I realized there were a few things I was enjoying that a few of my readers might not know about. I wrestled with my innate selfishness for a while, before deciding to share. Sharing is caring, you know.
First up, all-around good guy Jim McLennan has done his George Jefferson imitation, and is movin' on up to some new Internet digs. Sure, you enjoyed the writing on his old site, But It's a Dry Heat, but you decided after a while that the pale yellow backround reminded you a little too much of bile, and thus visited less frequently than you would have liked. Well, have no fear! AZ Snakepit is here! It's got a pretty layout, and a pretty picture of a pretty diamondback on home plate, and pretty Arizona Diamondback colors all over, along with all sorts of other goodies! Jim's writing has went downhill since, but who cares!? The new site is PRETTY!
Alright, jokes aside, go there and enjoy Jim. His site now reflects the quality of his stuff, and even if I can't get him to concede that the way Barry Bonds is pitched to is the equalizer against any possible steroid boost. :)
Another site that is part of the Sportsblog family that Jim is now a part of, is John Sickel's Minor League Ball. John was formerly writing for ESPN.com, until they suddenly became idiots and parted ways with him. Their loss is our gain, because now we don't have to pay any freaking money for that stupide ESPN Insider (of which it seems Rob Neyer is the only baseball participant) to check out some of John's great insight and analysis on minor league prospects. He's even knowledgeable about the Royals farm system -- astonishing as it is that he even bothered to check to see if the Royals still had a farm system, it's more astonishing that he comes off as if he actually cares about their farm system. 'Twas enough to bring a tear to my eye, I tell you. He's also wrote up a piece on the Giants system, and was even kind enough to write things about their hitting prospects, such as they are. Dude, check it!
Next, we have the Baseball News Blog, which, oddly enough, is exactly what it says. That's it. It's a great launching pad for your Web-surfing baseball day, because it has links to what seems like just about every blog out there (curiously though, my friend Kevin Agee isn't on there, so I'm guessing the site isn't omnipotent). I dunno exactly who takes the time to put the site together, because I don't see any names or e-mail links, but nevertheless, they were kind enough to link me, so I'm gonna link 'em back. Remember, sharing is caring.
Last, and definitely not least, I'm not sure if I ever did any sort of write-up on Steve Shelby's Giants News Diary or not -- if I did, well, read another, because I'm your friend and I amuse you. Steve's site has something I can't really emphasize enough: everything. Well, pretty much everything Giants-related, at least. If you want to make sure you are keeping up with the team, go to Steve's site first and save yourself some mouse-clicking calories.
Steve also plays Texas Hold 'Em, which makes him A-Okay in my book. Here's to hoping you get that four-of-a-kind, Steve, and here's to hoping you get it when someone else is unfortunate enough to catch a full boat on the same hand...like what happened to me the other day on Party Poker. How was I supposed to know the guy had pocket five's?
2 comments:
Thanks for the plug, Daniel, and for your comments on the season. I think the NL West is going to be so tight this year that it could come down to which team stays healthiest. And the Giants haven't started off too well there... :-(
Sure, the way Bonds is pitched to (or more often, not) certainly affects his totals. No argument there. But history is a two-way street, and will forever make comparing players from different eras a futile (if thoroughly entertaining!) exercise.
My take is that Ruth's homerun totals were more remarkable for their era than Bonds' are for this one. Plus Ruth won three World Series games as a pitcher, with an ERA of 0.86. When Bonds does that, I'll happily entertain a discussion about him being the greatest player of all-time. ;-)
The problem with Bonds is that now we'll never know how good a player he actually was. He might still have hit 700 homers without the cream and the clear. But he might "only" have hit 500, and the pitching around him could be largely due to the steroids. We'll just never know...
And you are right indeed, Jim. The absolute saddest thing about all of this is that we will never really, really know.
Oh, and no argument that Babe Ruth is the best player of all-time, period, end of story. My whole take is on whether Bonds is "worthy" enough to be included in the ranks of Ruth and Aaron as home run hitters, which I think he is, steroids or no steroids.
Boy, if we had had a pool at the beginning of the year betting on who was the most likely to miss an entire season due to injury: Troy Glaus or Barry Bonds...well, I'd have lost some money.
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