Dirk Hayhurst to play ball in Italy this year

The Non-Prospect will stay in Europe for another year to work out their fiscal crisis.

Dirk Hayhurst, author of “The Bullpen Gospels” and the upcoming “Out of my League,” is a personal favorite of mine. Yes, because of the books, but also because he lives in Ohio and I got to meet him last fall and I found that he is just as neat a guy in person as he is in print and on Twitter and stuff.

Anyone who has paid attention to his career since his first book came out knows that, after 25 major league games in 2008-09, he was first beset with injury and then, last year, was beset with being part of the Tampa Bay Rays organization which, unfortunately for Hayhurst, had way damn too many good pitchers.

It might be easy to get discouraged if you’re a guy like Hayhurst, but he’s not doing that.  No, rather than get upset at a system that is, by design, almost impossible to crack, he has decided to view his baseball career as an opportunity to experience neat stuff.  He just announced on Twitter that he’ll be playing baseball in Italy in 2012.

SBNation: Bois: The Bob Famine

In baseball, the name “Bob” has gone from extremely common to a marginal curiosity and nexus of confusion.

There was one active MLB Bob last year, Bobby Abreu, whose given name is “Bob” but goes by “Bobby”. In 2010 there were two - Abreu, and Bob Howry, whose given name is “Bobby” but goes by “Bob”. In 2009 we also had Bob McCrory.

In the future, will “Bob” be as unheard-of for baseball players as “Dick”? Can Bob Stumpo restore glory to this appellation?

WSJ: CBS Opens Sports Site to Fantasy App Makers

Want to out that fantasy app you’ve been developing in your mom’s basement out there? Now’s your chance:

CBS Corp., in a move aimed at boosting its share of the nearly billion-dollar fantasy-sports business, is opening up its CBS Sports website so outside developers can create apps geared toward fantasy enthusiasts.

Murray Chass: NO TWO SIDES TO AN MLB.COM SELIG STORY and MORRIS UNLIKELY TO MAKE IT

Murray Sez… have a Bud and a Jack chaser

When I left The New York Times in 2008 after having written for the newspaper for 39 years, the first offer I received to continue writing came from a high-ranking Major League Baseball official who was in position to offer me a job as a columnist with MLB.com. My initial reaction was to say no, but some people urged me to reconsider and at least talk about and consider that possibility.

Accepting that offer would have turned out to be more economically lucrative than what I have done with this Web site the past three and a half years. But money isn’t everything. Writing for MLB.com just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

How could I have gone to work for the organization I had spent my professional life covering? Wouldn’t I be compromising my professional ethics by accepting a salary from people I would be in position to criticize and question if necessary? ...

To be sure, MLB.com serves a purpose, even for baseball writers, for whom it can serve as a 30-team research site in one location and a source of comprehensive statistics that are not mingled with WAR and VORP and all of those other metrics, as their advocates like to call them.

But then there are the self-congratulatory articles that can induce nausea. I guess we don’t have to read them, but they are there as propaganda for fans to see and be taken in by. Yes, baseball propaganda. I had never thought about it before this moment, but that’s what it is. ...

And maybe someday, perhaps when he retires, whenever that is, Selig will be big enough to allow an MLB.com columnist to write the truth about collusion and his role in the labor wars.

By the way, this column was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Based on e-mail I have received from critics of Morris and me, the Hall of Fame should take the vote away from baseball writers and simply establish statistical guidelines for players’ election. The players over the line make it, those under don’t.

Such a system would eliminate what is perhaps the greatest debate in sports, but that wouldn’t bother the stats zealots. Their numbers tell them who should be in the Hall of Fame, and the writers would be wrong if they disagreed.

That system would also eliminate the aspect of the voting that they hate most. Their opinion doesn’t mean beans. The writers’ opinion means everything.

Halo’s Heaven: Moneyblog

Billy Beane should have never written this comic strip.

The Greatest Animated Sports .GIFs of 2011

32. Cliff Lee declines to run out his own grounder

I’m a firm opponent of the designated hitter rule, because just as I love to watch a punter try to scoop up a bad snap and try to throw it, or see a 7’1” center with no range try to chuck up a last-second three, I love watching pitchers hit.

Never will I come closer to seeing what it would be like if someone with my skill set tried to perform on a professional level. I mean, how nuts is this: in the National League, five to 10 percent of all at-bats are taken by men who, by everyone’s admission, are profoundly bad at it! It’s Dada performance art, and the ubiquity of such comical nonsense—over the course of a game, a season, and the history of baseball—is unrivaled by anything in any other sport.

This GIF features a delightful bonus: the catcher starts jogging to the dugout well before the play ends. It’s beautiful.

The Biz of Baseball: How the BBWAA is Adapting to the Online World

Well…it’s about freakin’ time Seymour Siwoff watched Douglas Engelbart’s debut of the computer mouse video!

Some knew—many didn’t—but last year I applied for inclusion into the BBWAA. I spent a great deal of time combing through the Baseball Writers’ bylaws and constitution, and worked diligently to meet the criteria. Fulltime, paid write?,Check. Accredited with league? Check. Went to a good number of games? Check? LLC?… World Series?…. Winter Meetings and other jewel events?…. Check, check, check.

The 30 min. meeting was enlightening.

Q: “As a business writer, why do you need to be at games?”
A: ”Transactions, etc. influence the game on the field. The BBWAA members here at the Winter Meetings prove that”

Q: “Is Bizball LLC your ‘job’?
A: “Yes, but I wish it paid better.”

Q: “Is this about voting for the awards?”
A: “No. This is about working.”

There was more, but you get the idea.

In the end, I was denied, but as I said at the time, of all the things in life I have been denied for, this one ranked pretty low.

Heyman leaving SI for CBS Sports

CBS = The Boras Network?

Jon Heyman, who has been breaking baseball news at Sports Illustrated for the last five years, is leaving SI for CBS Sports, The Big Lead has learned.

Baseball Nation: How Old is Albert Pujols?

Jason: Let’s debate.

Resolved: Albert Pujols is not 31 years old.

Rob: I’m not sure who you would debate with!

Jason: Well, let’s kick it around, anyway. I’ll argue the affirmative, and you play Devil’s Advocate. (Literally, Satan’s lawyer!) Okay?

Rob: Sure.

Before the trees were trees and the rocks were rocks, Albert was Albert.

SI.com: The story behind the photo: almost-engaged Cardinals fan

Remember this girl?  Here’s the story.

It wasn’t exactly that he put a ring and tickets on the table and told me to pick one. We’ve been together for several years now and are pretty confident that marriage is in the cards, but he is definitely not in a hurry. Every once in a while, I’ll give him a hard time about it and he’s always quick to change the subject. A week or two before this game (I think we were still playing the Brewers) I brought it up again and he changed the subject to World Series tickets. He told me he got us tickets to Game 6 and I was so thrilled I told him I’d never bring it up again. For the record - it was totally worth it. Game 6 was incredible.

Dodgers for sale! Price: $1 billion and up!

Everything is so much clearer now.

In Media Res: Mediating Baseball

In Media Res is a weekly online publication about different roles media play in culture; they take up a different theme each week—this week is Mediating Baseball!

Mediating Baseball [October 24-28, 2011]

Monday October 24, 2011 – Elizabeth Rawitsch (University of East Anglia) presents: Melting Pot or Multiculturalism? Mediating Ethnicity in Baseball

Tuesday October 25, 2011 –  Pellom McDaniels III (University of Missouri-Kansas City) presents: “I is Unruffable”: Rereading African American Sports Performances as Unique Expressions of Dissent

Wednesday October 26, 2011 –  Annie Dell’Aria (City University of New York) presents: Tagging Fans, Tweeting Beards: Major League Baseball, social media, and the body

Thursday October 27, 2011 – Nicholas David Bowman (West Virginia University) presents: Major League Brouhaha: Boosting ratings with bad blood?

Friday October 28, 2011 – Jeremy Groskopf (Georgia State University) presents: “I Found Kong”: Naturalizing the National in Baseball Fiction

BBTF Playoff Chats

Just a reminder that BTF’s IRC chat room is open for people who want to live chat during the playoffs.

Dan Werr’s directions after the break.

New Miami Marlins logo latest uniform leak

My freakin’ eyes!

The latest security breach came last night, when the Marlins’ new 2012 logo began circulating. At first it wasn’t clear whether it was legit or just some Photoshopper’s concept, but Uni Watch has confirmed that it is in fact the real deal. This is what the team will be wearing next year when it’s rebranded as the Miami Marlins.

Joe Sheehan:

I don’t get the hate for the new Marlins logo. It’ll fit right in with the rest of Major League Lacrosse.

Pitch F/X Summit

Not sure how this has slipped past us.  It has a terrific webcast and solid agenda.

Alan Nathan and Greg Rybarczyk to name some names.

This presentation just went:
1:45 - 2:15 pm PITCHf/x as a Scouting Tool                   Hillary Suparak (Masters thesis at Emory Univ, I think she said).

It’s break time now, but coming up will be defensive analyses.

TMZ: Lenny Dykstra Charged with Indecent Exposure Over Craigslist Encounters

Guess Nails showed those women more than his nails:

More trouble for Lenny Dykstra—this time the troubled baseball great has been charged with indecent exposure for allegedly whipping out his dong for women he met on Craigslist.

According to the L.A. City Attorney, Lenny allegedly went to Craigslist and posted ads for a personal assistant or housekeeping services ... but when the women arrived, Dykstra would “inform the women that the job also required them to give a massage and would expose himself to them.”

Officials say Dykstra pulled the XXX bait and switch at least 6 times.

If convicted, Dykstra—who’s already in custody in L.A. on a MYRIAD of federal and state charges for allegedly doing all sorts of other bad stuff—could face even more jail time.

An arraignment is scheduled for September 7.

Jose Bautista - Also Good at Internetting

It’s from fangraphs and I can’t get a cut and paste, but basically some kid call Bautista a slur, and Bautista tells the kid to stop hating, and that he’s a douche.

Speaking of Bautista, here’s something to smile about:

June 5, 2000: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 20th round of the 2000 amateur draft. Player signed May 19, 2001.
December 15, 2003: Drafted by the Baltimore Orioles from the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2003 rule 5 draft.
June 3, 2004: Selected off waivers by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from the Baltimore Orioles.
June 28, 2004: Purchased by the Kansas City Royals from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
July 30, 2004: Traded by the Kansas City Royals to the New York Mets for Justin Huber.
July 30, 2004: Traded by the New York Mets with Matt Peterson (minors) and Ty Wigginton to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Kris Benson and Jeff Keppinger.
August 21, 2008: Traded by the Pittsburgh Pirates to the Toronto Blue Jays for a player to be named later. The Toronto Blue Jays sent Robinzon Diaz (August 25, 2008) to the Pittsburgh Pirates to complete the trade.

Brisbee: The Only Red Sox-Yankees Article You’ll Ever Need (If That’s What You Want)

In praise of the two greatest teams in the universe, and the media explosion which allows the rest of us to ignore them.

People who complain about Red Sox/Yankees games are my new pet peeve:

Oh, great, look: the front page of ESPN.com is all Yankees and Red Sox.

Of course MLB Network is showing Yankees/Red Sox. I wanted to watch [other game].

Yeah, went to read some stories about Craig Counsell’s hitless streak, but everything is all Boston this and New York that. Totally annoying.

The people who take the effort to complain this loudly fascinate me. It’s like sitting across from someone at a restaurant who keeps sticking his tongue in an open salt shaker and saying, “Gaah, this salt is all salty!” You don’t like the feeling of a tongue covered in salt? Keep your damned tongue out of there. That’s a useful maxim, regardless of context. And the principle holds true with Yankees/Red Sox games. Feel like they get too much coverage from the sites you frequent? The shows you watch? Frequent different sites. Watch different shows. ....

I was excited about the Yankees and Red Sox playing this weekend. They’re two well-constructed, impressive teams. Both teams are stacked. Even before you take into account that they’re blood rivals, these games are match-ups that baseball fans should look forward to. And they played a couple of great games, too. I could look forward to the games because I spend about 1/30th of my baseball time on the internet reading about the Red Sox or Yankees. This is because I can read and watch whatever in the heck I want to read and watch. The people who complain that they’re sick of Yankees/Red Sox aren’t trying hard enough.

Rogers offers live streaming of Jays

Starting Tuesday, Aug. 2, any Rogers customer can catch live streamed Rogers Sportsnet coverage of every pitch, hit and home run of the remainder of the 2011 Blue Jays regular season games anywhere they want through Rogers On Demand Online and on their smartphones with Rogers On Demand Mobile.

This is basically an advertisement, but does any other team offer free streaming of games to customers in their mlb.tv blackout zone?  As a Jays fan, this is awesome.