You know what would be interesting? At age 29, split it into two trendlines: those who were out of MLB w/i 2 years of each data point, and those who remained active. I suspect you’d see the ranges shrink a whole lot.

I’d also be interested in seeing the same graph done for pitchers named in the Mitchell Report (just for the heck of it) vs non-named.

This is the sort of thing that an editor should grant a writer about 2 more days of deadline on.

Celebrating Frank Thomas

-You cracked the bigs at 22, even though four years earlier, 891 kids were drafted, many from high school, and you were passed by. That’s determination!

-You’ve never pulled down more than $10 million in a season despite playing in the helium salary era. Either have we! You’re an everyman!

-Dude, you swing a rusted iron pipe (reportedly found during a renovation project in Old Comiskey Park) in the on-deck circle. How is that not stunningly cool?

-When you hit your 500th home run, you said, “It means a lot to me because I did it the right way.” Subtle, classy, but with a dagger. Nice!

Balloon drifts away. Maybe they needed better anchor.

“We could operate where we have a whole generation of players well beyond its prime but there would be even less people here.”

I mean, if the flu shits, USSMrs, you can wear it, but that seems a little touchy.

No electricity at work today. No work with pay!!! WOOO!!

of his blog

...but does anybody know where I can get a t-shirt that says “Athletics Princess”? My daughter saw one at the game on Sun and want one. Couldn’t find it in the store cuz it’s from last year.

Biggest LOLcat in the world

but not added to the A’s active roster. He was reinstated from the DL and optioned to AAA on 5/22, then dropped from the AAA roster on 5/26 with the note “suspended from ML rehab.” He doesn’t, however, still appear on the A’s 40-man roster.

wonder what’s up?

That Frank Thomas had put up such ridiculous numbers earlier in his career? What a bad ass.

Everyone in the apartment complex I lived in knew who Ugly was. Ugly was the resident tomcat.
Ugly loved three things in this world: fighting, eating garbage, and shall we say, love. The combination of these things combined with a life spent outside had their effect on Ugly.

To start with, he had only one eye, and where the other should have been was a gaping hole. He was also missing his ear on the same side, his left foot has appeared to have been badly broken at one time, and had healed at an unnatural angle, making him look like he was always turning the corner. His tail has long since been lost, leaving only the smallest stub, which he would constantly jerk and twitch. Ugly would have been a dark gray tabby striped-type, except for the sores covering his head, neck, even his shoulders with thick, yellowing scabs.

Every time someone saw Ugly there was the same reaction. “That’s one UGLY cat!!”

All the children were warned not to touch him, the adults threw rocks at him, hosed him down, squirted him when he tried to come in their homes, or shut his paws in the door when he would not leave.

Ugly always had the same reaction. If you turned the hose on him, he would stand there, getting soaked until you gave up and quit. If you threw things at him, he would curl his lanky body around feet in forgiveness. Whenever he spied children, he would come running meowing frantically and bump his head against their hands, begging for their love. If you ever picked him up he would immediately begin suckling on your shirt, earrings, whatever he could find.

One day Ugly shared his love with the neighbors huskies. They did not respond kindly, and Ugly was badly mauled. From my apartment I could hear his screams, and I tried to rush to his aid. By the time I got to where he was laying, it was apparent Ugly’s sad life was almost at an end.

Ugly lay in a wet circle, his back legs and lower back twisted grossly out of shape, a gaping tear in the white strip of fur that ran down his front. As I picked him up and tried to carry him home I could hear him wheezing and gasping, and could feel him struggling. I must be hurting him terribly I thought.

Then I felt a familiar tugging, sucking sensation on my ear – Ugly, in so much pain, suffering and obviously dying was trying to suckle my ear. I pulled him closer to me, and he bumped the palm of my hand with his head, then he turned his one golden eye towards me, and I could hear the distinct sound of purring. Even in the greatest pain, that ugly battled-scarred cat was asking only for a little affection, perhaps some compassion.

At that moment I thought Ugly was the most beautiful, loving creature I had ever seen. Never once did he try to bite or scratch me, or even try to get away from me, or struggle in any way. Ugly just looked up at me completely trusting in me to relieve his pain.

Ugly died in my arms before I could get inside, but I sat and held him for a long time afterwards, thinking about how one scarred, deformed little stray could so alter my opinion about what it means to have true pureness of spirit, to love so totally and truly. Ugly taught me more about giving and compassion than a thousand books, lectures, or talk show specials ever could, and for that I will always be thankful. He had been scarred on the outside, but I was scarred on the inside, and it was time for me to move on and learn to love truly and deeply. To give my total to those I cared for.

Many people want to be richer, more successful, well liked, beautiful, but for me, I will always try to be Ugly.

No surprise that said take is idiotic.

Once you open that replay box, where do you stop? The game would slow down even more than it does now, and baseball came out with a new set of rules to speed up the game. I’m concerned with dead time.

This actually echoes many of the arguments against instant replay, this “where do you stop?” thing. It reeks of a slippery slope fallacy. It wouldn’t be hard to say, “instant replay only for home run calls” and just leave it there. There are still dozens of non-reviewable plays in the NFL, like pass interference, holding, etc. It seems like botched home run calls are somewhat easy to fix. But to say that it would lead to, like, automated strike zones and reviews on close stolen base plays is like saying, “Dammit, they opened a Chinese restaurant down the street from my apartment, soon we’ll all be speaking Mandarin!”

As for slowing the game down… please. Now, on calls that would require instant replay, we have to sit and wait as the umpires converge and discuss the call, and often times overrule it, though they’re still wrong an awful lot. All the while, the broadcasters fawn over the “responsibility” being taken by the umps, and talk about how great it is that they’re “taking the time to get the call right.”

Instant replay would be damn near 100% accurate, and couldn’t possibly take any longer than the whole umpire meeting thing does now.

Enron

I just ordered America’s 100 Plus…

It has Comcast Sports Network, but does it come with CSN+, which is airing todays game?

Informs me that Todd Linden is a right-handed pitcher.

Truly a jack of all trades.

Sorry I missed it.

... looks like.

Looks more like Michael Medved to me but at least he’s rockin’ the stirrup socks.

(Good microphone test for p-popping, for all you future podcasters out there)
The Northern California Pro Sports Report has Mike Piazza as a guest this week and KenKo next week.