Some of them are intractable douches with sticks up their asses and turd for brains. If we piss/scare any of them off, it’s for the best.

A lot of the time on here where several of the board regulars “come to the defense of” or “pile on” to a singular individual not in that group of board regulars, it’s not because they’re merely saying something we disagree with, it’s because they’re either taking their disagreements with people personally (or rudely) or they’re behaving in the annoying mannerisms of a newbie who doesn’t take the time to understand the workings of the RAB forum and civil discourse.

For example: whozat and I above poked fun at/questioned Joe Story’s comment about Roger Clemens balls not because it was off color or inappropriate, but because it was utterly off topic and a subject we’ve already discussed (and riffed on) on here, and it was utterly disconnected to the topic at hand. It’s just not germane AND it’s been covered. I understand that Joe Story may have missed that discussion… tough shit.

Now, if Joe Story was bringing up the reference in a joking manner, that’s probably going to be appreciated and not derided if he connects it somehow tangentally to the topic at hand, i.e. the Yankee Payroll, by cleverly making light of the situation, something like “Well, here’s one way to keep the costs down: we won’t have to pay anymore trainers to rub liniment on Roger’s balls anymore!” or something like that. Had he put a little effort into being witty, it would have been appreciated, I’m sure. He didn’t; he just blurted a non-comedic non sequitur into the middle of a different conversation. It’s like being at a party with friends talking about something interesting and someone you don’t know comes up and blurts out some unrelated off-the-wall shit that doesn’t make sense (and isn’t funny). You’d look at it with puzzlement (and likely mock it in some fashion, either internally or externally.)

But most of these pilings on of which you speak are in reaction to belligerent or meanspirited words, not just quasi-jokey non-sequiturs, if you ask me. If we poke fun at one another, we generally take it in stride as it’s not done with malice or superiority. Some commenters don’t have that ability to laugh at themselves and so they take good-natured ribbing to heart and lash out, and that causes people who enjoy the civil yet aspirationally highbrow dialogue here to act in protection. Most of us came here from other, inferior blogs and don’t want to see RAB descend into LoHuddian sniping and unintelligible gibberish.

That, and we want people to use the damn “Reply to this comment link”. I mean, dude, it’s right there.

Oh, and one more thing: If a poster exhibits any of the classic telltale signs of poor communication skills (like, for example, multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!, or CAPITAL LETTERS, or no punctuation/capitalization at all, or frequent and repeated misspelled words, or glaring inaccuracies (like saying that Clemens’ testicle-rubbing trainer was named “Moynahan” and not “Donahue”), then yeah, he is opening himself up to snide criticism. That’s the rules of the game, bro.)

I’m not saying I want to get rid of these guys. I’m just saying they’re the most expendable guys on our 40 man, and if we had to get rid of some people to free up space for upgrades, those would be the players.

If they were going to leave the left side of the field empty, why not put a few over there when we needed a baserunner. Some of the more ridiculous shifts would’ve allowed him to WALK to first if he laid down a good bunt.

i sure would!!

yes. Let’s eschew analysis for talking about Roger Clemens’ balls.