Morning Rant

This morning I would like to address two things that trouble my mind - spam and David Wells' start yesterday against the A's.

First spam.

Have you been getting spam in German lately? I've been getting a ton. Now it seems like I starting to get a ton of spam in Russian as well. The spam is easily spotted - its the emails in languages that I can't read.

I have no idea what the spam is about. It could be about opportunities to partner with Nigerian bankers or penis enlargement. I don't know what the spam is saying because I don't read German (or Russian). You would think that Google's spam filter would be sophisticated enough to see something in a foreign language and mark it as spam but I guess not. I haven't been getting any of this spam in my Hotmail account - so I guess either that address isn't on the same list or that MSN does a better job filtering spam than Google GMail does.

Its not exactly true that I have zero idea what all the German spam is about. There were a couple that were somehow about the bombing of Dresden in WWII and there is one intriguing email with the title in English proclaiming "The Whore Lived Like a German". I've saved this last email because I have to admit I'm curious. Who was the whore and what does it mean to "live like a German"?

David Wells - yuk!

He was awful yesterday. He gave up 7 runs in 1 1/3 innings. Wells is coming back from a foot injury and was asked to make a minor league start before taking the mound in a big league game. He declined even though Wade Miller and Curt Schilling had made similar minor league starts this year as they attempted to come back from injuries.

I watched the Baseball Tonight crew talk about Wells last night and while they all agreed that he was awful and that he should have made the minor league start - they missed the main point.

Wells starting in the minors and working off whatever kinks or rust may exist would have been best for the team but Wells' contract pays him incentives based upon the number of starts he makes this year for the Red Sox in the big leagues. This would seem to be a clear case of a player choosing what is best for himself over what is best for the team but I'm not sure if it so black and white.

The Red Sox gave Wells the incentive laden contract - so should they be taken aback when he balks at their request to go to the minors that would cause him to miss one of his starts? I think this is a learning experience for Theo Epstein and the Sox front office and that they will probably structure future incentives based on starts differently from now on.

Whether Wells was right or wrong to refuse the minor league start is a bit of a gray area to me. It is easy to stand on the sidelines and say that Wells should have forgone the probable $100,000 bonus that yesterday's start will probably bring him in incentives. However, how would you feel if your company asked you to take an unpaid leave and you had outside pressure to accept the loss of compensation? What is clear is that Wells let down his teammates and the Red Sox fans yesterday with his performance because he wasn't ready to take a big league mound and that is something that won't soon be forgotten.