Return of the Horse[bleep] Tuesday Night Link Dump

Well-rested after a week's vacation, what is widely considered in my house to be the greatest Tuesday Night Link Dump on the Internet tubes returns!

** After a terrible, no-good, rotten day Sunday, Ozzie decided to unclench a little:

Guillen was less critical of media members whom he accused by being too fickle after the first five weeks of the season.

"I don't worry about the media," he said. "I can go to the moon, and people will ask me a question. I went to Spain last year because I don't want to talk about baseball, and people were talking about baseball in bars.

"Wherever I go, people want to know what's going on."

Sounds like somebody got some QT with the blow-up dolls. I kid, I kid!

** MLB continues its efforts to atone for its shameful, shameful past:

As part of its 2008 First-Year Player Draft next month, Major League Baseball will hold a ceremonial selection of players from the Negro Leagues. Participation in the draft is voluntary, but most of the 30 clubs are expected to take part as baseball continues its efforts to keep alive the history of the Negro Leagues.

The ceremonial event will be streamed live by BaseballChannel.TV at 1 p.m. ET, directly preceding the start of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft at 2 p.m. ET. Both events will take place at The Milk House at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Fla. Fans are encouraged to attend and admission is free, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.

"You don't ever want to forget your history," [MLB Executive Vice President Jimmie Lee] Solomon said Tuesday. "The whole gist of what we've been trying to do in this area of diversity -- in this era of inclusion -- is to go full circle: look at our present and examine our past and rededicate ourselves to the true essence of what the American pastime should be."

We've been critical of Baron Budhausen and his cronies here, but I'm more than happy to give him props for stuff like this. If only we didn't have to have stuff like this...

** Voting for the All-Star Game is now open. Because there's no better time to figure out who's having the best season than the first week in May. No props to the Baron for this form of early voting...

** Maybe Jim can add to this, because he's paid for MLB TV while I stick to good ol' reliable Gameday Audio:

According to the customer service at Major League Baseball, the MLB.TV Premium package, which lets customers watch baseball games on their computers at higher bandwidths than the basic package and allows users to watch up to six games at once, is a "bonus."

The rep also claims that the difference between 800k and 1.2Mb video speeds, both of which are available to Premium subscribers, is negligible, and in any case, their product info pages says they're not obligated to provide the 1.2Mb package.

** MLB.com's Mike Bauman wrote the Brew Crew was "for real" after their exciting win Thursday against the Cubs.

Since then, the Crew has dropped four in a row to Houston and Florida.

Note to Mr. Bauman: please don't ever write that the Cubs are "for real." Thank you.

** ESPN.com goes into the details on why the Brewers weren't "for real" since 1983.

** Finally, it wouldn't be a Tuesday Night Link Dump without a You Tube musical interlude. To honor those nutty funsters in the White Sox clubhouse, without any further ado, here's your own -- your very own -- Dirk McQuickly!

Frank Thomas Memorial Link Dump

** There's nothing better than beating the livin' bejeezus out of the Mets. Well, almost nothing. I admit that beatin' the living bejeezus out of the Cardinals comes first.

But what makes beatin' the livin' bejeezus out of the Mets even more special is recapping the series through You Tube videos.

** Hey -- Rob Neyer's got a new book out. I might have to give it a look-see.

** Thank you to Goat Rider Kyle for quantifying "Scrappiness." Hey, it makes as much sense as any of Dr. Phil's alleged analysis.

** Mike Downey tells us all about scrappy white guy Reed Johnson. He's a "31-year-old who hustles like Pete Rose and hero-worships Ty Cobb."

As my bilingual friends might say, Donde los yikes! Let's hope he stays away from the casinos. And doesn't beat up handicapped fans in the stands.

** This just about sums up Brewer Fans' reaction to Ben Sheets' latest.

** We've got a new addition to the links: Where Have You Gone, Andy van Slyke? Show a Pirate Fan some love, would ya?

** I was going to point out that Corey Patterson is still not having a good season, but Pat (from the aforemention WHYGAVS blog) beat me to it.

** The week's most shocking news, of course, was the Blue Jays sudden dumping of Frank Thomas. Reaction ranged from mocking the Jays for ditching their best hitting just because he had a bad two weeks and praising the Jays for getting rid of selfish, mean, no-good Thomas (both encapsulated here by FJM's Junior). Mike Downey wonders why Thomas is waiting on the unemployment line with Barry, Sammy, and Roger.

I can't reckon why the Blue Jays pulled the plug like that. The most obvious answer is economics -- after a certain number of PA's, Thomas' option for '09 kicks in. But eating the rest of this year's contract seems to be an odd way of getting out from under that option.

Thomas is on the downslope of his career, but there's nothing that makes me think he'd be a waste this year. I think some enterprising AL team needing a cheap DH would be more than happy to pay Thomas the Major League minimum for the rest of the year...

** In honor of Frank Thomas, I continue my award-winning Rutles retrospective. This song is from the Rutles' second film (the one in color that wasn't as good as the black-and-white one). Enjoy!

Tuesday Night Link Dump

** Last week, Ken Tremendous at FJM pointed out this lovely piece from SI's Rick Reilly:

"It’s all over the map," Reilly says about sports journalism on the dot.com world. "There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on there from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement...

Yes, it's another piece from a journamalist who are fed up with all us guys who think we know something about whatever sport we're writing about. Because if we don't sit in the press box and watch the players get undressed, what could we possibly add to the discourse?

I thought of Reilly's assessment today, when the Tribune wasted the lives of more trees printing this piece of crap from Sully.

This has to be one of the laziest things ever written by Sully, who is quickly becoming a master of lazy hack work (like this, for instance). All Sully does is rehash his favorite scripts about Dusty and Lou. If you've read the Trib at any point of the last four years, you've read it all before.

Cut-and-paste. Why, it's as lazy as masquerading a lame collection of links as a real blog post...

** Meanwhile, at the Tower, Fred Mitchell makes this modest proposal:

It took 22 years before the Boston organization and Red Sox Nation publicly forgave first baseman Bill Buckner for his fielding gaffe in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series...

Which raises the question: Are Cubs fans ready to forgive their former first baseman, Leon Durham, whose fielding error in the sixth inning of the deciding game of the 1984 National League Championship Series against San Diego opened the floodgates for a bitter loss?

Or do the Cubs have to win a World Series before their fans get around to forgiving Durham?

To once again quote Mr. Ken Tremendous...f*ck the heck????

I know that, in this hundred year anniversary, we'll be elbow-deep in rehashing of all the alleged tragedies in Cub history. But this is a new one on me. I didn't realize that we Cub Fans were supposed to be hatin' on the Bull.

If I'm going to blame anything for our 1984 NLCS loss, I'll blame the fact that the Padres won Game Five and we didn't.

We didn't lose the game because Durham booted the ball. We lost because the Padres played better than we did. Can we stop trying to gin up some phony "controversy" about stuff that happened almost a quarter century ago?

** Mitchell includes this nugget from Buckner. Talk about burying the lede!

"I really had to forgive, not the fans of Boston per se, but in my heart, I had to forgive the media for what they put me and my family through," Buckner said after throwing out the first pitch. "I've done that, I'm over that and I'm just happy."

Emphasis, of course, mine. Hard to believe that Mitchell would let that slip that some of his cohort might not be as "fair and balanced" about some players as they like to think they are...

** Goat Rider Curt has this trenchant response to Mitchell's idiocy. Bravo, Kurt!

Hey, as a writer of a daily blog, I understand the need to drive quantity sometimes at the cost of quality. Maybe Mitchell's editor approached him and said, "hey, 100 words on Durham and Buckner by 5PM please," leaving poor Fred Mitchell no choice but to write one of the most ridiculous articles ever written by a Tribune columnist not named Phil Rogers.

** Also at the Goat Riders, Byron has a Q&A with Reds blogger Red Hot Mama. RHM becomes one of the first to offer this tired take on a subject that should have been put to rest long ago:

As for Fukudome, he's hardly a rookie. He played at the Japanese major league level for, what, nine years? Giving him the ROY would be like letting the kid who was held back for three years win the pull-up competition.

*sigh* Once more, folks -- Fukudome, and all other players that come from the Japanese leagues, are rookies during their first year in MLB. It doesn't matter if they've spent nine years, one year, or twenty years in the Japanese leagues.

The only way that analogy works is if you're willing to argue that the Japanese leagues are at an equal level of quality as MLB. In which case, Tuffy Rhodes should be considered a brilliant power hitter.

** Shorter Jeff Passan: Nick Swisher -- what a guy! Here's wishing we could all be a little more like him!

I like Nick Swisher. I think he's a good ballplayer. It's funny that when he was with the A's, people griped more about his Moneyball skills than anything. Now, they're beginning to notice that he's got some talent.

** Last week's Rutles video was so well-received I just have to do it again. And with all this talk about Baker, Durham, and Buckner, I know just the song. Enjoy it, won't you?

Tuesday Night Link Dump

It's the laziest post of the week, as I just don't feel like thinking all that much...

** Listening to the Rays/Mariners game tonight, I just heard what could be the greatest radio promotion of all time!

If you bring a radio to the Trop, and one of crew there spots you with it, they'll give you a game ball. And a chance to give a shout-out on the air.

OK, so it's not much. Still, I think it's pretty cool.

** As far as bloggers go, Sully makes me look like someone who puts effort into it. He rarely posts anything that isn't a cut-and-paste from his pieces in the next day's paper (unlike White Sox beat reporter Mark Gonzales, who seems to understand that the blog provides a medium that offers the opportunity to post in real time).

Sully, though, was quick to put this post up trumpeting the Cubs' blown seven-run lead Monday. If you're looking for a follow-up post that mentions in passing the Cubs winning that game in extras...well, you're still waiting.

What do you think about that, Kenny Williams?

There's only one sports team in Chicago that will get a pass. I won't name them. But it ain't us.

** I've already mocked Dr. Phil for his dopey "Power Rankings." Fortunately, Bad Kermit at Hire Jim Essian! presents a funnier mockery of the "Power Rankings." He even includes a re-set of this famous play:



** Fire Joe Morgan's Ken Tremendous presents a cogent write-up of what I consider to be the greatest moment in the history of ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. I mean, did the guys at ESPN really expect the umpire to say something not bleep-worthy after getting drilled in the face with a pitch?

** I'm not sure what The New Yorker's Roger Angell is trying to say here. I think he's saying that baseball players used steroids because they want to make an assload of money, not because they want to tarnish the game's hallowed records. Any thoughts on that?

** As you may have heard, the pit known as Shea Stadium is closing after this year. And while MLB.com's Michael Bauman mentions one famous non-baseball event held there, I don't understand how he could leave this one out of his column:



** And just for the hell of it, take a trip in the Way-Back Machine and revisit a classic episode of Batgirl's Legovision. Because I miss Batgirl.