DLD 12/26/07 Christmas Hangover?

Dan Haren trade:

More quantity than quality. Oakland's farm system has really, really thinned out to the point where it was one of the worst in the game, and this deal will replenish is. But considering that a) Haren's contract makes him a bargain and b) the only blue-chip guys they got for him were Brett Anderson (whom I love) and Carlos Gonzalez (whom I believe is somewhat overhyped), that's not good enough. Haren's contract should make him as desirable or more than Santana, and what the A's got doesn't stack up to the rumored Santana packages.

Potential Blanton trade with Mets:

I'm not the biggest Gomez fan. That seems like quantity over quality for me, though there are people high on Gomez. Blanton is a proven innings eater, and I don't think that deal is too far out of whack.

Link

starting in 2008.  Dirt steroids are being banned, so all parts of the infield will be level.

Or, perhaps better phrased, are they more palpably racist than fans in other cities?  Boston Magazine says no.  I mean, yes.  I mean, there's an awful lot of perception, so maybe it's more than just a baseless bad rap.

Article quotes folks like Bonds, Gary Matthews Jr, Bill Russell, Dee Brown, Michael Wilbon, Steven A. Smith, and more.  A's fans might remember Terrence Long having similar words to say.  Very interesting stuff.  For instance, did you know that Bill Russell, author of a dozen championships and contender for title on best hoopster of all time, once had vandals break into his Boston-area home just to shit in his bed?

Couple of other interesting pull quotes:

Bud Collins, the legendary sportswriter who started out at the Herald in the 1950s, was once scolded for even suggesting that someone at the paper write about the Sox and racism. In his brilliant, brutally honest book Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston, ESPN’s Howard Bryant, who grew up here and worked as a sports columnist for the Herald, details the rebuke Collins received from his bosses: "‘They told me I had a lot to learn about their town,’ Collins remembered."

In 1973, during spring training in Winter Haven, Florida, (BoSox outfielder Tommy Harper) and other black players were not invited to dinners his white teammates attended at a segregated local club. Twelve years later, while working as a member of the Sox coaching staff, he described the incident to the Globe. Within a year he was fired. He eventually brought a discrimination lawsuit against the club that resulted in a settlement. Not long afterward, Jim Rice—for years the lone black Sox player—supposedly told a young Ellis Burks to leave the city as fast as he could.

(As a rookie Dee Brown) was driving through Wellesley when he was pulled from his car by the police and held face-down on the pavement at gunpoint. The cops were looking for a bank robber. A black man.

And yet, like K. C. Jones, Brown doesn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea: He loves Boston. "One incident happens and people dwell on it. It happens in every city, but Boston is stigmatized by it," Brown says. He repeatedly tells me that he has nothing but fond memories of playing here, that he wishes people would know the whole story before so quickly judging the city. "If you go back in history, especially with the Celtics, they had the first black player. The first black coach. There are a lot of things people forget to put in there. There are racial problems in every city. You go to the wrong neighborhood in any city and you’re black or you’re white or Hispanic or Italian or Irish, you might be in the wrong place."

Despite defending Boston to anyone who will listen, and especially to me, Brown acknowledges that altering the perception of the city is a difficult task. He knows because he’s tried, making his case to players and journalists alike. He hasn’t gotten very far. Most of the bitterness toward Boston is so deeply rooted now that it feels almost impossible to change anyone’s mind.

especially for that price.

Prior went to the Padres because its his home town, an EXTREME pitchers park, in the National League, and a winning team. We arn't any of those right now.

It looks like the deal is for $1 million base and up to an additional $4.5 million in incentives.

of A's front office's ongoing interest in soccer.

link

and as I started to type "www.firejoemorgan.com", the auto-fill thingy assumed I wanted to type "www.firefoxtutor.com". And my first thought was, "Who the hell is Fox Tutor?"

The Hilton Matriarch, is donating a whopping 97% of his fortune to charity, because Paris has sullied the Hilton name.  He couldn't just change the sheets on this mess.

Jerry Oppenheimer, who profiled the Hilton family in his 2006 book "House of Hilton," has said Barron Hilton is embarrassed by the behavior of his socialite granddaughter Paris and believes it has sullied the family name

For you math whizzes, what is 3% of 2.3 Billion, and how many people will it be split with.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071226/...

Link here

I guess its sort a loose interpretation of the word "restocking", but nevertheless.

a vent thread?