Daily Links

Arrested Development is one of the funniest TV shows I’ve ever seen. The Joe Cribbs Car Wash compares each SEC school to a member of the Bluth family. Now I’ve got the show’s intro music stuck in my head.

Lance Niekro, the Giants’ first baseman turned knuckleballer, isn’t looking that good so far (Say Hey: A Bay Area Sports Blog). Also from that same blog — notice how all the kids at the Little League World Series are white?

Nebraskans get Kevin Costner to help them save Rosenblatt Stadium. I never understood why people feel the need to save old stadiums. If they’re not being used anymore, what’s the point of having them? Then again, it’s not like they’re short on space in Nebraska. (100% Injury Rate)

If you or I ever got promoted to the big leagues, we’d show up whenever the major league club wanted us to. Not this guy, he overslept. (Bugs & Cranks)

In case you forgot, A-Rod is good at baseball. (Larry Brown Sports)

Pedro Martinez will be back soon. It’s been way too long since the last time we’ve been able to see him pitch. (Babes Love Baseball)

The best pitching matchup of all time

Fast-pitch softball is baseball in its purest form. Most hitters are asked to bunt and move runners over. Defense is at a premium, since one mistake is more likely to cost a team a game. Pitchers routinely throw complete games, and the bullpen is only used when a pitcher is getting shelled.

Graham Hays of ESPN.com wrote an excellent series of articles about professional softball. The centerpiece was about one of the best pitching match-ups in the history of the game, Jennie Finch vs. Cat Osterman. You really should check the articles out.

To those who don’t follow softball, it’s hard to understand how big Jennie Finch vs. Cat Osterman is. They are the two best pitchers to come out of college in the last decade, with only one other pitcher close to their level (Monica Abbott). Finch has an ERA of 0.11 this season. No, that’s not a typo. In comparison, Osterman’s ERA of 1.21 seems high, but it is still one of the best marks in the league. She has also struck out 126 batters in 70 innings. Both are Olympians and have pitched for the U.S. national team.

Finch and Osterman’s collegiate careers intersected by one year, but the two may have never faced each other. Arizona and Texas only played each other once that year, on Feb. 8, 2002, but I can’t find a box score or a recap of that game. And even if Finch and Osterman did pitch against each other that day, That was in the first week of Osterman’s collegiate career — most people didn’t know how good she was yet.

I don’t know if they had faced off each other in the pros before (my guess is yes), but unfortunately, National Pro Fastpitch doesn’t get much publicity. I was able to watch every single Women’s College World Series game on TV in June, along with games in the regionals, super regionals, and even some regular season games. Maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough, but I have yet to see a NPF game on TV. And all of NPF’s teams seem to be located in the Midwest and Northeast. So it takes articles like Hays’ stories to give pro softball exposure.

I am lucky, I’ve gotten to see both pitchers play in person, while they were in college and getting decent national exposure. The crowds were animated, the teams were into it, and you could tell you were watching two of the best athletes in the country. If only more people had that opportunity. I really think pro softball could grow in this country if given enough time. And exposure, like Jennie Finch making MLB hitters look silly on This Week in Baseball a few years back.

Tuesday sports preview

GAME OF THE DAY: New York Yankees at Angels, 7 p.m. Yes, I’m a homer, for picking this as the Game of the Day for the second day in a row.

Monday night’s game was great. The Angels were ahead, then the Yankees were, then the Angels were, then they blew the lead, but won the game 7-6 on a Ryan Budde walk-off hit in the 10th inning. Yes, Ryan Budde, the Halos’ backup catcher since Jose Molina got traded and Mike Napoli went back on the DL. It was his first major league RBI.

Tonight’s probables: Mike Mussina vs. Kelvim Escobar

OTHER BIG MLB GAMES:

Cleveland at Detroit, 4 p.m. The Indians are 1.5 games behind the Tigers for first place. This headline at Let’s Go Tribe didn’t mean what I thought it did.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Philadelphia, 4 p.m. The Dodgers, only 2.5 games out of the wild card, begin a stretch of 16 out of 19 games on the road. Logic would dictate this would be bad for the Dodgers, but logic and the Dodgers haven’t really mixed much this season. The Dodgers have a smarter beat writer than your team does.

Milwaukee at Arizona, 6:40 p.m. The Brewers are already asking fans to buy postseason tickets. They’re an awesome 64-61 too, and not even in sole possession of first place.

San Diego at NY Mets, 4 p.m. Why wins are overrated for pitchers, reason #4,258. Chris Young only has nine, with an ERA of 1.93. John Maine has 13, with an ERA of 3.59. Gaslamp Ball looks like it will be having a Q&A up with Sandy Alderson soon. That should be interesting.

Seattle at Minnesota, 5 p.m. I still haven’t gotten used to seeing Jarrod Washburn as a Mariner. And I keep saying the Twins need to start winning to get back into the race. Well, they’ve been losing but haven’t lost ground. Gotta love both central divisions this year.

OTHER SPORTS: Little League World Series on all day on ESPN2. That’s it.