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BBTF’s Game Chatter Discussion

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Cleveland 91-63 at Kansas City 52-101 7:10pm ET
In the Guide I wrote about Cleveland farmhand Jason Stanford: “He was arrested in September for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, and then missed his court appearance. It’s too bad, since control was always one of his bests qualities.”

Today Stanford called the magazine’s publisher and said he hadn’t missed the court date. The Baseball Think Factory page above has links to Cleveland Plain Dealer stories about the original arrest (JS made disparaging comments to a man wearing a pink shirt, apparently, which led to a bit of a brawl) and the court announcing after Stanford apparently missed his court date that they’d written the wrong date on his appearance ticket. So it wasn’t his fault. The links don’t work, however, so I’m basing this on the postings on the BTF page.

I’m certainly sorry for drawing on the mistaken AP story originally and am happy to point out the error while wearing pink (actually salmon) slacks.

A Nice New Blog

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MLB Trade Rumors

Trade rumors are usually worth the electrons their published with, but this new blog has a genial approach that suggests it will hold up as long as its author remains interested in being interesting. Worth adding to your feed, for now.

Franz Lidz: Will big leaguers claim ADD so they can take uppers? – Thursday March 9, 2006 3:56PM

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SI.com – Thursday March 9, 2006 3:56PM

The best line: “Forget about kids using professional ballplayers as role models: Pro ballplayers have started to model themselves after kids.”

We’ve read stories where concert musicians and chess grandmasters have openly admitted to taking ritalin to calm nerves and improve performance. If there is an edge to be gained there will be players ready to grab it.

Yahoo! Sports

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Red, white and typical – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

This guy wrote a ridiculous call for Roger Clemens to save the world some pain and to retire already the other day, so I expected to hate him the way I regularly loathe Yahoo!’s Larry Biel. But this story about yesterday’s disquieting events in the Japan-USA tilt seems about right.

An Unsettling Feeling

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Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner – Remembering Kirby Puckett. By Jeremy Derfner

After hearing about Kirby Puckett’s death from a stroke earlier this week, I was struck by how torn I felt. He was a fun ballplayer to watch, but since his retirement we’d learned things about his life that made it hard not to end every praising statement with a great big “but.” Jeremy Derfner was a far bigger fan of Puckett than I ever was, and he doesn’t really nail the problem here, but his description of the 1991 World Series reminded me just how great it was (and how my regular poker game suspended for about an hour while we all sat on our host’s bed and watched transfixed as Jack Morris spun his magic that night) and how big a part of those years Puckett was. Well worth reading, in other words.

Mastersball Sold!

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FantasyBaseball.com – The Official Website of the Masters of Fantasy Baseball

Jason Grey, Todd Zola, and Rob Leibowitz, the former Masters of Fantasy Baseball, have sold themselves to become the content providers at www.fantasybaseball.com. You have to admire the URL. The Masters have been frequent contributors to the Guide, and one hopes they’ll make tons of money and win even more experts league championships. Best of luck, guys.

Fantasyland: One Lunatic’s Preview

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BaseballHQ

This link may not get you to Ron Shandler’s review of Sam Walker’s new book, Fantasyland, after this coming Friday, but you’ll be able to find it in the free section at www.baseballhq.com. Shandler, the Bearded One, is a major character in the book and his reaction seems to me right on.

USA Stats Sold!

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Home of the official and original Rotisserie League

In case you haven’t heard, one of the two premium stats services, USA Stats, sold itself to the other, All Star Stats, this past week. USA Stats former owner, Bill Meyer, says the growing licensing issues in the fantasy realm, as MLB tries to gain control of all intellectual property attached to their baseball game, was an irritant but not really a factor. All Star Stats made a good offer at a time when he was looking to do something other than run a stats service for the rest of his life.

Bill grew USA Stats by buying out Jerry Heath’s Heath Data many moons ago and acquiring the official stat service of the Rotisserie League after that, so this is hardly the time to rail against consolidation, but Bill was a very nice and helpful guy who ran what always seemed to be a very friendly operation. He’ll be missed.

Jeff Weaver Signs

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Jeff Weaver – Los Angeles Dodgers – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

A jury decided that the Angels could keep LA in their name, and they decided to keep Weaver in LA. The Anaheim ballpark isn’t quite the paradise Dodger Stadium is but there are plenty worse places to pitch. His component ERA has been lower than his actual ERA every year of his career, which suggests to me he does something to make his rough times worse. Whatever, I’m not going to suggest that the bad results were all bad luck, but he pitched better than his ERA looks.

Hope for Reyes

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Henderson rejoins Mets as spring training instructor – MLB – Yahoo! Sports

The Mets’ biggest problem is that their worst hitter, Jose Reyes, is likely to be the guy on the team who gets the most PA this coming year. Naming Rickey Henderson as special baserunning/getting on base coach for Reyes and Carlos Beltran can’t hurt. It’s unlikely 10 days late in camp is going to make a big difference, but given Reyes’ skills, if he could find a way to get on base more he’d be an immeasurably more valuable player. Omar Minaya clearly knows that.