Wednesday links

Links from around the internets that are keeping me entertained until my Hattrick team’s fourth-round cup match tonight:

* Jacob Jackson of The Hardball Times has an excellent, well-thought out post about how to fix baseball’s worst franchise, the Pittsburgh Pirates. I like one of his suggestions — hire Paul DePodesta. While it would never happen, I would love it if he replaced Bill Stoneman when Stoneman retires one day. DePodesta got a raw deal with the Dodgers, but he made good moves with what he inherited and with a lower payroll than Ned Colletti has now.

* The Epic Carnival has a baseball story that could be potentially better than The Rookie. I’m not exaggerating — if Brodie Downs makes it to the big leagues, it’s at least as amazing as Jim Morris.

* tziller at Ballhype has a great visual post, mapping teams in the NBA based on offense, defense, efficiency and pace.

* The Royals finally regained some power last night. No, not that kind. (Babes Love Baseball)

The Red Sox are more annoying than the Yankees

I thought of this while watching Red Sox fans invade Angels Stadium the last couple of days, only to see their team get beat.

Both franchises draw annoying bandwagoners whenever they go on the road. Both franchises get overhyped by the media. The fans of both franchises act like theirs is the only franchise that matters, that they are supposed to win the World Series every year, that all of the best players have to go to their franchises, and the baseball media lets them have these beliefs, as those two franchise are the only ones most people seem to talk about. Both the Red Sox and the Yankees had much worse attendance numbers than you would think before they got really good in recent years.

But even before this year when they struggled, at least people pointed out the Yankees’ faults. They point out the Yankees have poor starting pitching and an unreliable bullpen after Mariano Rivera. They bash A-Rod even when he doesn’t deserve it. The smarter ones will point out that Derek Jeter has no range at shortstop.

Not with the Red Sox though. They inspire the media everywhere they go outside of Boston to talk about how great they are, even announcers employed by the opposing team who are usually homers. Everything about them is great. David Ortiz is referred to as the best clutch-hitter ever (funny how that title, and its opposite, is always given to a Red Sox or a Yankee, never the 28 other teams). Manny gets to be Manny being Manny, even though if he acted like that on other teams, either there would be backlash against him, or people just wouldn’t care. Jason Varitek is made out to be the best catcher ever.

The Red Sox inspire people to talk ad nauseam about that 2004 World Series win, like the rest of the country still gives a darn three years later. They talk about the Red Sox like this is some underdog, scrappy team even though they’ve consistently had the 2nd-highest payroll in the league and their World Series team went 98-64, which is pretty good.

As a fan of an American League team other than the Red Sox or Yankees, I can’t stand either team. But the Red Sox and their fans are even more annoying.

Barry finally did it — and we move on

For those of you in a cave where the only internet access is OSQ, Barry Bonds hit his 756th home run Tuesday night, passing Hank Aaron for the all-time lead.

I’m just glad it was over. It was inevitable that it was going to happen, and recently, it became inevitable that it was going to happen at home, in front of his loving, naive fans. If only 756 happened somewhere outside of San Francisco — then it would’ve gotten the treatment it deserved.

Was it just me or did a lot of his teammates seem not to be overly excited or care at all? Sure, some of them were genuinely thrilled and happy. But some seemed like they went out on the field just because they had to.

We, as baseball fans, can now move on to something else. Still, I feel that this is a historic day, and since I am lacking any new perspective, I’ll just link and excerpt some blogs I saw and liked around the web to let their perspective stand for this day:

I wish there was a way to wipe the slate clean. Maybe a way to know. Really know. How good would Barry Bonds have been if he had not done what we all know he did – even if he didn’t knowingly do so. (wink) What if he’d not been so surly, such a curmudgeon, so uncooperative with the media. I wish there was a way to know. – Ballers, Gamers and Scoundrels

This record of records falling should inspire people to pursue their dreams, but it has been so sadly diluted, perhaps by all involved, players, owners, the league, and the media. I still hold out hope that Bonds really is getting royally shafted — that he has been hounded by an ill-spirited media, that he really is a good man, driven to play and perform in the place he grew up in, for the team and the city his father and godfather played for, that what he accomplished came more from determination, will and guts than from chemicals. — Bugs and Cranks

Wait? A Mets jersey? A Mets fan was the lucky guy who caught the ball? If I’m a Giants fan, I’m fuming right now. You spend a season(s) following the Bonds chase, naively trying to pretend that he never did anything wrong. You watched a terribly uninteresting team all season because of Barry, and a god damn Mets fan to walked away with the historic ball. You know what, Giants fans probably deserved this. — Just Call Me Juice

We aren’t feeling anything, good or bad. Our reaction wasn’t one of excitement or disapproval, joy or anger. We didn’t cheer or boo. It was a feeling best expressed by a favorite quote: “So that happened.” — The Big Picture

A Complete 180 points out that we almost had another “Heidi” moment.