May 28, 2010
Link-O-Rama
• Zach Randolph makes just $17 million a year playing basketball, so naturally he supplements his income with a second job as a "a major marijuana supplier in Indianapolis."
• My take on Roy Oswalt is that he'd probably be too costly for the Twins. Steve Phillips' take on Oswalt is that the Nationals should trade Stephen Strasburg for him. Seriously.
• After reading this story, I'd advise Joe Mauer to avoid any suspicious-looking twins.
• Daunte Culpepper will be reunited with Denny Green in something called the United Football League. Sounds about right.
• 50 Cent looks scary after going from 214 pounds to 160 pounds for a movie role, but I'm still jealous. And it annoys me when someone who's in fantastic shape to begin with can so easily shed weight.
• Bob Davidson furthered his reputation as one of baseball's worst, most combative umpires this week. And yes, I know he's from Minnesota. He's still a terrible umpire.
• Speaking of umpires going out of their way to find confrontation, Joe West was on a mission to mess with the White Sox on Wednesday. Mission accomplished, I guess. Ozzie Guillen then earned himself a big fine by speaking the truth afterward. Obviously no one likes it when umps blow calls, but for whatever reason that doesn't bother me nearly as much as when they seek out confrontation (although usually that's in conjunction with a blown call).
As you might expect, Hawk Harrelson's reaction on WGN was priceless:
It sounds like West will be disciplined by MLB, at least.
• An interesting contrast of managerial personalities was Guillen calling West "a f-ing a-hole" while Brewers skipper Ken Macha complained about "negativism" and "poppycock."
• This picture says a thousand words and all of them are "Ron Swanson is awesome."
• On a related note, this news is the opposite of awesome.
• I've linked to him before, but Joe Posnanski's brother Tony Posnanski has lost 221 pounds. If you're like me and are always looking for weight-loss motivation, check out his blog for the amazing progress in picture form. As for me, I'm holding steady at around 70 pounds lost due to a few dieting slip-ups this month. For me the two biggest struggles are avoiding boredom while exercising and avoiding the seemingly random urge to eat a whole bunch of bad stuff.
• In related news, Pizza Hut's honey BBQ "bone-out wings" are really good even if they aren't really "wings."
• Drew Magary also has some helpful (and very funny) dieting tips.
• I'm probably just bitter because I've been doing this for eight years and have made almost enough to buy a Luis Rivas rookie card, but the notion that someone might pay $20 million for Perez Hilton's blog makes me want to shut down the internet. Or maybe start blogging about Lindsay Lohan rather than Delmon Young.
• Do you think Amar'e Stoudemire ever confuses Robin Lopez for his mother?
• David Brown of Yahoo! Sports was in town this week and wrote an amusing review of his first trip to Target Field.
• I'm looking forward to the inevitable moment when the Target Field hawk attacks the Target Field squirrel, if only for Brendan Harris' reaction.
• Not surprisingly, 89-year-old Mickey Rooney seems to have a pretty good handle on the ins and outs of Twitter:
"Do you find this fun and interesting?"
• Maybe the Twins could do something like this, but with Anthony LaPanta instead of Elvis?
• I'm a huge Lost fan, but because I didn't start watching the show until last year and blitzed through the old episodes in the span of about a month my time devoted to the series is lower than most. With that said, I thought the finale was good without being satisfying, although in fairness people seem to overestimate the number of truly excellent series finales in television history. I'll definitely remember the characters and acting more than the mythology.
Actually, the thing I'll probably remember most about Lost is the pilot episode that ranks as my all-time favorite (and not just because of the "Kate bathing in the ocean" scene). No show has ever hooked me so thoroughly with a single episode, although re-watching the pilot on ABC the day before the finale was a totally different experience and it actually struck me as sort of quaint. My favorite quote from the finale: "It's a helluva long con, Doc."
• Oh, and as an MMA fan I also enjoyed Jack's odd attempt at a "Superman punch."
• At this point I'll be shocked if the Moneyball film is even decent, with Jonah Hill playing Paul DePodesta, Philip Seymour Hoffman playing Art Howe, and Robin Wright playing someone who didn't actually exist in the book.
• Gus Johnson taking over as the voice of the Madden video game franchise may convince me to finally buy a Playstation 3 after years of letting my Playstation 2 simply collect dust.
• R.A. Dickey wasn't much good for the Twins last season, but the 35-year-old knuckleballer tossed six shutout innings for the Mets this week after being hit on the elbow by a line drive.
• Some of the highlights from my NBCSports.com blogging this week:
- Are the Phillies overworking Roy Halladay?
- Angels may be giving up on Brandon Wood
- Rockies bringing Chris Iannetta back to majors
- Kyle Lohse needs forearm surgery or a move to the bullpen
- Carlos Zambrano rejoining rotation next week
- Tim Lincecum's rare struggles bring up questions about cracked nails
- Jake Peavy has a 6.05 ERA and a "tired arm"
• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Ray Charles performing a live version of "What'd I Say" from 1963:
