TheHurl

I thought he meant this season, so I had to look it up. Sure enough that's his career.

It was actually Burke's lawsuit and it's against a bunch of f***ing bloggers and probably went away when most of the bloggers took down the posts. It's the equivalent of AA suing one of us for calling him the Fat Greek. Is interesting that suddenly Hazel Mae's husband got hired by Sportsnet. Here is the most recent update I could find. Brian Burke, who is preparing to take what he hopes is a gold-medal winning US hockey team to the Sochi Olympics, has an extensive resume in sport. But his biggest contribution to the game may come in the court of law, he says. Burke launched a lawsuit in April against 18 anonymous bloggers and online commentators who allegedly “spread lies over the Internet” after he was fired as general manager of the Maple Leafs. “Some idiot blogged that . . . I had an affair with a local female anchor sportsperson and that we’d had a baby and that’s the real reason I got fired,” Burke, now president of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames, told the Prime Time Sports Management conference in Toronto. “I’ve never been alone in a room with this woman. She is a friend of mine, so is her husband by the way, and I’ve had a certain surgical procedure done that would make it difficult for me to have children. “So if this kid’s mine, we should name it Jesus.” A notice of civil claim filed in B.C. Supreme Court alleges the unknown defendants defamed Burke by falsely suggesting he had an extramarital affair with Sportsnet anchor Hazel Mae and that he fathered her child. “You get fired in our line of work it’s on the ticker, it’s headline news, it’s very humiliating,” Burke said. He accepts that as part of holding such a high profile job. “But personal stuff, no,” he said. “I don’t think when you’re a public figure you agree to put up with everything.” He decided “this guy is not getting away with it” and told his lawyers to sue. “In my mind it’s one of the biggest contributions I’m going to make in our industry before I’m done here. We’re going to curb this, at least somewhat,” he said. He achieved one groundbreaking legal ruling when the suit was allowed to be served against unknown defendants over the Internet, he said. “Everyone says you’ve got to find this guy that lives in his parents’ basement, but the judge ruled that service over the Internet was acceptable because the libel had occurred over the Internet.” “It’s already made a difference,” he said of his lawsuit. Burke is a co-chair of the annual Prime Time Sports Management conference, which brings front-office executives, academics, media and students together to discuss the biggest challenges facing the business of sport. The biggest challenge currently facing Burke is helping to field a roster of players who can improve on the U.S. hockey team’s 2010 Olympic silver medal. “If the United States just takes the 20 best players and shows up in Sochi we’re going to have a real hard time beating Canada and a real hard time beating Russia. Russia is going to be very difficult on home soil,” said Burke, director of player personnel for the U.S. team. That’s why they’ll stick with the 2010 Games philosophy of taking “a toolbox team.” When the Vancouver team was announced “we got absolutely crucified for it” because it didn’t include the greatest American players of the day. “We were picked to finish no better than sixth and, of course, everyone saw what happened. We ran the tables until we got to the gold medal game and lost (to Canada) on a great goal by a great player and won a silver medal.” That U.S. team in Vancouver didn’t include a single player from the Turin Games. “This time it will be 15-plus returnees and with the goaltending people we have we’re going to be picked to medal.” At conference sessions before his keynote address, Burke lived up to his fiery reputation with an opinion on just about everything: Twitter: “I don’t get social media. I understand why it works for other people but I think it’s stupid, mainly because of my age. I tweet but I have a woman do it for me so I can never get mad at someone in the media and tweet that this guy is a jerk or I’m going to smack him. They’re my tweets, it’s my stuff but it’s filtered. That’s what I’d like to do with some of our players sometimes.” Fan access: “The fans want to get in the dressing room. It’s the last place we want them. This is an endless battle between the suits and the talent guys.” Staying low-key: “If I take a stroll in the Bell Centre in Montreal, I’m likely to get punched by somebody or have food thrown at me.” Maple Leafs brand: “(It’s) one of the strongest brands on the planet and I used to tell our players if we went and sat on a stone wall in a village in South America, the first thing that would come into view in terms of team insignia would be a t-shirt or hat that said New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Boston Celtics, Manchester United or the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s a global brand.”

GETZ....start the bandwagon

Hech just crushed a double to straight away centre. Now just showed Simmons what it's like to face Simmons robbing Andreleton of a base hit diving up the middle.

Wood getting hit hard. Lots of line drives hit against him. He's an interesting guy with some odd mechanics. Looks like he could get in trouble when an ump shrinks the zone a bit. He is out of the game now

Thanks, pretty solid feed and didn't need to close a million pop ups.

I get annoyed when he rants...I just don't like his inability to form a consistent opinion. Rum is my angry drink. You don't want me on Rum.

So you agree that we need Goins to have 300 PA's to see if he can hit major league pitching? And that we need to know by 2015 what we have? How is it that most people on this board had a pretty good clue what we had with this team...the F.O. said they knew where there were holes...but now we have to wait for 2015. If Goins goes back down to AAA and hits .289/.340/.400 like he did in 2012 do we go with him again as a starter in 2015? You don't spend $135M on payroll looking towards next year

If he had any sense of intelligence in what he was saying it might have an impact. Pretty much saying that the Minors can't tell you anything about a player

anyone have a mlb.tv subscription that they can send me as I would really like to watch Wood vs. Fernandez 2.

It's hard to believe that we've had to spend the better part of 2 years discussing so many replacement level 2B's.

and with some Gomez hate...there is this. http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24543481/video-carlos-gomez-makes-a-fan-cry-in-a-good-way

you ask this but not why he has a half black, half Mexican wife?

Excellent work by Silver...now you've just got to deal with the players running your league, teams trying to lose, refs being instructed to help certain teams, and negotiate yourself out of one of sports craziest deals (The Silna brothers who owned the ABA team that didn't take the $3M deal to not be part of the NBA, instead get a percentage of the TV deal that pays them over $18M a year to do nothing). Not to mention he's got that new TV deal to negotiate in 2 years. This is going to be one of the toughest reigns of any commish ever but honestly he's off to a great start.

I'd be just like this... http://www.nbc.com/the-tonight-show/segments/4956 but the minute his back is turned look out.

That would be the nicest thing I'd call him

and the casual fan is much easier to read and manipulate. It's going to take a lot more to get me to be a fan of this team again, in comparison to Joe Average that will be impressed by some clown dancing in the dugout and some former big name that everyone knows. Mind you, I've gone to 6 games this year already so why would they market to a baseball fan.

Osuna 2.0

even a legitimate contention would probably increase revenue. But without contention you now have a team that is going to return to 2012 ratings, return to 2012 attendance and cost you $54M more. When you bank on way to increase revenue...don't make it winning, cause building a winning baseball team isn't easy to do. This was my thought process in November 2012 and still is today. I just think people that say build a winner and the people will come don't look at things from a business or risk stand point.

Braves had a new stadium too though. Despite playoffs after playoffs...by the 5th season in Turner Field attendance was right back to their first couple of seasons winning numbers. Still good attendance but fans that come to baseball games are pretty finicky. How many years of the Playoffs did it take for the Yankees to get to 1st in Attendance? I don't even think they hit top 5 after winning the world series in 96'. One year of winning will not sell out the Jays for next year. I'm certain of that.

The stadium was a huge factor then too. Last year's off season had more hype than those teams IMO. There are probably more people proudly wearing Jays merchandise these days. There are a few factors that have changed...including the number of games that are on TV. I just don't think you can throw together a winning team and make the Rogers Centre "The Place to Be" again. Then there is the fact that I don't think this F.O. has any chance of putting together a winning team so for the next few years chances are we'll never know.

Cheating would be hitting in that park and pitching in another.

I suppose it is...just not one you have any control over. Raps probably will get 2 or 3 good years out of being the red-headed step child which in the world of sports is pretty good.

http://m.athletics.mlb.com/video/v32410079/oakhou-reddick-makes-a-strong-throw-to-turn-two I love OF assists...and this is just about perfect

20% HR/FB rate is about what he needs to keep up in order to be a 25 HR guy. Honestly there is one guy that has a similar batted ball profile to Lawrie which is probably the best case scenario for Lawrie (and I warn you it's a bad word around here)...he might develop like Adam Jones. A few years of 100 to 110 wRC+ then if all things click he peaks as a 125 wRC+ guy. Assuming his defense still keeps up this will be a great situation. Now that I think about it...Lawrie even has the same Douche profile as Jones.