links!

I'm trying to do these posts a little less often. Unfortunately, that means they might be bigger.

Cleveland Indians
* Having No Blog Is My Blog: Mmm! Pie!
--Everyone loves pictures of Grady Sizemore getting a pie to the face... right? Right?


The rest of Baseball
* Baseball LJ Community: A fair-weather fan or an honest one?
Now, am I mistaken when I think that it is a fans right to cheer when the team is doing well, and to also boo when they feel the team is doing badly? Should the fans constantly be saying, "Oh that's ok. Go get 'em next at bat" when a player strikes out three times with the bases loaded and RISP?

* Editor & Publisher: Barry Bonds' Home Run Record Tainted by Mechanical Device?
...by my estimate, Bonds’ front arm “armor” may have contributed no fewer than 75 to 100 home runs to his already steroid-questionable total.
[and The Cheater's Guide To Baseball's take.]

* Baseball Prospectus: Barry Bonds' Brace
On Monday, an article was published regarding the brace, first at Editor and Publisher (a specialty publication covering the newspaper industry), purporting that the brace worn by Bonds was an illegal aid that helped Bonds hit home runs. The assertions of the author, Michael Witte, were on their surface difficult to believe, but I wanted to know more about this brace. What was it made of? Who made it? Could it possibly help Bonds hit?

* AOL Fanhouse: Is Alex Rodriguez going to get his No. 500 homer ball back?
This is a tough spot to be in. On the one hand, I could see wanting to give A-Rod the ball back if you're a fan of the team. But, you'd be giving up thousands upon thousands of dollars in the process.

* Church of Baseball: Dear Governor Kaine,
There were a few of these [autograph] vultures who obviously were just going to sell them. That really pissed me off, because I was directly affected by such types at least twice: 1) Jay Bruce was not allowed to sign the sweet spot (more unsweetness) of my new ball (remember, he was the first one I saw) because of these types of profit-sucking scavengers, and 2) Joey Votto would not sign my ball because he would "only sign for the kids" (I'll speculate more on that in a minute).

* I'm Writing Sports: Tommy John Surgery: The Truth Revealed
Dr. James Andrews, the leading physician in his field, recently explained in a New York Times article that the extra heat, if it exists at all, comes from the physical therapy and rehab that is done in post-op recovery. He also has a few theories that can explain this hoax: young pitchers begin to throw harder as they mature, players are comparing the speed from when they are injured to the postoperative velocity, and pitchers often improve their mechanics during rehab while also making their bodies stronger. Lastly, the repaired arms are pain free and rested.


Basketball
* AOL Fanhouse: In Defense of The Bay
I'd like to call this subconscious classism, but it's not even hidden. Streeter says Baron belongs in L.A. because Oakland isn't upscale -- Hollywood, pixie dust, whatever the hell you call it. He's saying rich people deserve to watch the most flashy, most exciting players alive. Poorer folk? They'll be fine with Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, right?


Football
* AOL Fanhouse: So How Did Brady Quinn Do?
The Cleveland Browns finally came to a contract agreement with quarterback Brady Quinn today, and on first glance, it looked like the Notre Dame quarterback got more money than he deserved, as the 22nd overall pick.


General Sports Media & Sports Blogging
* SI.com: Dan Patrick on his decision to leave ESPN
--The first interview with Dan Patrick after leaving the worldwide leader.

* AOL Fanhouse: Dan Patrick Heading to NBC in 2008?
That most likely means Patrick would be used on NBC's Olympics coverage from Beijing.

* Sports Business Daily: SportsWatch: What Top Sports News Outlets Covered During May
Sports fans today are consuming more information through more outlets than ever before, but despite this proliferation of media channels, a select few remain as the first destinations for fans. But what exactly are people consuming? How slanted toward a specific sport might one outlet be compared to another?

* Ballhype: Big Tent Sports Blogging
--An interview with the folks behind SB Nation.

Links

Regarding that pesky home run record
* ESPN.Com/Jayson Stark: Projecting career stats is an inexact science
And the other thing we all need to remind ourselves -- always -- is that we have no idea (none!) how many seasons, how many at-bats, how many opportunities Alex Rodriguez will get, over the rest of his career, to break that record.

* MSN.ca: In defence of Barry Bonds - Part 1
The point is: when a record is set, it's a combination of two things -- one, a terrific player and two, the circumstances he plays in.

* Baseball Prospectus: Fans 1, Selig -412
As the crowd around him cheered, Selig rose slowly from his seat and made a grand show of putting his hands in his pockets, refusing to acknowledge the player, the achievement or even the excitement around him. With that one gesture, Selig made it clear what he is: an old man determined to protect the interests of other old men, even if it means degrading the game of baseball.

* Baseball LJ Commnity: 755
-- Not necessarily well-thought-out commentary, and there's some troll-esque commenters there, but I wanted to link to a reaction post.


Other Baseball
* New York Times Online: Trading Places: Red Sox have become the Yankees
By acquiring Eric Gagné last week, the Red Sox forfeited their right to criticize or whine about the Yankees, their longtime archenemy and nemesis, the team their chief executive once called the Evil Empire. This year, there’s a new show in town, and the Red Sox have cast themselves as the Yankees. As such, they are giving an award-winning performance, which is not to say there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing.

* Metsgrrl: Via Chicago
We emerge from the tunnel and I can tell you that nothing you know or think you know or have seen is going to prepare you for what it’s like to actually be there, especially first thing in the morning when it’s nowhere near full, when you think you can almost hear birds in the background, when the crowd is a low murmur and the loudest sounds are of the players yelling to each other on the field. The undulating slope of the stands, the blue and red and blue and green, and then more green, the field, the warning track like a freshly plowed furrow in a Midwestern corn field.


Football
* AOL Fanhouse: Do the Browns Regret Drafting Brady Quinn?
Ultimately, it sounds as though Quinn is going to end up with a better deal than he really deserves, at least if you think what rookies deserve is based on where they were drafted, not where Mel Kiper thought they'd be drafted.

* Ohio.com: Brady Quinn, it's time to sign deal
Do you realize that your holdout makes it seem like you have an overblown sense of entitlement? That you not only are hurting yourself by holding out, but also not helping the team that saved you from even a bigger free-fall in the NFL Draft?

* Columbus Dispatch: Situation with Quinn sours positive vibes of nifty draft
So here we are. The fans' hopes of abrupt turnaround are fading fast. Regardless of which side is right, they are beginning to see a mess that looks an awful lot like the same old Browns.

Link Round-up

Baseball
* Royals Review: Closing the Book On Buddy Bell
I don't think a good case can be made that Bell would have been the right man to lead this team as its talent matures and the real, honest to God, goal becomes winning now (or, winning then, as it were). Nevertheless, while I would have been positively thrilled to hear that Bell was leaving for the first 200 games of his tenure, I must admit I feel a touch of sadness now. Retirement is a kind of death rehearsal in our capitalist culture, even for the most anonymous of jobs, and there's certainly something chilly about the fact that Bell's diagnosis is the spur here.

* Indians.com: Stanford designated for assignment
Now he's looking to run to another big-league club. Stanford said he would pitch in the Minors for another organization, if a Major League opportunity doesn't immediately arise. But because he views himself as a starter, he has no interest in remaining in an Indians organization stocked with starting pitching.

* The Church of Baseball: It's a bittersweet life
Why have you forsaken me, baseball gods? I give you everything. I sacrifice my time, money, and social life for you, yet you give me nothing but losing. You have condemned me to twelve years of wandering the barren desert, tease me with mirages of golden trophies, curse me with an insatiable, unquenchable thirst.

* Athletics Nation: The Myth of the 9 Hattebergs
A lineup of 9 Hattebergs will excel against “Hatteberg-friendly” pitchers (pitchers with spotty command, etc.), but will struggle against all “Hatteberg-unfriendly” pitchers, because a lineup of 9 Hattebergs has no Plan B to turn to against a Carlos Silva, who throws a ton of strikes, or a Derek Lowe, who doesn’t give up a lot of hits or walks but also cannot shut down the running game. This would lead to the team scoring a ton of runs occasionally but also getting shut down far too often. Sound familiar?

* The Hardball Times: Why do sinking fastballs cause groundballs?
There are at least two basic hypotheses to explain why sinking pitches lead to groundballs. If low pitches generally lead to more groundballs than other pitches, it's possible that sinking fastballs are associated with groundballs because the pitches simply end up in the lower half of the strike zone more often than the more traditional four-seam fastball. The second hypothesis proposes that location doesn't matter because the sinking movement causes batters to misjudge and swing over the top of the baseball regardless of where the pitch is located.


Other Sports
* Gelf Magazine: Lamenting SportsCenter's Baroque Period
GF: Deadspin has a community like the old SportsCenter used to have. Younger people have gone to blogs, where they find the capacity to be informed and the right to contribute and form an opinion. It's a massive kind of empowerment and a very powerful development. On the other hand, not all blogs are created equal, so one would have to imagine that there are going to be real questions about the next generation of people who write about sports.

* AOL Fanhouse: Big Ten Preview: '07 Ohio State
[written by the enemy, but seems mostly fair, although I'm not particularly educated about college football.]
So, yeah, they'll win because that's what Ohio State does of late. More specifically, they'll win because they have a ton of starters back from a defense that was statistically amongst the nation's best despite two rough outings to end the year, including freakish man-beast defensive end Vernon Gholston, by FanHouse's accounting the fifth best player in the conference, and jam artist corner Malcolm Jenkins. Oh, and there's that Laurinaitis guy. Despite being the #1 most overrated player in the Big Ten, he's not exactly bad.

* Abolitionist Approach: A note About Michael Vick
There is something positively bizarre about condemning Michael Vick for using dogs in a hideous form of entertainment when 99% of us also use animals that are every bit as sentient as dogs in another hideous form of entertainment that is no more justifiable than fighting dogs: eating animals and animal products.

Links for the first of August

Fernando Cabrera Thoughts
* Let's Go Tribe: Transactions (August 1)
Aside from a wink-wink rehab stint in early 2006, Cabrera's been in the majors because he had to be. Yes, if he had pitched well, this wouldn't be an issue. But Cabrera is just 25 years old, and could still be reasonably classified as a young, promising pitcher.

* Indians.com: Notes: Delving into Cabrera decision
"We really did, and still do, like the arm and respect the person," Willis said. "Every so often, we'd see him start to find it. But when we'd try to use him in a more meaningful situation, he wasn't able to repeat the same stuff, control and command."

* Baseball Think Factory: Indians DFA Cabrera
The kid can throw a baseball through a brick wall and he's got a ridiculous slider, but there was no indication that he's anywhere close to being a good major league pitcher right now. You can't play the rest of the season, in the middle of a pennant race, with a 24-man roster. And that's essentially what they were doing carrying Cabrera.



Buddy Bell Resignation:
* Royals Review: WHB 810 speculating on Buddy Bell Firing, Press Conference at 4:30 today.
Well, there will no longer be a need to fire Buddy Bell. Sounds like he is gonna step down at the end of the year ---- Press Conference at 4:30. They are trying to speculate on whether he is being forced, whether he is still ill, or whether he was looking for a long term security offer (contract) and they said no.

* Kansas City Star: Posnanski: In many small ways, Bell made Royals better
When Bell was hired as Royals manager in the middle of that spectacularly awful 2005 baseball season, I wrote that it was a colossal mistake. At the time, the Royals were about as low as a sports franchise could be. They were the worst team in baseball, of course. But the problems dug much deeper. Their manager had quit under curious circumstances. The owner was widely regarded throughout the game as a cheapskate. The face of the franchise, Mike Sweeney, was injured again. At the time, it seemed pretty obvious that, no matter what question you were asking, Buddy Bell was not the answer.

* Baseball Think Factory: Buddy Bell to quit at season's end
Buddha: Man, the next thing you know the Royals are going to be all competitive again.


Other Links:
* The DiaTribe: Comparitively Speaking
...here’s a little analysis of the moves that were made that some fans probably would have liked to been in on and how the players given up for that “one piece” compare to players currently in the Indians’ organization.

* Slate: Parsing the increasingly bizarre sayings of Ichiro Suzuki
Ichiro may just finally be letting down his guard for the American media, indulging their appetite for personality over a detailed accounting of on-field performance. It's also possible, however, that he has had an ulterior motive for exhibiting the weirdness of the last few months.

* Ballhype: 2007 Ballhype Sports Blogger Survey Results
Hold onto the edge of your seats for this last finding … Sports bloggers are predominantly white males in their mid-to-late twenties.

* AOL Fanhouse: Gay athletes come out in high school
I think it's more likely that the first openly gay player in one of the major leagues will be someone who grew up in a setting that allowed him to come out in high school. He won't have a press conference to announce he's gay because everyone will already know.

Links:

Trade Deadline Fallout
* Royals Review: Game 106 Open Thread- Royals (47-58) at Twins (54-51).
Tabling for a moment the specifics of the future prospect versus current star quandary (i.e. the Smoltz-Alexander trade) its never good when an entire industry thinks the same way about everything, in this case: player development, pitching staff management, in-game strategy, lineup construction, etc etc. The difference between the most "radical" and "old-school" GMs is about 5%. The fluctuations between coaches/managers is even smaller.

* Cleveland Plain Dealer Blog: Shapiro did not want to regret a trade.
The whispers of the past grew loud as the trading deadline neared. "Having been a part of the Ricardo Rincon-for-Brian Giles trade, I swore I'd never trade an everyday player for a reliever," said Indians General Manager Mark Shapiro. [BBTF discussion]

* The Hardball Times: Deadline Draft Picks
For those of you who haven't been obsessively tracking trade news and rumors the last week or two, here's the story. When your team trades for a rental—a player headed for free agency after the season—you not only get their services for a few months, but if they leave for a different team in the offseason, you get draft picks as compensation.

* The Hardball Times: Analyzing the Deadline Deals
Anyone else remember when Castillo hit .334/.418/.388 in 2000? He and Juan Pierre made for a great power-less combination at the top of the Marlins lineup. Well, Castillo hasn’t added power since with zero home runs this season, but he has slowed down a bit in other parts of his game, most interestingly displaying a lower walk rate than he had earlier in his career. Most players, of course, walk more as they get older.

* Baseball LJ Community: Huh?
The best part? Apparently, the Giants were begging teams to take Morris and offering to pitch in with his salary for next season. The Pirates not only gave up a legit prospect, but they took back zero money. Brilliant...


Other posts:
* Church of Baseball: One Fine Day (So Far)
I used to think that hanging out after a game waiting for player autographs was like stalking, but not anymore, because I was sitting in a hotel waiting for the Reds to come down and go to the ballpark, and that felt more like stalking.

* Let's Go Tribe: Cabrera DFA [for comments!]
afh4: I'm only 22 and all that, but Ferd when he was on had somewhere in the top 5-10 best "stuff" I've ever seen. Just ghastly sick. It's always sad to see talent unharnessed and failing.

Links for today!

So, I've been sleeping kind of a lot lately, and missing out on games and news and the like, and the blog's been suffering for it, and I know, and I'm working on it.

Here, have some links until I can give you some content I actually produced on my own.

On the Saltalamacchia for Teixeira deal:
* Sabernomics: Salty for Tex
* AOL Fanhouse: The Teixeira trade signals a sellers' market

Trade Deadline Threads:
* at Let's Go Tribe
* at U.S.S. Mariner
* at Royals Review
* at Minor League Ball

Other Stuff:
* The M Zone: Is Jim Delany Selling Out Big Ten Football to be a Big Time TV Guy?
* The Hardball Times: The Rise of Phillip Hughes
* Mistake By The Lake: Open Your Pie Hole, calling Trot Nixon's insufficient pies to task.
* The Sporting Orange: What If…Barry Bonds and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Weekend Links

I've been oversleeping a lot lately, which is apparently impeding my work on this blog. Sorry, guys. Here, have some links.

100% Injury Rate: Baseball sure seems opposed to letting women ump in the majors

Babes Love Baseball: Hey Ladies!, on Ria Cortesio, the only female umpire in professional baseball right now. An old-ish, but related article from March of this year.

Freakonomics: Why Legalizing Sports Doping Won't Work. Unsure how convincing I find the arguments, but the idea that we've reached the point of having this argument is intriguing to me.

New York Sun: Remember Ripken, Not the Myth of Ripken

AOL Fanhouse: Donnie Sadler (Mnor Leaguer) Suspended 50 Games, because sometimes it's good to remind ourselves that some guys are juicing just to be able to keep getting paid to play baseball, not to become superheroes. This probably doesn't excuse steroids to people already staunchly anti-steroids, but it's something you gotta keep in mind.

Church of Baseball: Adam's Last Day?

Cincinnati Enquirer: The case for keeping Adam Dunn

The Boston Globe: Scalping crackdown intensifies, yet little appears to change

Metsgrrl.com: Yo No Soy Marinero, or some changes Shea might want to make: all the time, and specifically on Meringue Night

Links: a quick round-up

Dawg Sports: Deadspin, ESPN, and the Sports Media Revolution: A Blogosphere Anthem, an interesting article (which I'm sure you've all already read) about the five fundamental problems with ESPN right now.

Sabernomics: What Happened to Andy Marte?

Let's Go Tribe: Transactions: July 27, 2007. I love Ryan's transactions posts. They always leave me feeling a little more knowledgeable and a little more secure in how I assess a trade, call-up, or DFA.

Baseball Prospectus: A Failure of Leadership, on steroids, Selig, and Bonds. Again. "The central truth about the “steroid issue” is this: average people don’t care about PED use. They care about tearing down those who they do not like, protecting those they do, and making themselves feel superior in the process."

Cleveland Plain Dealer: Baseball legend Frank Robinson brings his opinions to Jacobs Field

Baseball Think Factory: Projecting Minor League Pitching

Larry Brown Sports: Sports Bloggers can be hypocritical and lazy, or if you're going to link to an AP story, you don't have to link the ESPN.com version of it.

More on the Aaron Laffey Drama

... which still has not resolved itself.

Buffalo News: No word yet on L'Affaire Laffey

The Ultimate Sports Roadtrip: Drama and Intrigue at Dunn Tire Park

Links: July 23, 2007

The Hardball Times: THT Dartboard

The Wall Street Journal Online: Extra Innings: The Secret To Winning After 40

Sabermetric Research: Are MLB Player Skills Normally Distributed? This is pretty much just statistical nerdery.

Church of Baseball: I'd Like To Apologize, which is pretty much how I feel about blogging about baseball every time I do it.

And Let's Go Tribe is still trying to figure out the Aaron Laffey situation: Laffey Staying In Buffalo (For Now). The media is saying nothing sketchy was going on, but the behavior of everyone in Buffalo (And our Jensen's wall comments to Laffey) do make it seem that there's some sort of deal/call-up thing going down. I'm incredibly intrigued by this story for some reason, even though I haven't been paying much attention to Laffey (or any of the Bisons) this season.

I promise I'll have actual, real-life content one of these days, but I'm busy catching up on some old reading I should have done. (A little Bill James, a little Baseball Prospectus.) Plus, nothing's really sparked my need to post lately. I think this is what happens when I score games dispassionately and we're all just waiting for the trade deadline to happen so we can figure out what we got and if it was good for us.

Drive-by Linkage

Let's Go Tribe: Laffey to Cleveland?, Aaron Laffey got pulled in the middle of a start in Buffalo, commenters attempt to figure out what the heck is going on in the comments. There may be a trade lurking on the horizon. (Here's an unofficial article from the Buffalo News with reference to the subject; and WNYMedia.net's Baseball Blog has more information: Aaron Laffey is probably driving to Ohio right about now)

It might be tied to the 25-minute closed door team meeting after last night's game, during which Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez were having a pretty obvious fight (Paul Hoynes, Lee-Martinez spat leads to team meeting after loss to Rangers). I love me some Sleepy Kitten, but not if he's sassing off to our MVP. I'll be curious to see how this goes.

The DiaTribe: Lazy Sunday with The Franchise

AOL Fanhouse: Could Ticket Scalping Be Over as We Know It?

AOL Fanhouse: Fans Complain When Browns QB Brady Quinn Charges $75 Minimum for Autographs. This just in, Brady Quinn is kind of a jerk.

Indians.com: Notes: Lessons learned by Lee This is an old news article, but I'm linking based on the current discussions about whether or not we ought to worry about Cliff Lee's attitude problem and/or if he does have an attitude problem.

Links for July 21

I'm still recovering from an evening of minor league ball (to be discussed shortly), a Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows release party, and then an all-nighter made up of reading that book before I got spoiled more than I already had been.

So my links are less far-reaching than usual.

AOL Fanhouse: Peter Gammons: Scott Boras Has 'Ruined' Several Top Prospects. This is certainly exciting news to me, as there is no love lost between myself and Scott Boras. (Or, rather, there is no love lost between me and a draft system that doesn't allow teams to actually take the proper draft picks for their draft slots due to a messed up salary/bonus system. Bleh.

AOL Fanhouse (again): Girl Supposedly Paid $425 to Make Out with Padres' Kevin Kouzmanoff. Apparently people are all "But he's ugly!" To which I say, "But he hit a grand slam on the first major league pitch he saw!" Plus, whatever, it was for charity.

Bugs And Cranks: Tell the Truth About Steinbrenner. Seriously. Is he suddenly senile?

And I'm watching the comments of Let's Go Tribe: Jeremy Sowers: Signs of Life? because, hey, Sowers had an outing where he struck dudes out and didn't get shelled down in Triple-A. Sometimes you gotta get excited about the little things.

Links for July 19

Baseball America: No Hop In Crowe’s Step. An analysis of Cleveland prospect Trevor Crowe, what led to his struggles this season, and how he's starting to show signs of life again.

The DiaTribe: Setting the Hook. A quick rundown of what Cleveland has to offer any possible trade partners this season.

Metsgrrl has posted two book reviews today. Zack Hample's Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks and Derek Zumsted's The Cheater's Guide To Baseball


I'm currently reading The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, and midnight tomorrow is the Potterdämmerung, so I'll probably be less around for a couple days.

Links

The Disappointment Zone: Livingston Gets It Right, criticizing a skit performed by LeBron James at the ESPYs.

Bugs and Cranks: On the continuing issue of Chief Wahoo: Retire Chief Wahoo (David Chalk) & Let Him Stay (Steve Hulkower). I continue not to understand the "keep the chief" perspective, but I figure I'll link it here in the interest of presenting these articles in their original intent, to be a point/counterpoint series.

Slate.com: The sloppy, bizarre, freewheeling, wonderful NBA summer league.

Jemele Hill: Analyzing Sheffield. (which I want to link along with an old post of Blac(k)ademic's, Is It Racism, or Am I Just Paranoid?.)

AOL Fanhouse: the Debriefing: If Vick's a Scumbag, So Are Preakness Organizers

The Cleveland Fan Message Boards: July 17, 2007. Poster claims "insider info" regarding a roster move, still hasn't happened.

The Cleveland Fan: Thome Deserving of Boos. Mostly linked because I am so sick of Cleveland fans getting called out for booing Thome. Look, you guys, if you are not a Cleveland fan, you do not understand why we are booing.

Linkage

Signal to Noise: Gary Sheffield and his mouth. (And reading the comments, seriously. Every time I see the phrase "the race card," I desperately want to link everyone to this article.)

The Starting Five: The Wonderful World of Mike Greenberg and Barry Bonds (Bud and Hank, too)

Indians.com: Notes: Tribe staying patient with Cabrera: team nurturing pitcher, since he is out of Minor League options. I am primarily linking this as a follow-up to last night's post about Cabrera's fate. I remain hesitant.

Random Linkage

Sorry for the lack of actual content lately; I've been slacking a bit, I know. Anyway, here, have some links:

Newsweek Entertainment: "It's Root, Root, Root, for the Home Team", which calls out ESPN on its aggressively positive marketing of many athletes, to the detriment of, like, news. Not sure I fully agree, but I think it's more on the money than not, anyway.

Kansas City Star: You Can't Always Judge A Pitcher By His Fastball, discussing the decision of the Kansas City Royals organization to stop relying on radar guns to evaluate pitching in the low minors, and on the effect the use of the radar gun has had on the development of pitching. Interesting read, although, again, I'm not entirely sure where I stand on the subject.

Indians.com: 'I trac system' a real eye-catcher: Some believe it enhances concentration; skeptics still remain, since we're talking about how technology affects baseball. I don't have much to say about this article, but it was also a pretty interesting read.

Indians.com Game Face: Stich 'N' Pitch melds two traditions, which I am linking mostly because I think Stitch 'N' Pitch is basically the coolest thing ever, and want to learn how to knit and/or crochet primarily to go to a game and do this.

Travis Hafner Deal

I don't have anything to say about the Hafner contract extension that other, smarter, more on-the-ball people haven't already said. All I have to say is that I've been experiencing random bursts of glee since I heard the news.

I'm a little bit in love with Mark Shapiro right now, I think.

From The Diatribe: The "Core" Corps, discussing who The Indians will have signed and for how long now. It looks like the Indians are going to be playing at this same level for at least the next three years if most perform as expected/projected.

From Let's Go Tribe: Transactions update, discussing some criticism of the Hafner contract, and attempts to judge, using sabernomics, how good or bad a deal the Indians got. (You can also see initial reactions in the comments to the rumor thread from the day before.)

From Sabernomics.com: Ichiro and Hafner: A Tale of Two Organizations discusses the Hafner deal's value versus the rumored Ichiro deal with the Mariners, and compares how the Indians organization gets better value for its dollar than the Mariners organization. (This link not meant to encourage the nastiness between the Indians and Mariners blogosphere this season, guys. I love you all.)

And what would a post about Travis Hafner be without a link to the thoughts from Pronk Needs You?: Pronk Needs $57 Million.


I'll be going into Indiana for more minor league baseball tomorrow. Hopefully this adventure will be slightly less sweaty.

Miscellaneous stuff

There's a very interesting post from Doberman on the Diamond: Boxing is More Dangerous Than Football... Isn't It? Really interesting read. Although I'm not sure the numbers ultimately figure out (I imagine there are much more football players than boxers, but that's just a guess, and I'm not sure that applies much to many years ago).

I did something embarrassing today, and that thing was calling into a local sports talk radio program, Sportstalk with Koza, which was actually kind of fun, and the engineer made me stay on the line afterwards because apparently I'm getting a tee-shirt for being smart. So, uh, I guess this is me shilling for ESPN. Sorry 'bout that, y'all.


In my latest Adventures In Scoring, I've discovered:

1. I dislike scoring games on Fox, because they're like "Hang on, let us throw all this crap on the screen instead of the game! Oh, I'm sorry, were you keeping track of pitch counts? Sucks to be you, then!!!" I lost, like, eight pitches that way, even though I was paying very close attention.

2. I dislike when a LOOGY gets brought in to get the last out in the inning, and then the guy on first gets caught stealing to end the inning. Obviously that's not an at-bat for the guy at the plate, but does the LOOGY get a .1 inning of work or not? Dudes, stop getting caught stealing to end innings. It's bad for the game and it's bad for my scorecard.


I am also very close to just calling the whole Boyfriend Standings thing off. They're fun and all, but they're becoming less and less reflective of my feelings, and I'm getting more and more close to just giving one guy all the points and having a new boyfriend. But, you know, I'm cursed and all.

So I said, a little while back, that I was definitely going to at least update the Boyfriend Standings on Sundays. Then I update them a couple times during the week, and then end up falling asleep for the majority of Sunday, and not actually updating the standings on time. Sorry, y'all. Expect updates... eventually. I've slept through half of both of the last couple games, so I'm really only getting half the story, and updating on hearsay and whom I think should get a boost in the standings.

However, instead of updating right now, I'll be out running errands and the like (making the tables for the Boyfriend Standings takes me longer than I have free time right now). Therefore, I give you an interesting link about racism and the reaction to Barry Bonds that I think is worth reading, since I'm not putting out any content for a while: Home Runs, Heroes and Hypocrisy: Performance Enhancement in Black and White.

Sometimes you have to help other people's boyfriends.

Stop whatever it is you're doing. Yes, right now.

You know why?

Because Pronk Needs You.