Another fat pitcher gone

It looks like the Padres will be releasing David Wells sometime today.

 In the era of athletes being in better shape than ever, Wells is one of the last of dying breed — the fat athlete.

There athletes that probably more, but they play football, and it’s mostly muscle. For another hilarious take on David Wells, read this Dugout post.

Wells, at age 44, may have pitched his last start. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he made one or two more starts. Some pitching-starved team that’s in the playoff hunt may be tempted to get a start or two out of Wells. He may have an ERA of 5.54 this year (74 ERA+), but he’s been servicable the last couple of years, posting ERA/ERA+ of 4.45/99 in 2005 and a 4.42/101 in 2006. And GMs across the league seem to like experience.

Thursday Links

Things to read while you laugh the the Dodgers have three runs in seven innings and are still losing:

Would anyone really notice if the Devil Rays went away for two weeks? Great post by Tbone at Epic Carnival.

Larry Brown is a better man than most of us — while the rest of us complained about Bonds, we watched him break the record anyway. Larry didn’t. (AOL Fanhouse)

Wally Backman gets fired again. In 2004 he was the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks for four days. Tuesday, he was fired by the South Georgia Peanuts of the South Coast League. How quickly he fell. (Shakedown Sports)

If only the ESPN Ombudsman had real power over there. Her columns have been great so far, and most of her ideas have been right on.

There’s something wrong with this shirt. I want one. (The Futon Report)

What’s wrong with the Dodgers?

On July 23, the Dodgers were 56-44 with a 2-game lead in first place and had the best record in the National League

As I write this (the Dodgers have a day game that starts in a few minutes), the Dodgers are 58-55, five games out of first place and are sitting in fourth place.

They’ve been shutout four of their last five games and in all of their last three. That’s ridiculous. An excerpt from  this post on Dodger Blues sums it up nicely (warning, they use a couple of swear words):

It’s been 41 years since the Dodgers were last shut out in three consecutive games. Do you know how many shitty guys have played for the Dodgers over that period? Twenty years ago, the Dodger roster included the likes of Mike Ramsey, Len Matusek, Gilberto Reyes, Tito Landrum, Ralph Bryant, Jeff Hamilton, Craig Shipley, Danny Heep, Glenn Hoffman, Franklin Stubbs, Tracy Woodson, Ken Landreaux, Alex Trevino, and Reggie Williams. That team sure sucked, but did they ever get blanked three games in a row? Nope. Hundreds of shitty players have worn the Dodger uniform over the last 41 years, but it’s now official: the 2007 crop of shitty guys is the absolute shittiest.

I guess the Juan Pierre and Jason Schmidt deals aren’t working out as planned. And I chose that picture above because that’s about how intimidating the Dodgers are right now.

College football doesn’t need to play in China

As I first saw on The Wizard of Odds and has been reported elsewhere, Oregon and Boise state are thinking of opening the 2009 college football season in China. I can understand why pro leagues like the MLB, NBA and the NFL want to play games overseas in places like China sometimes. Each of those leagues has at least a small following internationally and are real businesses trying to make all the money they can.

The NCAA, in theory, is not a business (they just act like one). The athletic departments of Oregon and Boise State are not supposed to be businesses (I know they act like businesses, but humor me). Each of those groups are supposed to be all about student-athletes and higher education.

So can someone explain to me why exactly Oregon and Boise State are doing this?

Other than making money, this serves no practical purpose. I doubt the Chinese are going to embrace college football long-term — if they ever embrace American football, it will be the NFL first, not college football. And I don’t know how much more money they can make in China, when you consider the major expenses, that either team would probably sell out its home game and that the game would probably be shown on national TV here in a better time slot than it would be in China.

If anything, this will hurt the teams. Both schools will have to alter their schedules and routines for the trip, and we’ve seen teams in other sports play abroad and not recover right away when they comeback. One team will lose a home game and the other will lose an opportunity for their fans to travel to see them (Eugene and Boise aren’t that far from each other).

And I haven’t even talked about the student-athletes yet. How does this help them? They’re not making any money off this. Classes begin in Boise in late August, around the time this game would probably take place, meaning they’ll have to miss extra classes (in their defense, classes at Oregon don’t start until late September).

Just play the game here in America. With two big-name teams, it’ll be a big deal here too.