In Denial, or Just Ignorant?

The headline on Ken Rosenthal's piece today asks a question I thought offered an obvious answer:

Why is Jermaine Dye looking for work?

I'll go out on a limb and sugest a few reasons. It may be the fact that he's 36 years old with a growing list of infirmities. Or perhaps because heis reportedly looking for both a starting gig and a salary somewhere in the neighborhood of where it's been recently ($11.5 million last year, according to ESPN).  Or possibly his post-All-Star Break OPS of .590.

Or some combination of the above.

I laughed out loud at this bit:

Just last offseason, the Phillies signed left fielder Raul Ibanez — who was a year older than Dye is now and also a below-average defender — to a three-year, $31.5 million contract.


Dye said his offer from the Cubs was for less than one-tenth of that amount.

The Cubs proposed a one-year $3 million contract, Dye said, not the $3.3 million deal that they gave to another free-agent outfielder, Xavier Nady.


While Nady, 31, is five years younger than Dye, he played in only seven games last season before undergoing a second Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.

“No doubt, I’ve probably slowed down a little bit (defensively), but not enough to not be getting (attractive) offers,” Dye said.

“I’ve already expressed a willingness to play first base or left field if need be. I’ve taken groundballs at first base a couple of times a week the last five years in Chicago. That transition will be pretty easy.”

Is Dye going around whining to reporters that those mean ol' Cubs signed a (slightly) younger outfielder on the cheap instead of giving him a multi-year deal?  Or is he bent because he would have jumped at the offer if Jim Hendry had ponied up another $300 K?

[Side note to Jermaine:  it is exemplary of you to say you're ready to jump in at first base or left field. However, that may not be as strong a selling point to the Cubs as you think, since we've already got those two positions covered by guys that aren't going anywhere soon.]

I don't begrudge Dye's desire to get a few more years of baseball before he has to hang 'em up. But he's been around long enough to know the business side of the game doesn't leave a lot of room for sentiment.
 

Really, Baron?

In the aftermath of Mark McGwire's non-shocking admission this week, Baron Budhausen had this to say:

The use of steroids and amphetamines amongst today’s players has greatly subsided and is virtually nonexistent, as our testing results have shown. The so-called steroid era — a reference that is resented by the many players who played in that era and never touched the substances — is clearly a thing of the past, and Mark’s admission today is another step in the right direction.

Really, Baron? The Steroid Era is a "thing of the past?"

I think the Baron needs to accept a bit of wisdom from William Faulkner (perhaps the greatest American writer from south of the Mason-Dixon Line): The past is never dead. It's not even past.

Part of the reason we're still having this discussion is because very few people -- owners, players, fans, and media -- were willing to talk about the prevelance of steroid and other PEDs in the late '80s and early '90s.

Oh, we're willing to kvetch about it now. But in real time, too many of us (and, yes, I'm including myself in that mix) were having too much fun to worry about it in real time.

We'll be talking about 'roids in 2020. The Baron is dumb if he thinks otherwise.

"I Want to Ruin It for Them"

This happened a few days ago, but I haven't heard about it much in the usual locations. Must be that damned media bias.

Anyway, Ozzie Guillen went off again last week. Here are his actual quotes, presented without comment:

I don't understand the people out there. I don't get it. I sit with [general manager] Kenny Williams and we try to do stuff, and we get pounded like we don't try or don't care or do good for the fans or for us.

And I don't get it. I trust my players. I think they're good talent and will play hard for us.

And hopefully the result will be the right one. Because if we win this thing, Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, all those guys will be on diapers with what I'm going to say, because I'm going to rip a lot of people apart if we win this year, because enough is enough. What are we going to do to satisfy people?...

If people get mad at me and [think] I ruin this stuff for them, good. I want to ruin it for them. That's what people say. But in the meanwhile, it drives me crazy.

I tell my players every day, 'Give me some bullets to fight for you.' Everything I do in this town is to fight for my players. And everyone likes to hammer and hammer and hammer how [terrible] I am.

Oh, what the hell? I'll add a comment...

Put Me In Coach

The Trib's Mike Downey takes a break from retyping his usual scripts about the evils of the Cubs, their organization, and their fans to laud his BFFs for their big trade today:

The Tribune, 9:36 a.m.: "Griffey headed to Sox."

Excellent news. I was stoked.

Oh, that Ken Williams, always something up his sleeve. If not an ace, then a king.

Ken Griffey Jr., in center field at the Cell?

A cause to rejoice -- set off the fireworks.

Uhhh...One wonders if Downey realizes Junior hasn't played center field since 2006. And wasn't particularly good at playing center field back then, either.

Oh, well. Set off the fireworks! Everyone gets a pony!

Ed Wade Is Off His Meds

We have a leader in the clubhouse in the 2008 Dave Littlefield Sweepstakes. Littlefield was the Pirates GM who last year traded for the washed up Matt Morris and his entire salary at the trading deadline with his team buried in last place. The trade had no basis in common sense and was the last straw which got Littlefield fired.

If Ed Wade thinks that his sad sack Astros team is in any kind of pennant race, he is serious deluding himself. If he thinks that Randy Wolf, 1-6 with a 6.63 ERA outside of pitcher's haven Petco Park, is going to pitch them into the playoffs, he is delusional on a scale of the residents of Arkham Asylum.

This is Wade's "thinking:"

"We still think the club we have is good enough to play better than it's played. We've got a million games left in our own division at this point in time. Our fate rests in our hands and I think it's important for us to do whatever we can, from the baseball ops side, to give our guys as much support as we possibly can."

He may be slightly exaggerating the "million games" part. I'm going to go on record right now that the Astros won't be in contention for at least five years.

Cheap Shots and Shameful Behavior

It's been a shameful week so far at the Tribune Tower, as two of the company's star columnists engaged in some pretty disgraceful behavior.

First, Big Mouth Morrissey took it upon himself to get Ozzie Guillen to respond to his insulting, anonymously-send e-mail. At the end of the day, Big Mouth is man enough to tell Ozzie he's the guy who's been sending the insulting e-mails. But still -- why in God's name would anyone do that?

Let alone an allegedly professional journalist?

This little escapade doesn't quite reach these heights in terms of outright ignominity. But it comes close.

Meanwhile, Dr. Phil gives us his take on the Brewer's trade for Captain Cheeseburger and the Cubs' move to pick up Rich Harden. True to form, in Dr. Phil's world everything is sunshine and lollipops for the Brew Crew, and doom and gloom for the Cubs.

Buried towards the end of the piece is this little nugget of joy:

Another scout said he did not view Harden as the next best pitcher available after Sabathia because of "makeup" and health questions. He said Harden, who had spent months rehabilitating from a strained shoulder, declined to make starts last September because the A's were out of the race.

If true, that's positively Prioriffic.

Well played, sir! A definite two-fer for the mediocre Doctor! Getting the boot in on Harden and Prior at the same time...not everyone can pull that off. It takes some real talent.

A couple thoughts on the cheap shot(s):

1. If true (and that's a big if, considering all we have to go on is the word of an anonymous scout who's already on the record as being anti-Harden and is probably not a world-class clairvoyant able to read Harden's mind), is it really such an awful thing? For a pitcher rehabbing a bum shoulder to not push himself just to pitch some meaningless September games?

For years, Dr. Phil (and others) lambasted Dusty Baker for pushing Kerry Wood and Mark Prior to the breaking point in 2003. Which, you may recall, was a year my heroes were in the midst of a pennant race.

But now it's bad form for Harden to not want to pitch for the opprtunity to pitch the A's to 81 wins rather than the 79 they wound up with?

2. And perhaps a real smart baseball guy like Billy Beane would agree that, perhaps, it wouldn't be wise to hustle a pitcher back on the mound just to impress the scouts.

3. A couple years ago, Derrick Lee begged off some meaningless September games while he recovered from a broken wrist (and to be with his ailing daughter). He could have played, but opted to be with his family and get healthy for the next year. Does that make D-Lee "Prioriffic," too?

4. And why the cheap shot at Prior in the first place? I was as frustrated at Prior's health problems as anyone. But good God -- is there any reason for the constant harping on the guy?

Especially since Dr. Phil himself was pimping Prior as a potential Godsend for the Padres mere days before the start of the 2008 season:

While still feeling the effects of his 2007 shoulder surgery, [Mark] Prior had an outstanding spring training. He will benefit from being away from the intense scrutiny that came with the expectations he created for himself at Wrigley Field. He will start the season on the disabled list but could make 20-plus starts. Prior can be a free agent after this season, which was a factor in the Cubs not offering him salary arbitration, so he won't lack for motivation. It will be interesting to see if the Cubs will have two starters pitching better than Prior in August and September, when he could have been pushing the Cubs toward the playoffs.

Prioriffic, indeed. I'm willing to bet we have two starters pitching better than Prior in August and September...

Sully Explains It All

Why aren't MLB.com reporters members of the BBWAA? Let Sully break it down for you:

Reporters for MLB.com have already been told who is on the team, giving them a head-start for their reporting. This is one of the reasons why MLB.com reporters likely will never be allowed into the Baseball Writers Association of America. MLB wants to pretend their reporters are the same as beat reporters for newspapers and other media, but obviously that's not the case or the names would be released to everyone at the same time.

Two reactions:

1. Someone send a waaaaahhhhhh-mbulance to the corner of Boo Street and Hoo Avenue, stat!

2. MLB.com reporters aren't BBWAA members? They are now officially my favorite baseball reporters ever. If the BBWAA hates them enough to exclude them from the clubhouse, they gotta be doing something right...

And That's Why He's Got a Hall of Fame Ballot and We Don't

Dr. Phil shows off his impressive analytical skills once more:

The next two months will determine whether the St. Louis Cardinals will be in the National League Central race for the long haul, as his teams usually are.

Two months from now would be September. So...if the Cardinals are still in the race come September, that would determine if they will be in the race for the long haul.

Can't argue with logic like that.

Thank God That's Over

Sweet zombie Jeebus, I hate interleague play. But I hate the White Sox series even more than interleague play in general.

No, not because I hate the White Sox. It's because the Cubs/Sox series can never just be about the game. There's so much extraneous BS going around that it just gets tiresome.

Whether it's the bozos from both sides of town who pollute the message boards here to the constant whining about everything from White Sox players, field manager, and front office executives.

I hate to be on the same side as a putz like Mariotti, but I am. You'd think a World Series trophy would be enough to validate some people's sense of self-worth so they wouldn't feel the urge to denigrate others. You'd be wrong.

Look at what those guys were saying over the last week. Now, imagine that instead of a guy from the White Sox saying that stuff about the Cubs, their stadium, and their fans, that it was a guy from the Red Sox talking about the Orioles. Or the Astros talking about the Rangers. Or some random team not from Chicago about some other random team not from Chicago.

If it were a member of the Tigers front office ripping on Cleveland for not having won a World Series in a long time, you'd think him a nut job. Or deeply, deeply disturbed.

But what do I know? Stay classy, Chicago White Sox organization!

Coincidence, or Something the White Sox Organization Teaches?

Looks like the waaaaaaaaaah-mbulance needs to make a stop in Saint Louis:

“Lately it’s gotten a little unfair,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “You lose Albert, you lose Wainwright, (Joel) Piñeiro was missing. All that stuff gets to be a little unfair.

“If it gets excessive, it kind of pisses you off.”

Unfair? Yeah, I guess that's one way of looking at it.

The non-whiny way of looking at it: that's baseball. Deal with it.

Yahoo's Jeff Passan must be trying to get some credentials for the McCain campaign, because this is his sentence immediate after LaRussa's "unfair" claim:

La Russa is a lot of things. A whiner isn’t one of them.

Spare me. If anybody else in the game had said that his team's injury situation was "unfair," he'd be mocked nine ways from Sunday for being a WATB. I guess LaRussa's reputation as a straight-talkin' maverick protects him from such judgements...

Big Mouth Morrissey: Even More Annoying Than the Real Morrissey

Shorter Big Mouth: It's about time the focus at Wrigley Field was on the games, instead of stuff like billy goats, evil advertising signs, people singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and the horror that is selling naming rights to the place. You know, the kind of stupid sh*t that is the bread-and-butter of my columns.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Here's the first five paragraphs of his piece:

A beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the only thing that matters at Wrigley Field is the action on the field.

This is more like it. Or, at least, this is the way it's supposed to be. But these are the Cubs, and this is a different universe.

Of course, the emphasis should be on the baseball. Not on the physical state of the ballpark. Not on the offensive Kosuke Fukudome T-shirts on sale. Not on the eventual sale of the team. Not on the seventh-inning-stretch singers. Not on how much advertising to allow inside Wrigley. Not on the ballpark's landmark status.

Not on the long-suffering fans. Not on naming rights. Not on the concern that fans are harassing Alfonso Soriano. Not on the Billy Goat curse or rooftop owners or a fan reaching for a foul ball during a playoff game.

It should be about the team with the best record in baseball beating the Rockies on a sunlit afternoon. By the way, the team with the best record in baseball hasn't won a World Series in 100 years. Would that be considered immaterial to the Cubs holding off Colorado 5-4 on Saturday?

A Bartman re-set followed up by a 100 year re-set? Well played, sir! Well played!

I gotta hand it to ol' Big Mouth, though. No one at the Tower is as much a virtuoso at playing the rubes than he is...

Big Mouth does let something slip, a dirty little secret that few in the Chicago journamalist trade will ever let you in on:

The Yankees might dwell in the Bronx Zoo and every breath they take might be material for New York tabloids, but the difference is that the Yankees have won 26 World Series. They're the circus; the fans aren't. It's the other way around here, with Wrigleyville serving as the big top.

If you're thinking to yourself that this wouldn't be the case if the media chose to take a pass on everything Cub, you're right.

WHAT????? I'm so confused..."if the media chose to take a pass on everything Cub?"

B-b-b-b-but Kenny told us that there was only one team in Chicago that got a pass. And it wasn't the White Sox!

Now Big Mouth says the Cubs don't get a pass, either. It's like one of those paradoxes Kirk uses to make evil computers blow themselves up on Star Trek!

Note: I take no credit for this post's title. I shamelessly swiped it from a commenter over at Hire Jim Essian. I'm not clever enough to come up with anything that funny...

It Would Be Funny If It Weren't So Pathetic

Shorter Mike Downey: Boo-hoo! The White Sox are in second place, and no one loves them as much as they love the Cubs! Boo-hoo! Life is so unfair!

This is standard-issue nuttery from Downey. I try not to mock stuff like this (because it's like shooting fish in a Dixie cup), but there was one particular passage that made me laugh and laugh. The ridiculousness of it just begged for a whuppin'.

After blathering about how the Sox started the week merely a game out of first place, and about all the good young talent on the team, and some self-pitying mewling about how nobody loves his heroes, Downey comes back with this:

For a team that has been in first or second place for most of this season, the Sox have not been the talk of the league. They aren't even the talk of their own town.

Cubs, Cubs and More Cubs—that's what you hear here.

A day doesn't go by without somebody gushing about how great the Cubs look. (Whereas the last time I looked in the standings, the Cubs were only 1 1/2 games ahead of the so-so Houston Astros and 4 1/2 up on the p.u. Pittsburgh Pirates.)

And this is the point at which Downey's logic collapses like the house of cards it is.

No, not because I think the White Sox stink. Rather, it's because the facts have a pro-Cubs bias.

Downey's facts are right about the Cubs' lead over divisional rivals Houston and Pittsburgh. But Downey is disingenuous presenting this information, because he doesn't actually tell you what the teams' records actually are.

Heading into today's action, here's the NL Central standings:

Chicago 23-15 ---
Saint Louis 23-17 1
Houston 22-17 1.5
Milwaukee 19-19 4
Pittsburgh 18-20 5
Cincinnati 16-23 7.5

Meanwhile, the White Sox -- the team Downey refers to as a "nice surprise" and deserves a "standing ovation" for being a game out of first place, is 18-19.

You read that correctly. Mike Downey says that a .500 team is a "nice suprise."

Eagle-eyed readers may also notice that those so-so Astros would be three games up in the standings on the Pale Hose. And the "p.u." Pirates -- merely a half-game behind.

And that's the team Downey is telling the rubes they should be cheering for. Not those no-good, rotten, over-rated Cubs.

The White Sox have an interesting team this year, which is more than I could say about last year's version. But right now, they're a .500 team with decent pitching and a middling offense. If Cleveland and Detroit continue to fritter away their seasons, that could be enough to keep them in contention all year. You know, pretty much the same scenario that last year's Cubs squad took advantage of.

Downey's an admitted White Sox partisan, so it's not surprising that he should make this little trip in the waaaaaaaaah-mbulance. The truly sad thing -- a guy who is honored with a Hall of Fame ballot cannot advance the discourse about our National Pastime more than this.

Stay Classy, Reds Announcers

As reported over at Hire Jim Essian...

Saddle Up

If you want more proof that the blow-up doll "controversy" is more like making a mountain out of a grain of sand, look no further than Mike Downey and Big Mouth Morrissey getting up on their high horses in this week's Trib.

Downey pretty much calls out the Sun-Times as a bunch of hypocrites for getting up in arms about the dolls while at the same time running adverts for strip joints and pictures of Playmates.

Meanwhile, Big Mouth says:

I don't want to sound like a mother demanding her child eat all of his food because of the starving children in China, but 22,000 people died in a recent typhoon in Myanmar, and we're worried about two blowup dolls in a major-league clubhouse?

Congratulations, Big Mouth -- you've just rationlized your livelihood away. I mean, bad stuff happens every single day in the world. Really bad stuff that makes worrying about any form of entertainment (movies, sports, TV) inconsequential.

When a "controversy" is so lame that it produces two columns this banal, it's time to close the door on it. Please, let's just move on, OK?

Why, Indeed?

Following up (sort of) on Jim's post about Trump's crack-back on Alex Rodriguez, we find Fox Sport.com's Tracy Ringolsby offering this nugget o' joy:

If Alex Rodriguez really is the "franchise player'' that should have the richest contract in baseball history, can someone explain why he has never played in a World Series game? He won't turn 33 until July 27 and has finished among the top 10 in MVP voting in nine of his 12 full seasons, but he ranks third among active players in terms of games played without a World Series appearance.

His one-time Seattle teammate, Ken Griffey, Jr., is at the top of the active chart, and Frank Thomas ranks second.

Not to say that a player has to be in a World Series to be considered one of the game's most talented, but the bottom line for history isn't the bottom line in a checking account but rather the success of a team. Team success is tied to championships.

Nice of him to toss in that last bit. I guess Ringolsby can admit that A-Rod is talented, even if he isn't clutch enough to make it to the World Series.

But to address his original question...why has A-Rod never played in a World Series game?

Can it be all his fault? Since signing that record contract, Rodriguez' OPS+ have been 160, 158, 147, 131, 173, 134, and 177.

For those of you who aren't guys sitting in their basements "spilling food on ourselves" (as Ozzie described it), OPS+ measures how productive a batter is relative to the league average. So in 2007, when Rodriguez was all chokin' in the clutch and stuff, he was 77% better than the average player.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I think most people would think that is pretty good. Perhaps a guy who's 77% better than the league average would be someone you'd want on your team.

So why hasn't Rodriguez been in the Fall Classic? Call me crazy, but I think these might be contributing factors, that no sane person could blame on Rodriguez' obsession with the almighty dollar:

** In 2001, out of all the Rangers' starting pitchers, the lowest ERA was Doug Davis' 4.45. Rick Helling, Kenny Rogers, and Darren Oliver starting 82 games (more than half the season) between them, and posted ERAs of 5.17, 6.19, and 6.02.

** The 2002 Rangers got their pitching together a little. Very little The league-worst 669 walks allowed may have contributed to a team ERA of 5.15.

** The '03 Texas team narrowly missed an ignominious Triple Crown -- they finished with the worst ERA (5.67) and most HR allowed (208), but managed to squeeze into thirteenth place in walks allowed (603).

Few teams have made it to the Series with pitching that bad.

** In 2004, the Yankees rolled to a 101-61 record before getting rolled themselves by Boston in the ALCS. Rodriguez put up a .258/.378/.516. Why couldn't he be as clutch as that nice Derek Jeter (.200/.333/.233)?

** Rodriguez had a famously bad 2005 ALDS versus Anaheim. So did Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, Al Leiter, and Tanyon Sturtze. Not that anyone noticed...

** Rodriguez had a more-famously bad 2006 ALDS against the Tigers. That nice Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada were the Yankees who did squat (the team totals were .246/.289/.388). Chalk it up to four games of life sucking for the Yankees at the worst time.

** Last year, the boo-birds were all over A-Rod's .267/.353/.467 as Cleveland clobbered the Bombers in four games. Perhaps sub-par compared to what we've come to expect from Rodriguez. But perhaps the Tribe found it easier to win the best-of-five series after clobbering Yankees ace Chien-Ming Wang in both his starts.

To sum up -- why hasn't Rodriguez been in a World Series? Several reasons: the Rangers were a really, really bad team when he was with them. And in his four years in New York, the Yankees have either run into better teams or just picked the wrong time to have a crappy week.

Hope this clears things up...

The Donald Runs His Mouth

Sweet Jumping Jebus on a pogo stick! Who in the hell cares for a single minute what Donald Trump thinks about Alex Rodriguez? How surprising that a boob like Trump thinks that Derek Jeter is a winner and Rodriguez is a loser. Rodriquez has never won a ring, so how could he be any good? It's all his fault when the Yankees don't win, you know, because he is a failure in the clutch. And Jeter, he just knows how to win.

Please explain to me the fascination that America seems to have with a jackass like Trump, an egotistical, money worshiping, mean spirited creep. Why is this news?

And here's a puzzler for you: if Derek Jeter is all-powerful, how is it that his Yankees have won no World Series titles since 2000? Rodriguez didn't show up until 2004, so it can't all be his fault. Or can it?

Stay Classy, White Sox Players

From what was once marketed in Chicago as The Bright One:

A clubhouse prank by the White Sox before Sunday's game against the Blue Jays drew some attention in Toronto and forced Ozzie Guillen to address why there were blow-up dolls in his clubhouse.

The prank, apparently designed as a "slump-buster" to get the Sox offense out of a rut, included two blow-up dolls with bats strategically placed. The incident was reported in today's National Post in Toronto and on www.suntimes.com/sports in the "Inside the White Sox" blog by Joe Cowley.

"I’m not going to make the players apologize," Guillen said. "I don’t think that was a big deal. It’s our house. I don’t think we did anything wrong and I don’t think we did anything to make people upset. We did something to have fun and stay loose."

Here's the official reaction from the front office. I think there's a sentence hidden in there somewhere:

[Sox spokesman Scott] Reifert expects some dialogue about the situation when the team returns.

"I'm sure when the team gets back from the road trip there will be some conversations," he said. "Generally in a clubhouse that kind of thing is kept kind of quiet in the clubhouse in terms of results."

Oh Good Lord

Dr. Phil offers his special brand of baseball analysis with his first "Power Rankings" of the season:

9. Cubs (6): For this to be a magical season, they will have to play better. They were on a pace to allow a majors-worst 162 unearned runs through five games.

"They will have to play better." Thanks, Dr. Phil! I bet my heroes never thought of that!

Oh, and I love the talk about being "on pace" this early in the year. By the way -- Mark Ellis was "on pace" to hit 162 homers after the first game in Tokyo. He's fallen slightly off the pace since then...

Dr. Phil also has the Tigers ranked #31. Don't ask why he has more than thirty spots for a thirty-team list (he adds allegedly clever things to his lists). Hey -- Detroit's on pace to lose a major-league worst 162 games through five games (and most of the sixth going on right now).

I think it's obvious that for the Tigers to get the magical season everybody expected from the, they'll have to play better.

Paranoid Much?

Normally, I wouldn't bother to make fun of Jose Canseco. But this little nugget of joy, as reported by the Trib's David Haugh, set off the WTF Alarm in my head:

A courtesy cup of black coffee was waiting for Jose Canseco on Friday when he arrived at his seat inside a downtown bookstore to sign copies of his second tell-all about steroids and baseball, "Vindicated."

Before Canseco took out a pen, he sent the beverage back.

"Who made this coffee? If you don't know who made it, you've got to dump it," Canseco snapped at a store employee. "No way they are going to get me."

They?

So began the latest stop on Canseco's Me Against the World Tour.

Wearing sunglasses he chose not to remove, Canseco called Major League Baseball a "powerful mafia," gave a detailed account of how he once injected former White Sox teammate Magglio Ordonez with steroids inside the U.S. Cellular Field clubhouse and flexed an ego that has never needed enhancement.

About half an hour after Canseco refused his coffee in a paranoid snit, another worker returned with a fresh cup she said she had just made herself. "Good—thank you," Canseco said.

You know, I've said some pretty mean things about Baron Budhausen and his cronies before. But I don't think they'd actually try to assassinate someone who's ticking them off. Perhaps Canseco is exaggerating his affect on the Commissioner's Office?

On the other hand, what do I know? As the saying goes...just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you, too...

Quiet Riot

So I'm listening to Sports Central on WGN radio after Saturday's Cubs game. You'd think I know better, because if there's anything I've learned in my 40+ years on this planet that one of the few places that you can find less insightful baseball analysis than internet message boards is sports radio.

So I shouldn't have been surprised to hear co-host Jim Memolo gush about what a great top-of-the-lineup hitter Ryan Theriot is. Because he's a grinder and "works the count" so excellently.

Here are Theriot's pitches per plate appearance for the last four years, courtesy of ESPN:

2005 -- 4.07
2006 -- 3.65
2007 -- 3.53
2008 (through Saturday) -- 2.96

If that's "working the count," The Riot has the cushiest job in Wrigley Field.

I'm sure that there are lots of Cub Fans who now accept as gospel truth that Theriot can "work the count" without a second thought. Because some guy on WGN radio said he could, and he must know what he's talking about because he's on the radio.

Gentle Readers, if there's one thing you take away from our little cow-town blog, it's this: don't ever accept anything anyone (even us) tells you at face value. Do your homework. Look up the numbers. And decide for yourself.

If there's something else I've learned during my 40+ years on this planet, it's that everybody is as full of crap as everyone else (even me (I won't speak for Jim here)). You know just as much as anyone on the radio, or in the newspapers, or with a cow-town blog. Or at least you do, if you're willing to put a little effort into it...