Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

I stand behind this morning's observation that there is something fishy to the way Barry Bonds was voted into the starting line-up for the National League. I know that the Giants and Fox Sports wanted Bonds in the game but the league has rules about ballot stuffing. Unfortunately I think those rules say that you can vote up to 25,000 times per person. So that means just 10 people could have accounted for those 250,000 votes that was the difference. Remember that when some writes about or talks about Bonds being voted in by "the fans" or that the "people have spoken"... Scott Miller had a phrase I wish I had not read at the end of his latest offering. Speaking about the Padres' Brian Giles he writes that Giles has a "penchant for nude clubhouse hugs." Whoa - file that under way too much information... I guess Crash Davis is not managing in Tampa Bay. In Bull Durham Crash had the under-rated and under-remembered quote, "Don't try to strike everybody out. Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic." Well the Devil Ray pitchers lead the AL in strikeouts with 575 so far this season (but they also have the highest ERA with 5.57).... Just sayin' - Roger Clemens 5.32 ERA - Julian Tavarez 4.39 ERA...