Bill McNeal wrote:The Phillies signed Bell because he was good friends with Thome and they were hoping that would help him decide to come to philly.

1 wrote:I believe that all traces of my existence were removed from that place.

momadance wrote:Larry Shenk posted this scouting report on Utley.

Phillies area scout Paul Scott saw Utley play three games and filed the following report on May 31 just before the draft: “Live, athletic body. Long arms, small waist. Quiet, but aggressive. Quick bat. Sneaky power. Good, soft hands. Good instincts and good baserunner. Active, moves around a lot. Can drive the ball the other way. Hitch in swing, but hands and bat are in good position at trigger. He will be a starting second baseman on a pennant winner. Top of the order hitter. Should move through the system quickly.”

“The first time I ever saw Chase was at Blair Field in Long Beach and it was Death Valley for hitters,” Arbuckle said. “As a high school kid, Chase was crushing balls to the wall. I really liked him in high school, but he was playing shortstop and I didn’t think he was going to play there, and I didn’t know for sure where he was going to play. We also weren’t sure about his signability, so we backed away.”

The Los Angeles Dodgers did not. They took him in the second round of the 1997 draft. Utley opted to go play at his hometown college instead, accepting his scholarship to UCLA.

“After I got to know Chase, it still to this day floors me that he didn’t sign with the Dodgers,” Arbuckle said. “Going that high in the draft and going to his hometown team and knowing that he is one of the all-time baseball rats, it surprises me that he didn’t sign because guys with his kind of mentality, you don’t see many of them pass up a chance to sign the first time it comes along. I never talked to him about the circumstances of why he didn’t sign, but we were certainly the beneficiary.”

Bill McNeal wrote:Oh man, and the forum where the beginning of the end happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061027182 ... 71317bd5a4

You can even read the first page of those threads. My takeaway is that tenured vulture has always been a nerd

Bill McNeal wrote:Ha, yeah it was not super popular at the time.

Side note, I went back to PP.com to see if I could find anything any posts from back then on there, but it looks like they purged everything a few years ago. So I tried internet archive and this is the oldest cached copy I could find. A couple of old-timers on the currently browsing :D

https://web.archive.org/web/20040525121 ... 47d8ef13fd

Bill McNeal wrote:Oh man, and the forum where the beginning of the end happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061027182 ... 71317bd5a4

You can even read the first page of those threads. My takeaway is that tenured vulture has always been a nerd

Monkeyboy wrote:

Bill McNeal wrote:Oh man, and the forum where the beginning of the end happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061027182 ... 71317bd5a4

You can even read the first page of those threads. My takeaway is that tenured vulture has always been a nerd

I don't think I ever knew what triggered it.

I tried to login but it says I'm banned? Huh?

Bill McNeal wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Bill McNeal wrote:Oh man, and the forum where the beginning of the end happened.

https://web.archive.org/web/20061027182 ... 71317bd5a4

You can even read the first page of those threads. My takeaway is that tenured vulture has always been a nerd

I don't think I ever knew what triggered it.

I tried to login but it says I'm banned? Huh?

First off you (probably) weren’t banned. Apparently a few years ago (in maybe 2016 based on the current post history) they just rebooted the whole thing and all accounts were wiped. So everyone has to reregister now.

As for the downfall, I feel like the statue of limitations has run out on this, but if not, mods let me know and I’ll edit/delete.

It’s really pretty dumb. There was a rumor that someone had made a blog post that had some negative information about LAexile. There was also a private board where some other pp boarders posted that was just stupider and more off topic stuff than was allowed on pp. The admins on PP heard about the rumor and blamed the private board, then questioned (and mildly threatened law enforcement action) against known members of the private board due to (probably) poster stellarpulse talking shit. The known members of the private board who were questioned and wouldn’t (and couldn’t, because it never happened) give details were then banned from PP. This led to us starting this board. For the record, LAexile wound up posting here on bsg and was welcomed.

Bill McNeal wrote:
First off you (probably) weren’t banned. Apparently a few years ago (in maybe 2016 based on the current post history) they just rebooted the whole thing and all accounts were wiped. So everyone has to reregister now.

As for the downfall, I feel like the statue of limitations has run out on this, but if not, mods let me know and I’ll edit/delete.

It’s really pretty dumb. There was a rumor that someone had made a blog post that had some negative information about LAexile. There was also a private board where some other pp boarders posted that was just stupider and more off topic stuff than was allowed on pp. The admins on PP heard about the rumor and blamed the private board, then questioned (and mildly threatened law enforcement action) against known members of the private board due to (probably) poster stellarpulse talking #$!&@. The known members of the private board who were questioned and wouldn’t (and couldn’t, because it never happened) give details were then banned from PP. This led to us starting this board. For the record, LAexile wound up posting here on bsg and was welcomed.

Stellarpulse wrote:

Bill McNeal wrote:
First off you (probably) weren’t banned. Apparently a few years ago (in maybe 2016 based on the current post history) they just rebooted the whole thing and all accounts were wiped. So everyone has to reregister now.

As for the downfall, I feel like the statue of limitations has run out on this, but if not, mods let me know and I’ll edit/delete.

It’s really pretty dumb. There was a rumor that someone had made a blog post that had some negative information about LAexile. There was also a private board where some other pp boarders posted that was just stupider and more off topic stuff than was allowed on pp. The admins on PP heard about the rumor and blamed the private board, then questioned (and mildly threatened law enforcement action) against known members of the private board due to (probably) poster stellarpulse talking #$!&@. The known members of the private board who were questioned and wouldn’t (and couldn’t, because it never happened) give details were then banned from PP. This led to us starting this board. For the record, LAexile wound up posting here on bsg and was welcomed.

Funny as this is false and a reckless accusation. I knew there was something going on with LAexile back in the day but had zero idea I was connected to it. To this day I still have no idea what happened and most certainly was not involved but thanks for the false claim. Not very happy to have my name thrown around in a case where legal matters happened to be honest.

Stellarpulse wrote:

Bill McNeal wrote:
First off you (probably) weren’t banned. Apparently a few years ago (in maybe 2016 based on the current post history) they just rebooted the whole thing and all accounts were wiped. So everyone has to reregister now.

As for the downfall, I feel like the statue of limitations has run out on this, but if not, mods let me know and I’ll edit/delete.

It’s really pretty dumb. There was a rumor that someone had made a blog post that had some negative information about LAexile. There was also a private board where some other pp boarders posted that was just stupider and more off topic stuff than was allowed on pp. The admins on PP heard about the rumor and blamed the private board, then questioned (and mildly threatened law enforcement action) against known members of the private board due to (probably) poster stellarpulse talking #$!&@. The known members of the private board who were questioned and wouldn’t (and couldn’t, because it never happened) give details were then banned from PP. This led to us starting this board. For the record, LAexile wound up posting here on bsg and was welcomed.

Funny as this is false and a reckless accusation. I knew there was something going on with LAexile back in the day but had zero idea I was connected to it. To this day I still have no idea what happened and most certainly was not involved but thanks for the false claim. Not very happy to have my name thrown around in a case where legal matters happened to be honest.