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

Ken: "I am the walrus? I am the walrus Walter?"

Baseball.  Any reasonably-sleep-deprived brain would understand those occurrences to mean that my house had somehow been sucked back to the late 1990s through some cosmic wormhole.  Right?

I looked and looked and, when I realized there were no references to Monica Lewinsky anywhere in the front section, I was appeased that it was still 2011.

This contraction rumor, spurred by another half-hearted column from Ken Rosenthal, is apparently spreading.

Call me a skeptic but, I think it is interesting that the two teams “rumored” to be candidates for contraction are the only two teams in Major League Baseball stuck in bad ballparks.  That can’t be a coincidence, right?

Just out of curiosity, Ken, remind me again which two franchises Bud targeted for contraction last time.  Minnesota and Montreal you say?  How’d that work out?  They both got brand new ballparks?  Hmm.  Interesting, no?

Doesn’t it stand to reason that Major League Baseball might have dusted off that old playbook again in the hopes that it can spur Oakland and Tampa Bay to dedicate otherwise scarce public resources to a new ballyard?  What’s that?  You didn’t bother to answer because you don’t want to cut off your pipeline of leaked stories?  Fair enough.

Major League Baseball is the only major professional sports league not currently facing a labor showdown.  Why on earth would MLB waste its opportunity to capitalize on all the hate headed toward the NFL and NBA by contracting teams?  Even Bud is smart enough to know that this isn’t the time for bad press or bad stories.  No one is getting contracted.  Book it.

Welcome to the Blow-it.com fraternity Ken.  In honor of this weekend’s Lebowski festival, I rebuke you in the immortal words of Walter Sobchak “[Ken] you are like a child that walks into the middle of a movie and wants to know what is going on.”