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THT Links: Contains Baseball-Like Substance

by Bryan Tsao
February 06, 2007

Not as much hard news today, but still lots happening around the baseball blogosphere, as college and Caribbean baseball are both underway. Tom Hicks' rumored takeover of Anfield also gives me an excuse to talk some football (the round kind). Read on for more.

Stottlemyre Redux - No, not Todd. Mel Stottlemyre joins the Diamondbacks as an "organizational pitching instructor." Insert your own joke about old people and Arizona here.

Calling the Mariners - David Pinto over at Baseball Musings linked to this article pimping the Mariners in 2007. I'm not quite buying yet, because I'm not quite sold on Jose Guillen, Jose Vidro, Yuniesky Betancourt and Jose Lopez forming four-ninths of a solid lineup, and also because most of his comps are National League teams that wouldn't have even made the playoffs in the AL. Still, there is some grain of truth here, and I do think the Mariners will be better than currently thought. And if they actually do make the playoffs, this guy gets to have called it.

Hall Signs - Brewers shortstop/outfielder Bill Hall signed a four-year, $24 million contract extension, which buys out his first free agent year with an option on his second at $9.25 million with a $500,000 buyout. THT's own Jeff Sackmann, who runs the Brew Crew Ball blog, is positively tickled.

Branching Out - An ownership group including Rangers owner Tom Hicks, who also owns the Dallas Stars, is close to acquiring storied English Premier League franchise Liverpool, who are five-time European champions and 18-time English champions. And if you think that baseball agents are sleazy, just read about MSI, a sports management group that is 1) Possibly partially owned by Russian mob boss Roman Abramovich, who owns Chelsea 2) Owns its own separate football team, Corinthians, in Brazil and 3) Also owns the rights to several top players. If Hicks can't even handle dealing with Scott Boras, these guys will eat him alive.

This is really just an excuse for me to mention that the U.S. Men's National Team is playing rivals Mexico tomorrow at 9 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN2. Here's a fun game: Try to get a Mexico fan to admit that the U.S. is 7-2-1 against Mexico in their last 10 games.

Conflict of Interest - Another story on the importance of video for preparing in Major League Baseball, but mostly notable for the completely transparent shilling for the team that Sam Mellinger is doing.

Baseball Jones - Rich Lederer gets his fix attending a USC - Long Beach State game, which is kind of like weaning off a heroin addiction with barbiturates.

Dominican Domination - Julian Tavarez led his Dominican team to a 7-1 win over Venezuela with six innings of three-hit ball, while Miguel Tejada homered. With two games remaining in the round robin tournament, only the 3-1 Puerto Rico team still has a chance of knocking of the 4-0 Dominican team.

Fantasy Sleepers - RotoAuthority with some hot tips on the the only commodity more valuable than young pitching: fantasy sleepers.

End of the Line - Former 20-game winner Rick Helling retired yesterday, capping off a 12-year career. He's probably positively stoked that he had that 20-7 season for the Rangers back in 1998; otherwise, he'd be remembered as, "that guy whose name really amused me in a juvenile way in high school," which is much less impressive than "20-game winner." For a journeyman pitcher, he actually had quite an accomplished career.

Global Warming and Baseball - Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that global warming could cause the location of the proposed A's stadium in Fremont, Calif. to be one meter below sea level in 100 years. A fun discussion of the article ensues over at Baseball Think Factory.

THT Links represents the best efforts of our editors in scouring the various tubes of the interweb for both relevant and irrelevant news items. If you have happened upon a story that we have overlooked or wish to give feedback of any sort, please notify us at .

Updated weekdays at noonish, ET.

Bryan Tsao is the editor for The Hardball Times website. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions for both himself and the site via email.

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