Lesley Visser hates them: It’s a joyful moment burdened by a terrible name. It’s a cascade of emotions for the winning players and their fans, yet it’s described in the most negative way. Johnny Damon, after a home run giving the Yankees their third straight come-from-behind win over the Twins, gets a pie in the […]

“My kids already know he throws 102 and throws a slider 88. What do I do? Lay low?” New Mexico baseball coach, Ray Birmingham responding to criticism that he trash talked Stephen Strasburg by telling his team that “102 goes out as fast as it comes in.”

After last night’s game, Mariners’ manager Ken Wakamatsu criticized his putative ace, Felix Hernandez: “Sometimes you’ve got to ask guys to step up. I didn’t think he stepped up today.” This afternoon, the Seattle Times’ Geoff Baker lays down the serious artillary fire. After an extended recap of Roy Halladay’s career arc and an assertion […]

I implore you, do not read Jim Caple’s writeup before watching the YouTube video embedded here. Go in completely blind. You’ll get that much more out of the experience. In other news, I now know what finally caused Bob Welch to quit drinking. UPDATE: Some quick research reveals that Welch quit drinking in the early […]

Lord Haw-Haw reports that Mark DeRosa is on the block: Indians third baseman Mark DeRosa is one of the first veterans to hit the trade block. Cleveland is now fielding offers for the versatile DeRosa, league sources say. The Indians are looking mainly for pitchers who can help them now. Although they are off to […]

Someone needs to buy me one of these. I take a large in most shirts, but if it’s one that will shrink a lot, better make it an XL. (thanks to reader Timmy for the link)

Stuff I spewed this morning: Offense is up this year. What’s to blame? Cito Gaston is a hands-off kind of guy, and it’s working just fine. It’s going to be really funny later this summer when the Yankees are running away with the East and, rather than crediting the return of A-Rod, the resurgence of […]

From the AJC’s story about how the Braves shuffling their lineup worked wonders last night: Every batter in the lineup recorded a hit except Jeff Francoeur, including pitcher Jair Jurrjens. And Francoeur got breaks, if not hits. His potential double-play groundball in the second inning drew an error that opened the door to a three-run […]

Retrosheet now has every box score and play-by-play log from the 1920s.

Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury-News, lamenting the fact that the Selena Roberts book isn’t selling all that well: It does confirm one of my beliefs, however. There’s a perception that fans love to read dirt about famous athletes. Maybe they do, on salacious Web sites full of half-truths — but not in well-reported […]