The Old Blog

The Minnesota Twins are 2/3 of the way to having a starting outfield comprised of men with typically female names, after acquiring Shannon Stewart from the Toronto Blue Jays. Stewart would join Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones in the Twins outfield.

Meanwhile, somebody make sure Aaron “#1 Bobby Kielty Fan” Gleeman isn’t around any sharp objects for a few days. Aaron’s blog, one of the best baseball weblogs around, has been touting Bobby Kielty as a future Twins star for the better part of a year.

Why the Twins would trade outfielders is beyond me. Unless the player to be named later is some unsung power-hitting middle infielder, I think JP Ricciardi fleeced my hometown team. Stewart has a bad outfield arm, and isn’t really an upgrade over Kielty offensively. Meanwhile, Kielty is two years younger than Stewart, and is poised to break out–as soon as someone puts his name in the lineup regularly. The only rationale I have for the Twins side of things is this: Stewart is in the last year of his contract. If the Twins let him go as a free agent, I believe they would be awarded a supplemental first round pick in next year’s draft. And maybe they’ll discover a decent middle infielder (or starting pitcher) there.

First Prince, now Bobby Kielty. Who’s the next Minnesota celebrity to leave for Toronto, Randy Moss?

Slate’s Rob Walker agrees with my earlier post about those disturbing Lamisil ads. How can they expect you to buy a product when you’re afraid to watch the commercial for it?

Dennis Miller is going to look like Karl Marx compared to the new ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown host: Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, I know he’s the size of an offensive lineman, but does that qualify him to speak knowledgably about them? Yeah, Rush generates a lot of offense, but it’s really the wrong kind.

In addition to helping one of my fantasy teams into first place (so far), Bret Boone went off on Bud Selig earlier today. It’s about time a player did this publicly.

NASA has announced that it’s pulling out of an 89 million-dollar agreement with Boston University to build a satellite that would account for some of the original matter from the Big Bang. Despite BU offering former NASA head Daniel S. Goldin the chance to take over for John “the one-armed bandit” Silber as BU Fuhrer–er, President–NASA realized that maybe MIT or Harvard, both of which are directly across the Charles River (and visible from the BU campus area), may have been better choices.

Boston University announced that they were cutting the football program Homecoming Weekend of my freshman year (1997), citing unprofitability as a main reason (the team was losing roughly $3 million per year). Since then, BU has lost $87 million in a stupid stock market venture with Seragen and now an $89 million contract with NASA. Combined, that’s 59 years of football. Go Terriers!

Today’s Joe Morgan chat fun:

Will (Arizona): “Apparently, long and meritorious service is overlooked” [Note from Jeremy: this is a quote from Joe's column yesterday] Joe- We have the Hall of Fame to honor that, the All-Star game is about this season, thus far. Not the World Series teams from the previous season or the record holders or players in the last year. Nostalgia is nice, but let the guys who might have their only good year play in front of the best.

Joe Morgan: That tells me you don’t understand what an All-Star is. An All-Star is not a guy that has 3 good months. An All-Star is a person that is best at his position or best in his league. It’s not just about 3 months.

First, there is no select criteria for All-Star voting. That is why, for some people, Dontrelle Willis is an All-Star, and to some, any future Hall of Famer is. It is funny that Joe would say that an All-Star needs to be best at his position or in his league, when Clemens is definitely not either right now. In fact, in his column, Joe claims that Clemens should get in on the basis of his 300th win alone. By that rationale, Early Wynn should have been an All-Star the year he won his 300th game, even though it was his only win of the season and it took him nearly a year to get it. Joe shouldn’t be telling someone they “don’t know what an All-Star is” when 1) it isn’t defined, and 2) his own opinions on the subject are illogical. Here’s a quote from his article yesterday that undermines what he just said: An All-Star is a player who performs well for full seasons over the course of a career, not just one-half of a particular season. The main exception I would make is for rookies and other younger players who haven’t had the opportunity to establish themselves as proven performers. For them, the first half should count more.

Oh, so it’s ok to count first-half stats only if the guy’s young, but if he’s someone like Melvin Mora, whose stats are off the charts for the first time in his career, we should tell him he’s too old and it’s too late to be an All-Star. Brilliant.

Next question, please:

Jon (NYC): Joe, I don’t see the point in not letting hitters vote for pitchers. First, I’m sure that Yankee pitchers are just as unwilling to vote for Pedro as the hitters are. Also, who knows a pitcher better than someone who faced them. While I’m sure that pitchers pay attention to other pitchers, hitters are the only one’s with first hand knowledge of how filthy their stuff actually is.

Joe Morgan: Not true. Pitchers observe other pitchers better than hitters do in most cases. They want to know what makes them succcesful. If you don’t believe there is antimosity when the voting comes .. the battle between pitchers and hitters becomes very adversarial at times. I’m sure there is someone in your workplace that you wouldn’t vote for in a popularity contest. That is the point.

Bull. Crap. How many times have you heard hitters in awe of an opposing pitchers’ “stuff?” If you’re a Twins fan, you’ve heard it a lot lately. American League relief pitchers would have quite a difficult time judging another team’s hurler when they 1) never have to bat against him, and 2) rarely, if ever, see him pitch from closer than 300 feet. And even if a pitcher does study a star like Randy Johnson, they’d have a very difficult time copying what makes him successful. Joe seems to think that when players get ready for a game, they are more concerned with the people they will never face 1-on-1. If I had the power, I’d tell him how insipid this is firsthand. As it is, maybe someone else will. Ah, and as far as the “antimosity” (Joe’s spelling, not mine) goes, yes, certain players or teams don’t like each other. But if you’re worried about “antimosity,” Jon was right: it transcends the pitcher/hitter level; if you truly dislike someone so much that you refuse to vote for them in a survey of what is supposed to be based on skill, then I highly doubt you care what position they play.

David (Myrtle Beach, SC): Joe, do you think baseball would be wise to eliminate the “Every team must have one representative” rule? Football and Basketball don’t have it.

Joe Morgan: Basketball there isn’t as many players. Baseball has expanded from 25 players to 32. Every team should be represented. Fans support the Tampa Bay Devil Rays just like they do the Yankees. You are fans of a team, not always just players. The team you support all year should be represented so you will have someone to root for. It shouldn’t be compared to other sports.

Let’s look at that again. “Basketball there isn’t as many players.” [sic] Three sentences later, “It shouldn’t be compared to other sports.” I could quit and just say Joe needs a MENSA logic puzzles book, but I won’t. Requiring every team to have at least one representative means you end up with someone like Mike Williams of the Pirates (or Ron Coomer for the mid-90s Twins) becoming an All-Star when more deserving players are left off the roster. If the game is going to mean homefield advantage in the World Series (which I don’t think it should, but that’s another topic), then I don’t want said advantage to be decided by Mike Williams pitching to Aubrey Huff in the ninth inning; I want Eric Gagne vs. Carlos Delgado or Mariano Rivera vs. Albert Pujols, not some AAA player in a Major League uniform.

Next one:

John (Stillwater, MN): What’s your take on Bond’s childish remarks about being a “grown man and not having to be in the Home Run Derby”?

Joe Morgan: Barry has a right to decide what is right for him. At this point, he has competed in several HR derby’s. He doesn’t have to compete in all of them. Barry decided that Michael Jordan and Julius Erving didn’t compete in the slam dunk competition all the time. He has done it enough in his opinion.

Barry decided that Michael Jordan and Julius Erving didn’t compete in the slam dunk competition all the time? Really? I would’ve figured Jordan and Erving (or possibly their agents) made the call on those decisions.

Last one:

Tommy (NY): Hey Joe, Do you think Pujols has a realistic shot at .400 or the Triple Crown?

Joe Morgan: He doesn’t have a shot at .400. That would be almost impossible for a right-hander. I don’t think we will ever see that again. Also I don’t think we will see a 56-game hit streak. Everyone wants to hit HRs now. It’s hard to hit .400 while hitting HRs. Also with so many pitching changes, hitting in 56 in a row would be almost impossible. Especially for a right hander, there are too many dominant right handed pitchers.

As for the Triple Crown, will Barry Bonds quit in the middle of the season? If he keeps playing, it will be tough for Pujols. It’s so difficult, that’s why you only see it every 50 years or so.

Here’s a list of Triple Crown winner in the Major Leagues (courtesy of HistoricBaseball.com:

1887 Tip O’Neill St. Louis (AA) 14* 123 .442
1894 Hugh Duffy Boston (NL) 18 145 .438
1901 Nap Lajoie Philadelphia (AL) 14 125 .422
1909 Ty Cobb Detroit (AL) 9 107 .377
1922 Rogers Hornsby St. Louis (NL) 42 152 .401
1925 Rogers Hornsby St. Louis (NL) 39 143 .403
1933 Jimmie Foxx Philadelphia (AL) 48 163 .356
1933 Chuck Klein Philadelphia (NL) 28 120 .368
1934 Lou Gehrig New York (AL) 49 165 .363
1937 Joe Medwick St. Louis (NL) 31* 154 .374
1942 Ted Williams Boston (AL) 36 137 .356
1947 Ted Williams Boston (AL) 32 114 .343
1956 Mickey Mantle New York (AL) 52 130 .353
1966 Frank Robinson Baltimore (AL) 49 122 .316
1967 Carl Yastrzemski Boston (AL) 44* 121 .326

Fifteen winners over the course of 126 years (the National League began in 1876) works out to one every 8-9 years. We are currently in the longest Triple Crown drought in history, and that’s only 35 seasons (36 if nobody does it this year). The only way Joe is remotely accurate about this is if by “50 or so” he meant “35 or fewer.” Otherwise, he is once again talking out of his rear end. Need I remind anyone that Mr. Morgan is the author of Baseball for Dummies?

Lest I go too hard on the guy, here is one answer I actually do agree with:

Marcus (Dallas): Mr. Morgan, how do you feel about “us”, the fans, getting to pick the MVP of the All Star Game?

Joe Morgan: I don’t know. (Laughing). The one problem I have with all the changes is you only make changes when you feel something is wrong with the game. TV can’t make this game exciting. Only the players can. The fact that the ads for the game is “Now it really counts.” To me, that is a slap in the face to Ted Williams, Willie Mays, all the great players. They already played the game like it counted.

Exactly. Perhaps Joe should bring this up with the other most annoying man in baseball, Bud Selig.

Jerry Springer will file the necessary papers for an U.S. Senate bid. The 59-year-old talk show host/former mayor of Cincinnati will run as a Democrat (insert right-slanted jokes here). As someone who detests Springer’s show, I am actually glad to see him join the race. Listening to him on C-Span a few years ago, I realized that despite the bottom-feeder IQs of his guests, he is an intelligent, articulate man. Additionally, his political experience is more relevant than was that of Jesse “The Thin Skin” Ventura before he took office in 1998. This is a perfect time for Springer to take the next step in his life; an Opera based on his show is selling out in London, and he can’t possibly host his show forever. With the line between entertainment and politics growing thinner every day (remember Dubya on the aircraft carrier?), Springer’s run is not only condonable, but possibly endorsable.

Here are the pictures of Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki drunk out of their minds, courtesy of SportsbyBrooks.com. Worth 1,000 words, indeed.

A golf cart dressed up to look like Lizzie Grubman’s SUV hit a boy during a Fourth of July parade in Southampton, New York, broke the kid’s leg, and kept going.

Two years ago, Grubman backed her SUV into a crowd of people outside the Conscience Point Inn, a Hamptons nightclub, injuring 16. In another delicious twist, the boy’s family hired Andrew Siben, who also represents one of Grubman’s 16 victims, as their lawyer.

She might be number one in her class, but Blair Hornstine is not going to Harvard. The home of the Crimson may be a club based on nepotism. They may be buying up all the land in Lower Allston (where I live) in an attempt to spread their influence south of the Charles River. They may even graduate more than 80 percent of their students with honors. But at least they stood up to the poster child for whining and parental string-pulling, rescinding their offer in lieu of her blatant plagiarism. Off to Yale for you, Blair! Have fun in Connecticut!

And special thanks to Georgiana Cohen, Boston.com employee, who alerted me to this.