And the Winner is . . .

The trading deadline's here, and while I love that as much as anyone, I'm not going to write about it. The reason? You can find that anywhere. There's too many great bloggers and too many big time web sites out there to think that I could add anything original. So instead, I'll tell a joke. Really.

A baby walks into a bar and crawls up on a stool.

The bartender says, "What'll you have?"
The baby says, "I'll have a bottle."
The bartender looks at for a second and says, "You sure you want that?"
And the baby says "What? You got breastmilk on tap here?"

Wrote it taking care of my son. Oh, and if I have to make one trading deadline comment, I'll say that I'm getting REALLY excited about the prospects of my future employers, the Boston Red Sox.

The RIP SI contest has come to an end and we have a winner. My wife thought it said R.I.P. SI, so I had to tell her that we only want to insult Sports Illustrated, not blow up their building. Anyway, the winner is Ray Murphy, a good friend of mine and the author of maybe the best football-related novel ever written, Empire and Victory. Here it is (the letter, not the novel):


In the recent Kobe issue, you printed a letter from
Dave Eisenberg, from which you cut the first sentence.
I agree with you that Reilly, these days, needs all
the editorial protection he can get. But you were
short-sighted to cut Eisenberg's letter. As a daily
reader of his blog (eisenbergsports.blogspot.com), I
find him far more insightful and funny than the turgid
Reilly. You should check out the blog. Here's an
excerpt from today, regarding the DAPRA brainchild:

"If you bet and win, do you get investigated by the
FBI? What would stop a terrorist group from having
"sleeper cells" wager on acts of terrorism and then
committing them, and then getting to use Pentagon
money to plan their next attack? Would anyone of any
minority group ever dare to wager? Would you see some
American buying drinks in the bar when a U.S. embassy
blows up in Morocco, because he got 30-1? Would people
put together office pools hoping for an explosion in
France? And only two Senators, TOTAL, are opposed to
this?"

In other words, SI, you edited the wrong guy.

Sincerely,

Ray Murphy

You can buy Empire and Victory at Empire and Victory




We have Paul DePodesta Medal of Honor winners, and lots of BAP scores. Let's do the PDMOH first.

Adrian Beltre of the Los Angeles Dodgers - Beltre goes 3 for 3 with a walk. Unfortunately, it was for the Dodgers, who couldn't do anything with it. None of Beltre's plate appearances contributed to the Dodgers scoring in any way.

Todd Helton of the Colorado Rockies - Helton went 3 for 3 with a walk.

Magglio Ordonez of the Chicago White Sox - 3 for 3 with 2 walks, including a homer.

Jason Giambi of the Yankees - 3 for 3 with 2 walks, including a homer

Teams with a PDMOH winner are now 15-4, and are now scoring 7.11 runs per game.

BAP scores. We'll do yesterday's first, then Tuesday's:

Tampa Bay 5 Toronto 3

OBP - TB .333, Tor .316
SLG - TB .419, Tor .273
BAP - TB .649, Tor .447

All three correct.


Cincinnati 3 Colorado 2

OBP - Cin .368, Col .216
SLG - Cin .382, Col .306
BAP - CIn .641, Col .351

All three get it right.

Mets 2 Milwaukee 0

OBP - Mil .306, NY .250
SLG - Mil .167, NY .321
BAP - Mil .361, NY .500

OBP blows it.


Texas 9 Boston 2 From Tim at Musings From RSN


OBP - Bos .343, Tex .390
SLG - Bos .500, Tex .571
BAP - Bos .457, Tex.780

All three get it right.


New York 8 Anaheim 0

OBP - NY .359, Ana .200
SLG - NY .471, Ana .207
BAP - NY .769, Ana .200

No contest.


From Tuesday -

Chicago 9 KC 6

OBP - Chi .432, KC .361
SLG - Chi .775, KC .457
BAP - Chi .822, KC .541

Again, not close.

Standings

BAP 41-1
SLG 36-6
OBP 28-12-2

Questions or Comments For Dave