In my getting the old entries from my site into the blog software, I ran across this link from 2003. It was an article talking about Hank Blalock, and includes this quote from Buck Showalter on Hank…

Hank Blalock will reach his potential. Rangers Buck Showalter will make sure of it. “His progress is a priority for me,” the Rangers skipper said.

That reminds me a lot of the remarks that Ron Washington made when he first became skipper of the Rangers, and his “He’s mine” comments. I know Hank’s been hurt most of the year, but I’m still hopeful for that. My gut feeling says 2008 is a make or break year for Blalock. I have no big list of numbers to back up that feeling, just one of those things you “feel”.
I didn’t write this to dump on Hank – I like him a lot, but the Showalter / Washington remarks seemed somewhat similar to me. :)

Check this post out over at Oriole’s Hangout. On the headline from the main page of their site, they had the line Paul’s Game Recap: (curled in fetal position) – that made me chuckle. He included some classic comments like this:

MAKE IT STOP. Please. Anyone. I’m begging you. This is the most torturous game I’ve ever witnessed. I cannot believe what I’m seeing. I feel like I’m about to burst into tears– or flames. I want to go home, yet I’m stuck here watching this nauseating train wreck.
I don’t want to be a recapper anymore. I’m questioning my entire life as I know it. Why am I here? What have I done to deserve this?

After thinking about it some more, I think this video applies. :)

I don’t know how many of you follow the site “The Smoking Gun”, but it’s a site that regularly posts court documents and things that are generally supposed to be sensitive. Most of the time it’s stuff I don’t care about, but every once in awhile a real doozy comes along. Like this guy… Jonathan Lee Riches. He filed a lawsuit in court against Barry Bonds, Bud Selig, and Hank Aaron’s bat. Check out this summary from the site:

In his lawsuit, Riches, weaves an intricate conspiracy theory involving television ratings, steroids, the cracking of the Liberty Bell, Colombian narco-terrorists, and secretly recorded conversations for which journalists Robert Novak and Judith Miller have transcripts.

Some other amusing stuff is that he claims that Bud Selig is Barry Bonds’ steroids dealer, Barry Bonds personally bench pressed the guy, and of course Bonds used Aaron’s corked bat to crack the Liberty Bell.
Go check it out, it’s quite amusing.

Testing again.
The final release version of this software came out this morning. It’s installed now, just wanted to test it, make sure things didn’t explode. :)

A really good site to read regularly is “The Biz of Baseball”. It talks about well.. business related issues to baseball. Anyway, this morning I noticed an article about the Rangers, specifically about the “You could use some baseball” ad campaign.
I wrote about this some time ago – the ads are generally funny, and reflect little “moments” we have when we realize that our entertainment choices aren’t great. The only one that’s a little bit of an eyebrow raiser is the one I talked about back in February about “First base has nothing to do with kissing”. Explaining that to a small kid could be odd, but nothing to really get bent out of shape over. ;)
And unlike some people who take any opportunity to bitch about Tom Hicks, I wanted to say I liked the article a lot, and the ad campaign made me laugh, so yes. It worked. Although I don’t think it would make me attend any more games, no advertising would work on me in that regard. :)
Go read the article at bizofbaseball – it’s an enjoyable read.

Does anyone else have the same reaction on TV when Josh Lewin says “We go to Jim Knox”? For me that means hitting the fast forward button on the TiVo. I’d rather watch the staff clean up the ballpark after everyone’s gone home.
I actually switched over to watch a minute or two of women’s basketball. Actually was waiting for the Giants/Nats game to start on ESPN2, but some women’s basketball game is in double overtime. Surprised they’re sticking with that, and not showing Bonds.

Is there anyone else secretly wishing that Vicente Padilla doesn’t come back from his injury at all? As a human being you don’t want to see someone hurt, but as a baseball fan… I kind of like what we have now.
Anyone else feel the same way?

Just in case you didn’t know about the bridge accident in Minneapolis, go read this.