Get a load of this gem from Steve Phillips in a Mag article on how to fix the Reds: “Have owner Bob Castellini ring Hank Steinbrenner and tell him you’ve got a way to move Joba Chamberlain into the Yankees’ rotation. Offer Jared Burton, who’s whiffing hitters in bunches, and Jeremy Affeldt for Phil Hughes. Sell Burton as Chamberlain’s eighth-inning replacement and Affeldt as the situational lefty the Yanks lack.” Steve Phillips must think the Yankees’ GM is Steve Phillips. What’s Mo Vaughn up to these days, anyway?
When corporate sponsorship goes to far
Ed Price relates an odd story from Chicago: The White Sox have put up a sign exhorting players not to drink bottled water on the bench. Why? Because Gatorade, the official sports drink of Major League Baseball, won’t be happy if someone is spotted in the dugout drinking some other bottled drink. “White Sox clubhouse personnel said if players take bottled water onto the bench, all the bottled water will be removed from the clubhouse as punishment,” Price relates. That strikes me as utterly ridiculous.
Hawkins rewards Yankee fans’ maturity
Nice work, folks. We’ve booed LaTroy Hawkins into submission. I hope everyone feels good about that. Hawkins, previously wearing number 21, will switch to 22 tonight after fans couldn’t deal with someone else wearing the number seven years after Paul O’Neill retired. No word yet if the Omar Moreno or Jimmy Key fans plan on booing Hawkins for the switch.
More about this stupid T-shirt “curse”
Most fans felt the story of the Red Sox shirt embedded in the concrete slab of the visitor’s clubhouse at the New Stadium was just a laughable “exclusive” by the Post that was a few days late for April’s Fools. Turns out the Yankees weren’t taking any chances:
It took about five hours, but the Red Sox jersey that was embedded in the concrete of the Yankees’ new stadium to place a curse on the New York franchise has been unearthed with jackhammers, according to a published report.
…
“They absolutely pinpointed that if it was in the ground, that’s where it was,” Yankees spokeswoman Alice McGillion told the newspaper.
As always, Hank Hal Steinbrenner provided the money quote: “I hope his co-workers kick the [expletive] out of him.” Hank’s great when he isn’t talking about making trades and stuff, isn’t he? Hal just earned all sorts of street cred in my book. Sox fans did what they do best, the turned the story into another patently lame T-shirt. Where’s the “David Ortiz is hitting 0.70-.231-.140 and Francona still has him batting third” swag?
Basic math skills recommended, but not required to work at ESPN
Check this out: four out of five ESPN analysts think that all the teams in baseball will combine to post an above-.500 record. This isn’t rocket science, it’s adding and subtracting, but apparently that’s too much to ask. Did you catch Olney saying “Tom Gorzelanny is what he is; Paul Maholm is the interesting guy on that staff” the other day on BBTN? Ridiculous.
The dumbest thing I have ever read in my life, or any past lives that I do not know about, yet can still assure you that this would have been the dumbest thing I ever read in them
“Moving Chamberlain in front of Rivera was not only the right move for 2008, but forever. Finding somebody to dominate the seventh and eighth innings is harder than discovering a fourth and fifth starter.” There you have it, folks. George King called Joba a fourth or fifth starter in the Post’s season preview.
Okay, how about Hughes and Joba for Blanton?
Tim at MLBTR fills us in on a rather extraordinary nugget of info: Back when the Yanks were supposedly mulling around the idea of dealing for the A’s Joe Blanton, Billy Beane asked for Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain in return. Hopefully Cash replied with “Damn yo, why you gotta be wastin’ my daytime minutes for?!?”