Results tagged ‘ Polls ’
Sex and Drugs
This sports weekend reminds me of sex and drugs. 
Teams at this stage of NCAA men’s hoopla, approach one another much like sexual partners. The first half is foreplay, feeling each other out, as each game assumes it’s unique positioning and rhythm. Teams this good almost always have the passion and experience, that extra trick or gear, that renders blithely going through the motions impossible, and ensures a repetitive tension and release that, quite frankly, gets me off.
My narcotic is Opening Day and the onset of real baseball. Pumping up the offseason is a burgeoning industry drummed up by clubs selling "stuff" and sabermetric think tanks shooting rapid fire predictions. But the offseason is like withdrawl. There’s only so much you can write about essentially nothing; about games you cant see, and extrapolating from others’ first hand written accounts.
Can you help me, Doc? Pleeaassee! I just need to see a baseball game for myself!
So this time of year, much like Pointer Sisters before me , I’m so excited.
Randy Johnson topped out at 92 or 93 MPH yesterday, depending on who you believe, and struck out five Padre doppelgangers in a split squad, sham exhibition at Chase Field.
"There’s a world of difference between how I’m pitching in spring training than the way I was pitching the last two or three months of last year," said Johnson, who won 17 games with the Yankees last season despite back problems
Let’s hope so, because if the gangly one pitches like he did last year, he’ll be worse than either Miguel Batista or Claudio Vargas was – and more expensive. I caught a glimpse of Randy’s performance, and while his control impressed, his delivery looked stiff, compact and cautious. I suppose that makes sense as he’s not quite "there" yet, but I couldnt hep envisioning all the bunts that neither he nor Jackson nor Tracy will field this year.
On a positive note, the Wall Street Journal published extensive preseason predictions from eleven so called experts, six of whom project Chris Young as NL ROY. After yesterday’s 5-2-3 double play with no outs and the bases loaded, let’s just hope Chris makes the team 
The Journal didnt amass the most diverse group of pundits, 20 to 30 something bloggers mostly, but it’s still a collection of shrewd, relatively independent baseball thinkers. The elite eleven selected six division winners each, for sixty six projected race outcomes. Diamondback fans should be heartened by their favorites:
Yankees 9 votes
Angels 8
Mets 5
Dodgers 5
Diamondbacks 4
Indians 4
BP’s Joe Sheehan, a respected analyst – at least before today – actually has ‘em winning the World Series. There’s a certain logic to it, as there is for perpetual motion machines, or proving a bumblebee cant fly – but we still admire Joe’s out of the box thinking, even if he’s so far out of the box he needs a GPS device to get back in.
Memo to Mark Newman. Gameday is totally screwed up. Pls handle
On my MLBlogs virtual team, I traded Justin Verlander to obtain closer Chris Ray. Thanks, That’s a Winner! In other fantasy news, Audrey Hepburn remains just beyond my reach.
Cobranding Death
A blessed end to the seemingly eternal poll soliciting your take on MLB licensing their logos on caskets and human ash urns. Manufacturer Clint Mytych claims to have received at least 1,000 calls since June, a figure no doubt buoyed by incessant "Are you nuts?" inquiries.
Q: MLB’s licensing of their logos on caskets and crematory urns:
| Answer | Votes | % | Chart |
| is a shrewd marketing partnership | 5 | 15.6% |  |
| helps trivialize loss of life | 5 | 15.6% | |
| will play bigtime in Philly | 6 | 18.8% | |
| is a revelatory mark of the beast | 0 | 0.0% | |
| means your Christmas shopping is done! | 2 | 6.3% | |
| is repugnant and beneath baseball | 14 | 43.8% | |
| Total | 32 |
No issue taken here with deceased’s adornment reflecting passionate affiliations; this ancient desire is already fulfilled whenever a corpse is buried in an authentic MLB Don Mattingly jer$ey or laid to rest clutching an 1887 Old Judge King Kelly. MLB’s di$$ati$faction with thi$ market $hare of "funereal" acce$$orie$, was $ufficient – apparently – to introduce, cobrand, target, and profit from, a pricey new line of death specific products.
Is there demand for these vessels? How could there not be some demand out there nowadays, given the popularity of child pornography and David Hasselhoff CDs. A thousand years from now, we see irate archeologists discarding ash laden Phillies urns, muttering "get a life" and "loser", in their vain search for this era’s intelligent life.
Front Office Boners
There were so many front office missteps by the Diamondbacks front office in 2006, it seems impossible to elevate one screw up above the rest.
But you persevered. Here’s the full results of our latest poll, seeking out the season’s biggest front office boner:
On most teams, a gaffe like re-signing Bob Melvin, or the General Partner badmouthing Gonzo, would carry the day as the apex of incompetence, but even these flubs fade next to the disingenuous, petty and utterly unnecessary decision to eradicate the franchise’s original uniform colors. |
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Thanks for voting. New poll to follow shortly. |
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“Sedona Red” Poll Results
What really inspired Arizona’s new red uniforms?
Results from our latest poll:
| Answer | Votes | % | Chart |
| bricks | 0 | 0.0% | |
| Sedona’s red rocks | 2 | 9.1% | |
| The lightbulb in Mark Grace’s hotel room. | 2 | 9.1% | |
| entrenched, godless communism | 2 | 9.1% | |
| Dbacks "in the red" | 2 | 9.1% | |
| Mrs Kendrick’s cherry pie | 3 | 13.6% | |
| Ladies & Gentlemen, The Houston Astros! | 4 | 18.2% | |
| Warren Jeff’s red Escalade | 2 | 9.1% | |
| Dbacks fading into the sunset | 5 | 22.7% | |
| Total | 22 |
Thanks for voting, and remember that purple presents myriad challenges that could devastate this franchise.
New poll at right =>
Schilling Dominates
Former Arizona ace in d’ hole (say that three times really fast), Curt Schilling, has run away with our latest poll, asking, " Who is the most insufferable Dback ever?". The pathological publicity hound easily outdistanced autocratic skipper, Nathaniel "Buck" Showalter, moody PED freak Jose Guillen and a pair of MLB Hometown Hero nominees, Matt Williams and Todd Stottlemyre, who garnered one vote apiece.
| Answer | Votes | % | Chart |
| Todd Stottlemyre | 1 | 4.8% | |
| Curt Schilling | 11 | 52.4% | |
| Jose Guillen | 3 | 14.3% | |
| Matt Williams | 1 | 4.8% | |
| Buck Showalter | 5 | 23.8% | |
| Total | 21 |
We were surprised that Showalter, the humorless drone who allegedly 
reinvented baseball, didn’t make more of a run at "anything but" Curt, but the people have clearly spoken. Maybe it was Curt’s glossed over Congressional testimony that set you off? The self important "Open Letter To America" in the wake of 9/11? Or perhaps something else?
Please let us know in the comments section.
We’ve never met Schilling personally, but by way of anecdote and observation, he’s always struck us as a Christy Mathewson wannabe, tragically yoked by a Reggie Jackson sized ego.
Thanks to everyone for voting….new poll coming shortly.
Shilling for Curt
Much like hitters pull away from his split finger, Curt Schilling is pulling away 
from the pack in our nearly complete poll(at right), determining history’s most insufferable Diamondback. Be sure to vote soon, as just a few more tallies for Curt may transform these anecdotal findings into an undeniably significant pillar of statistical research worthy of a highly respected journal.
Like Deadspin.
To he11 with standard deviation, when extraordinary deviation is just a link away.
So vote today – and feel free to comment until you pass on.
– Diamondhacks Office of Research & Campaigns(D.O.R.C.)
Whispers Poll Winner!
Diamondhacks hoped our current poll, asking " What recent club whispers are 
probably true?", could go on forever, but it would’ve been unseemly if we never declared a winner just to drive traffic, so…. congratulations Andy Green!! Ta da!
Just as baseball likes to remind us that, this time, the All Star Game counts, we take our opportunity on the world stage to remind Andy Green’s teammates that while his PCL MVP Award may not give him the time of day in the Arizona clubhouse, that this time, winning the coveted "Diamondhacks Whispers" poll, this time it’s serious!!
Here’s the full results!
What recent Diamondback "whispers" are probably true?
| Answer | Votes | % | Chart |
| Gonzo was on HGH in 2001 | 7 | 16.7% | |
| Thom Brennaman is a closet mezzo soprano | 2 | 4.8% | |
| Bob Melvin has already filed for unemployment | 5 | 11.9% | |
| Organist Bobby Freeman sick of playing God Bless America | 2 | 4.8% | |
| Team tanking after Kendrick’s anti-union edicts | 3 | 7.1% | |
| Jay Bell’s iPod basically non stop show tunes | 2 | 4.8% | |
| Built on native burial site, Chase Field has jostled dark spirits | 3 | 7.1% | |
| Priory of Sion’s current Grand Master : Terry Mullholland | 6 | 14.3% | |
| Club seeks to "very quietly" move ALL Gonzalezes-just to be sure | 4 | 9.5% | |
| Andy Green not taken seriously by teammates – even when it IS serious | 8 | 19.0% | |
| Total | 42 |
(No one was billed 30 cents per vote during this poll.)
Vote On Chase Field Ripoffs
Diamondhacks welcomes Chan Ho Park to Chase Ho Park with a brand new poll regarding that venue’s worst concession ripoffs. ( If you vote for "Other", please leave an appropriately biting comment below. )
In our just completed poll, Mark Grace was voted Least Favorite TV broadcaster over five other candidates.
5/17 UPDATE: The neomyz.com poll was brought down today due to excessive site traffic – can you even imagine such a thing ;- )
Anyway, you can still vote via Comments below.
What is the worst culinary ripoff at Chase Field?
- Blimpie 6 inch sub $5
- Taste of the Majors Fried Clam Roll $8
- Big Dawg $8.75
- Really, really small cup of beer $4
- Other
Grace Voted Least Popular
Raspy voiced, foul mouthed Mark Grace narrowly edged his more polished partner, pontificator Thom Brennaman in this week’s just concluded Diamondhacks Poll, which asked "Who is your least favorite Diamondbacks TV broadcaster?".
The affable Grace received 14 of 40 votes, followed by Brennaman’s 12, Joe Garagiola Sr 6, Matt Williams 5, Greg Swindell 2 and Todd Walsh, 1 vote.
In terms of most "Least Favorite" votes per minute of actual air time, Diamondhacks sees the winner as part-time audio visual amateur Matt Williams. Maybe it had something to do with his humorless monologues on how he optimized many facets of the game, apparently well after he stopped playing.
Technically, Joe Garagiola Sr may have stolen the "per minute" crown from Matty, but we’re too crooked elderly to say so. Diamondhacks likes Joe Sr. And you half dozen internet surfin’, snuff dippin’ whippersnappers who dissed Joe oughtta be ashamed of yourselves.
The rest of you – thank you for voting! You make Diamondhacks what it is!
well, on second thought, I make Diamondhacks what it is.
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Diamondhacks is also planning a big announcement tomorrow regarding The Hacks Hame of Fall. Please bookmark the site so you wont miss what is likely to be a marginal piece of baseball history.
Candidates for Hacks Hame of Fall induction are still being accepted from the readership. Check them out or nominate your own candidate here.
POLL SWAMPED – No Discernable Reaction From Shawn Green
Regrettably, Diamondhacks was forced to close our initial poll prematurely, after viewer responses exceeded the host’s traffic allowances.
The poll question was: How many facial expressions will Shawn Green unveil in the month of May?
Two(including yawns) 42.9 %
None 28.6 %
One 14.3 %
Two (not including yawns) 14.3 %
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The newest poll question appears to the immediate right. Vote as often as you like and feel free to leave an explanatory comment below.
Thanks for participating
Diamondhacks
UPDATE: 5/8/06– If the poll at right wont accept your vote(s), please express your preferences via ‘comments’, below…thanks
Diamondhacks
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