Hmm

Rick Ankiel's line at Single-A Davenport:

.289 AVG, .377 OPB .622 SLG .999 OPS, with 9 HR and 23 RBI in 90 AB over 25 games. Also, only 3 errors, and none for a few weeks. I wonder of ol' Ricky might end up in Memphis by the end of the season, or at least make his way back to Springfield. Or he could stop being crazy and start to pitch again.

Light posting

I won't be posting much at all for a little bit, as I am giving a talk exactly 7 days from now. If I see something totally awesome, it'll be posted, but other than that, I'll se you guys tuesday

Nice to see that the BBC

is still keeping up on this story. Now that a video is out, at least it'll be impossible for people to pretend nothing happened at Srebonica. I don't know what is more depressing about the whole situation: the indifference most people had before, during and after; or the fact that Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic are still loose and breathing free air. Probably the worst is that it's happening again, and getting ignored again. Sorry about the preachiness. I'll put something more thoughtful up later tonight.

Cardinals vs. Yankees

So, Steinbrenner's boys are coming to town next week. Should be an interesting enough time, particularly with the ultra-streaky play that the Yanks have been having this year. How sweet would it be if they ended up in 3rd or 4th place toward the end of the year? Here are my random musings on the Yankees lineup: Thankfully, A-Rod hit his 400th HR yesterday, so at least the milestone curse won't be on us, as it often seems to be (Remember Clemens's 300th win?). Man, A-Rod is good, he has carried my fantasy team for a while. I'm glad that he's not a team that I cheer for, however. And since the good ol' Sheff can be tricked into putting stuff into his body, perhaps he can be tricked by good pitching and Yadi's pick-off moves? Isn't it interesting that ToWo has now played for the two teams whose playoff chances he ruined with bloop singles in 2001? I like that Tino is hitting well somewhere again. And is there any player in baseball more overrated than Derek Jeter and his career .846 OPS and his 20-30 steals a year?

The matchups are interesting as well--Marquis vs. Chien-Ming Wang will be the battle of the newbies that have never seen each other (the Yankees collectively have 25 ABs versus Marquis, including 1 by Randy Johnson, 2 by Kevin Brown and 1 by russ springer, and the rest look like they are from Marquis's brave days; Wang is a rookie).

Then we have the battle of the hot offseason league-switching trade acquisitions in Mulder vs. Johnson. I have fond memories of the Cardinals batting Johnson around, including in the playoffs and Rick Ankiel's last major league win. It seems that the yanks have hit Mulder relatively well in the past as well, however. And it seems that every easily hyped pitching matchup has ened up in a slugfest or a blowout, and if I had to put my money on this happening once more this year, this is my bet.

Finally, there's Morris vs. Pavano, who have reversed their fortunes significantly since last year. I thought that the Pavano signing was madness on the part of the yankees, but he has seemed to hold on somewhat. Morris, however, reigns as king of the facial hair, and has everyone who follows the cardinals up and excited about what he's going to do this year.

Should be interesting, nonetheless.

Y. Molina

Yadier just recently got the same number of ABs for 2005 as he had for all of 2004. This inspired me to do look at how he is doing for the two years. All of this is factoring in his horrendous April. First,

--------Avg/Obp-/slg-/-ops
2004 .267/.329/.356/.684
2005 .259/.300/.341/.641

So, definitely a regression in the averages there. Next, I took a look at his production numbers, normalized to the 380 ABs (about what Matheny seemed to average during his tenure in StL, and thus my benchmark for a La Russa full time catcher)

-----2B/HR/RBI/BB/R/K over a pretend "full Matheny season"
2004-17/6/42-/37/34/56
2005-13/4/42-/20/42/29

These numbers look almost identical to me, with the eception of the strikeout numbers, so at least Yadi's getting his eye on the ball more than he was last year. But now, look at his May + June over a "Full Matheny Season", thus assuming his start to be an aberration, and not a sign of 'streakiness'

post-April 2B/HR/RBI/BB/R-/K--------AVG/OPB/SLG/OPS
-------------15/-7/-60/22/56/26---------.324/.382/.510/.892

This seems weird to me, because the averages increase so dramatically, with the other numbers only moving slightly (though the increase in RBI is pretty nice). The point is, that the two instincts I've been seeing about YM, that he is hitting the tar off of the ball, and that he has been a drag on the lineup, are both somewhat flawed--we're getting a superior hitter to Matheny, but a guy who also won't really measure up to the perennial all star types of I-Rod and Piazza (but who can actually play defense, unlike the latter).

sorry 'bout the fomatting, I'm no Html master

You are not from my tribe

If you thought my post from below on tribalistic thinking is interesting, Billmon just wrote an article using "tribalism" as an explanation of our current political disaster scene, as an explanation of why plummetting approval ratings for Our good ol' buddy and his super fun squad does not result in rising ratings for Democrats. Billmon is much smarter and a much better writer than I am, so check it out.

Oh, and 06 is coming up... know your candidates

Finally, Cards thwomp the BoSox again! Nice to see the Suppinator get a win against his former team. Also, nice to be doing well when the Pinstriped fools come to town. No, not those pinstriped fools, these ones...

Before that, however, it's Mr. surly drunk vs. Carpenter tonight... a sweep would help to take the edge off of last year's october disaster

So...

Who wants to bet that you won't hear anything about 'insane judicial activists curtailing states' rights' in response to this story?

El beardo = heroic

As rediculously boring as most of these interleague matchups are (6 games a year against KC.. yawn), there's a part of me that always relishes it when the yanks or bosox come to town. It's easy to hate the Yankees, but the red sox I actually find to be even more annoying, with all the defeatist complaining about the yankees from fans of a $140M team. I can only imagine how Brewers or Pirates fans feel about the subject.

The return of Edgar also deepens that, though being far from StL or from a TV carrying said game (poor grad student = no cable) takes some of the excitement out of that. But still, declaring that he left so he could go play for a team with some tradition was damn obnoxious, as was his decision not to sign pre-2004 season. But oh well, he wanted respect and he chose the fans that turn on their players like a dime, so he gets what he deserves, I guess....

That being said, what a game by Morris. Judging by gameday only, he seems smarter and more efficient than the guy who won 23 games. Stuff I can't judge until he starts a damn game that's televised in Texas. 93 pitches in a complete game is impressive, as is the 5 baserunners allowed. Mighty Mouse Eckstein also had a good game. Walker drops below the Matheny line, though looking at his Y! sports profile, this appears to have happened vs houston on the 5th. The all-star break can't come too soon for Larry, methinks.

A question

Sitting around, talking about Deep Throat led me to wonder... what would it take, with our current congress, to get George Bush impeached? I'm sure if he just started shooting people on the street, with clear video of it, there would be almost no avoiding it... but barring that, what would he have to do? What evidence would have to come to light in order for the Republican congress to actually pull the trigger and vote to have the man put on trial.

It sure as hell will take more than him getting a blowjob and lying about it.