- Former baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn died this past week, and this article outlines why he wasn't a terribly good commissioner. The writer leaves out the Vida Blue trade veto however, an egregious omission.
- New York City has banned metal baseball bats, a pretty smart move in my opinion. There are obvious safety reasons, but I also think it's in the best interests of baseball to have a standard bat material. How many prospects fail because they can't make the jump from metal to wood?
Of course wood bats break, so there are cost issues if a ban like this were to spread to other cities around the country. Inner city baseball is already on life support and having to constantly replace wooden bats wouldn't help. It's a tough problem without a clear solution.
- The Cubs now seem to have a competent manager. I'm still assuming they'll fail, but Lou Piniella does give me pause.
- C.J. Wilson, a Texas Rangers reliever, is a fairly interesting guy, for a baseball player anyway. And he comments at Lone Star Ball from time to time, which is cool.
- This is just bizarre.
- Congrats to Shawn who's now writing for MVN. You can check that out here, and I'll be adding the link to the sidebar.