i'd give anything to be called a 'baseballing powerhouse'.

I'd be looking to get out of Canberra as well....

The Yanks sure do love signing young catchers.

Seven-year deal?!?

i'd give anything to be called a 'baseballing powerhouse'.

Now you missed your chance.

well, i can ask my girlfriend if she could refer to me that way.

''honey, if somebody calls for me on the phone, and i'm not here, please say 'the baseballing powerhouse isn't here. can i take a message?' ''

btw, i thought we couldn't change our usernames. how do you do that?

In the top right click "Your account." And from there you can change your username. I've posted under dozens of names.

To clarify: Technically you can't change your username (what you use to log in with,) but you can change your screen name, which is what is displayed.

Phil, any idea what happened to Greg Chappell's son?
He was pretty highly recruited, wasn't he?

sorry crispix. i'll give it back if you want to keep it.

Seven-year deal?!?

Standard minor league contracts are for one year with six additional reserve clause years. Foreign papers tend to report that arrangement as a "seven year deal". US papers don't much care and simply refer to all non-40 man roster players as generic minor leaguers.

EDIT: what philly said.

So, Repoz - why post this signing? The Yanks aren't very active in Australia, but loads of guys gets signed from there... Here's one site (an agency's) that covers some Aussie news.

Year 11 sounds so much grander than "Grade 11". Sort of like you are being bred and molded for some kind of military venture against Zanzibar or something.

I hear, "The 11th Grade" a lot in movies and TV. Is that an official term in America? Or is that just a thing people say? I don't think I've ever heard anyone in Canada refer to it as it as "The 4th Grade"

In the US "4th grade" is standard and you hardly ever hear "grade 4"

9, 10, 11, and 12 you hardly ever hear. It is freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior for that. Everything else is 1st grade, 2nd grade, so on up to 8.

Does Canberra have a hickish rep in Australia? I spent a decent amount of time in each of Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide and liked Canberra second best.

9, 10, 11, and 12 you hardly ever hear. It is freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior for that. Everything else is 1st grade, 2nd grade, so on up to 8.

While using the terms freshman, etc. are more frequent, I hear freshman and 9th grader, etc. used interchangeably. I don't know if there are regional differences on this one. I've lived in Philly most of my life but spent 5 years in KC as an adult and 10 years in Cincy as a kid and never detected any particular difference in usage.

I guess it probably depends on the school system. I think some school systems have junior highs or schools that go up to 9th grade, or is that elementary schools that go up into Jr. High? I don't know it has been awhile.

Does Canberra have a hickish rep in Australia?

I think it's notorious for lacking completely in culture or community. It's a planned community on a massive scale, and it was planned (if I remember what I read) such that people live far apart, it's hard to get from one part of town to another, and there's no effective commercial center to attract visitors. I've never been there, but the Aussies I know do tend to sneer at it. I think they regard it as a giant suburb out in the middle of nowhere.

I think it's notorious for lacking completely in culture or community. It's a planned community on a massive scale, and it was planned (if I remember what I read) such that people live far apart, it's hard to get from one part of town to another, and there's no effective commercial center to attract visitors. I've never been there, but the Aussies I know do tend to sneer at it. I think they regard it as a giant suburb out in the middle of nowhere.

Not unlike other national capitals that were spun from whole cloth like Washington and Brasilia.

Not unlike other national capitals that were spun from whole cloth like Washington and Brasilia.

Au contraire.

D.C. might have been planned but it's a terrific place to live. There are tons of things going on here and there are real neighborhoods.

D.C. is very clearly not one giant suburb. It is very urban in flavor and ambience.

Older planned capitals:
Alexanderia 332BC
Istanbul 330AD
St Petersburg 1703AD

Great cities all, just give Canberra a couple of centuries.

Istanbul 330AD

A fan of They Might Be Giants, I see...

Older planned capitals:
Alexanderia 332BC
Istanbul 330AD
St Petersburg 1703AD

Great cities all, just give Canberra a couple of centuries.

This is very true. Canberra is less than 100 years old as a major city. In 1900, Washington, D.C. was a total backwater, until the pMcMillan Plan, and even for a while after that.

So, yes, Canberra not a great culture center now, but its memorials are solid (and on beautiful panoramic lines), and it has potential.

I had really good Japanese food down the road from the emabassy in Canberra. Long story.

Oh? Do tell.

I enjoyed DC quite a bit when I lived there as well, and it was a complete backwater, outshone by Richmond to the south and Balitmore to the north, quite literally for more than a century. Having never been to Canberra, I can't really speak to it on certain levels, but it does have a couple of disadvantages that DC does not. DC, though happenstance or otherwise I don't know enough to say, ended up as part of a nearly-continuous strip of settled land stretching from northern Virginia up into New England. As the national capitol, it turned into one of many natural centers of culture. I suppose this is possible with Canberra, but Canberra isn't really between anywhere and anywhere else -- it does have Sydney to the north and Melbourne to the south, but it's not part of a contiguous coastline, along a natural travel route, or anything else. It was chosen at least partially for its remoteness, so it would not appear to favor either of the country's two dominant cities. It also was built as a "garden city", which makes it physically nice to look at but purposefully cut off from itself -- it was purposefully built spread out, like a suburb, and subsequent delevopments in the area of vehicular tranportation have meant that there is no real incentive to build up rather than out. It could be that in another sixty years or so Canberra will be a very cool place in the way that Sydney and Melbourne are, but I doubt it.

Oh? Do tell.

I don;t think you have the proper clearance. It is not that interesting anyhow.

I think it's notorious for lacking completely in culture or community. It's a planned community on a massive scale, and it was planned (if I remember what I read) such that people live far apart, it's hard to get from one part of town to another, and there's no effective commercial center to attract visitors. I've never been there, but the Aussies I know do tend to sneer at it. I think they regard it as a giant suburb out in the middle of nowhere.

Perfect description of the ########

Does Canberra have a hickish rep in Australia?

I think it's notorious for lacking completely in culture or community. Does Canberra have a hickish rep in Australia?

The Bill Bryson book about Australia read like a love letter to the country, but the only uncomplimentary things he had to say were about Canberra - sterile, without culture, etc.

St Petersburg 1703AD

I have never understood why we English speakers refer to that city as "St." Petersburg. It is not named after the Christian keeper of the Pearly Gates, but after Tsar Peter the Great, who founded it. In Russian, it is "Petrograd," which translates more or less to Petersburg. St. Petersburg would be something like "Gorod Piotra Blazhenovo."

"Petrograd" would be a cool name for a premium gasoline. "Your performance car will make the grade with Petrograd!" Porsche, dweeby looking guy, and hot chick zoom off on highway 101 or something.

No, no. It was only Petrograd from 1914 to 1924. Before that it was Saint Petersburg (yes, named like it was a German or Dutch city). Then in the Soviet Union it was Leningrad. Now it's back to being Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg).

In Russian, it is "Petrograd," which translates more or less to Petersburg. St. Petersburg would be something like "Gorod Piotra Blazhenovo."


No, Petrograd is something that the Russians renamed it in 1914, because they thought Санкт-Петербу́рг sounded german. Which of course was Peter the Great's intention, westernizer as he was.

Nowadays it is Санкт-Петербу́рг.

Great cities all, just give Canberra a couple of centuries.

Phil has it right, Canberra is the country's pie-hole. Full of bogans and public service employees. It's the one major city here that is NOT located on a picturesque harbour or beachfront. Why would you live on island and live in the middle of it?

Its brutally hot in the summer and effing cold in the winter(by aussie standards), and besides as we say, "its the arsehole of australia as 10 million flies can't be wrong."

It was cool to see "fortnight" in a present day baseball article.


In 1900, Washington, D.C. was a total backwater, until the pMcMillan Plan, and even for a while after that.

From what I have gathered from Washington Before the War and various historical markers around the city, DC was a small town compared to other East Coast cities, but it wasn't antiseptic and had developed some neighborhood charm. The New Deal and WWII changed the city into the metropolis it is today.