Link-O-Rama
Last week someone arrived here by doing a Google search for "Shecky Souhan." Soon no one will even remember that his first name is "Jim" and the proliferation of that nickname may end up being my legacy. I can almost picture the opening of my obituary:
Aaron Gleeman, the needlessly hurtful jerk who coined the nickname "Shecky Souhan" for Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan, died Monday after being bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by a group of men that included Souhan, Luis Rivas, and several members of Tony Batista's immediate family.
"That'll teach him to point out how awful many of my columns were," Souhan said in a statement to police Sunday, just moments before trying unsuccessfully to get officers to laugh by telling a knock-knock joke about an orange and a banana.
No jury in the country could possibly convict him.
As a longtime listener of the Howard Stern radio show, I don't know if I was more surprised to read in a mainstream news article that Savanna Samson has become a successful wine-maker or that her real name is Natalie Oliveros.
Here's a recent headline from the Minneapolis Star Tribune that sadly isn't about me in any way, yet potentially could have been just a year ago: "U student wins $1 million in poker tourney."
I'm sure this isn't an original thought, but after watching the NCAA tournament for the past couple weeks here's my submission to the Reggie Cleveland All-Stars: University of Pittsburgh basketball player Levon Kendall.
My football counterpart at Rotoworld, Gregg Rosenthal, asked me the other day what I thought about the whole Steve Hutchinson/Nate Burleson situation between the Vikings and the Seahawks. Here's the analogy I came up with: It's like you slept with my sister and I said, "Oh yeah, well I'm going to sleep with your brother!" And then you'd just look at me funny and say, "Whatever, go ahead." Gregg thought it was a good analogy, but then again he might be insane.
From the "there are worse things to be associated with" department, here's something from The Weblog That Derek Built:
In other predictable news, the headline that made its way around on Thursday "Bonds Planning to Sue." Although the idea seemed to cause many folks much consternation, the analogy that kept running through my head was "Aaron Gleeman Planning Threeway with Jessica Alba and Elisha Cuthbert." It's pretty much the same deal: both are situations where the planning isn't the tough part, it's the execution that's tricky.
I'm not sure if I should be proud or embarrassed about my longtime admiration of Jessica Alba and Elisha Cuthbert making it into the baseball-blogging lexicon. And for the record, I've been planning for that event all my life, so it must be pretty tough too.
Interestingly, Alba and Cuthbert very nearly faced off against each other in the finals of the Best Damn Sports Show Period's "Best Damn Hottie" tournament. It's a proud moment for me, as I was on both bandwagons years ago, before they got crowded. And both of their tournament resumes (Cuthbert, Alba) were very impressive.
And speaking of Cuthbert's tournament resume, I'd clear a few minutes off your busy schedule and watch this.
After reading this, I'm thinking it might be tough for Patrick Reusse to get a good quote from Dan Monson next season. Not that I disagree, of course.
You know it must be close to Opening Day when the Boston Globe has a feature on Bill James. After reading it I wondered why the newspaper was so willing to basically give everyone a map to his home. Seems sort of unnecessary, especially given James' preference for staying out of the public eye.
I've only turned down one full-time job offer in my life, but I'm happy to report that it appears to have been a good decision.
I haven't been in a fight for at least a decade, so I'm far from an expert on the subject. With that said, Julian Tavarez might want to work a little bit on his technique (before careful when you click on that link, because it has sound). That wasn't so much a punch as it was a cross between slapping someone in the face and knocking on their front door.
I guess in the end what really matters is that it got the job done, which is odd considering Joey Gathright claimed afterward that he has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Revealing that information after you get knocked to the ground by a quasi-punch thrown by a stick figure is like telling someone you're an excellent driver after you back into a mailbox.
Twins fans will enjoy the profile of Eddie Guardado that ran in the Seattle Times earlier this week. And if that's not enough to get you to read the article, consider the first sentence: "Cristian Guzman could not stop itching."
This isn't actually a link, but rather a tease: Yesterday I shot the television thing I hinted at a couple days ago. I think it went relatively well, although I admittedly don't have any past experiences to really compare it to. I'm not quite sure when it'll air, but I'm told it'll most likely be next week. As with my Sports Illustrated appearance, I'll give you all the information once it gets confirmed (even if you don't care to hear about it).
Finally, if you haven't already done so I urge you to read the first eight installments of my fourth annual top-50 prospects rankings over at The Hardball Times:
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 11-15
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 16-20
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 21-25
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 26-30
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 31-35
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 36-40
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 41-45
- Top 50 Prospects of 2006: 46-50
The final two installments, counting down the top 10 prospects, will come next week.
UPDATE: Francisco Liriano was arrested in Florida Thursday night and charged with a DWI. The Official Twins Beat Writer of AG.com, La Velle E. Neal, has all the details over at the Star Tribune.
I'm generally in favor of coming down very hard on people who drive drunk, but certainly Liriano wouldn't be the first 22-year-old to make an out-of-character mistake. He seems remorseful and embarrassed, and I'm hopeful it's a one-time incident as opposed to a sign of a more serious problem. As for his status with the Twins, Terry Ryan indicated that it won't impact his spot on the roster one bit.
UPDATE #2: The Twins have inexplicably sent Jason Bartlett to Triple-A, handing the everyday shortstop job to Juan Castro.
Earlier this week I said I wouldn't get upset about the Twins jerking Bartlett around until it actually happened and ... well, it's actually happened. As I wrote about the situation a couple days ago: "If the Twins begin the season with Tony Batista (career OBP of .298) and Castro (career OBP of .271) as the left side of their infield, they should never again be allowed to pretend that want to (or know how to) genuinely improve the offense. It's like someone making a New Year's resolution to lose weight by only eating at McDonald's."
What a pathetic mess.
