September 17, 2007

Link-O-Rama

Note: Link-O-Rama entries typically run each Friday in this space, but Terry Ryan suddenly stepping down as Twins general manager changed those plans last week.

  • Paul Byrd may have an easy time against the Twins, beating them four times in four starts this year to make him 10-3 with a 3.64 ERA against them for his career, but he apparently does "struggle" with some things.
  • Is Cash Warren the world's craziest human? You decide.
  • One day I'd love to see someone involved with the Twins--from the general manager or manager to the television announcers or players--say something like this about evaluating defense:

    Errors should not be the criteria. Fielding percentage is one of the worst averages there is. It doesn't tell you anything about range, positioning.

    Somewhere, Dick Bremer has a confused look on his face. As for which AL manager said that, here's a hint: He works for the general manager who said this about trusting minor-league track records:

    There's a lot of players out there who if they're given an opportunity, they are major league players. ... Players ... who've been around so long, people have a tendency of focusing on the things they can't do well instead of focusing on what they do well enough to be major league players.

    I don't know why that is. You'll hear people say, that guy doesn't do this and doesn't do that well and it may be two or three things, but there's about seven things they do really well. ... So I think you have to look at what they've done and the track record is the best indicator of what they're going to do.

    Sound familiar?

  • My hope is that within the next decade or so pictures like this one will cease making me feel sick, but it certainly hasn't happened yet.
  • It's tough to decide whether or not poker is truly going mainstream. On one hand poker players are still getting busting by the cops, but on the other hand they're boinking Pamela Anderson:

    During an appearance Wednesday on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," Anderson declined to identify her new mystery man, but there's scuttlebutt in the poker world that she's been seeing 29-year-old Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari.

    "I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors, and I fell in love," Anderson told DeGeneres. "It's so romantic. It's romance." ... Anderson ... claims she lost $250,000 in a poker game and was offered an "Indecent Proposal"-like out to clear the debt.

    If true, for Antonio Esfandiari's sake I hope that deal also came with a time machine.

  • The immortal Ned ditched his famous crutches to run for 87 yards against Miami on Saturday, which is by far the least-impressive thing that he's ever done.
  • The WNBA is fannnntastic.
  • After hearing her appearance on Adam Carolla's radio show last week, I'm almost willing to overlook the fact that she's dating Macaulay Culkin and consider adding Mila Kunis as an Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate. In what I've decided to take as some sort of sign, Kunis and former OFGoAG.com Elisha Cuthbert apparently once did a photoshoot for Maxim together.
  • Speaking of Carolla, not long ago he was on the verge of making the Raiders as the first kicker/long snapper/linebacker in NFL history:


    "Damn Ace Man, you were good at football in high school!"
  • And speaking of Cuthbert, I'm not sure what this ridiculous outfit that she wore last week was, but I like it. It's a good thing that she's back to looking her best, because there's suddenly some competition for the title of "World's Sexiest Elisha."
  • With several of my fellow Twins bloggers attending the University of Minnesota, Jim Souhan will be thrilled to note that the campus has been named the nation's best at promoting safe sex.
  • On a note that seems to be mostly unrelated, Michael Rand of the Minneapolis Star Tribune stopped by Nick Nelson's journalism-school class to talk about blogging. In the span of just a couple years the journalism school has gone from barely knowing what blogs are to bringing in people to speak about them, which is amazing to someone who blogged throughout his four years on campus.
  • I've been blogging for so long that it's time to collect on a bet that I made with another blogger way back in 2003.
  • It's an honor just to be nominated.
  • Sort of like Candyman or Bettlejuice, but with an odd twist, if you say Sarah Silverman's name three times she apparently appears, even at the airport.
  • The world's most distinguished sports publication no longer employs someone who's known solely because she once got on television by wearing a revealing outfit at a college football game. Sadly, they still have Rick Reilly.
  • I was shocked to see Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) quoted in an article about the Twins on MLB.com last week, because that's about as far as you can get from the usual level of insight that beat writer Kelly Thesier has provided over the past two seasons. It all made a little more sense once I noticed that the article was penned by a fill-in reporter named Conor Nicholl, rather than Thesier. Don't be a stranger, Conor. Please.
  • The guy from this video is either a complete idiot or a comedic genius, but I'm not willing to watch the most-annoying cast in Real World history enough to find out which.
  • Scott Van Pelt has done the seemingly impossible by being very likable and a fixture on ESPN.
  • Bill Madden of the New York Daily News opines that "Ryan's departure spells doom in Minnesota," which is exactly what you'd expect a New York newspaper columnist to think and write about a situation that he's likely not all that familiar with.
  • Sid Hartman Quote of the Week:

    Getting back to the Vikings ... the receivers, headed by free-agent acquisition Bobby Wade, will match any other receivers in the NFC North.

    Roy Williams, Calvin Johnson, Mike Furrey, and Shaun McDonald say hello. And so do Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, and James Jones.

  • The Official Relief Pitcher of AG.com, Pat Neshek, recently penned an article about baseball cards for MLB.com.
  • My note about Matthew LeCroy last week was sort of meant to be a eulogy for his career, but then he went and got a hit off the bench Wednesday.
  • This week's (or last week's, if you really want to get technical about it) AG.com-approved music video is Jamie Lidell doing a live version of "Multiply":


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

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