Season predictions.

My actual predictions for each team’s W/L record, with some brief thoughts on why for most clubs, are now on my main ESPN blog.

By the way, I love this headline. This might be the first time ever that a front office person has said with a straight face that a pitcher was better suited for the pen because he was tall.

Chat today.

Slight change of schedule means I’m doing a quick Klawchat today.

Also, Jacob over at Vegas Watch is doing a March Madness day one chat starting … a few minutes ago, apparently. That’s for when you’re done with my chat, of course.

By the way, if you bookmark this link, you’ll always be able to find player videos I’ve posted on the Four-Letter.

Quick links.

Draft video of Arizona prep catcher Tommy Joseph is up, as is a scouting report on RHP Jake Barrett. Off to see Team Japan today at Scottsdale.

Also, infinite sportswriter theorem has a great takedown of a Florida sportswriter who jumps through all manner of verbal hoops to defend Bobby Bowden.

Draft videos!

Looks like several of the videos I shot of prospects for this year’s Rule 4 Draft are up:

RHP Mike Leake
LHP Matt Purke
LHP Cameron Coffey
CF Everett Williams
RHP Shelby Miller

I’ll throw up a new post whenever I see more of these videos go up. Also, I wrote about Brett Anderson, Tyson Ross, Brett Hunter, and Hector Rondon yesterday and will be writing about Dayan Viciedo and Aaron Poreda tonight.

Houston eats 2009.

I’ll start off with the two places that I visited on my last trip to Houston and revisited this time, but unfortunately, neither measured up. The Breakfast Klub’s biscuits were sublime and soft in ’07, but I went twice and both times got a dry biscuit that was flaky but not tender. One of the two days nothing on my EMPT plate was hot other than the potatoes. And on Saturday, the biscuit wasn’t that fresh – the line was out the door, and yet the biscuit tastes a few hours old. I don’t get it.

The restaurant inside the Inn at the Ballpark – I really like that hotel, by the way; lots of character but no kitsch – was also disappointing. Service was slow, shrimp on the shrimp BLT didn’t seem to have been fully thawed before they were cooked, the “prosciutto” on the chicken breast sandwich turned out to be American ham (which I despise), and the homemade potato chips – another highlight of my last trip – were greasy and kind of stale for both meals. The quality of the ingredients was still generally high, and they comped the chicken sandwich when I asked about the prosciutto/ham mixup even though I insisted at the time that I didn’t want them to comp the meal and was just confused about whether I’d gotten what I ordered. But it wasn’t the same as it was two years ago.

I guess I’ll start at the bottom and work my way up … I was on I-10 from San Antonio to Houston, which is roughly as populated as Montana, so I ended up grabbing a meal at Whataburger, supposedly Texas’ answer to In-n-Out. I suppose the question was, “Can we come up with a fast-food chain that’s half as good as In-n-Out which in and of itself isn’t quite as good as Five Guys?” (Insert “Yes We Can!” sound bite here.) Suitable for food emergencies.

I wanted to go to Thelma’s BBQ, just a few blocks from the hotel, but when I called to check their hours I found out that they were closed for renovations after a restaurant fire a few weeks earlier. (The message thanked people for their prayers; if people are praying for the restaurant, that must be some good Q.) The concierge at the hotel redirected me to Pappas B-B-Q, which was adequate but nothing special. The brisket was a little dry and desperately needed the sauce; the spicy rice wasn’t really that spicy; the lima beans were giant (for whatever reason I expected baby limas, one of my favorite southern dishes) and cooked to baby-food consistency. The sausage was good, but again not that spicy.

I had better Q at PitMaster BBQ in the Woodlands area a few days later. Even though Texas is brisket country, they’re known for their “Memphis-style” pork shoulder and pork ribs. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but the pulled pork was very good – extremely moist and smoky, although the rub didn’t impart much flavor. Their fried okra was just-fried and not too greasy; their baked beans were well above-average, white beans that still had some tooth with a tangy-sweet sauce that I thought had apple juice in it (I asked, no apple juice – although I think that could be a great flavor to add to baked beans). And then there was the “Texas Toast” – one thick slice of white sandwich bread, grilled on one side. If anyone knows the purpose of this, let me know. White sandwich bread is kind of a waste of wheat. Across the street from PitMaster is an “Italian-Style Ice Cream and Coffee” shop called Kremi that I would have tried if I’d had time; if anyone has a chance to check it out, I’d like a report. Houston isn’t a place in which I’d expect to find great gelato, but like my man Joaquin Andujar said, youneverknow.

Pho Saigon is a local chain of Vietnamese restaurants, and I’m not sure what to say about it. I’ve had Vietnamese food dozens of times, and it’s always the same. I don’t think I’ve ever had bad Vietnamese food – I usually go with pho or bun – and I can only think of one time I had really amazing Vietnamese food, at Pho Quyen in Pinellas Park, Florida. Pho Saigon’s bun was … the same as everyone else’s. About the only remarkable thing was that the vegetables served on the side (carrots, cucumbers, bean sprouts) were exceptionally fresh, like they’d just been sliced.

Last get was dessert – I passed a Ritters Frozen Custard on the way to see Matt Purke and banged a U-turn because, frankly, frozen custard shouldn’t be passed. Turns out that Ritters is a chain – not sure how I missed it – and, even better, they now have a location in Surprise, Arizona. The texture was absolutely amazing – that’s probably as close to perfect as you’ll find in frozen custard – and the cake batter flavor (which, I admit, freaks me out a little) was dead on. Their most popular flavor, “Turtle Something,” is a caramel custard with pieces of chocolate shell and pecans; turtle ice cream really needs fudge or some other kind of chocolate, since chocolate shell 1) is so hard that it doesn’t melt readily in the mouth and 2) isn’t really chocolate anyway.

Monday links.

I’ll be on ESPNEWS today at 2:40 pm EST.

Squawking Baseball has a great interview up with John Coppolella, the Director of Baseball of Administration for Atlanta, focusing largely on the arbitration process.

Good article on how maybe we’re getting a little paranoid about food allergies. Funny slightly related story: My daughter has a mild allergy to pine nuts, and after she got a rash from eating store-bought pesto, we took her to an allergist for tests. The allergist was Taiwanese, and didn’t know what pine nuts were. When we explained, his response was, “People eat those?”

Steve Biel of the totally-dated blog Fire Jim Bowden gets quizzed about his role in the Vast Baseball Media Conspiracy by Dan Steinberg.

One thing that does bug me about the ongoing bailout: “Can the Administration report how many of the people due to receive tax dollars spent home equity on plasma TVs?” Seeing rent-to-own tire stores in Houston last week made me wonder just when it became acceptable to finance anything and everything you purchase.

Klawchat.

Going on now (1 pm EST start) at the Four-Letter.

Farm system rankings for 2009.

The first article in the top prospects series is up on ESPN.com; I think the top 10 are free and the remainder is Insider, although I’m not certain.

Tomorrow’s content includes the global top 100, with capsules on each player (averaging 190 words per player); the top 5-10 prospects in each organization; and the top 10 by position. I’ll also be chatting in English at 1 pm EST and in Spanish on ESPNDeportes.com at 4 pm EST.

Reader blogs.

So someone pointed out that my blogroll didn’t make it through the database export/import, which means the list of reader blogs is kaput. If you’re a regular reader/commenter and your blog was listed in my old blogroll – or should be in the new one – drop a comment here. As long as your content isn’t obscene or highly objectionable, I’ll add it.

It’s bad enough…

…to get your tongue stuck to a metal light pole.

It’s worse when the incident makes the news.