Random Twins & Baseball Stuff

Some random stuff I've picked up on over the last few days....


1.) Justin Morneau continues to be on the mend since suffering a concussion July 7th. According to ESPN, he took some light BP yesterday but wasn't feeling very good yesterday. There's still no timetable for Morneau's return and it would be nice to have him back. Cuddyer has been doing a decent job as a fill-in and Morneau's injury has eased the outfield logjam a bit, but the team is better with Morneau in the lineup and on the field.

2.) Last night, the Twins lost by 2 runs against the Rays despite playing their "B-Team." The Twins had Butera at catcher, Casilla at 2nd, and Valencia at third as they are without Morneau and Punto due to injuries and without Mauer for a 2nd straight game due to a cortisone shot he had in his right shoulder over the weekend. Mauer should be back soon, at least in a DH capacity.

3.) In what was a shock to all of baseball, Ozzie Guillen went off on a ridiculous rant again on Sunday about how Asians in baseball are treated better than Latinos, the evidence for his assertion being that Asian players have interpreters and Latino ones do not (and that Baseball makes little effort to educate Latinos about PEDs). Both Major League Baseball and the White Sox organization quickly released statements distancing and defending themselves from Guillen's comments. Said MLB spokesperson Rich Levin,

"We spend more time and effort educating our Latin players about PED use than we do our domestic players in the United States. We test extensively in the Dominican and Venezuelan leagues, and we've increased the testing every year, [...] We also have Sandy Alderson down in the Dominican Republic on a full-time basis and he's dealing with a lot of these issues as well."

I would also add to Levin's comments that Major League Baseball doesn't need to spend money on Spanish speaking interpreters because almost every team (if not all of them) has a handful of Latino players that know both English and Spanish. In addition to that, there are a number of coaches in the Minor Leagues that are bi-lingual as well. If a team lacked such players/coaches, I would hope that Baseball would provide interpreters, but the reality is that there are far fewer Asian players than Latinos. Said the White Sox,

"Ozzie may not have been fully aware of all of the industry-wide efforts made by Major League Baseball and its clubs to help our players succeed in the transition to professional baseball, no matter the level of play or their country of origin."

For some other interesting opinions on the matter, read John Kruk HERE and Jose Arangure HERE.

 4.) I mentioned him yesterday in my post about Liriano, but Jeremy Hellickson had a very impressive debut last night against the Twins throwing 7 innings of 2-run ball, striking out 6 while walking 2. It was disappointing to see the Twins lose a game, but I was encouraged that despite missing some of our offensive mainstays, the Twins still kept it close against a hot team. Hellickson was sent back down to the Minors after the game, but Buster Olney believes the Rays will recall him towards the end of the season.

5.) Prized Cleveland Indians rookie catcher Carlos Santana appeared to be seriously injured last night in a play at the plate, but tests today have indicated that aside from some bruises, he might be ok. In seeing that video, it's a miracle that he didn't get hurt worse.

6.) A lot of people have their eyes fixed on A-Rod as he struggles to reach 600 homeruns. Flying under the radar, Albert Pujols joined Eddie Matthews the other day as the only other player in Major League Baseball history with at least 25 homeruns in their first 10 Major League seasons. I learned this from a blog ESPN stats keeps, check it out. It's crazy to think that with as many prolific HR hitters as there have been throughout baseball history, that this list is so short.

Nice Try Selena

As a follow up to my post about Selena Robert's "hard-hitting" new book about A-Rod, I am happy to report, via ESPN, that Robert's new book has sold a grand total of...drum roll please....16,000 copies (*cymbal hit). Not only that, but her book sold 11,000 copies during the week of it's release, which means that in the intervening month or so, her pathetic attempt to further smear A-Rod's character has only sold 5,000 copies, or about 1,000 NATIONWIDE every week. My favorite part of this book's demise, is that Harper Collins printed 150,000 copies, meaning that they have about 134,000 copies sitting a warehouse somewhere that they could have an awfully nice bonfire with. Time to move on Selena Roberts, the sportsworld is tired of you and your books/articles. Go find someone else to bother, like Martha Stewart, she's a criminal.

Meanwhile, A-Rod, I know you had a two-run double last night, but seriously man, let's pick it up here.

Shut Up.

Just look at her. She looks like the kind of person who would be out to take another person down. She looks like the kind of person who is just out to make a buck on someone else's mistakes. She looks like the kind of person who can't find some cleaver or useful way to use her journalistic talent. You know what?...She is that kind of person, she's Selena Roberts from the New York Times and her new book, "A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez," is getting mixed reviews and is, unfortunately, generating a lot of interest at the same time. I say "unfortunately" because it truly does sound like Roberts is just trying to heap more dirt onto the pile that already follows A-Rod around.

'Mike&Mike' absolutely skewered the book this morning with Mike Greenburg saying, "color me very unimpressed." Apparently she reveals things like, "A-Rod is a prima donna" and "he made the Texas Rangers have fruit baskets delivered to his room after road games." I mean come on, A-Rod's a prima donna??? Holy shit, since when?

I did some scant research for this post, but I did come up with something VERY interesting. Check this out. Remember that Duke Lacrosse Sex Scandal a few years back? Well, one Selena Roberts was dispatched to cover the proceedings. She wrote scathing article after scathing article about the players saying things like,

"The season is over, but the paradox lives on in Duke's lacrosse team, a group of privileged players of fine pedigree entangled in a night that threatens to belie their social standing as human beings."

And this was before the trial!! Even after the trials were over and the players cleared, she continued to smear them. In an article she wrote post-trial entitled, "Closing a Case Will Not Mean Closure at Duke," she sarcastically remarks,

"Don't mess with Duke, though. To shine a light on its integrity has been treated by the irrational mighty as a threat to white privilege....lay off the lacrosse pipeline to Wall Street, excuse the khaki-pants crowd of SAT wonder kids."

The kids were deemed innocent by a group of their peers in a trial that ultimately ended up showing that the Prosecutor in the case, Michael Nifong, acted criminally (he was ultimately disbarred). Anyway, it makes me mad, these journalists who are just out to get professional, and even amatuer, atheletes. Selena Roberts has a track record of using her position to smear others and, even worse, has a history of trumpeting her personal opinions rather than doing solid research and presenting facts. Shut up Selena, everyone is tired of the steriods talk and yet again, you are trying to make a buck by trashing someone else.

Source: http://www.timeswatch.org/articles/2007/20070326114135.aspx