Somehow, This Must Be Dusty's Fault...

What am i talking about?  This.

Yup, the Cincinnati Reds just gave away Adam Dunn for a single-A pitcher and two players to be named later.

Dumping Griffey's salary for some guys who might be able to contribute?  Sure, no problem.  Handing off a 28-year old guy who's hit 46, 40, 40 and 40 homers the last 4 years, and has 32 already this season for nobody specific?  That's absolutely inexcusable, especially when there were at least 4 GMs who would have severed a testicle to get this guy less than a month ago.

The Mets and Yankees, the Red Sox, the D-Backs, the Dodgers, the Marlins and probably a few more that I'm entirely too lazy to think of... oh... the Astros too, were in the market for a power-hitting outfielder.

The Yanks came away with Nady.  The Sox and Dodgers pulled the Manny/Bay deal.  The D-Backs robbed Dunn today.  The Marlins and Astros still have nobody.  You're honestly going to try to tell me that the Reds couldn't get something majors-ready for this guy?  That the Mets wouldn't have given up Mike Pelfrey and a minor leaguer for Dunn and signed him to an extension?

In the long run, Adam Dunn isn't a "Dusty Baker" kind of guy.  He's not going to bunt down runners.  He's not going to hit-and-run or swipe bags.  And despite being dirty, he's not gritty or gutty.  There's nothing Ecksteinian about him.

Here's what Adam Dunn does.

1)  He gets on base more than about 80% of major league baseball players.

2)  He hits 40 home runs every year.

3)  He's OPS'd .900 for his career.

4)  He's pretty durable, having played in 747 of his teams last 767 games since 2004.

And all the Reds get for dealing that away is... a guy in the low minors... and two dudes who's moms didn't even like them enough to give them names.  Yeah.  I'm not happy.

Fire Bill Simmons.com?

Should I just change the name of the blog to that? It's hard to believe, but he's at it again. This one's from the Magazine, and it's little more than more nationally syndicated Boston-centric arrogance. Never before, has a fan seemed to take so much pride and credit in the accomplishments of a team. He talks about the Sox and Celtics World Championships as though he's accomplished something by having been born in Boston.

This entire article is about the fact that he's got "nowhere to go but down."

Remember when Hugh Grant was arrested for soliciting a prostitute while he was dating Elizabeth Hurley?

Hey Simmons, that happened on June 27, 1995. In case you're bad with numbers, that was over 13 years ago. No Bill Simmons, I do NOT remember tabloid pop-culture happenings from 13+ years ago. Well, actually I do... but I don't talk about them like they're recent news, or write entire articles centered around imaginary rules that I made up because of them.

At the time, I, like every other red-blooded male, tried to put myself in Hugh's sullied shoes.

Yeah Bill, we all did it. Thirteen years ago. Do you have a point? Lets just skip ahead to your 10+ year old imaginary rule. Maybe you can work a fantasy league joke into this. Or the Ewing Theory.

After climbing Mount Everest—"Hey, I have my pick of hotties!"—he simply couldn't figure out what to do next.

Dude... what's your problem with Divine Brown? Maybe Hugh wanted some dark meat. Is that so fucking bad? Or are you just appalled by this because she's black, and you're a typical Bostonian fucking racist? It was 13 years ago. Shut the fuck up.

What does any of this have to with anything?

I'm glad you asked, because you're starting to frustrate me.

In the days following an improbable Celtics title, two questions have gnawed at me:

Am I a homosexual? And does anyone, anywhere, actually like me anymore? Wishful thinking Mr. Six, wishful thinking.

1. Have I peaked as a sports fan?

No, you haven't. My Yankees won 4 championships from 1996-2000. My Giants just ruined the perfect season of your Patriots. And my Rangers broke their championship drought only a year or so before Hugh Grant hooked up with Divine Brown. There's no such thing as "peaking" as a sports fan... because a sports fan DOESN'T FUCKING DO ANYTHING. We drink beer and watch games. That's it. Fans don't hit free agency. We don't decline with age. WE'RE NOT ON THE FUCKING TEAM!!!!!

2. Am I headed for a Hugh/Divine moment?

Yes Bill, you are. You're going to go out tomorrow night, get drunk at some dive in Los Angeles and wake up next to someone who looks like this. There's nowhere to go but down for you... but that has nothing to do with your sports fandom or imaginary team-alliance. It's just because you're an asshole.

Remember, I'm a Sawx fan.

Jesus fucking Christ, Bill. Do you think anybody, anywhere has forgotten that? Especially if we still remember who Hugh Grant fucked 13+ years ago?

You know who's silently nodding their heads right now? New York Giants fans. They know they'll never beat the experience of rooting for a double-digit underdog that improbably terminated a bid for a perfect season in the Super Bowl.

I'm not nodding. I'm stifling the urge to vomit. The next time the Yankees win a championship, it'll be better than that Super Bowl. The next time any team I pull for wins a ring, it'll beat that Super Bowl... because it'll be happening "NOW" instead of "IN THE PAST." Whatever's happening in the present always feels sweeter than what's happened in the past. That's life.

And another thing, I love the Giants and the Yankees. I love the Knicks and Rangers too, but aren't there more important things in life? I do things in MY LIFE every day that beat "the experience of rooting for a double-digit underdog that improbably terminated a bid for a perfect season in the Super Bowl." A promotion at work beats the shit out of that. Taking my girlfriend to a Broadway show tops it. Dragging my little brother to his first Yankee game and smacking him in the head with a rolled up program until he stops insisting he's a Mets fan totally outranks it.

Point is, Bill, that we have real lives. We have marriages, divorces, births, deaths, taxes, rising gas prices and STDs. As great as it feels when one of my teams wins a championship, it's really not the biggest thing that happens in our lives in any given year. Our lives don't peak or crash based on a box score.

If yours does, maybe you should seek professional help. Like some kind of counselling or something.

And for the record, you don't have to worry about a Divine Brown moment. She wouldn't fuck you anyway. You think she's going to go from Hugh Grant to Bill Simmons?

Come on... the Cincinnati Bengals would have to win back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back Super Bowls for her to be due to crash to your level.

Tribute to Mr. Jerry Manuel

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta! Thank God Jerry Manuel got a managerial job! And Thank God he got it close to home for me so I can laugh at the antics of this butt-fucking Finkelstein.

I really thought I was going to just bash Bill Simmons and Dusty Baker for the rest of their lives (or until they return to whatever planets they respectively come from.) But now there's Jerry.

He should cut Reyes every time he pops up a ball. Sort of an extreme version of Willie Mays Hayes doing push-ups!



Straight ball, I hit it very much!!! And for the record, no. Jesus Christ cannot hit a curveball. And that's a capital NO, just so we're clear!

Although Christ bangs hanging sliders like he's a Republican Senator and they're 12-year old Malaysian boys.

Dave Fleming = Mark Prior?

Thanks to USS Mariner for this cool information that I would never have thought to look for myself.

For those of you who don't know who Dave Fleming was, he went 17-10 for the Mariners (basically as a rookie) in 1992, at age 22. He flamed out of the game of baseball with a rotator cuff tear after the 1995 season. The likely culprit? Overuse.

100 or less: 11 starts
101-109 pitches: 5 starts
110-121 pitches: 9 starts (this is where we start getting into the harmful)
122-132 pitches: 6 starts
133 pitches or more: 5 starts

And here's a comparison to Mark Prior, also at age 22, for the Cubs in 2003. He went 18-6 that year.

100 or less: 5 starts
101-109 pitches: 6 starts
110-121 pitches: 10 starts (this is where we start getting into the harmful)
122-132 pitches: 8 starts
133 pitches or more: 1 starts

This is what I mean when I say that the guys who show promise, but flame out after one good year because they're overused and get hurt... are forgotten by history. Nobody remembers Dave Fleming winning 17 as a rookie.

And 10 or 15 years from now, nobody will remember Mark Prior either.

This concludes installment # 729 of "Why MLB Should Take Cueto, Bailey and Volquez Away From Dusty Baker." Thank you.

Jimmy Hoffa was the Junior Griffey of Unionized Labor!

Dusty Baker gives the strangest fucking compliments in the history of the game of baseball. I thought it was odd when the guys up in Toronto were talking about what a couple of "dirtbags" David Eckstein and Scott Rolen were.

And I thought Dusty Baker had outdone himself when he talked about how Edwin Encarnacion "bleeds internally big-time."

Well, Dusty's added to his greatest hits collection of crazy with this one!

"Junior has given a lot to this game and this city," Baker said. "You go look at his body and his injury list, and he's left a lot of bones, muscles, tendons and ligaments out on that field. You dig up that field, and there's a lot of Junior bones in it."

Centerfield at the Great American Ballpark is an indian burial ground. And Junior Griffey is so broken down that body parts are literally falling off of him. I'm really not sure how either of these things amount to a compliment.

Apparently in the Dusty Baker book of baseball, things like hemorrhaging and losing limbs are signs of greatness. Here's a suggestion for Dusty's next comment along these lines:

"Man, that Mark Prior. I love him because he really tears his ulnar collateral ligament out there! And if you look out there under the rubber on that mound, you can find pieces of Kerry Wood's labrum! What a couple of ballplayers!!"