The pairing never completely panned out

TheKnot Continues to Enhance User Engagement and Maintains Position As the1 Wedding WebsiteNEW YORK(Business Wire)The Knot Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT) today announced that the companys flagship brand,TheKnot , closed the year end 2008 with its highest number of new registeredmembers in the companys history. This is the highest number of new members on record forthe company. With a combined annual membership base of 1.9 million new registered membersacross their wedding brands, The Knot captures the names, email addresses andwedding dates of the vast majority of the 2.2 million couples getting married inthe US. Despite the recent economic downturn, brides and grooms continue to planfor significant wedding, gifting and home-related purchases in 2009. These numbers demonstrate that, despitegrowing online competition the site continues to increase user engagement withthis incredibly loyal user base.

TheKnot maintains its position as theunparalleled leader in the online wedding category. The company attributes this years success to its investment in new platformsand system upgrades, along with a strong increase in rich and interactivefeatures, like enhanced video and new planning tools. "We are thrilled, that for over 12 years, The Knot remains the essentialplanning resource for the majority of engaged couples in the country," saidDavid Liu CEO of The Knot Inc. "A healthy membership base is vital to ourability to support our marketing partners and acts as a foundation to our otherlifestage brands." About The Knot Inc.The Knot, Inc. (NASDAQ: KNOT; ), is a leading lifestage mediacompany. Other products from The Knot include The Knotnational and local magazines, The Knot books (published by Random House andChronicle) and television programming bearing The Knot name (aired on the Styleand Comcast Networks). The Company also owns WeddingChannel , the mostvisited wedding gift registry website The Knot Inc.Melissa Bauer, 212-219-8555 ext.

1020Senior Public Relations Copyright Business Wire 2009. Recent baseball wisdom has held that having two great pitchers is the path to postseason success. This must have been what the Yankees were thinking as they acquired C.C Sabathia and A.J. Burnett a year ago. I’m sure it also crossed the minds of the Seattle Mariners’ management and fans as they just got Cliff Lee to go with Felix Hernandez in their planned rotation for next year.Free agency has made it difficult for teams to hold onto their top pitchersfor long. In recent history there have not been many examples of dominant pitchers staying together on the same team for three years or more.Perhaps the most obvious example we have in recent history was the pairing of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling in Arizona. They won a combined 90 games in two years and brought real impact, winning the ’01 World Series.Results have not always followed the attempts to pair great pitchers together. Injuries, off years, problems with management, and pitchers being in different phases of their careers have prevented some combinations from really delivering the results most hoped for. For most pitchers, it is essential that they be at or near the very peak of their careers in order to beat the top competition. When it all clicks, having a great tandem of pitchers is one of the highlights of baseball history.This sought after phenomenon is not new. John McGraw and Connie Mack found the formula at the advent of the Modern Era. Their great pitching stars, Christy Mathewson and Eddie Plank, paired up with others to bring team success all the way through 1915.As a precursor to this article, I wrote about the great pitching trios in baseball. The pitchers covered there will not be included here. This includes the ’06-’10 Cubs, the ’29-’32 Athletics, the ’51-’54 Indians, the ’69-’72 Orioles, and the ’95-’98 Braves.If you would like to reference that article to see who’s missing from here, you can follow this link: make this list, pitchers had to be together for three years of impact. I preferred to have all three years together, but allowed pairs to have one off year displaced between the others. I’ll start with a ‘could have been’ pairing. This pairing would have any baseball historian eager to hear about the exploits for which these two teamed up.Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton teamed up on the Cardinals from ’65-’71. While the Cardinals had a great team, it wasn’t just this tandem that took them to the ’67 and ’68 Series.While Gibson hit his peak in ’63 and maintained his excellence all the way through to near the end of his career, Carlton was on a long and somewhat inconsistent upswing. When it seemed he had finally arrived in ’69 with a 17-11 record, he followed it with a league leading loss season of 10-19. He was so surly to the Cardinal management, the owner determined to let him go at first opportunity.Just when things were really coming together in ’71, when Carlton finished 20-9, he was traded to the Phillies. The pairing never completely panned out.By mid-’76, the Texas Rangers had traded for Gaylord Perry and Bert Blyleven. They kept them for a whole year and a half with both pitchers pitching well.In ’77, Blyleven had led the league in WHIP, posted a 6.9 H/9 ratio, and pitched a no-hitter. But the Rangers couldn’t be patient, and unloaded both of them to bring in Ferguson Jenkins.I mentioned Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. They were truly dominant at that time. Here’s another pairing whose length of opportunity was shortened because one of them self-destructed too quickly: Denny McLain and Mickey Lolich. In the late 60s, McLain was at his peak, winning 31 games in ’68, and 24 more in ’69. Lolich was on a strong upswing in his career. Although McLain had won the most games, it was Lolich who won three games in the ’68 Series, and faced down Bob Gibson in the seventhgame.They were poised for big things in ’70, but McLain found himself suspended three times by the commissioner for his gambling connections and poor behavior. He went 3-5. He was then traded to Washington. Lolich won 25 games by ’71. It was a pairing that could have been so much more.Now we have reached two honorable mention tandems:HM No. 1 - If you are not from Pittsburgh, or didn’t read a recent article titled, “The Best Pitchers NOT in the Hall of Fame”, then you may have never heard of Babe Adams or Wilbur Cooper . They are a too-well-kept secret.Adams was a bit older, and Cooper was slender and had a deceptively smooth delivery. Adams was the extreme control artist, who in 1920 walked a total of 18 batters in over 260 innings! Cooper was hitting his peak in 1919, and the pair put up an awfully good record for the next three years. I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to face them back-to-back.HM 2 - Growing up a baseball fan, I heard the expression that went something like, ‘Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” I thought it meant opposing teams would pray for rain when Spahn and Sain were to pitch, but I’ve recently seen it probably was the Braves fan, who said, ‘We have Spahn and Sain; they’re good, then we need to pray for rain!’So I decided to check this famous duo. They had some good years together: 122 wins and 21 shutouts. Their years that count are ’47-’48 and ’50, but they come in 11th, just missing the top ten. The top ten dynamic duos10) Warren Spahn and Lew BurdetteMilwaukee Braves, 1958-1960, 124 wins, 748Ks, 21 shutouts. At this point, 13-15 years into his career, Spahn was leading the NL in wins, IP, CG, and WHIP. Incredible.Burdette was chipping in 20 wins a year as well. They took Milwaukee to the Series in ’58, and two-second place finishes as well. 9) Catfish Hunter and Vida BlueOakland Athletics, 71, ’73-’74, 128 wins, 1081Ks, 26 shutouts. This dynamic duo had plenty of flavor along with their moustached teammates. Hunter had excellent control and plenty of game savvy. Blue added his blazing fastball that helped account for 301 Ks in ’71. By ’73 Blue had learned how to pitch, and joined Hunter to lead the team to two more WS titles. 8) Christy Mathewson and Rube MarquardNew York Giants, 1911-1913, 147 wins, 931 Ks, 19 shutouts. By this point Christy Mathewson was a great pitcher, but not at his absolute peak.Rube Marquard was the upcoming hotshot with the great fastball. Together, they led the Giants to prominence again. They made the WS three years in a row, but the magic from ’05 was missing.Among others, Eddie Plank and the Athletics, vanquished oh those years ago, came back to beat McGraw’s Giants in ’13, Mathewson himself losing head-to-head against Plank for the first time in his life! (They had pitched against one another in college days and in the WS.) 7) Juan Marichal and Gaylord PerrySan Francisco Giants, 1966, ’68-’69, 128 wins, 1250Ks, 26 shutouts. This is kind of a ‘could have been’ pairing as well, as Perry was on a long and steady upswing in the 60s. Marichal won more games than any other pitcher that decade.By ’70 Marichal was suffering from arthritis caused by an allergy to penicillin, and Perry’s career began to take off.Each year of this tandem’s candidacy, they finished second: to the Dodgers, Cardinals, and Braves. They were the bridesmaid team. Marichal was known for his great assortment of pitches, and Perry for one: the spitball! 6) Schoolboy Rowe and Tommy BridgesDetroit Tigers, 1934-’36, 128 wins, 893 Ks, 25 shutouts. This was the era of the great offensive juggernauts, Detroit itself being one. These guys had Mickey Cochrane, Charles Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, and Goose Goslin supporting their efforts. In ’34, they went to the World Series, but lost to the Gashouse Gang Cardinals. Bridges did face and beat Dizzy Dean, though.Bridges was at some point during this run leading the league in games started, wins, and strikeouts. His drop off the table curveball kept opposition batters guessing.In ’35 they were back in the Series, and this time topped the Cubs. In ’36 the Yankees were back, and they finished second. This tandem gets a bit of extra credit doing this in the live ball era, when shutouts and consistency were hard to come by. 5) Ed Walsh and Doc WhiteChicago White Sox, 1906-’08, 144 wins, 1008 K, 44 shutouts. Ed Walsh ranks as the stingiest pitcher to score on in MLB history. Together, they posted 102 shutouts for their career, and 44 during this three-year period. Ed Walsh won 40 games in ’08. Doc White won 27 in ’07. They were the surprise winners of the World Series in ’06, beating the Cubs who had won 116 games. 1 because of their dynamic winning combination, and because they almost equaled Koufax and Drysdale’s K marks in fewer games.