Potpurri for Five

In reviewing my fellow members of Blogfrica this morning, these small points that don't add up to a full bite. Consider it your continental breakfast of FTT, and the continent is Antartica, given that continental seems to mean "prepared without heat."

> "I can still hit if somebody wants me." - Mark McGwire, on the tenth anniversary of the greatest baseball moment of the Steroid Era that no one will admit to still remembering fondly

Um, Mac? To the great majority of the populace, thanks to your love of the junk, you could now never hit. No one wants to remember what you were like as a player, the good times in Oakland early on when you and fellow pariah Jose Canseco ruled MLB like a merry fraternity, or the later years in St. Louis where Tony LaRussa rode you back to Genius Status.

When players in the future pass you on the all-time home run list, there won't be a loving montage to your memory. Instead, they'll mention it in passing and with shame, and move on to the umbrella promotion in the upcoming 3-game homestand.

Oh, and in your last year in 2001, you hit .187, albeit with 29 home runs. I'm thinking that in your current condition, you'd be fortunate to get half of either number, and that's assuming you can pass the drug tests and fit in a uniform.

So, um, yes, you can technically still hit... only less good then, say, Cecil Fielder, Fred McGriff or Bob Horner. You know, like other guys who are not going to get jobs in MLB. (And about a tenth as well as Barry Bonds, who will also never play in MLB again.)

> Shawne Merriman to undergo surgery and go on IR

Wait, wait, wait... shouldn't he get five or six more opinions first?

Oh, and in further news, it takes two working knees to play well in the NFL, even if you are extremely talented. (Merriman had two more tackles than a dead man in the Sunday loss to Carolina, neither of which prompted a spasmodic dance routine, otherwise known as a sack.)

In related news, the bigger issue is that the Chargers were also without MLB Stephen Cooper, who led them with 179 tackles last year, for (drum roll please) testing positive for a banned stimulant. He'll miss the first four games of the season, and become another player in the list of Charger defenders who have missed time over banned substances. In Cooper's absence, the Panthers controlled the game with over 100 yards of rushing in the first half, and outgained the home team en route to their win.

Is anyone else noticing a pattern here in SoCal? And to be completely fair, if that pattern existed for one of the historically hated teams in the NFL (i.e., Patriots, Cowboys, Raiders, etc.), wouldn't their PR suffer more than those happy go lucky Lightnin' Bolts?

> Tampa beats Jon Papelbon in Boston to keep their lead in the AL East

That gives the previously struggling young club a game and a half lead in the division race. Unfortunately for all of us who dream of a Fox Armageddon Non-Major Market MLB Playoff, the Sawx still have a six game lead over Minnesota, a 7-game lead over Toronto (who knew?), and an 8.5 game lead over the Yankees for the wild card.

So your AL playoffs are shaping up as Boston vs. Anaheim in the first round (possible revenge for the Angels, though I think they'll lose yet again to Boston), and the Central survivor (the White Sox or Minnesota) vs. the Rays. There are still 20 games to go in the season, but you'd be surprised how often a game and a half lead will hold up with that much time to go.

By run differential, the Sawx are clearly the best team in the AL... but that's not how you play the games, and other than Jon Lester, there isn't a Boston SP that really looks like a playoff hammer this year. Yes, Dice-K Matsuzaka wins a lot of games, but his WHIP is very high (1.36) for a top tier pitcher, and his playoff history is not good.

After that, you've got a mix of the questionable (Paul Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Tim Wakefield) and the overrated (Josh Beckett, currently sporting a 5.56 ERA). If Dustin Pedroia wasn't giving them a ridiculous year, the offense wouldn't be all that scary either; Mike Lowell reverting to his career norms and David Ortiz's injury woes are making them pretty ordinary. A first round exit is not out of the realm of possibility, especially now that New England Fan is convinced that God has turned his back on the region in the wake of the Greatest Tragedy in Sports History, aka the Brady Injury.

> Vince Young is hurt, and also might be insane

After being diagnosed with a knee problem that will keep him out for up to a month, Young was unaccounted for over four hours. Depending on who you believe, he was also driving around with a loaded gun and thoughts of suicide, and talked about retiring in preseason.

Now, some very large chunk of me wonders, as I always do when the player getting the remarkably bad publicity is a minority member, if some of this is overblown. Lord knows that in my town of Philly, there are people with irrational hatred towards Donovan McNabb, aka the best quarterback in franchise history, for reasons that make a fellow go hmm. It's also not as if Nashville is the hotbed of tolerance.

But I suspect there's more smoke than racism here. Remember, Young's Wunderlic score in the combine got leaked, and it was remarkably low for a quarterback (though extremely good for a houseplant). He was clearly the worst quarterback to get snaps for the Titans last year, and when you consider that the other guy getting time was Kerry Collins, that's saying something. His decision making was questionable at best, and he only really looks comfortable when the game goes into sandlot scramble mode. He may be mobile, relatively fearless and gutty -- heck, for all I know, he might still turn into Steve McNair, which was clearly the plan here all along -- but it's also quite possible that he'll be a head case flameout.

Ed Note and update... Young's mom (!) says he isn't interested in playing football any more, and even if he changes his mind or the report isn't true, I'm not sure how you come back from that. The Titans have signed Chris Simms to back up Kerry Collins, and the scary thing is, their QB situation might be better right now. Let's just say that I'm not very concerned with the Titans making it back to the playoffs this year...

> An assistant high school coach in CA doesn't react well to a coaching change (H/t, With Leather)

Startlingly, they caught the guy. (For non-clickers, he was a 34-year-old assistant who responded to a termination by trying to burn the school down. That'll show 'em! That'll show 'em all!)

And that brings us up to today's main FTT sponsor. This forehead smacking moment is brought to you by Swingline Staplers, who remind you that when you take someone's Swingline, you may be burned to death!



Remember, for the stapler that men go to prison for, it's Swingline!