April 12, 2005

Link-O-Rama

I was planning to do a big Link-O-Rama entry on Friday, but some serious problems with Blogger prevented me from providing my link-craving audience with what they needed over the weekend. In an effort to make up for that (and because there was no Twins game yesterday to babble about), here is an extra-large dose of links ...

  • Headline of the Week: "Rockets' Howard (heart) out for season" (ESPN.com).

    Interesting that Juwan Howard would end up with the same problem that has plagued his former University of Michigan teammate, Chris Webber, for years.

  • Daniel Brown wrote a lengthy article about Billy Beane in the San Jose Mercury News last week and Yours Truly was mentioned very briefly near the end of it:

    The A's have found such creativity essential to their success in the American League West, where they are consistently outspent. As baseball blogger Aaron Gleeman noted, the A's average payroll over the past five seasons is $43.2 million, which was wildly exceeded during that time frame by the Anaheim Angels ($68 million), Seattle Mariners ($76.5 million) and Texas Rangers ($84.7 million).

    It's always cool to be mentioned in a mainstream media outlet, but that sort of makes it seem like I came up with those salary figures on my own. Brown and I spoke two weekends ago and I sent him a few links to some Beane-related columns I have written here over the years, one of which included those salary figures from USA Today. Brown's article was supposed to involve some discussion of how Beane and the A's compare to Terry Ryan and the Twins, which is why he wanted to read what I had written on the subject, but I guess his editors cut some stuff. Either way, my mom was impressed.

  • Do you ever read something that is seemingly innocuous and come away thinking that this country is completely out of control? From ESPN.com:

    FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Arkansas coach Houston Nutt said that players caught loafing will no longer wear pink jerseys during practices in an effort to avoid offending breast cancer survivors.

    Nutt received negative reaction from people when they saw the players in the pink jerseys. Breast cancer survivors and their supporters often wear pink ribbons, and the nationwide Race for the Cure, which raises funds for breast cancer research, uses the color pink as well.

    Does this strike no one else as completely insane?

  • Remember Bobby Madritsch, the Seattle pitcher who had to leave his start against the Twins with what looked like a shoulder injury? Turns out he has a "small tear in a ligament behind his left shoulder." No wonder he had such a horrible look on his face as he left the game.
  • Someone told me Sunday night that Joe Morgan has a new show on ESPN that comes on after SportsCenter. Sure enough, I checked ESPN.com and "SportsCenter Special: Joe Morgan on Baseball" was on the TV schedule for yesterday. I hadn't heard a word about the show and I guess I missed it, which probably shows you just how much I watch ESPN when there isn't a game on these days.
  • This week in Jessica Alba news:

    Sexy actress Jessica Alba turned her back on the born-again Christian community she grew up with when they started to make her feel ashamed of having a great body.

    Alba says, "One of the reasons why I chose not to be (a devout Christian) is because a lot of people gave me a lot of grief for just being a woman and made me feel ashamed for having a body because it tempted men.

    "I didn't understand what that meant because I was like, 'God created this...' That was a hard time in my life."

    I am ashamed that anyone would tell someone who looks like this to be ashamed of their body. Beyond that, how great would it be to see yourself described in print as something like "sexy actress Jessica Alba." Can you put that on a business card? I think the closest I've come to that is probably when someone called me "long-winded baseball blogger Aaron Gleeman," but for some reason that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

  • Actually, along those same lines I stumbled across a blog the other day that referred to my aunt as "the poststructuralist Mae West." I of course have no clue what that means, but it sounds pretty cool.
  • This news made me surprisingly sad when I heard about it earlier this month. One of my favorites.
  • In addition to here, The Hardball Times, Rotoworld, and Insider Baseball, my writing is now appearing at FOX Sports. I'm pretty certain my mom can no longer accuse me of "sitting around doing nothing" at this point. I mean, I now have proof that something is going on!

    On the other hand, remember how I asked you to send me suggestions for a weekly Rotoworld column topic? We've decided that I will write a weekly column that, much like Seinfeld, is about nothing. The nothingness will be called "Channel Surfing" and will appear every Friday afternoon.

  • This made me laugh, mostly because I've had serious discussions about the exact topic with multiple people. Let's just say my #1 pick is named after a cartoon character and leave it at that.
  • While he may never reach the height of sustained, day-to-day greatness that is the Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, La Velle E. Neal (hi La Velle!), I think I'm going to enjoy reading new Minneapolis Star Tribune baseball writer Joe Christensen. I've been impressed with what I've seen so far.
  • Some good news for a new medium that I am very excited about. I also wouldn't mind if the stock went up a little bit.
  • Friend of AG.com the Stick and Ball Guy has a new contest up over at his blog. Winner gets two free tickets to a Twins game, so anyone reading this while living somewhere close to Minnesota might want to go check it out.
  • How pathetic was this? Perhaps they were listening when I suggested they should start tanking a few weeks ago.
  • Finally, when all is said and done, this has a chance to be one of the ten funniest stories of the year:

    A Hattiesburg, Miss., policewoman and her husband found out the hard way how popular Dave Chappelle's Comedy Central show is - especially his catch phrase, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" Diane James' husband, Rick James, is running for Hattiesburg City Council. She wrote to Comedy Central:

    "Due to the popularity of the Dave Chappelle show, people keep stealing our 'Vote Rick James' yard signs ... we would appreciate a small campaign donation for more signs, as we are working-class people and financing this campaign out of our own pockets. Each time a sign is stolen, it costs us $4.75! Every time a 'Rick James' piece runs on your show, we stand to lose dozens of signs overnight, which end up decorating people's front yards and dorm rooms ... the yard signs have been spotted at least 100 miles from our home by truckers ... Also, young children on bikes scream, 'I'm Rick James, bitch!' as we drive by in our car with our 'Rick James' car signs ... People even drive by our home and scream, 'Super Freak.'"

    Just to be clear, I feel bad for the "working-class people" who lose money when the signs are stolen. With that said, if I lived in Mississippi I would have one of them hanging in my dorm room right now.

    • Today at The Hardball Times:
    - Game in Review: Rangers vs. Mariners (by Studes)
    - The 1957 Kansas City Athletics (by Steve Treder)

    Today's Picks (9-4, +$600):
    San Diego (Peavy) -115 over Chicago (Prior)
    Los Angeles (Weaver) -140 over San Francisco (Rueter)
    Detroit (Maroth) +115 over Minnesota (Mays)

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