Wednesday, March 10, 2004

If You’re Going to San Francisco...
Be sure to wear some WULAD in your hair. Come one, come all, witness the spectacle. Free commemorative Thelonious Monk bobblehead doll to the first zero attendees.

Still More Baseball
Apologies to the non-faithful while I get a little more of the preseason baseball bug out of my system. Hilarious non-sports-related material to return before you know it...

It was fun watching Donald Fehr and Bud Selig this morning telling Congress that it was unfair to test players without “probable cause,” as if we were suggesting that ownership search the players’ homes and monitor their library activity. Earth to Suits: this is not a privacy issue. It’s cheating.

Imagine if, when Sammy Sosa’s broken bat showered the infield with cork in Chicago, he had been immediately protected from sanction and ushered into a Bat-Corking Treatment Program. This is not a drug abuse issue. It’s cheating.

And imagine if, in the course of labor negotiations, the union argued, and ownership concurred, that checking to make sure no one was corking bats or spitting on balls or skipping second base and running directly from first to third or even coming to bat buck naked, was somehow unfair to the players and detrimental to the game. This is not a labor issue. It’s cheating. Cheating, you idiots!

And Just a Little More
Meanwhile, the Times takes a look at the lawyer representing the infamous Pizza Guy who tussled with outfielders Karim Garcia and Shane Spencer—the Mets’ two new “Yankee thugs,” as my boss referred to them. (“And they weren’t even good enough for the Yankees,” I replied. “I mean, they were good enough thugs, but not good enough ball players.”)

Vidal plans to file a civil lawsuit. He said he had hired Willie Gary, a lawyer in Stuart, Fla., who goes by the nickname the Giant Killer. ... On Gary's Web site, he poses outside a mansion, flanked by classic cars, and advertises his two jets, Wings of Justice I and II. The second jet cost $11 million and includes an 18-karat gold sink.
Sounds like a fun spring for those guys.