Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Odds and Ends

It has been awhile since we have mentioned any baseball news on the site and I think enough things have happened that we should catch up a bit.

First thing first, Mark Teixeira was a officially made a Yankee on Tuesday. The Yankees had to revamp their pitching but Teixeira fills a gap that has been vacant since the days of Tino Martinez. His glove is probably more important for the Yankees than his bat ever could be.

The Yankees former first baseman, Jason Giambi also has a job again. The Giambino will be traveling back to his original franchise the Oakland A's. I give all my best to Giambi. Though he was a steriod user, he is one of the few who actually manned up and admitted that what he did was wrong.

Speaking off former Yankees, Carl Pavano actually convinced another major league team to give him a contract. What possessed Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro to sign that train wreck of humanity I don't know.

What I do know is that I can't stand the fact that every time his bio is given they say he is from New Britain, Conn. Since all three authors on this blog are originally from New Britain, I would like to set the record straight: the man was only born in New Britain and did not have the privilege of actually living in Hard Hittin' New Britain. He grew up a couple of towns over Southington, Conn. We of New Britain lament his association with the city and would like you to look at our more upstanding athletes like Tebucky Jones of the New England Patriots, Ricky Bottalico of the Philadelphia Phillies or even Walter Camp the inventor of modern day football.

Another piece of news belongs to the Minnesota Twins. Their owner Carl Pohlad passed away on Monday at the age of 93. Pohlad saw the Twins win two championships in his day, the first in 1987 and the second in 1991. Most recently his ownership came under fire for what many deemed as a lack of desire to spend parts of his own billionaire fortune to retain some of baseball's best players. It's easy to bash Pohlad for being cheap, but the twins were mostly successful under his ownership and those two championships are a lot more than a lot of teams have seen in the past 25 years.

One other thing I would like to say is kudos to Boston College. If you don't pay attention to college football I can't blame you, I don't pay it much mind either. But I will say that over the years I have been disgusted with easy and frequency collegiate coaches have bailed out of million dollar contracts to go coach at another school or even professionally. I'm all for people getting paid, hell I am a Yankee fan after all, but the schools that sign these large contracts withe the coaches have to fulfill their end of the bargain if they fire the coach so why shouldn't the coaches be held to the same standard?

When BC fired head coach Jeff Jagodzinski for interviewing with the Jets after they explicitly warned him not too, they sent a clear and resounding message that I hope the rest of college sports heard.

Also Adam "Pacman" Jones was released by the Cowboys today. One word for that: Awesome.

5 comments:

Dennis said...

I'll bet you a shiny State of Hawaii quarter that Pavano wins more games than Burnett this season.

Peter said...

Oh I'll take that bet in a heart beat.

Dan said...

As far as Pacman is concerned: why oh why would you risk the chance of a lifetime, playing in the NFL, by behaving the way that he does. No one will touch him now. Pacman is 25; there is a good chance he'll be dead, broke or both by 27. This is something I will never understand no matter how many times it happens.

Dennis said...

As for Pacman, he is dumb. There is really no other explanation. We can debate why he is dumb, societal problems and the like, but the fact remains, he doesn't just lack the ability to make good decisions, he has a singular talent for making bad decisions.

Most dumb guys fall by the wayside much earlier than 25 and we never hear about them. Pacman was such a transcendent athletic talent that he made it this far, but being dumb will always catch up to you.

Dennis said...

In another note, it looks like Boston has signed Rocco Baldelli and is on the verge of signing John Smoltz.

We compared the rotations 1-5 the other day and the Yankees probably have a slight edge there, but the Boston rotation is certainly a lot deeper. Expecting Beckett, Dice-K, and Lester to start 30 games each, and Wakefield, Penny, Masterson, and Smoltz to start roughly 20 games each, is an excellent recipe for making the playoffs.