Today's Link-O-Rama has been fully vetted by the good folks in Jackson, Missouri …
• Just like the rest of us, U.S.S. Mariner
doesn't know if Don Wakamatsu has the right stuff. But they're impressed with the
process, which is about the best you can say about the hiring of a manager who has never managed.
• From Posnanski, some sort-of news:
Mike Mussina has a
really good shot at getting into the Coop, and sooner rather than later. Tyler Kepner polled some baseball writers, and 32 of 40 respondents said they would vote for Mussina. Now, there may be a selection bias -- I suspect that Kepner's average respondent is younger than the average Hall of Fame voter. But those results still strike me as both significant and encouraging.
• I think my friend Jonah Keri is wrong about
Cliff Lee. But you have to admit
he has his own take on the thing.
• Rich Lederer
fisks the NL MVP balloting.
• If you just can't get enough of this stuff, we've got actual MVP ballots (with "explanations")
here,
here (without
Dustin Pedroia, but
with apologies),
here (and then there's
this, which just makes me sad).
• More from Lederer: Part 1 of his
review of the new Bill James Handbook. Just an FYI: Lately I've been referencing baserunning stats, and the Handbook is my source.
• Ken Davidoff writes about
the language of baseball winter.
•
This must be super-embarrassing.
• Athletics Nation reviews Kevin Towers' handling of the
Jake Peavy talks, and winds up being
thankful for Billy Beane.
• Over at Page 2 (so you might have missed it), UniWatch digs ever deeper into
MLB's logo.
• Between ball players riding their bicycles to work and saving furry animals and driving solar-powered SUVs, I seem to find myself with a new favorite player just about every week. And via ShysterBall, here's
yet another candidate.
•
This makes my head hurt a little bit. But I'm still a young man with a bright future, and I'm sure I'll feel fine after a long nap.
• Finally, you might recall that I recently wrote something snarky about
Todd Jones' literary career. Actually, it wasn't all that snarky. I was just writing what I believed, which is that Jones might not have much to say now that he's no longer pitching. Hey, I hope I'm wrong. Anyway, Jones tracked me down. I'm not going to reproduce his e-mail message here -- it's not that kind of message -- but I would like to report that Jones hates hunting and fishing, prefers fine wine to cheap beer, and feels the way he feels about homosexuals because he grew up in Georgia.
My fervent desire has always been for everyone in the world to read what I write …
except the people I write about. But Mr. Jones has invited me down to Alabama, and I've always wanted to visit the Heart of Dixie. …
Rob Neyer
