My pre-coffee brain had a small freak-out session this morning while I was reading my morning newspaper.  First, I saw a story about The Tampa Big Lebowski Festival and then a story about Contraction in Major League Baseball.  Any reasonably-sleep-deprived brain would understand those occurrences to mean that my house had somehow been sucked back  [ Read More ]

Despite what the newspapers will tell you, this is an incredibly slow news time in the baseball calendar.  I was going to piggy-back off the “BJ Upton is finally mature” story but it just isn’t that interesting. Rather, I will take the road more traveled by and stick a few more knives in Hank Steinbrenner.  [ Read More ]

NBA All-Star weekend is the perfect time to re-examine the sporting world’s obsession with “the next.”  Remember Harold Miner?  Remember that black-and-white Nike Ad where Harold Miner said “…they say I am the next Michael Jordan, but I just want to be the first Harold Miner.”  Well, Harold got his wish. This morning’s St. Pete  [ Read More ]

If you spend your time in productive ways, you might not have heard that pitchers and catchers are in Major League camps and “officially” begin workouts today. Down Port Charlotte way, David Price, Today’s Game James, Kyle Farnsworth, Joel Peralta, Adam Russell, Chris Archer, Dirk Hayhurst, Matt Bush, Cory Wade, Cesar Cabral and R.J. Swindle  [ Read More ]

Marc Topkin has some interesting roster notes in his camp preview in today’s St. Pete Times. He writes: “Of the 61 players on the roster as of Sunday, 24 — a staggering 40 percent — are new to the organization.” The turnover number is interesting but, in an era of great player movement both in  [ Read More ]

I am still new to the world of baseball blogs but, based on my limited experience, it seems like the Rays have the biggest, most dedicated, most well-written network of blogs covering their every move.  It is wild how interesting all these different blogs are to read. To wit, yesterday I posted three interesting tidbits  [ Read More ]

Last night I attended an event graciously hosted by Homebanc and the guest of honor was Rays’ skipper Joe Maddon who took some questions from the crowd.    Incidentally, Joe Maddon is, without a doubt, the nicest man in baseball.  He spoke to everyone in the room and answered every question he was asked without  [ Read More ]

Yesterday’s Manny-Johnny event was more Dean Martin roast than press conference. Everyone is happy, Joe Maddon still doesn’t know what he is going to do with the lineup — but Manny wants to hit leadoff because he had 5 triples in 1998 — and everyone thinks the Rays can repeat as AL East Champions. There  [ Read More ]