Jab and Move

Have a few things that I want to hit quickly today, hence the title.

Got an email yesterday from Osirus Jackson, the grandson of Bingo DeMoss, generally considered the best Negro League second baseman for the first quarter century of the 1900s. Bingo is still not in the Hall of Fame, despite his grandson's best efforts. He has received an endorsement from SABR, has spoken to every member of the Veteran's Committee, even had Ted Williams hand-deliver a recommendation to the Committee, but to no avail. Terrible. Osirus asked me if I had any ideas, and I'm passing it on to all of you. I'll talk more about Bingo at a later date, maybe this weekend.

Read a story about Bret Boone on Baseball Primer this morning. Everyone knows that Bret's career has taken a great turn for the better in the last few years, but I didn't realize how much until I checked his record. Brett had an OBP of .275 when he was 27, and .298 when he was 28. Those are the kind of numbers that eventually get you drummed out of the majors, but now Boone is a perennial all-star, with an OBP nearly a hundred points higher and a lot more power. Interestingly, for two years when he was younger, the most comparable player to him (according to baseballreference.com) was Jeff Kent, another secondbaseman who developed tremendously. Fourth most comparable hitter to Jeff Kent now? Larry Doby.

UMass is looking to update to Division 1A football. They would fit in perfectly in the Big East. I put this on a message board this morning, and accidentally said ACC. The site doesn't allow you to retract posts, so all I could do was put in a correction. Talk about a blunder!

Unless the Spurs get Jason Kidd AND Jermaine O'Neal, Gary Payton ought to seal the deal for the Lakers. But Karl Malone? The Lakers just dropped a title because they became bored with winning. Bringing in the Mailman is overload, and could backfire.

Tomorrow I'll have previews of this weekend's top series, unless Dusty Baker speaks again.