Link-O-Rama
To celebrate his arrival in Boston, Kevin Garnett took the mound at Fenway Park and tossed out the ceremonial first pitch for the Red Sox-Orioles game Wednesday, with another former Minnesota athlete behind the plate:
If not for the tragic bridge collapse producing all kinds of horrific photos, that would easily qualify as the most depressing picture of the week.
Incidentally, any Timberwolves fans looking to get even more depressed about Garnett departing should watch this video.
Shockingly, Bill Simmons seems marginally excited about the Celtics trading for Garnett.
If there was a list somewhere of the most effective ways to convey how spectacular someone's life is in one sentence or less, I'm guessing that "paparazzi photographing Jessica Biel as she leaves your house in the morning" would probably be relatively close to the top.
Despite the fact that he plays for the Tigers, has hit .302/.360/.591 in 42 career games against the Twins, and will likely spend at least the rest of the decade killing the team I root for both offensively and defensively, Curtis Granderson is quickly become one of my favorite players.
Will Leitch gets most of the credit for the traffic-generating monster of brilliance that is Deadspin, and rightfully so, but only A.J. Daulerio can properly handicap an important question like: "Who's the next MLB player to bang Alyssa Milano?" As with most things, Johan Santana is among the leaders:
Johan Santana: 6/1
Her affinity for starting pitchers is well known, and she's referred to Santana as "dreamy." Although Santana's a married man, it has to be tough to turn down the advances of Alyssa Milano. But Santana should steer clear of her, lest he suffer the Milano curse that has befallen most of the pitchers she's doinked. Chances are, Santana will resist, but should some marital trouble suddenly arise, don't be surprised if Milano starts singing the praises of skyway sex on her blog.
Ramon Ortiz is strangely absent from Daulerio's calculations, but he's obviously no worse than 2-to-1.
After surveying sports bloggers, Ballhype has everything you ever wanted to know about a bunch of guys who live in their parents' basement. Many of my answers to the questions match the majority of those surveyed, but my responses are quite different in a handful of cases. For instance, only nine percent of those surveyed have been blogging for four-plus years, whereas Wednesday was this blog's five-year anniversary.
Only 13 percent get over 100,000 visitors per month, while AG.com is typically right around the 100,000 mark. Nearly one-fourth of bloggers responded that "it hasn't" when asked "how has blogging changed your life?" Obviously that's not the case with me. Over 80 percent said that their employers aren't aware of their blog, which is also obviously not the case with me. I recently purchased my first home, but only 30 percent are homeowners. And lastly, 56 percent are college graduates, while I'm a lowly dropout.
Anyway, the whole study is worth reading.
Jessica Alba reportedly broke up with her boyfriend recently because he didn't want to marry her. After hearing that news, I initially wondered how stupid he must be to not want to marry her. Then, after thinking about it for a little while, I started to wonder how annoying she must be for him not to want to marry her. An ethics professor once told me that not everything is black and white, and I'm pretty sure that this is the exact scenario he was referring to.
My Rotoworld colleague Gregg Rosenthal let his new wife name his blog. "Pancake Blocks" is an oddly catchy name, but I can't help but think that letting your wife name your blog is this generation's leading indicator of being whipped. Of course, I say that as someone who a) doesn't have a wife, and b) has a blog with the least imaginative name possible. I'm a little offended that he didn't go with the name that I suggested, but mostly it's just fun to pick on him in public when I know he'll read this.
Sure, this little kid looks like the love child of Barry Sanders and Reggie Bush, but how good is his blitz pickup? Twelve years old or not, no team is going to play him on third down if he can't pass protect.
As I've discussed many times in the past, one of the perks of having a blog is the ability to constantly be amused by the search-engine queries that send people here, which can be tracked by a service called Site Meter. For instance, a search that causes dozens of people to stumble across this site on a daily basis is the phrase "Twins blog," for which AG.com happens to be the No. 2 result on Google. That's not very interesting, obviously, but plenty are.
My favorite AG.com-producing search this week was for the phrase "Marney Gellner big ass," for which AG.com is inexplicably the No. 9 result on Yahoo. Seriously, click that link and see for yourself. Aside from the boring stuff like "Twins blog" or "Aaron Gleeman," perhaps the most plentiful search-engine query in the history of AG.com is "Jennifer Aniston's butt," which is a topic (the search, not her butt) that long-time readers of this site will surely recognize.
To this day AG.com remains the No. 5 result for "Jennifer Aniston's butt" on Google, which might be the accomplishment that I'm most proud of. Anyway, Gellner is the sideline reporter for Twins games and I happen to find her attractive. However, I can't imagine that her following has grown to Erin Andrews levels, which is why I'm amused by the fact that someone, somewhere, used a computer to search for "Marney Gellner big ass" and arrived here, only to be tremendously disappointed on every level.
On a somewhat-related note, I'm not quite sure if this says more about me or Britney Spears, but I think she has the third-best ass in this picture.
Ignoring the fact that I'm asking for trouble simply by reading C.J.'s gossip column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, doesn't it seem odd that she's making a big deal about a local newspaper columnist and talk-show host buying a million-dollar house? Wouldn't it be infinitely more noteworthy if someone who holds those two jobs can't afford a million-dollar house?
If reviewers grading NBC-related products are giving favorable reviews in part because the company employs me, is that enough for me to ask for a raise? After all, some day I'd like to have C.J. question the cost of my house is one of her columns.
Among the many women with no discernible talent or accomplishments who've somehow managed to follow in Paris Hilton's footsteps by becoming celebrities, Kristin Cavallari is very underrated.
I once spent about an hour unsuccessfully trying to convince my The View-loving grandmother that this was the case, yet for some reason the truth coming out several years later and me being right about the whole thing makes me feel even dumber for having ever argued about it.
Julie Rubinstein, who used to have the unenviable task of editing my "Gleeman Report" videos for NBCSports.com, has a new blog devoted to the Mets (and all things David Wright). Stop by, marvel at how dreamy the Mets' third baseman is, and tell her I said hello.
Finally, if you've ever wanted to see what happens when you put a bunch of drunken, baseball-loving dorks together in the same city, check out my picture-filled trip report from the 37th annual SABR convention.
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
