change a lightbulb?
1: I don’t know, but about 30,000 a night show up hoping to see the lightbulb turn itself around.
2: Changing lightbulbs is unncessary for Mariner fans, who bask endlessly in the luminous goodness of Raul Ibanez’s soul. (props to Jonah for the idea for this one)
USSM Year-end Best-of: January 2006
Will Clark at the Hall of Fame
Evaluating Defense. Dave’s rundown on how best to approach the extremely difficult problem of figuring out who’s good and bad with the glove, and how good.
Joke salvage, from Meche heads to arbitration
Arbitration board: We rule for Mr. Hunter. Mr. Hunter, if you could just walk over here and take this gigantic sack of money…
Hunter: I don’t walk, sorry.
The Rise and Fall of Dave Fleming.
Mariners fandom, as seen through:
materialism
poststructuralism
logical positivism
Management review. Dave’s “feelings on the Mariner front office, how they operate, what they do well, and what they could do better” a year ago.
The Mariners’ Revenge Song. Jeff busts out song lyrics.
Jeff and Derek discuss the 2005 off-season. I don’t know that this has weathered quite as well, but it was really interesting to go back and re-read this.
Site under volume
This is one of those “request for thoughts” posts that’s only going to be of interest if you’re wonky into servers/etc/Wordpress/MT/etc and want to talk about things like caching through .htaccess and mysql optimization. Sooooo I’m just going to throw the more tag up now Read more
The weekend in USSM Labs enhancements
First, on the music, here’s that post:
Corco made us do it. It was either that or Comet Cursor. I’m sorry. Hopefully he relents soon.Update: that was enough of that.
You’ll note this is a particularly frisky weekend for USSM Labs, which usually does its work on weekends.
So far:
-caching up and running
-related posts
-quicktags for comments
– and some other backend stuff
If you see anything you particularly like, please, or if something’s gone wrong, let us know.