→ June 11, 2009
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Draft articles and videos.

Aside from one more article tomorrow, I think I’m done with my online draft coverage for this year. Here’s what went up in the last few days, since my stuff isn’t always easy to find:

My day two recap, covering five teams that did something interesting. My day one recap was a little more expansive, since the bulk of the top prospects always go in the top three rounds anyway. My final top 100 ranking went up on Tuesday before the draft started.

I’m quoted a few times in this piece on prep players.

I did two chats this week, one on Wednesday and a predraft one on Tuesday. And yes, they’re working on the chat software bugs.

Radio:

Video:

It doesn’t look like my TV hits from Tues/Weds are online.

I also want to say publicly how grateful I am to the yeoman’s work done by Jason Churchill on the ESPN MLB Draft blog this year. Having Jason to get content up there daily while I was running across the country seeing players and catching stomach flus was an enormous help, and I thought the stuff he produced was outstanding and really moved our draft coverage forward this year. And I assume you all know that if I thought his stuff sucked, I would say so, meaning that what I’ve said here is genuine.

Finally, thanks to all of you for reading and watching and, in many cases, reaching out to me to offer compliments on the work that I did or that Jason did. The best part about this job is that I get to produce unique content that people want to read and like to read, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of hearing people say that they enjoyed some piece that I read or some random radio hit that I did. Thank you.

Filed Under: Appearances Tagged With:
→ May 30, 2009
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The Phantom Grammy.

Today’s mental_floss quiz: Can you name the fifteen departments run by the Secretaries in the US Cabinet?

Anyway, this is kind of stupid but I’m going to mention it anyway because it annoys me. The University of New Mexico has a reliever named Cole White with a big arm and poor command, and he’ll be drafted somewhere in the top 5-6 rounds. When that happens, you will hear something, somewhere, about how he was nominated for a Grammy, because that’s what it says on his bio page on UNM’s athletics site.

It is also false. Cole White was never nominated for a Grammy, which is easy to prove since Grammy nominations are announced publicly every year. I contacted UNM’s media relations department in late April, asking them to clarify, and was told: “As we dug deeper into it, he ended up in the top 100 for Best Rock Song.”

So I called NARAS and asked them if they issue any sort of top 100 rankings for award categories, and was told no. As it turns out, Cole White wrote a song that his former band recorded, and their record label submitted it to NARAS so that it could be considered for the ballot, but it was not nominated or otherwise recognized for anything other than the fact that it was released commercially and met the general requirements for nomination. His song was one of 15,000 entries on the overall ballot from which the nominees are eventually chosen.

I notified UNM’s media relations department that this was all incorrect on April 29th, and did receive a reply, but they haven’t corrected it on the site, which means the inaccuracy will be repeated once White is drafted and/or signed. I was hoping UNM would just fix it and the story would go away, but a month is probably sufficient grace period for them to fix the error, and it annoys me tremendously that they haven’t. ESPN.com wasn’t interested in the story – and I agree with them, as it really is small potatoes – but I feel like a mistake like that, however innocent, should be corrected.

Filed Under: Media, Sports Tagged With: , ,
→ May 16, 2009
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Keith Law, for rent.

I’ve mentioned many times that my daughter is a big fan of PBS Kids programming, both on WGBH, our local PBS affiliate, and on the cable channel Sprout, which airs kids’ shows 24 hours a day. (That doesn’t make me a fan – I can’t stand Caillou, and I think Angelina is a mean little drama queen.) A reader who works at WGBH noticed this and asked if I’d be willing to donate some time to help the station raise money, and the result is this entry in their current auction: Scout with ESPN’s Keith Law. The winner gets to tag along with me to a minor-league game (or a Cape game, if that’s more convenient) at some point this summer. Proceeds, of course, go to WGBH.

Back on the baseball front, I’ve got a draft gossip piece up on the site, and I’m assuming most of you saw my first top 100 ranking for this year’s draft, which was posted just in time for #3 James Paxton to show up for his last start missing 2-4 mph on his fastball. Good times.

This high school coach should be fired. (Hat tip: BBTF.)

Apparently, dish hero Alton Brown will be appearing this weekend at the Monterey Bay Aquarium to talk sustainable seafood. If you go, I want a report.

Jack Kerouac was kind of into sim baseball. Go figure. (HT: BBTF and Shysterball.)

No radio/TV for me this weekend due to a very important birthday party today.

Filed Under: Appearances, Sports Tagged With: , ,
→ May 14, 2009
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Bullet-point Wednesday.

  • I’ve got an actual news story up on ESPN.com on the NCAA’s most recent beatdown in the Andy Oliver case. One lawyer to whom I spoke about yesterday’s ruling said that “No good lawyer would allow his client to send out that memo if it was subject to the February ruling that Judge Tone issued. It’s reckless and arrogant and risks even more ire from the considerable amount the court has already shown the NCAA.”
  • I’m assuming most of you have already seen my ranking of the top 100 prospects in this draft. It’s going to change between now and June 9th; I’m already thinking 11-13 should be Wheeler, Purke, Green. Anyway, 39 players currently have reports, and I’m hoping to get that to 50 by Sunday.
  • Klawbaiters, your fines are now due. Our first project is on Globalgiving.com, which I mentioned in the review of White Man’s Burden. The project’s goal is to help 250 disabled Kenyan children attend school. You can send your fines here; I kicked it off with a $50 donation, which should cover the times I’ve been successfully baited by you.
  • I did finish that book of Chekhov’s short stories, and I have to say, I was underwhelmed. He’s considered one of the greatest short story writers ever, if not the greatest, but I don’t understand why – the writing was good, but the stories weren’t compelling, and most of them were fundamentally the same – stories of poor Russians struggling in the post-serfdom era under the de facto caste system and their own idiocy. If one of you lit hounds can set me straight on this, I’d appreciate it.
  • Current book is Edna Ferber’s So Big, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1925. It was already on my shelf when I mailed out some Mother’s Day cards my daughter had painted and had to go buy 83-cent stamps … and as it turns out, the 83-cent stamp in use today features Edna Ferber. I figured that was a sign that I should read it next.
Filed Under: Literature, Sports Tagged With: , , ,
→ May 5, 2009
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Media & links.

I’ll be on XM Radio channel 144 with Bill Pidto and Bruce Murray on Tuesday at 9:25 am EDT, and will appear via phone on First Take at either 10:50 am or 11:25 am EDT, time TBD. I’ll also be on with longtime friend Jeff Erickson’s Fantasy Focus Internet radio show, although we won’t do straight fantasy content. If you remember Jeff’s radio show on XM, this is the same show, but he moved it online after the Sirius-XM merger.

My most recent post on my main ESPN.com blog now has BP video of Buster Posey. There’s also video up of Tim Wheeler and Drew Storen in my most recent draft blog entry. I should have more draft notes and videos later this week.

Jason Whitlock had some strong (and dead-on) words about Selena Roberts and accuracy. Shysterball had similar words last week. I’ve pointed this out previously, but Roberts has gone after A-Rod at odd times before, like writing her 2007 World Series post mortem about him, even though he hadn’t played in that or the previous series. Squawking Baseball takes aim at Roberts’ implication that A-Rod couldn’t have tripled his bench-press ability without the use of PEDs.

Is Twitter the CB radio of Web 2.0? (HT to Shysterball.) I kind of hope not, now that I crossed the 1000-followers mark.

JoePo is obsessed with cycles. I couldn’t agree less; I think cycles are boring – statistical oddities that hold no interest for me. One reason is that a player who goes 1b-2b-3b-hr has hit for the cycle and goes on that list that some guy keeps that gets trotted out the next time some Joey Bagodonuts goes 1b-2b-3b-hr, but some other player who goes 2b-2b-hr-hr had a better day and doesn’t make any list, unless there’s some other guy keeping some other list that he really doesn’t get to trot out that often because no one gives a crap about guys who went 2b-2b-hr-hr.

This clip cracks me up: auto-tuning the news. (HT to mental_floss from their post earlier this week auto-tuning.) I’m not sure which I like best – the facial expressions on the guy “talking” to Katie Couric, the angry gorilla, or the ever-present tambourine.

Filed Under: Appearances, Humor, Media, Sports Tagged With: , ,
→ April 25, 2009
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Joba’s Joba.

Is there a better litmus test for baseball smarts right now than one’s opinion on the ideal role for Joba Chamberlain? I do love the new meme, though, that 14 big league starts constitute conclusive evidence of … something.

By the way, SI does have a great piece on Jeremy Tyler, a high school basketball star who’s going to go play in Europe for two years instead of enriching some undeserving US university for a season. The NBA’s age limit is an atrocity, anti-player and anti-capitalist, and anyone giving the finger to David Stern on this issue gets my applause.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , ,
→ April 20, 2009
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Go Natinals!

So by now you’ve all seen the fact that the Washington franchise in the National League is saving money by only embroidering some letters on the fronts of their uniforms.

I just showed my wife the photo, and the first thing she said was, “That’s great – but who are the Chefs?”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ April 17, 2009
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I’d rather watch PFPs than go to the ER.

UPDATE #2: I’ll be on the Herd today at 1:40 pm EDT.

I’m mostly recovered from what was probably just a nasty stomach virus – the PA I saw in the ER yesterday couldn’t explain why my lower back would hurt like this, but I’ll give her a pass because she was cute – but I can, in fact, confirm that I’d rather watch pitchers take fielding practice than spend three hours in an ER. And I hate watching PFPs.

This list of Blackberry shortcuts was gold for me. For some reason, my blackberry jumps to the bottom of the list of messages from time to time and I didn’t know how to get it to the top (newest messages) of the list.

Klaw links: Audio clips of me with Ryen Russillo debating the top ten starters in the game, on AllNight, and on Chicago baseball tonight on ESPN 1000. My blog entry on Zack Wheeler is up, with video up later today. UPDATE: One more, from Tuesday, on the radio version of Baseball Tonight.

Filed Under: Appearances Tagged With: ,
→ April 6, 2009
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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.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With:
→ April 3, 2009
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Friday nonsense.

And we have our first malcontent in response to my decision to stop accepting Facebook friend requests from total strangers. Kevin R.’s response to my message asking him to follow the fan page instead:

omg, that is so pretentious…have a lovely day…

After which he promptly blocked me from even responding to him.

Speaking of Facebook, Slate’s Big Money site has an op ed on why Facebook’s current model won’t work. It’s interesting – I’ve said before that I don’t know how Facebook thinks it’s going to make money off of me – but I don’t know that I was convinced of anything. I guess it’s better than this travesty, an article that trashes MBA educations, written by a guy who hasn’t actually been to business school but appears to know all about what’s taught there. (For the record, I’ve said before I’m not sure that business school is a good financial decision for most people, and it certainly wasn’t for me given the career change I made after attending.)

This weekend doesn’t just mark Opening Day in MLB, but in baseball leagues all over the world. Japan’s NPB started up last night; Korea and Germany start tonight; and France and Sweden (yes, Sweden) start along with MLB on Sunday. The Dutch Honkbal Hoofdklasse starts next Saturday.

A simple recipe for lemon squares. Not quite my cup of tea – where’s the chocolate, dude? – but the picture is appealing.

Links over at the Four-Letter: Yesterday’s chat, my Wednesday hit on The Herd (around 6:20), my Thursday hit on First Take (and no, that’s not my photo), and our MLB preview package, with two sentences from me on each team covering one rookie hitter and one rookie pitcher who could make an impact in 2009.

Filed Under: Appearances, Chat, Cooking, Food, Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,