Valadius

Wow... Again, who knows what substances he might be taking...

Perhaps Heath Bell is on acid, as he appears in his official photo:

Cedeno.

Two words: Jenrry Mejia. No rush.

Phil Humber. Perfect game.

Absolutely.

Fuck it. Call up the football player.

Very appropriate, but they still should retire his number already.

Fman99 wrote: I was hoping it was Jeff Wilpon. Can you imagine this punum in bronze?

Mets � Willets Point wrote: I was thinking it might have to do with the Killer B's of the Biggio/Bagwell days. Yup.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AjIRsbT9eXTLaYSrNztk.BoRvLYF?slug=ap-astros-namechange Nomination for clueless owner of the year? Jim Crane of the Houston... Whatevers? �We had the Colt .45s and everybody liked that one,� Crane said. �So you can imagine how upset they were when we switched that. What you get when you look at the fan base is the older we get and I�m old, you don�t like to change. But the younger fans are very receptive to change and the older ones aren�t, so that�s what we saw with the American League.� Yep, looks like Jim Crane wants to change the name of the Astros. Which is fine, except his reasoning just sounds ridiculous, especially in terms of "the younger fans made me move to the American League."

He's a Hall of Famer who distinguished himself with the team and won a championship. The number's been out of circulation for 9 years. I don't understand how you take a number out of circulation and not retire it.

Retire his number already.

What always gets me about Schilling are his completely insane K/BB numbers. He posts the all-time best career mark of 4.38 K/BB among pitchers with more than 10 seasons, with Pedro Martinez right behind him at 4.15. In looking that stat up, I also found that Bret Saberhagen's 1994 Mets season ranks as the greatest of all time in this statistic, at a remarkable 11 K's per BB.

Well, the moment's arrived - the beginning of the discussion of the clusterfuck that is the 2013 (and subsequent) Hall of Fame ballot(s). For 2013, the ballot will include: Jeff Bagwell Craig Biggio Barry Bonds Roger Clemens Steve Finley Julio Franco Shawn Green Roberto Hernandez Kenny Lofton Edgar Martinez Don Mattingly Fred McGriff Mark McGwire Jose Mesa Jack Morris Dale Murphy Rafael Palmeiro Mike Piazza Tim Raines Curt Schilling Lee Smith Sammy Sosa Alan Trammell Larry Walker David Wells Bernie Williams See the problem here? The ballot is loaded, and likely to produce a result similar to Lou Whitaker falling off the ballot in his first attempt. My ballot next year would be: Bagwell Biggio Bonds Clemens Martinez Piazza Raines Schilling Trammell Walker But I also believe there are four or five other names on the ballot that deserve induction - McGwire, Morris, Palmeiro, Sosa, maybe McGriff. With far too many voters limiting themselves in their choices, some eminently deserving names are going to fall off the ballot entirely. 2014 and 2015 will bring a glut of all-time pitchers. 2014: Tom Glavine Jeff Kent Greg Maddux Mike Mussina Frank Thomas 2015: Carlos Delgado Randy Johnson Pedro Martinez Gary Sheffield John Smoltz Look, unless the voters get over the aversion to large Hall classes, we're going to see a bunch of players get screwed.

I have my song, I just need to work it out. If I don't come up with something by the end of the weekend I'll concede.

Sure. I can cook something up by Friday.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Tracking early returns at Baseball Think Factory. Nice trending for Larkin, Raines, and Trammell, even... not so for Walker and Martinez and Williams. Every single year I forget about this and then follow it obsessively once it's brought to my attention. On another note, I'm so used to seeing Dave Parker on the ballot alongside Dale Murphy, but last year was his 15th on the ballot.

A veritable crusader for the people's business, I am. I've been popping in every so often, but I didn't see myself in the draw anywhere. Did I get assigned subjects?

TransMonk wrote: It's time for the Wilpons to just admit defeat. They will never admit defeat. Jeffy won't get to play with his model planes anymore.

Well, we finally got Jon Rauch - about 5 years too late.

Bagwell Gonzalez Larkin Martinez McGwire Morris Palmeiro Raines Trammell Walker

I still can't understand why it took so long for him to land another managerial gig.

I'm pretty sure they're going to be drenched in orange. Check out their website - it's everywhere.

Go grab Ron Swoboda from New Orleans! He's the Zephyrs' color commentator.