May 24, 2007

Link-O-Rama

  • In April of 2004, I stumbled upon a new blog called "Batgirl" and had the following first impression:

    I came across this website last week. It's sort of hard to describe exactly what type of stuff you can find on the site--although the "less stats, more sass" tagline is very accurate--but I will say that the author is a female and she's a Twins fan, which is a pretty great combination for a blogger, in my opinion. Plus, she's a very witty, entertaining writer. It has quickly become one of my daily stops.

    In the three years since then I've seen literally thousands of baseball blogs come and go, but Batgirl remains "one of my daily stops" and everything I wrote then still applies. Or at least it did, because Batgirl is no more after Anne Ursu decided to hang up her keyboard this week. Along with posting one final installment of her famous Lego reenactments and sharing a picture of her new baby boy in the arms of his mom, Ursu addressed her audience as "my darlings" and bid farewell:

    The time has come to end this wonderful adventure. I had hoped to be able to keep it up with Dash, but I simply do not have time to do this blog well, and there is no point in doing it any other way.

    In the three years since Goober said, "Hey, why don't you start a Twins blog?" I've had so much fun with this, even during the time of greatest suck. It's been wonderful playing with all of you. I will miss this, very much.

    I've been blogging for nearly five years and during that time I can count on two hands the number of blogs that have consistently been well written, interesting, and unique while producing regular content over an extended period of time. Perhaps more than any other blog, Batgirl nailed all five of those qualities. In an ever-growing blogosphere that features an amazing number of quality blogs devoted to the Twins, Batgirl stood out as something that was better and different than just about everything else.


    After reading Ursu's entries, I often found myself saying, "Wow, I wish I could write something like that." There are many bloggers who would be missed if they decided to stop blogging, but few would leave as big a void in retirement as Ursu will. On a selfish level I'm incredibly sad to see her go, but with a wonderful family and successful career as a novelist to focus on, I certainly understand. Her shoes are impossible to fill, but I'm thankful that she wore them for as long as she did.

  • Count Nick Punto among the many Batgirl fans.
  • In last Friday's Link-O-Rama, I noted Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan living up to his "Shecky" nickname by beginning a column with a reference to "cell phones the size of Cornish hens." Amazingly, one of Souhan's columns this week included a reference to Geoff Jenkins having "holes in his swing the size of butterball turkeys." Cornish hens, butterball turkeys ... at the request of a long-time AG.com reader, Souhan shall now be referred to as "local poultry fetishist Shecky Souhan."
  • Bill Simmons of ESPN.com had a good take on whether or not the Timberwolves "deserved" to get lucky in this week's draft lottery:

    Nobody deserves a stroke of lottery fortune less than Glen Taylor and Kevin McHale, the NBA's version of Bush/Rumsfield for 8-10 years. Of course, nobody deserves a stroke of lottery fortune more than KG, one of the few superstars with too much pride to ever bail on a sinking ship. ... But wouldn't it be nice to see KG play the David Robinson to Oden's Tim Duncan for the next 5-6 years?

    As usual, the Timberwolves failed to move up in the lottery and will pick seventh overall, with both Greg Oden and Kevin Durant set to join teams in their division.

  • Vote or die!
  • Along with my call-in segments, NBCSports.com's "Fantasy Fix" show has recently started featuring interviews with well-known bloggers. Monday's show featured Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog talking about Oliver Perez, Carlos Delgado, John Maine, and Endy Chavez. Cerrone wrote on his blog afterward that "the best part ... was getting to speak with Aaron Gleeman," but the people in the comments section of his blog seem to think that sitting next to co-host Tiffany Simons was just slightly better.

    On Thursday's show, we talked Brewers with Jeff Sackmann of The Hardball Times and Brew Crew Ball, with questions about J.J. Hardy, Prince Fielder, Ben Sheets, Chris Capuano, Yovani Gallardo, and Ryan Braun (who was called up from Triple-A hours after we finished taping). Shockingly, after Sackmann posted a note on his blog about appearing on the show, the comments section there was also filled with Tiffany-related talk.

    Both Cerrone and Sackmann did excellent jobs and I'm looking forward to having more bloggers on the show in the future. As usual, I also taped a solo "Gleeman Report" video for NBCSports.com this week. The latest edition focuses on the impact interleague play has in fantasy leagues, with some interesting stuff about the difference in strength between the AL and NL. Plus, if you've ever wanted to watch me on video wearing a "More Cowbell" t-shirt, this is your big chance.

  • As fate would have it, moments after reading this story I saw these photos. Unfortunately, similar situations played out much differently, no doubt because Jessica Alba is a marginally better actress than Barbie Cummings (so I've heard).
  • Speaking of Alba, Derek Jacques offers an intriguing analogy linking her to Jason Giambi.
  • It took four months, but I can now proudly say that I have over 100 pretend friends.
  • With my Rotoworld colleague Nate Stephens on vacation this week after getting married, I stepped in for him and wrote the weekly "Prospect Report." I managed to include write-ups on a handful of prospects, but mostly took the opportunity to discuss the heated battle for No. 1 bachelor status at Rotoworld, with some talk of the wild world of fantasy groupies and doing laundry thrown in.
  • Not only did mixed martial arts make the cover of Sports Illustrated, L. Jon Wertheim's entire well-written article is available online.
  • My theory on this situation? He dumped her, but then saw her wearing this outfit and immediately reconsidered.
  • While reading this story, I couldn't help but think that I'd happily let someone break my wrist for a whole lot less than $450,000. Seriously, who's with me?
  • My new neighborhood is nice and quiet, but it has a serious lack of prostitution.
  • It will never make up for losing The Sopranos, but HBO's new show, Flight of the Conchords, looks relatively promising.
  • This is not to be confused with Stick and Ball Guy's far superior "Music Clip of the Day," but this week's AG.com approved music video is Susan Tedeschi doing a live cover version of John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery":


    I've become a huge fan of Tedeschi (which I've mentioned here a few times) after initially being turned on to her work by none other than Peter Gammons. And on that note, have a good holiday weekend.


    • Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.

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