UPDATE:Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribunereports that the Twins have acquired Carl Pavano from the Indians for a player to be named later. I'm sure most fans will see the 5.37 ERA and mock the move, but Pavano has a 4.76 ERA and 87-to-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 125 innings spread over 20 starts since his ugly first outing and his 4.15 xFIP would lead the Twins' rotation. I'll have more on the move and what it means for the rotation first thing Monday, of course.
UPDATE #2: I'll be on KSTP-1500 radio tomorrow afternoon with Doogie Wolfson from about 4:30 to 5:30. We're the lead-in for the Twins-Tigers game that starts at 6:00, so I'm sure we'll talk plenty about the Pavano deal and various other baseball goodness. You can listen online by clicking here.
For the second time this season all 300 pounds of Bartolo Colon have gone missing from the White Sox and the "have you seen this man?" photo in this story is guaranteed to haunt your dreams.
My favorite mainstream newspaper sports columnist is now my favorite Sports Illustrated staffer who occasionally writes for a newspaper. Or something. Joe Posnanski has taken a senior writer position at SI and writing for the Kansas City Star will no longer be his primary gig, although he apparently plans to continue writingfor the newspaper occasionally. Whatever the case, it's a huge addition for SI and a huge loss for the people of Kansas City. Posnanski is one of his generation's elite baseball writers.
It's been several years and one child since Jessica Alba's last set of candid bikini pictures, but time and pregnancy are apparently no match for superior genetics.
For some reason Will Leitch's exhaustive "four-day study on the use and variance of [the f-word] on the Deadcast" was hilarious to me despite having never listened to an episode of the site's podcast.
Speaking of podcasts, my recent favorites are Adam CarollainterviewingCheryl Hines of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Bill Simmons having comedian Jeffrey Ross over to his house for an 80-minute chat, and Scott Huff, Joe Stapleton, and Jacki Bray doing their usual awesome job on Two Jacks in the Hole.
I'm not sure about all this "greatest actor of his generation" stuff because he didn't really carry films, but John Cazale definitely has the highest batting average in movie history. He acted in five films before dying of bone cancer in 1978 at the age of 42: The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather: Part II, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter. All five were nominated for the "best picture" Academy Award and three of them won. Here's my favorite line of his career:
That clip has been played on Howard Stern's radio show approximately five million times and it never ceases to amuse me.
Bill James is one of the greatest, best selling, and most influential baseball writers of all time, with a 30-year catalog of amazing work, yet it's 2009 and a high-profile columnist for one of country's largest newspapers calls him "the stat geek who has made a fortune taking credit for having invented on-base percentage." I'm not even sure where to begin with the wrongheadedness of that description, so I won't even try, but holy shit are there some cranky, uninformed old dudes writing about sports in this country.
Crazy news story from Arizona: "A former assistant principal ... has been moonlighting as an escort" and "advertises $450 per hour for a girlfriend experience." Oh, and she also happens to be the ex-wife of longtime Red Sox outfielderTroy O'Leary.
Keeley Hazell seemingly disappearing from the face of the earth (or at least no longer posing naked every day) has me thinking that it could be time to consider a new Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com, and Kelly Brook has smartly continued to build her case.
I'm unfamiliar with the Red Sox blogger who goes by Fragile Freddy, but apparently he sat near me at Camden Yards for last week's Boston-Baltimore game and blogged about it:
When Josh Reddick came to bat there was much discussion of his future and I loved the fact that when my mother (sitting several seats away from me) needed to know about him she was able to just turn around and ask "that nice man behind" her. That nice man was Aaron Gleeman of NBCSports.com, who patiently told her about Reddick (mom's a true fan, and was excited to hear he had a strong arm).
I'd be a lot friendlier to people if I knew their sons were going to blog about it afterward, but thankfully he caught me in a rare nice moment. Just a few minutes later I kicked a dog and stole candy from a baby.
Over at Rotoworld, my colleague Chris Wesseling thinks that the Vikings' offense should be fantasy football gold this season.
In light of the Blue Jays almost trading Roy Halladay last week Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com looked at the recent history of teams dealing elite starters and quoted part of my "initial reaction" to the Twins sending Johan Santana to the Mets. He picked a quote that wasn't favorable to Bill Smith and included a poker analogy, both of which are true of about 90 percent of the things written on this blog.
Having paid $7 a pop for Yuengling lagers at Camden Yards in Baltimore last week, I'm interested in Team Marketing Report finding that the Giants have the most expensive beer in baseball at $8 and the average MLB team charges $6 for a 16-ounce brew.
If you're like me and have several drafts in the near future, check out Rotoworld's awesome Fantasy Football Draft Guide. Tons of great analysis and projections, and everything is constantly updated.
