Danville's Evan O'Dorney, the 13-year-old who won the Scripps National Spelling Bee last week, will throw out today's first pitch.

He will then promptly surrender his lunch money to the bat boys.  

there was a  great article about MaEl today in the contra costa times!

"If you like baseball, if you know baseball, how can you not be crazy about Elly?" Red Sox manager Terry Francona said Tuesday. "I wanted to hit him over the forehead with a bat (Monday), but no really, Elly is everything that's right about this game."

"Here's the best way to describe Elly," A's general manager Billy Beane said. "As a GM, you go through the ups and downs through a season, and it's a constant roller coaster. But he's probably one of about three or four guys I've ever had who has never disappointed."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ELLY!!! =D

and some guy sang the national anthem, at which point my dad opined that it was the "worst he'd ever heard" ( I thought it was fine). Skip ahead a few innings, and the anthem-singer came to the front of our section and started pointing and gesturing in our direction. Then, an 8-year-old girl sitting directly behind us shouted "You were great, daddy!"

It was evident that he was embracing the challenge of replacing what Zito had meant to the Oakland staff.

He has more than met the challenge, so far, leading the AL in ERA (1.70), ranking third in the majors in innings (90), and is tied for first in the majors with Jake Peavy in quality start percentage (0.92). Opponents are hitting .178 against him.

Also mentions Harden could be the closer on his path back.

An ace is born (pay)

I saw two (2) cute girls wearing AN hoodies consorting with apparent Sox fans. It was an appalling spectacle that I will not soon forget.

there's going to be a a live-action Thundercats movie coming out!

Snarf!

anyone heard any new updates on the Enders Game/Enders Shadow movie?

Sox SBNation game thread:
We should not be shut out by the amateurs.

And yet...

but how can you not get along with Ron Washington?

Washington acknowledges "conflict" with first baseman Mark Teixeira. He admits to a rocky start to his relationship with catcher Gerald Laird. He speaks matter-of-factly about where the team stands, where he wants it to go and how he wants it to get there.

It may be one-and-done in Texas for our wash.

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6...

http://www.wsoctv.com/mlb/13222064/d...

right after the day game vs. the bosox - Milton Bradley will sign autographs at Otaez Mexican Restaurant, located at 1619 Webster Street in Alameda.

6-7pm: Nick Swisher and Huston Street will sign autographs at Macy's in the Stoneridge Mall in Pleasanton.

link

Here again is the picture from space of the barn on Mark Ellis' South Dakota farm:

Blind to His Faults

Linda and Burt Pugach, just another bickering couple from Queens. Except for these unavoidable facts: Nearly 50 years ago, after Linda spurned him and became engaged to another man, a jury convicted Burt, a lawyer, of hiring a thug to throw lye in her face.

The attack blinded her and sent him to jail. When he got out 14 years later, Burt proposed again. Linda accepted.

Ahh - true love

The Boras Factor

Coonelly provided to SI a list of 18 Boras-only clients who received bonuses between $1 million and $3 million from 1998 to 2003, above the "slot" figure that MLB strongly recommends to teams, and haven't yet returned much on the investment. "There isn't a correlation between overpaying and productivity," Coonelly says. "There is a fairly long track record of clients Scott represented who signed 'above slot' who haven't panned out."

why my diary wasn't accepted? I kept getting in big red letters, "You must enter an Intro for your Diary Entry between 300 and 1150 characters long.".  

I had well over the 300 character minimum.

5-4 in the 5th, after being 0-4 down and 0/9 at the plate after 3.

Do you want this damn bobblehead?

Down by 1 with 2 outs in the 7th, a new pitcher has just walked his first batter on 5 pitches, so GA swings at the first offering (a 75mph breaking ball) and ends the inning.

Baseball Prospectus has a couple of different mock drafts up. Kevin Goldstein has us taking a college pitcher from across the bay:

while Bryan Smith guesses it will be another college pitcher from further south:

sometime between 3:30-3:45 pm Pacific time.

they just had Eric Byrnes on...the guy is a scream!

real quick to check if it's working right?"

Bud Selig asks Jason Giambi to help George Mitchell's investigation, while simultaneously deferring any decision to discipline Giambi for his "steroids" comments until later.

So, crafty detective Selig tells Giambi to shut up (vis PEDs and the press), then tells him to talk to Mitchell, then decides to wait to hear what Giambi tells Mitchell before meting out any discipline for past offenses JG might confess too.  Very clever, Inspector Clous...Selig.

Could Giambi be stupid enough to fall for this Roadrunner trap?  One hopes that no one's that stupid.

In the 9th inning of the Twins/Angels game how did Jason Bartlett hit a 1-run homer when he was the 4th batter in the inning - Redmond, Kubel & Punto preceeding him ? Either there were 3 outs by the time he came to the plate, or there was a runner on (or someone had already scored in the inning, but that tends to get noticed).

The online play-by-play simply misses out Kubel, but I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to do that ;-)

their algorithm thinks I might be interested in "Toby Keith Goes Acoustic on Second Holiday CD."

Here's a link to the case I mentioned last week about the grotesque prosecution of a substitute teacher in Connecticut.  She's been granted a new trial, thank heavens, but was originally found guilty of felony "injury to a minor" charges because the computer in her class (used by many others, obviously, because she's a sub) spewed out pornographic images due to spyware which kids saw.  The spyware infection almost surely took root due to some other adult's doing, not the sub's.  While the school's internet filtering software was intentionally disabled by the school district.

Horrible Kafka-esque case; lots more info at boingboing.net.

Billy Owens of the A's front office, talking with Marty Lurie, just said they're looking at college guys for their top picks, and looking more at the "high school high ceiling types" in the later rounds.

Of course this is probably just the disinformation Beane told him to spread.

I'll give him a great present....with or without wifey around!!

wink wink

in honor of Crosby's rbi single last night.